Only five Catholic bishops in West Germany have replied to a letter sent to all German prelates asking them to use their influence at the forthcoming session of the Ecumenical Council in Rome in favor of final adoption of the draft declaration repudiating the charge of deicide against the Jewish people, the New York Times reported today. Even these five bishops were “noncommittal” on the subject, the report stated.
The entire Catholic hierarchy in West Germany, according to the report, had been sent a letter seeking support for the proposed Vatican declaration on Jews. The letter was sent by the Coordinating Council of Societies for Christian-Jewish Collaboration in Germany and had been signed by the Rev. Dr. W. Eckert, a Catholic; Dr. M. Stoohr, a Protestant; and Rabbi N.P. Levinson. Among those five bishops who were reported as “non-committal” on the issue, one reportedly complained that Jewish leaders have been trying to convert the draft Vatican declaration “into political capital for Israel.”
(In Cologne, the Protestant Congress, which had assembled more than 20,000 representatives of every Protestant denomination and community in West Germany, issued a call to the forthcoming session of the Catholic Ecumenical Council to adopt the draft declaration on relations with Jews. The Congress stated that repudiation of the deicide charge against the Jewish people would “overcome an old, heavy guilt and shame of Christianity.”)
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