The draft declarations on anti-Semitism and on religious freedom will both be approved in the final session of the Ecumenical Council next September, Richard Cardinal Cushing of Boston, predicted today. The Cardinal made the forecast in a reply to a questionnaire which the New York Herald Tribune sent to a number of cardinals, archbishops and other Catholic Church leaders in the United States and Rome.
The Boston Cardinal declared: “These two important subjects which have been introduced as chapters in the schema on ecumenism will be discussed and approved. The chapter on the Jews may be expanded a a bit to include other non-Christians, ” he added. He said this would be done “to avoid the resentment of the Moslem peoples and any political misunderstanding of the kind which did arise.”
The Cardinal’s comment was a reference to fears expressed by Catholic bishops of Moslem countries that a Council condemnation of anti-Semitism might be interpreted in the Arab world as a taking of sides with Israel in the Arab-Israel conflict. The Arab area bishops had urged against such a declaration at the last session of the Vatican Council.
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