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Jewish World Review Feb. 18, 2008 / 12 Adar I 5768 Other People's Prayers By Jonathan Tobin
Interfaith dialogue must be based on the principle that respect is a two-way street
Their debate is known to history as the Disputation of Barcelona. The
purpose of those who initiated the event (principally, an apostate Jew)
was to compel the conversion of Spanish Jewry to Christianity.
Guaranteed freedom of speech, Nachmanides, the sole Jewish
representative in the proceedings, gave as good as he got in a
free-wheeling medieval rhetorical brawl, in which both sides made it
clear how little they thought of their opponents' faith.
Though given a reward by the king for his performance, Nahmanides was
eventually forced to flee the country because of the church's anger. In
particular, Pope Clement IV sought to punish the rabbi for his
courageous defense of Judaism.
CATHOLIC REVIVAL
Though the context of the present day couldn't be any more different
than the circumstances of 1263 Barcelona, many Jews appear to be
thinking about interfaith relations with this piece of sad history
still in mind.
The latest irritant in Catholic-Jewish relations is the result of the
church's revival of an Easter Week devotion in which believers asked to
pray for the conversion of the Jews.
As part of an effort to break down divisions within Catholicism that
had grown up around the abandonment of the Latin Mass, last year Pope
Benedict XVI allowed the saying of the Tridentine rite. The prayer,
which was dropped by the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, spoke of
Jewish "blindness" and asked the Almighty to "remove the veil from
their hearts."
Shocked by this reversion to language that was part of a long history
of the teaching of contempt for Judaism, Jewish leaders asked the
Vatican to reconsider the move. Last week, the Vatican responded by
issuing a new version of the prayer which eliminated the lines about
blindness" and the "veil" over Jewish hearts, but did not omit the call
for conversion.
The Jewish reaction to this move was anguished. The Anti-Defamation
League wrote a letter to the pope asking that he further amend the
prayer. The Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist rabbinical
movements are all expected to add their pleas soon.
In response, Cardinal Walter Kasper seemed to express bewilderment at
the sensitivity of the Jews. He told the Italian newspaper Corriere
della Sera, "I don't understand why Jews cannot accept that we can make
use of our freedom to formulate our papers." His point was that the
prayer "reflects the faith of the church, and furthermore Jews have
prayers in their liturgical texts that we Catholics don't like … one
must respect differences."
While the cardinal's statement illustrates the slippery slope down
which this sort of dispute can soon lead to hurt feelings on all sides,
he is, of course, right. Catholics are free to believe whatever they
want about the universal truth of the doctrines of their faith. The
same right must also apply to everyone else when it comes to their
opinions about their own religions and everyone else's. Problems arise
not from believing these different things, but how we act on those
differences.
On that score, it is important for Jews to understand that the Catholic
Church has, in recent generations, moved light years away from the
spirit of the Disputation of Barcelona. Under the inspired leadership
of Pope John XXIII and later Pope John Paul II, the Vatican discarded
the teaching of contempt for Judaism, and introduced new curricula in
their schools and churches based on respect for Judaism and recognition
of past persecutions.
As for proselytizing, unlike many Protestant denominations, the church
has dropped campaigns to specifically target Jews for conversion.
Yet Jewish groups still fear that if the Vatican, in seeking to mollify
its own liturgical conservative wing, moves away from the spirit of
Vatican II, it will mean that Catholics no longer embrace John Paul
II's beliefs that taught Catholics to think of Jews as their
theological older brothers whose legitimacy should not be questioned.
That fear is genuine and it is based, in no small part, on the legacy
of church-based missionizing that was rooted in compulsion and
oppression of Jews.
But as Cardinal Kasper told Vatican Radio in another interview, the
revised prayer "does not mean we are embarking on a mission" to convert
Jews. Rather, they are just expressing their faith.
Jews and Catholics may have many things in common, but they do not
accept the fundamentals of each other's religions. No less than in
1263, Christians believe theirs is the true path to salvation. Jews
still disagree. In societies where religion rules all, such as most of
the Islamic world, such theological differences are just as much a
matter of life and death as they were in Barcelona during the
Disputation.
AGREEING TO DISAGREE
Genuine interfaith dialogue is not rooted in agreement, but rather, on
agreement to disagree. The trick is to do so in a civil manner, and to
avoid public attacks on each others faiths that can only lead to
discord and prejudice.
So while it is all well and good for Jews to hope that the Catholic
Church never chooses to deviate from the path of John Paul II, it is
not for Jews to tell Catholics what to say in their prayers, any more
than it is legitimate for them to go back to trying to censor the
Jewish liturgy as they once did. Respect is a two-way street.
Rather than seek to turn Benedict's revival of the Tridentine mass into
a major issue, what we need to do is to stop worrying about Catholic
prayers, and instead continue the work of bringing the two faiths
closer together in defense of Western freedoms.
This a moment in history when the greatest challenge to religious
freedom is not coming from the traditional sources of reaction within
Christianity, such as those that sought to punish Nachmanides for
defending Judaism at Barcelona. Instead, our challenge comes from
forces within Islam that have already sought to censor the beliefs of
Pope Benedict for defending the West. Their goal is to dismantle the
entire edifice of tolerance that Jews and Christians have worked so
hard to create.
Given that reality, this is not the time to pick fights over other
people's prayers.
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JWR contributor Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent.
Let him know what you think by clicking here.
© 2007, Jonathan Tobin
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