Catholics, Jews, and Vatican II:

A New Beginning

Historiography 401

Dr. Schultz

May 7, 1991

Thomas Beaudoin

Catholicism is the world's largest Christian religion and

Judaism is the religious father of Roman Catholicism. The

interface and reconciliation of these faiths is very important to

modern ecumenism and world peace. This paper will look into just

one small attempt at reconciliation between these two religions.

This attempt at reconciliation will be explored by describing the

documents concerning Jewish/Christian relations from Vatican II,

1962-1965, analyzing these documents and some accompanying

critiques, and establishing a synthesizing measurement of (1) the

actual language employed in the final document regarding relations

with Judaism and (2) how the stances taken in the documents differed

from the recent history of Roman Catholic/Jewish relations

and (3) answer the question: Did this document yield significant

ecumenical progress or little but verbal fence-sitting from the

Catholic Church?

I. The Document

The Second Vatican Council was a "solemn and holy

circus" of priests, abbots, bishops, and cardinals hailing from

San Francisco to Mongolia, assembled to discuss current

controversies in the secular world that were impacting the Catholic

religious body worldwide. Initiated by Pope John XXIII and

continued by Pope Paul VI, a Vatican decree on the Jews was

originally a small part of a Declaration on ecumenism in the

opening session, but it drew so much attention and debate that

it was inserted into a declaration on non-Christian religions in

1
the fourth session.

The text of the "Declaration on the Relationship of the

Church to Non-Christian Religions" was hotly debated in the

years following its promulgation by the Second Vatican in

October, 1965. Since many authors twist the text in the

interest of polemics and apologetics, we shall take a little

bit of space to devote ourselves to some of the key literal

pronouncements from the document, in order to have a firmer

base from which to measure it against recent history.

The Vatican's pronouncement opens with a general

statement about other religions, including the recognition

that "other religions to be found everywhere strive variously to

answer the restless searchings of the human heart," and that "The

Catholic Church rejects nothing which is true and holy in these

2
religions." The Church's spiritual relationship to the Jews
is spelled out through the metaphor of the "root of that good

olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild olive branches

of the Gentiles," acknowledging that the Church "...cannot forget

that she received the revelation of the Old Testament through the

people with whom God in his inexpressible mercy deigned to

3
establish the Ancient Covenant." Regarding Jewish guilt for

Jesus' death, the Declaration asserts that "...authorities of the

Jews and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of

Christ." "Still," it continues, "what happened in His passion

cannot be blamed upon all the Jews then living, without distinction,

nor upon the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new people

of God, the Jews should not be presented as repudiated or cursed by

4
God, as if such views followed from the Holy Scriptures."

Finally, the statement reads "Mindful of her common

patrimony with the Jews, and motivated by the gospel's spiritual

love and by no political considerations, she deplores the hatred,

persecutions, and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the

5
Jews at any time and from any source."

II. Recent History of Relations Between Catholics and Jews

Zionism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,

6
a "movement to reassemble the Jews in their ancient homeland,"

was not popular with many Catholic Church leaders. Pope Pius X

had harsh and unmistakable words in 1904 for a visitor, Theodore

Herzl, the father of Zionism. "We [the Church] cannot favor

this movement. The Jews did not recognize Jesus, our Lord, and

7
we therefore cannot recognize the Jewish people." Pius X further

promised that "If you come to Palestine and settle your people

there, we will be ready with priests and churches to baptize all

8
of you."

Between the world wars, increasing Zionist activity

caused significant nervousness in Vatican City. Their fears

were based on anxiety over a compromise of the protection of

Christian holy places and a rollback of Christian influence

on the region in general at the hands of the Zionists. On July 4,

1922, a German Papal Embassy report elaborated the Church's

position, claiming -- with a tone hauntingly like that of the

Middle Ages -- that the Church was not in favor of Jews gaining

"privileged and predominant positions" over Catholics. The report

also emphasized the concerns about Catholic safety in a Jewish

state and concluded with a message that would ring loud and clear

in Jewish ears for many years: "Zionism as a power factor is...

not acceptable, because it is the mischief-maker of social peace

in Palestine, as well as the destroyer of the natural rights of the

9
native population of Palestine."

Later pronouncements further emphasized the Church's

antipathy to Zionism. If one letter in 1928 from the Papal

Nuncio in the Netherlands regarding Zionism was prophetic in

its conjecture about Arab response to Jewish rule, it was

6
lacking in tact in its indictment of the Zionists: "Zionism

now pursues a policy which lacks every psychological insight

and is bound to result in opposition and the hostility of

10
the Arabs."

But by 1945, in the aftermath of the Holocaust,

much of the world, including the Church leadership, outraged at

the tales of Nazi atrocities found a new sympathy for -- as it

was called -- the "Jewish question." Zionist leaders met with

Pope Pius XII, who offered the empathy and concern of the Holy See,

but stopped well short of supporting the idea of a Jewish

11
State.

The notion of a modern, political, fully-functioning,

successful State of Israel was extremely troubling to Church

leaders who tended to see biblical Israel as antiquated, faulty,

and finally unsuccessful as a political or religious entity.

On a physical level, the sheer numbers of Jews living

together, strengthening their religion by making it part of the

State's political infrastructure was threatening to Catholics for

 7

12
the sheer challenge it presented to hopes of converting the Jews.

Jewish conversion, though, was related to the larger theological

problems that the potential existence of the Jewish State posed to

Roman Catholicism. The destruction of the Temple and subsequent

dispersion and exile of Jews in many countries were seen as signs of

the "accursed" status of the Jews, the result of their failure to

recognize Jesus as the Messiah and also (in the minds of some Church

leaders) owing to the guilt of the Jews -- all Jews -- for Jesus'

13
death. The establishment of the State of Israel would throw a

spanner in the Catholic theological works. The founding of a modern

Jewish state would either have to be treated as a short-lived

historical deviation or else force a major revision of Catholic

theology. These traditional ways of thinking, prevalent among many

of the Catholic clergy, were made of sturdy stuff. Old theology

died hard. The Vatican refused to acknowledge the existence of the

State of Israel after its official statehood was declared by the

United Nations, a diplomatic move that frustrates relations to this

day. Frequent post-1948 Papal references to "Palestine" instead of

"Israel" and the Holy See's overt desire for the internationalization

of Jerusalem are still major hurdles to cooperation between Israel

and the Bishop of Rome.

The 1950s and early 1960s were a time of progress and

procrastination in relations between the Catholic Church and

Israel. In 1953, when orthodox Jews in Israel tried to outlaw

Christian missionary schools, the Israeli legislature vetoed the

move. In 1954, the Hebrew language was finally beginning to

make inroads into the Catholic liturgy. Many prayer services

began to be offered in Hebrew, and an increasing number of

priests were learning the biblical language. In 1955, Israel made

its final payment to the Catholic Church for damages incurred

during Israel's 1948 War of Independence in 1955. The Jewish

State's Minister of Religious Affairs presented the historic check

to Monsignor Vergani, Latin Patriarchal Representative. Vergani

made no secret of his personal desire to see an improvement in

relations between the Vatican and Israel. He sprinkled the

diplomatic air with effusive praise in a letter to the Israeli

government after receiving the final war reparation: "I wish to

express our thanks for the goodwill, cooperative spirit, and

efficiency displayed..." by the Israelis in their handling of the

Church's outstanding monetary claims. Two years later, in

response to a question from an Israeli journalist, Vergani said,

"Personally, I would favor the establishment of regular diplomatic

14
relations, if the Vatican has no objections."

Alas, the bright light ignited by Vergani flickered in

the stale air of the Vatican's confusing gestures and ultimate

unwillingness to pursue the issue. The Israel Philharmonic performed

Beethoven's Seventh Symphony for Pope Pius XII in 1955, a performance

greeted with an ovation and many laudatory comments from the Pontiff.

Pius met after the concert with several of the musicians, conversing
in Hebrew with some of them. Many newspapers made a big to-do

of the audience with the Pope, hoping that this was a subtle

signal that the Vatican was ready to consider friendly dialogue.

But once again, inactivity in the following months proved that

the gesture was full of pomp and somewhat lacking in

10

15
circumstance.

Construction niceties were exchanged in 1956. When

the Israeli government paved new roads to Catholic holy sites,

Rome announced its plans to build the biggest Catholic Church in

the Middle East in Nazareth. The contract to build the Basilica

of the Annunciation in Nazareth was given to Israel's largest

16
building contractor.

Several grateful and brief letters were sent from the

Vatican in 1957 to the government of Israel, thanking them for

their assistance in providing security for the many Christians

in the Holy Land. But this somewhat warmer good-naturedness

turned a bit chilly upon the issuance in 1958 of the _Pontifical

Yearbook_. This directory of all Catholic dioceses and

ecclesiastics included more than one hundred religious posts

that had not been extant for hundreds of years. The _Yearbook_

also ommitted mention of the modern State of Israel in the book

itself and in its huge index. "The name [Israel], which appears

well over a dozen times in the New Testament, by 1958 had not yet

11

been found worthy of mention in the official reference book of

the Catholic Church." Needless to say, any positive strides in

recent relations between Catholics and Jews were momentarily

17
shelved.

In the autumn of 1958, an ecumenical firebrand stormed

upon St. Peter's stage, setting in motion a massive turning of

the Catholic anti-semitic tide from an unlikely position: the

Papacy. Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, Pope John XXIII, was a

cosmopolitan world traveler with a passion for reform and a

genuine affection and desire to bring Catholics and

Protestants and Christians and Jews back closer together,

declaring that every person has the right to "worship God

in accordance with the right dictates of his own conscience,

18
and to profess his religion both in private and in public."

John XXIII, the two-hundred and sixty-second pope, was the first

19
pope to make cardinals of African and Japanese bishops.

He was bold and visionary. "We do not intend to

conduct a trial of the past," he said, "we do not want to

12

prove who was right and who was wrong. All we want to say

is: Let us come together. Let us make an end of our

20
divisions." Toward that end, John XXIII met in 1960 with Jules

Isaac, French professor and author of _The Teaching of Contempt_.

Isaac expressed his desire that the upcoming Council would deal

21
decisively with the question of Christian anti-semitism.

John was a hospitable man, granting thousands of

audiences to non-Catholics, including 120 meetings with Jews

(including the Israeli ambassador!). Dr. Saul Colbi, Director

of the Department for Christian Communities in Israel's

Ministry for Religious Affairs said in 1962, "It was a rare

feeling to be received with full honors by the Swiss and the

Nobile Guards, as an official representative of sovereign Israel.

The more so when one recalls that only 130 years ago, the

President of Rome's Jewish community had to kneel before the pope

22
each carnival time and to receive a papal kick in the pants."

Pope John XXIII was indeed not about to heave his holy

13

elderly foot into the pants of a people he wanted to embrace

spiritually, the Jews. He prayed in 1965,

We are conscious today that many, many centuries

of blindness have cloaked our eyes, so that we can
no longer see the beauty of Thy Chosen People, nor
recognize in their faces the features of our
privileged brethren. We realize that the mark of
Cain stands upon our foreheads. Across the
centuries our brother Abel has lain in the blood
which we drew, or shed tears we caused by
forgetting Thy Love. Forgive us for crucifying
thee a second time in their flesh. For we know
 not what we did. (23)

In 1960, John created the Secretariat for Promoting

Christian Unity, an office under the jurisdiction of John's

confidant and fellow ecumenical crusader, Cardinal Bea. Its

purposes were threefold: to enhance inter-Christian

cooperation, to ensure religious liberty, and to promote dialogue

24
with Judaism. Bea and the Pontiff were trodding upon similar

paths in their pursuit of a major reconciliation with their Jewish

brothers and sisters. In a speech in 1962, Bea exclaimed:

The problems which humanity has to face

today are, indeed, so enormous and so urgent that it
is really indispensible to mobilize all those forces
which are in agreement at least on the level of the
religious idea, the idea of God, and the existence
of a moral order. On that ground, they can and they
ought to seek to understand each other. (25)

14

By late 1960, Bea -- with the help and inspiration of Isaac --

drafted what was originally called the "Jewish Declaration." This

document would, after much debate and revision, eventually be accepted

by the Second Vatican Council as part of a larger edict on non-Christian

26
religions.

In this blossoming environment, Jewish-Catholic relations

began to brighten. Under recommendations from the Secretariat, Catholic

publishing houses began immediately to publish "revised and improved"

editions of Catholic textbooks and school literature. The overwhelming

public support from clerics indicated that many Catholic clergy were

more than happy to ride the Johaninne tide. Public clerical remarks

seemed to indicate that John desired to insitutionalize what many of

27
his Catholic flock were already experiencing. Cardinal Meyer of

Chicago observed in 1965 that "a growing sense of responsibility for,

and solidarity with, the Church's Elder Brother can be perceived in

28
Catholic circles today." In July of 1965, Cardinal Raul Silva

Henriquez, Primate of Chile, speaking in Santiago's B'nai-B'rith

Synagogue, said: "In The Lord's inscrutable designs for Israel, you

15

continue to bear a witness of sacrifice, martyrdom, love and liberty,

of the defense of human rights and the dignity of man..." And he

closed with: "God has not forsaken His People, and a splendid dawn of

hope, of peace and liberty, of brotherhood and love, will yet shine

upon Israel. This we desire with all our heart." The next day, a

Chilean newspaper captured the vitality of the new Johannine direction:

"Ten years ago, such a meeting was not only impossible, but the mere

29
idea of it would have been inconceivable." Monsignor Gerry,

Archbishop of Cambrai, Netherlands, remarked "We respect the loyalty

of the Jewish people to its millenial mission as spokesmen of

monotheism and the transcendency of God." Cardinal Frings of Cologne

surmised that "No ecumenical council can order the faithful to love

the Jews. That Christ himself has done, and we can only repeat His

30
wish."

It was only appropriate, then, that after John announced

the commencement of the Second Vatican Council, he ordered the

Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity to draw up a document that

would speak out against anti-semitism and the notion of Jews as

16
"deicides." He had planned for the so-called "Schema on Ecumenism"

to be introduced and ratified during the opening session. He did

not anticipate the resistance and popular debate that would eventually

lead to the construction of a new document called "The Declaration on

the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions," passed in

31
a later session of the Council, after John's death in 1963.

No opposition could undo what John had begun. His

radical leaderhsip no doubt influenced one clergyman, Archbishop

Thomas Roberts of Bombay, to remark a bit sarcastically,

I never could understand what the fuss was about during

the Third Session of the Council, when the guilt of the
Jews was debated. It is so plain that the guilt lay not
with the Jewish people, but with the Jewish priestly
Establishment, that it seems legitimate to wonder whether
the refusal to face up to this may not be a subconscious
reluctance to face up to the analogy in the Church
today. (32)

III. Interpreting the Evidence

The _Declaration_ has been heavily criticized by

religious and laity alike. Two critiques in particular can serve

as critical boundaries, between which the truth about the

potency of the Vatican's actions lies.

17
 Paul Blanshard, the Roman Catholic Church's most

infamous conscientious objector, came down in harsh criticism

of the Vatican II reforms in _Paul Blanshard on Vatican II_.

Blanshard's purpose was to evaluate the Second Vatican

Council according to the standards of "traditional American

33
democratic values," a philosophical flaw that causes

Blanshard to make wholly inappropriate criticisms of the Church's

statement on the Jews. In fact, Blanshard's lack of theological

knowledge comes shining through in this book when he ignores

religious concerns by the Vatican about the State of Israel,

concluding instead that modern Catholic anti-semitism was a major

factor in Rome's non-recognition of the Jewish State and the

non-mention of Israel in the final Vatican document. Were John

XXIII not such a peace-loving pope, he probably would have ordered

Blanshard's head on a platter for this ill-founded assertion.

Also when describing the Vatican documents, Blanshard

jumps up and down in anger at the striking of the word "deicide"

from the original text regarding the misrepresentation of Jews

 18

in Christian history. He summarily dismisses Rome's argument

that simply employing the word "deicide" in an official Church

document could present serious theological problems for current

and later generations. He once again sounds the knell of

institutional anti-Semitism in the Church, failing to even argue

34
the theological point.

At the other end of the critical spectrum is _The Church

and the Jewish People_ by Augustin Cardinal Bea, John XXIII's hand-

picked director of the Secretariat for Promoting Chrisitan Unity, the

papal office that crafted the declaration on the Jews. Diametrically

opposed to Blanshard's bashing is Bea's blessing of the Vatican's

decrees about the Jews: "We should note the very strong terms in

which this [denunciation of anti-semitism] is couched." Indeed, Bea

denies any anti-semitism inherent in the New Testament, and with the

desire for Christian/Jewish unity that we have seen bea tended to see

the Council's declaration as a bold, complete step toward reconciliation

between Catholics and Jews, even if it was a different version than

35
the one he originally crafted.

19

These two critiques offer valuable insights, but only tell

partial truths. One must conclude that the language of the

_Declaration_ (as described earlier in this paper) is indeed a bit

guarded and distant, lacking in warmth, employing such phraseology

as "spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews" must lead to

"mutual understanding."

The Declaration speaks of being motivated by "the gospel's

spiritual love and by no political considerations." This

reference to politics could have two meanings. It could refer to

a resolution on anti-semitism passed three years earlier by the World

Council of Churches (of which the Roman Catholic Church is not a

member) that caused substantial criticism of the Catholic Church for

its lack of such a statement. Or it could be another reminder of the

Church's hard-headed hesitancy to recognize the State of Israel by

implying no connection between denouncing anti-semitism and

recognizing Israel. Also, the extension of John's papal hand to the

Jews had political significance for the growing number of liberal

20

36
Catholic clergy who -- since the nineteenth century -- had been

demanding religious toleration and freedom of conscience, and also

as a reminder that the Church would not play games of exclusiveness

in its expansion to all parts of the globe.

The phrase "the Jews should not be presented as

repudiated or cursed by God," which appeared in the final draft,

originally included: "or guilty of deicide" in earlier drafts of

the _Declaration_. This phrase was excised before the final draft,

a move blasted by Blanshard and other critics as anti-semitic. A

less emotional response and more careful inquiry would show that to

include (and therefore theologically legitimize) "deicide" in an

official Church proclamation would cause untold theological problems;

the Church could not proclaim that God was dead or could even be
killed.

The Declaration indeed set out official policy that

proved the Church "repudiates all persecutions against any man."

The special mention of Jews in this document is important for

Jews and Christians alike, especially given the haughty attitude

21

of the Church toward Jews in the years immediately preceding

Pope John XXIII. Remember that it was only 60 years earlier that

Pope Pius X, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, declared "We cannot

recognize the Jewish people."

Above all, the Declaration on the Relationship of the

Church to Non-Christian Religions from Vatican II is the

statement of a Church suffering growing pains. It may even be

argued that in many respects, the way to a brotherhood of the two

religions has been largely an intellectual undertaking, with few

37
practical ecumenical results. But history does not usually move

with such swiftness, especially when a long range transformation

is wanted, and in truth, needed. The realization of a new and

enlightened path was in the eye of the Church, but the long road to

fulfillment was just beginning.

Notes

1. Paul Blanshard, _Paul Blanshard on Vatican II_

(Boston: Beacon Press, 1966), 3.

2. _The Documents of Vatican II_, ed. Walter M.

Abbott, trans. Joseph Gallagher (New York: Herder and
Herder, 1966), 662.

3. Ibid., 664.

4. Ibid., 666.

5. Ibid., 666-667.

6. Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre,

_O Jerusalem_ (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972), 18.

7. Sergio I. Minerbi, _The Vatican and Zionism_

(New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 100.

8. Arthur Gilbert, _The Vatican Council and the

Jews_ (New York: The World Publishing Company, 1968),
107-108.

9. Pinchas E. Lapide, _Three Popes and the Jews_

(New York: Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1967), 272-273.

10. Minerbi, _The Vatican and Zionism_, 95.

11. George Emile Irani, _The Papacy and the Middle

East_ (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1986), 79.

12. Arthur Gilbert, _The Vatican Council and the

Jews_, 108-110.

13. Pinchas E. Lapide, _Three Popes and the Jews_,

277-78.

14. Ibid., 296-298.

 15. Ibid., 297-298.

16. Ibid., 300.

17. Ibid., 301.

18. E. E. Y. Hales, _Pope John and His Revolution_

(Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc.,
1965), 58.

19. Pinchas E. Lapide, _Three Popes and the Jews_,

308-310.

22

23

20. Peter Nichols, _The Pope's Divisions_ (London:

Faber and Faber, 1981), 207.

21. Malachi Martin, _Three Popes and the Cardinal_

(New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1972), 243.

22. Pinchas E. Lapide, _Three Popes and the Jews_,

313.

23. Ibid., 318.

24. Peter Nichols, _The Pope's Divisions_, 165.

25. E. E. Y. Hales, _Pope John and His Revolution_,

133.

26. Malachi Martin, _Three Popes and the Cardinal_,

243.

27. George Emile Irani, _The Papacy and the Middle

East_, 15.

28. Pinchas E. Lapide, _Three Popes and the Jews_,

331.

29. Ibid., 332.

30. Ibid., 332-333.

31. Vittorio Gorresio, _The New Mission of Pope

John XXIII_ (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1970), 316.
 32. Frederick Franck, _Exploding Church_ (New York:
Delacorte Press, 1968), 230.

33. Paul Blanshard, _Paul Blanshard on Vatican II_, 1.

34. Ibid., 129-142.

35. Augustin Cardinal Bea, _The Church and the

Jewish People_ (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), 135.

36. E. E. Y. Hales, _Pope John and His Revolution_,

59.

37. George Emile Irani, _The Papacy and the Middle

East_, 3.

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