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Catholics and Jews seek to bridge chasm of faith
By WAVENEY ANN MOORE © St. Petersburg Times, published January 27, 2001 ST. PETERSBURG -- Relations between Christians and Jews, historically steeped in fear and strife, have grown less contentious in recent times. Nowhere is that more evident than in the delicate rapprochement developing between the Roman Catholic Church and the Jewish people. Leaders of interreligious dialogue are eager to preserve gains made and, say a local rabbi and a Catholic priest, opportunities abound for the two faiths to work together as a moral and ethical force. "There are some unresolved issues" in the relationship, said Rabbi Kenneth Bromberg, rabbi emeritus of Congregation Beth Shalom in Clearwater. But, he said, "these are open issues, not open sores. . . . They mustn't hinder us from doing things together, if that's feasible. There has been in recent years a kind of militant secularization out there. I don't regard secularists as the enemies, but we need to see what people of religious faith have in common. We need to talk about what religious people of both communities can do to make the world a little better place to live in." The Rev. Michael W. Cooper, a member of the Society of Jesus and director of the Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies at Saint Leo University, agrees. "We haven't talked enough and shared our mutual interest in social justice issues," he said. Wednesday the two men will discuss the state of Catholic-Jewish relations at a public forum at Temple Beth-El in St. Petersburg. The program, entitled "Bridges to Understanding: Catholic and Jewish Relations in the New Millennium," will focus on the background of Catholic-Jewish relations, with particular emphasis on changes that have occurred since the mid-1960s. Jim Barrens, a practicing Catholic, and his wife, Ruth, who is Jewish, will be moderators for the evening. They are members of Temple Beth-El's Interfaith Families group, which is organizing next week's event. Jim Barrens said he was inspired to organize the forum because of his relationship with Dr. Eugene Fisher, associate director for the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs with the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. "Dr. Fisher is probably the pre-eminent Catholic person in the American church in terms of Catholic-Jewish relations. Dr. Fisher likes to say that in this generation, we have an absolutely unique opportunity to establish a relationship between Catholics and Jews that we have not had in 2,000 years," Barrens said. "This is an opportunity to change the relationship between our people. If we squander that opportunity, it would be an awful thing." For centuries, it has been a relationship marked by enmity. For their part, the fate of Jews has often been to be reviled and persecuted. But things began to change with the Second Vatican Council. Its 1965 document, Nostra Aetate (In Our Time), is viewed as the turning point. The historic document stated that Jewish people were not responsible for Christ's death, condemned anti-Semitism and called for discussions between the two faiths. In the years since that initiative, Pope John Paul II has prayed at Auschwitz, apologized for anti-Semitism, visited a synagogue in Rome, established diplomatic relations with Israel and prayed at the Western Wall. But the road has been rocky. The pope angered Jewish leaders when he conferred a papal knighthood, the Order of Pius IX, on Kurt Waldheim. The Justice Department had accused Waldheim, former United Nations secretary-general and one-time president of Austria, of having been a Nazi intelligence officer who served with units that massacred civilians, executed prisoners and identified Jews for deportation. A firestorm erupted last year when the pope beatified Pius IX, who headed the Catholic church from 1846 to 1878. Pius kidnapped a 6-year-old Jewish boy who had been secretly baptized by his Christian maid. The child, Edgardo Mortara, became the pope's ward and later a priest. The subject of Pius "is a complicated issue," said Cooper, adding that the kidnapping was "unconscionable." He added, "Looking back now, it certainly seems that taking away the Jewish child and raising him as Catholic is not something we would do today. There are conservative groups who would want his beatification and they may not be sensitive to the impact on our Jewish brothers and sisters." There was another flare-up when the pope canonized Edith Stein in 1998. The Carmelite nun, who had been born Jewish, was killed in the gas chambers at Auschwitz. "There are two ways to look at it," Bromberg said. "No one forced Edith Stein to become Catholic. This is something she did on her own accord. But she didn't die as a Catholic nun. She died as a Jew." Noting that some Jewish victims of the Holocaust are still alive, Bromberg added that the timing of the nun's canonization was "ill-advised." "I think it was insensitive," he said. "Not yet. Beatification and canonization sometimes take hundreds of years. It is not for a Jew to question who the Catholic church chooses to canonize, but in that particular case, the church could have been more sensitive." The subject of an ongoing quarrel is the proposed beatification of Pope Pius XII. Critics accuse Pius, who served as pope during World War II, of being anti-Semitic and failing to speak out against Nazi persecution of the Jewish people. "I think, at least at the moment," said Bromberg, "my understanding is that not all of the church records have been released. We don't know the full story. One takes the position that Pope Pius was looking to the welfare of the church, that he was putting the well-being of the church in Nazi Germany before humanitarian concern for the treatment of the Jews." Bromberg's conciliatory tone is echoed by Cooper, who for 18 months has headed the Saint Leo University-based Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies. "The center was established four years ago after a certain amount of discussions between Saint Leo and the American Jewish Committee," said Cooper, who also serves as assistant to the university's president. "Our purpose is to promote dialogue between Catholics and Jews about issues of mutual concern." Each year since its establishment, the center has held a national conference at the university in Pasco County. The theme at this year's gathering, which will take place April 3 and 4, will be "Wisdom Ancient and New: How Jews and Catholics Go About Making Moral Decisions." Keynote speaker will be Thomas Cahill, author of How the Irish Saved Civilization, The Gift of the Jews and The Desire of the Everlasting Hills. Other speakers will include Dr. Mary C. Boys, a Catholic nun who is a professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York, and Rabbi A. James Rudin, adviser for National Interreligious Affairs with the American Jewish Committee. The center is the brainchild of Rudin and Bishop Robert Lynch of the Diocese of St. Petersburg. Cooper said he is convinced that discussions between Catholics and Jews must continue, focusing especially on interfaith marriages and lingering prejudice. Jim Barrens said he and his wife hope next week's discussion will help establish accord among local believers of the two faiths. "I think we are in a position to begin a dialogue in this St. Petersburg area that can blossom into groups of other people," Barrens said. "What Ruth and I would like to see," he said, "is that other congregations pick up this idea and perhaps we can begin talking across this Catholic-Jewish divide." If you goA public forum, "Bridges to Understanding: Catholic and Jewish Relations in the New Millennium," organized by Beth-El Interfaith Families, will take place at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Temple Beth-El, 400 Pasadena Ave. S, St. Petersburg.
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