Catholic Prelate Urges Jewish Community Leaders to Encourage Greater Christian-jewish Dialogue

A prominent Catholic prelate today urged an assembly of Jewish community relations leaders to encourage greater Catholic-Jewish dialogue that “openly and frankly” probes theological questions and “any and all public policy issues” on which the two groups may be divided.

The Rev. Msgr. George G. Higgins of the U.S. Catholic Conference, speaking on religious pluralism at the annual plenary of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, said that “difficulties and frustrations” can be expected in such exchanges but Catholics promoting dialogue would “reject and repudiate” any efforts by fellow Christians to “misuse it” as a means of pressuring Jews into supporting Catholic positions on such controversial issues as parochiaid or abortion.

At a later session, a policy statement adopted by the 350 delegates, representing nine national Jewish organizations and 100 community relations councils, reaffirmed the long-standing opposition of the NJCRAC agencies to prayer and other religious observances in public schools, and to the use of tax funds for parochial schools. Orthodox Judaism, represented here by the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, again, as in past years, dissented on the parochiaid issue.

Another section of the policy declaration, submitted in draft by NJCRAC’s commission on inter-religious relationships, had “welcomed” a recent statement by the executive board of the National Council of Churches, the major coalition of Protestant denominations, recognizing Israel’s need for secure boundaries. The draft, after floor debate, was amended to add language “deploring the failure of the National Council’s governing board, its decision-making body, ever to affirm publicly the legitimacy of an independent Israel.”

CHRISTIANS AND ISRAEL

In his appeal for interreligious exchange, Higgins said that American Christians “must be prepared” to urge a U.S. walk out at the UN General Assembly if the Arab-Third World bloc persists with efforts to expel Israel. The “silence” of the Christian clergy during the Six-Day War, which led many disillusioned Jewish groups to discontinue interreligious discussions, was “an argument for rather than against dialogue,” Higgins declared. Christians, then and now, “do not fully understand what Israel means to the Jews in theological terms. Jews themselves are the only ones who can help us to overcome this gap,” he said.

Noting that past dialogues had generally been initiated by Jews, Higgins, who is consultant to the Bishops Committee on Catholic-Jewish Relations, said that Catholics now need to reverse the process “in a spirit of deep repentance for past offenses and crimes committed by Christians against Jews.”

STATEMENT DENOUNCES BROWN

The 350 delegates approved unanimously today a statement denouncing Gen. George S. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for statements he made yesterday in testimony at a hearing before the Senate Armed Forces Committee. (See story P. 1) The statement declared that Brown’s statements “reflected again his marked insensitivity to a basic aspect of the American system.”

The statement added that “the application of such insensitivity and ignorance in the field of military preparedness and intelligence would plainly pose a serious hazard to the interests of the nation. The fitness of Gen Brown to hold the high office for which he has been nominated is called into question by his latest manifestation of lack of judgement and discretion.”