Like their counterparts who met in Prague, Catholic and Jewish leaders convened here last week to discuss interfaith relations and the Catholic Church’s historic role in fostering anti-Semitism.
And as at the higher-echelon meeting in Czechoslovakia, Catholic clerics admitted that the church had a past history that ultimately enabled the Holocaust to take place.
The meeting was convened in order to analyze a 1988 Vatican document on racism. This document had, for the first time in Vatican history, identified anti-Zionism as being for the most part a manifestation of anti-Semitism.
The meeting, sponsored jointly by the Latin American Jewish Congress, Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith and the Latin American Council of Bishops, brought together academics, religious leaders and lay leaders.
The Catholics came from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Uruguay. The Jewish delegation included representatives from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, the United States and Uruguay.
Speaking from a Jewish standpoint, Daniel Fainstein, dean of the Latin American Rabbinical Seminary here, discussed the social, cultural and psychological elements of anti-Semitism throughout history.
Professor Antonio Rehbien of the University of Valparaiso, Chile, said the Catholic Church has undergone a transformation regarding its attitude toward racism and anti-Semitism in the 25 years since the Second Vatican Council of 1965.
The delegates adopted an outline for the study and implementation of the recommendations in the 1988 Vatican document. They also discussed ways and means for improving the common struggle against prejudice.
LETTER FROM PROTESTANT COUNCIL
Msgr. Willem Ellis, bishop of Curacao and head of the Ecumenism Department of the Council of Bishops, who led the Catholic delegation, ended the conference saying that friendship among believers of all major religions is the cornerstone for combatting racism and discrimination.
In Geneva, meanwhile, the general secretary of the mainly Protestant World Council of Churches, Emilio Castro, has sent a letter to European members of the council, warning of the “alarming evidence in Europe of dangerous manifestations of xenophobia and anti-Semitism.”
These are “no longer isolated or marginal phenomena, but are present and manifest in many European societies,” he wrote. Citing the desecration of cemeteries in France and threats of violence leveled at Soviet Jews, Castro said, “Five decades after the Shoah, anti-Semitism is once again on the fringes of political life.”
(JTA correspondent Tamar Levy in Geneva contributed to this report.)
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
