The Jewish agenda for a meeting of representatives of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC) with the Pope and high-ranking Vatican officials cites the “recent tendencies toward apparent revisionism of Nazi history in the Catholic church” and argues that the Pope’s audience with Austrian President Kurt Waldheim, accused of complicity in Nazi atrocities, fueled rising anti-Semitism in Europe (especially Austria) and in America.
The 11-page document includes a detailed agenda adopted by the Jewish leaders for their scheduled meetings with Pope John Paul II on Sept. 1 and with high-ranking Vatican officials on Aug. 31. A delegation of 10 Jewish officials will attend the meetings at the Vatican and at the Pope’s summer residence outside Rome at Castel Gandolfo.
The agenda contains five major topics of concern among Jews: Revisionism and the Nazi Holocaust; Contemporary Anti-Semitism; Catholic Theology of Jews and Judaism; Israel and the Middle East; and Human Rights and Soviet Jewry. On the last issue there is a large measure of agreement between the two faiths, the agenda notes.
On the issue of the Jewish experience in the Holocaust, the agenda documents a disturbing trend within the Catholic Church towards minimizing Jewish suffering and universalizing the Holocaust. The agenda does, however, praise the Pope for making statements “reflecting his deep understanding of the uniqueness and the magnitude of the tragedy suffered by the Jewish people who were singled out by Hitler and his Nazi regime for total extinction.”
POPE’S STATEMENTS TEMPERED BY EVENTS
But these statements have been tempered by a number of other events which have offended the Jewish people. During a visit to Auschwitz, the Pope spoke movingly about the Jewish victims of Nazism. “It is difficult to reconcile these sentiments with the reality that when Pope John Paul II visited Majdanek in Poland last May, he mentioned fourteen nationalities but made not a single reference to the murder of several hundred thousand Jews in that place of killing,” the agenda states.
The beatification of German Catholic victims as martyrs while failing to acknowledge the role of the German Catholic hierarchy and their loyalty to the Nazi regime has also deeply troubled the Jewish leaders. These actions “suggest a form of revisionism of the truth of history,” the document charges.
The Jewish leaders have also agreed to raise the issue of Catholic churches and convents being erected on the sites of former Nazi concentration camps in Sobibor and Auschwitz (the latter of which was subsequently removed).
“The audience granted Kurt Waldheim on June 25, 1987, elicited such widespread horror among Jews, as well as among many Christians, in part because it appeared to be the capstone of such revisionist tendencies,” the document states.
“How was it possible to receive with honors a former Nazi officer, who lied about and denied his Nazi involvement, and not make a single reference to that horrific past? Is it not possible that such silence is a message to the world that the Nazi Holocaust is so trivial and irrelevant that it was not worthy even of a mention?”
The Waldheim audience, according to the document, was followed by a sharp rise in Austrian polls of anti-Semitic sentiment, rising anti-Semitic acts in Germany and Europe and even an increase in American Catholic hostility towards the Jews in a country where Jewish-Catholic relations are probably at an apex.
In a section on Catholic Theology of Jews and Judaism, the same divergence of Catholic attitudes reemerges with alternately positive and negative characterizations of Jews. The Pope has recognized the permanent validity of Judaism, the document notes. But at other times, “There have been references to Jews as having killed Christ; of the Church as the ‘new Israel’ having succeeded the ‘old Israel.'”
The leaders call on the Vatican to clarify the theology on Jews and Judaism to prevent manipulation of the Pope’s statements by bigots and anti-Semites worldwide. “Such lapses create great confusion and tend to undermine the power and integrity of the other Papal declarations made to numerous Jewish groups in many parts of the world.”
The proposed agenda calls on the Vatican to establish full diplomatic relations; with the State of Israel instead of the “de facto diplomatic relations (that) have been developing quietly.”
The document also alludes to what is perceived to be one of the obstacles to diplomatic relations; the Vatican’s fear of a threat to Christians living in Arab countries.
“We believe that the time is past due for the Holy See to separate bluster and blackmail from reality, take the necessary moves to protect Arab Christians and Christians in the Muslim world, while asserting the autonomy and independence of its own foreign policy.”
The document concludes with a call for improved communication between the Vatican and the world Jewish community, for more frequent meetings like the upcoming one and for an end to “surprise” events, such as the Waldheim visit, which set back progress in Catholic-Jewish relations.
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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.
