NEWS ANALYSIS Catholic-Jewish dialogue advances amid dismay over Vatican document

ROME, March 30 (JTA) — Catholic-Jewish relations have made enormous strides over the past three decades — but recent events show that they have far to go. In meetings at the Vatican last week, an international group of Jewish leaders bluntly conveyed their disappointment with a controversial document on the Holocaust recently released by the Vatican. They said it “did not go far enough” in assessing the Roman Catholic Church”s behavior during World War II. But the same discussions with Pope John Paul II and other senior Vatican officials raised for the first time the possibility that the Vatican may eventually open its archives from the Holocaust period — a move Jewish groups have long maintained is essential to clarifying the church”s role during the war years. “Until archives are opened, we won”t know the role of Pope Pius XII,” Tommy Baer, president of B”nai B”rith, said in an interview. Baer, who participated in last week”s meetings, cautioned that after last week”s meetings of the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee, “it is not clear” to what degree and under what circumstances the archives will be opened. The committee agreed to set up a team of Catholic and Jewish scholars to “review the relevant material” in a published study of the church”s behavior during the Holocaust. “If questions still remained,” the scholars could seek “further clarification,” said the committee”s joint communique, referring to a suggestion by Cardinal Edward Cassidy, leader of the committee”s Catholic representatives. Cassidy”s allusion to opening up the archives was called a “significant step” by Rabbi Marc Schneier, president of the New York Board of Rabbis, who also participated in the Vatican meetings. The liaison committee also agreed on the transfer of the last remaining religious symbol at the site of the Auschwitz death camp — a 23-foot-high cross — which has been a source of tensions in Catholic-Jewish relations. The agreement came just days after Cardinal Jozef Glemp of Poland declared, in a provocative sermon that the cross “has stood and will stand” at Auschwitz, despite commitments by the Polish government and other church officials that it would be removed. “Many have not liked the Eiffel Tower, but that is not a reason to move it or tinker with it,” said Glemp, whose hard-line statements on religious symbols at Auschwitz have often outraged Jewish leaders. Bishop Stanislaw Gadecki, chairman of the Polish Catholic Church”s council for dialogue with Jews, who attended the Vatican talks last week, made it clear that Poland”s Bishops Conference does not support Glemp”s unyielding stand. And the liaison committee, in its communique, expressed “deep concern” and appealed “to all those involved to work together patiently in order to find an acceptable solution for the transfer of the cross to an appropriate alternative site.” One Jewish member of the liaison committee, Rabbi A. James Rudin, observed that the issue of religious symbols at Auschwitz is “very emotional.” “That a high-level group of Catholics would make this statement is a very important step,” Rudin, who is interreligous affairs director of the American Jewish Committee, said in an interview. Although the Catholic and Jewish leaders wrestled with difficult issues, the overall atmosphere was positive in the four days of meetings. “There was such honesty and frankness in our meetings that it augurs well for Jewish-Catholic dialogue,” said Schneier. “It”s come a long way since 1965. There have been some real leaps here.” That year, the Vatican issued its landmark Nostra Aetate declaration, which repudiated the concept of Jewish guilt for Christ”s death and called for mutual respect and dialogue between Catholics and Jews. Before the declaration, official contact between representatives of the two faiths was rare. Now, Catholic and Jewish representatives meet regularly on many levels and in many arenas. The liaison committee, a joint body of the Vatican”s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations, was set up as a direct result of Nostra Aetate. Last week”s meeting, the first session of the joint group in four years, had been scheduled long before the Vatican issued its document on the Holocaust on March 16. But its release may have been timed to enable the document to become centerpiece of the high-level formal discussions — they were the first full-scale give and take on the issue between the Vatican officials who prepared the document and Jewish leaders from around the world. Jewish representatives conveyed particular dismay that the document, entitled “We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah,” cleared the wartime pope of accusations that his silence during the Holocaust contributed to the Nazi genocide. The Vatican maintains that Pius did not speak out more forcefully for fear of triggering a backlash against Catholics. B”nai B”rith”s Baer observed that Roman Catholic Church doctrine recognizes a pope”s infallibility, thereby making it difficult for the church to acknowledge any papal wrongdoing.
But a problem with the Vatican”s Holocaust document was that it commended Pius for his role, which is “a historical fallacy,” Baer said. Jews have repeatedly called for the Vatican to open its wartime archives. But the Vatican has insisted that all relevant documents were published in an 11-volume study by three Jesuit scholars between 1965 and 1981. Last week”s meeting, however, forced the Vatican to back off this position. Gerhart Riegner, honorary vice president of the World Jewish Congress, revealed that a document he had sent to church officials during the war describing the Nazi plan to annihilate European Jewry did not appear in those 11 volumes, though a letter referring to the material did. Cassidy, president of the Vatican Commission, responded by proposing the joint review of the volumes, which could eventually lead to an examination of the full archives. The Catholic and Jewish members of the liaison committee agreed that the Vatican”s document on the Holoscaust was “a beginning and not an ending of a process, especially on the historical issues it raises.” They agreed to establish a joint working group of historians and theologians to pursue further studies on the Holocaust period. So while Jewish leaders remain deeply disappointed by the Vatican document on the Holocaust, those involved in Catholic-Jewish dialogue appear to be taking the longer view, saying it should be seen as just one step by the Church toward reconciliation. In the past 30-odd years, they say, the church and this pope have gone a long way from blaming Jews collectively for the death of Jesus. The Vatican”s current tough stance on anti-Semitism is also a development since Nostra Aetate. That document merely “deplored” anti-Semitism. Current church teaching calls it an “offense against God and the Church.” In 1986, Pope John Paul II prayed at Rome”s main synagogue, the first ever recorded visit of a pope to a synagogue. In 1994, Israel and the Vatican established full diplomatic relations. “With all of its flaws,” said Rudin, the Holocaust document “could never have been issued 20 or 30 years ago.”” (JTA foreign editor Mitchell Danow and staff writer Peter Ephross in New York contributed to this report.)