Vatican Report on Racism Well Received by Jewish Groups

The Vatican’s blanket condemnation of anti-Semitism, in its document on racism issued here Friday, was well received by several Jewish organizations, though they found some flaws.

While it is probably the strongest statement of its kind yet made in the name of a pope, the document stopped well short of examining the Church’s historic role in the persecution of Jews.

Furthermore, while it acknowledged that anti-Zionism “serves at times as a screen for anti-Semitism,” it contains no reference to the infamous Zionism equals racism resolution adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on Nov. 10, 1975.

That omission was cited by Rabbi A. James Rudin, national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee, in a statement released in New York Friday.

But he otherwise acclaimed the document as “clear and powerful.”

The World Jewish Congress also welcomed the pontifical pronouncement.

Noting that the statement recognizes the Holocaust as “racial ideology in its ‘most tragic form,’ ” the WJC prodded the Vatican to comply with the Feb. 22 deadline to relocate a Carmelite convent from the site of the Auschwitz death camp.

The document, titled “The Church and Racism — Towards a More Fraternal Society,” was ordered by Pope John Paul II and was written by the Vatican’s Justice and Peace Commission.

It dealt with all forms of racism, and specifically came down hard on South Africa’s apartheid and the historic racial discrimination in the United States.

But its historical overview of the development of racism failed to deal in more than cursory fashion with severe anti-Jewish measures, such as the Inquisition or confinement in ghettos imposed by churchmen.

NOT A COMPLETE HISTORY

“No attempt is made here to trace a complete history of racism, nor of the attitude of the church in this regard,” a footnote at the opening of the document explained.

“This by no means implies an effort to gloss over the weaknesses and even, at times, the complicity of certain Church leaders, as well as other members of the Church in this phenomenon,” it said.

The concentration on 20th-century anti-Semitism and neglect of its millennial aspects was acknowledged by Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, president of the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace at the Vatican, and Monsignor Jorge Mejia, at a news conference here Friday.

Etchegaray said that the document was not intended as a replacement for a long-planned document that is to specifically address the question of anti-Semitism and Catholic-Jewish relations.

“If it’s a question of anti-Semitism, we hope that our colleagues in the Commission (on Religious Relations with the Jews) will take up completely the subject,” Mejia said.

“Here, we thought this was enough. It’s quite clear to recognize that we have not lived up to the standards always and everywhere, particularly regarding anti-Semitism,” he said.