Cardinal Bea was one of the speakers here yesterday at ceremonies concluding observance of Brotherhood Week in connection with the exhibition, Monumanta Judaica, which has been viewed by 100, 000 persons since it opened at the Fair Grounds here four months ago. Sharing the platform with him were a Lutheran Bishop, Dr. Wilhelm Staehlin; and a Jewish educator, Dr. Ernst Simon, of the Hebrew University at Jerusalem.
The draft of the Ecumenical Council’s document dealing with Christian-Jewish relations, said Cardinal Bea, followed a concrete wish of the late Pope John XXIII, who had summoned the Council. The last Council session’s postponement of a decision on that issue, said the cardinal, should not be underestimated. That delay, he declared, furnishes a means whereby many of the Council fathers might have the opportunity to think about it It is not easy for many bishops, he said, to come to terms quickly “with a problem as difficult as this. ” Further than that, he told the audience, it would be “Improper and imprudent” for him to make any other statement regarding the document.
Dr. Simon, in his address, called attention to the Jewish-Christian document before the Ecumenical Council, saying it is “everyone’s hope that the initial impulses from the second session of the Council would lead to beneficial results, ” Among other prominent religious leaders at the ceremonies were Joseph Cardinal Frings, Archbishop of Cologne; and the Rev, Corrado Bafile, the Papal Nuncio in Germany.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.