By Paul Galloway, Tribune Religion Writer.
Published: Friday, March 24, 1995
Section: NEWS
JERUSALEM -- In an address delivered here Thursday at Hebrew University, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin examined the complicity of Christianity in fostering hatred and persecution of Jews through the centuries and called for the church to engage in public repentance for its role.
The cardinal acknowledged that "anti-Semitism has deep roots in Christian history, which go back to the earliest days of the church," including New Testament passages that defame Jews and Judaism.
Although his speaking style was measured and unemotional, Bernardin's words were forceful, direct and occasionally almost searing in their frankness, a marked departure from the diplomacy and caution the cardinal customarily employs in his published remarks.
The cardinal's remarks echoed and expanded upon Pope John Paul II's recent condemnation of anti-Semitism.
"It's a very significant statement, especially to be given here in Jerusalem in the context of a Jewish-Christian dialogue, and given the fact that Cardinal Bernardin plays such an important role in the national and worldwide Catholic Church," said Rabbi Peter Knobel, president of the Chicago Board of Rabbis and a member of the Catholic-Jewish delegation traveling with the cardinal.
Bernardin urged a restoration of the history of Christian anti-Semitism and anti-Judaic theology to Catholic education. "Including this history, as painful as it is for us to hear today, is a necessary requirement for authentic reconciliation between Christians and Jews in our time," he said.
He paid particular attention to the responsibility of Christian teachings in the rise of Adolf Hitler.
Citing the research of two scholars, including a Roman Catholic priest, Bernardin said. "There is little doubt that classical Christian presentations of Jews and Judaism were a central factor in generating popular support for the Nazi endeavor . . .
"In the church today," he asserted, "We must not minimize the extent of Christian collaboration with Hitler and his associates."
Bernardin made several recommendations for "confronting the legacy of anti-Semitism." Among them:
- Introduce education about the Holocaust at every level of Catholic education.
- Teach recent Catholic denunciations of anti-Semitism in all curriculums.
- Continue to focus attention on liturgy and preaching by the church, especially in regard with the season of Lent, Holy Week and Easter, "whose texts can serve to reinforce classical Christian stereotypes of Jews and Judaism if not interpreted carefully."
"Above all, in light of the history of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, the church needs to engage in public repentance," Bernardin said. He endorsed the confession of guilt made by the Catholic bishops of Germany recently in acknowleging the failure of the Catholic community and Christians to "offer due resistance to the racial anti-Semitism" of the Nazis.
Other Jewish leaders who accompanied Bernardin applauded the cardinal's address.
"I think it's the most straightforward and forthright condemnation I've heard from any church prelate," said Jonathan Levine, Midwest regional director of the American Jewish Committee.
"It's a historic statement," said Rabbi Herman Schaalman, rabbi emeritus of the Emanuel Congregation of Chicago. "He continues the tone of confession and reconciliation of Pope John Paul II and builds on it. He breaks new paths in Jewish-Christian relations."
The setting was a prime consideration in the cardinal's decision to make a major speech about the role played by Christianity in anti-Semitism and the need to improve relations with Jews, subjects to which he has invested much interest and attention.
When Hebrew University invited Bernardin some months ago to come to Jerusalem to receive an honorary fellowship in recognition of his contributions to interfaith dialogue, and to speak, the cardinal began to write his speech, "Anti-Semitism, the Historical Legacy and the Continuing Challenge for Christians."
Bernardin spoke in a small auditorium on the university's Mt. Scopus campus, which overlooks Jerusalem. Though only some 100 persons were present Thursday, a large number were professors, bishops and other clergy from the Roman Catholic, Ethiopian, Greek and Russian Orthodox churches, and the Armenian Christian Church.
The cardinal threaded his pronouncement with quotations from and references to papal and Vatican documents, scholarly and theological works and academic papers. A two-page list of these sources was attached to the 24-page text.
Among the factors cited by the cardinal as contributing to the origins of Christian anti-Semitism were the anti-Jewish feelings in the pre-Christian Greek and Roman cultures, from which many of the first Christians came; the negative attitudes toward Jews in the New Testament, particularly in the Gospel of John and the teachings "of the early fathers of the church," who had "a strong tendency to regard Jews as completely displaced from the covenantal relationship because of their unwillingness to accept Jesus as the messiah."
The belief that "Jews had been totally rejected by God," the cardinal said, led "to the so-called `perpetual wandering' theology, which consigned Jews to a condition of permanent statelessness as a consequence of their displacement from the covenant as a punishment for murdering the messiah.
"This condition of being permanently displaced persons was meant as an enduring sign of Jewish sinfulness and as a warning to others of what they could expect if they, too, failed to accept Christ," he said.
Bernardin named early Christian thinkers who influenced this defamation of Jews; they include St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom.
Bernardin emphasized the strong denunciation of such thinking by the Second Vatican Council of 1965, which "asserted that there never existed a valid basis for the consequent theology of permanent Jewish suffering and displacement."
He also pointed to the consistent opposition to anti-Semitism by Pope John Paul II, who has declared it to be "a great sin against humanity" and "the most tragic form that racist ideology has assumed in our century."
Copyright 1998, The Chicago Tribune
