The American Jewish Committee, in a statement issued by its president, Morris B. Abram, said that “while the direct language of the original Vatican draft is more decisive and satisfactory, the new draft does declare that what happened in the Passion cannot be imputed to all the Jews then alive without distinction or to the Jews of our time. It emphasizes that Jews cannot be presented as condemned or cursed by God as though this follows from Sacred Scripture.
“We receive this declaration not as an act of favor, but as an act of Justice, “Mr. Abram stated. “We correlate it with the statement of Cardinal Bea, that ‘not even the Great Judgment on Jerusalem proves a collective guilt of the Jewish people for the crucifixion, the less so can the Jewish people be considered deicide or reprobate.’
“While reserving our dissent from some portions of the document, we regard it as a forward step in Jewish-Catholic relations. We withhold further comment until the full and official text of the document becomes available and has been studied in detail.”
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