Augustin Cardinal Bea, head of the Vatican Secretariat which deals with the Declaration on Jews to be presented to the forthcoming session of the Ecumenical Council for final adoption, will arrive at Kennedy Airport here on Wednesday. He will be en route to Philadelphia to accept there the International Fellowship Award which will be presented to him at a dinner on Thursday. He will be welcomed at the airport by a representative of the Philadelphia Archdiocese and an official of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.
Meanwhile, Professor Abraham J. Heschel, who had visited the Vatican in connection with the proposed statement on Jews by the Ecumenical Council, today issued the following comment on reports that the Vatican may revise drastically the statement on deicide:
“The deicide charge is the most dreadful calumny ever uttered. It has resulted in rivers of blood and mountains of human ashes. To millions of Christians and to the overwhelming majority of Roman Catholic bishops, it is absurd, monstrous, unhistorical and the supreme repudiation of the Gospel of love. Weakening the document in any of its aspects which was inspired by the grandeur of conscience and the spirit of love, would remain for all time one of the major contributions to anti-Semitism. We pray that Satan may never witness such a triumph.”
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.
