# Pope Benedict XVI and Catholic Jewish relations **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 29, 2009, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-benedict-xvi-and-catholic-jewish-relations/483564 "2009-01-29T16:18:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2009, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-benedict-xvi-and-catholic-jewish-relations/483564/281 "2009-03-03T17:51:25Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I have not interfered when you spent several pages making up a new meaning for the word “intolerant” just to make your odd point. I have not interfered, except to make factual corrections, when you have twisted history or Catholic theology, and I have not made any personal attacks in the process. But when I tell you to refrain from personal attacks in this Forum–a pretty long-standing rule–you suddenly wish to take offense at my posts and express your contempt. I didn’t attack anyone personally. I pointed out the underlying implication of ex-communication. As for making up a new meaning for the word intolerant, well I Catholics are exempt from tolerance in that case. I guess it’s ok to judge Catholicism as a whole by the fact that a minority extremist fringe with no real is anti-semitic. As I said to **FinnAgain** , if I were to judge all Jews by the acts of a few Haredi in Jerusalem, I’d be accused of intolerance. I see a double-standard, but I guess if intolerance isn’t a word with a stable meaning, but rather shifts depending upon the perception of the group in question, then I concede my view of intolerance is idiosyncratic in that I expect it to be applied by a uniform standard. So you’re right the ENTIRE church is moving away from Jewish-Catholic relations due to the fact that hte SSPX can eat crackers in a mainstream church. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2009, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-benedict-xvi-and-catholic-jewish-relations/483564/282 "2009-03-03T18:08:21Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > As noted in paragraphs [839 and 840](http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p123a9p3.htm#839) of today’s Catechism, the current attitude of the church toward Judaism is hardly one indicating that the church takes offense or insult. Just read that. It strikes me as a little belittling and pitiable though: > [@](#): > > 840 And when one considers the future, God’s People of the Old Covenant and the new People of God tend towards similar goals: expectation of the coming (or the return) of the Messiah. But one awaits the return of the Messiah who died and rose from the dead and is recognized as Lord and Son of God; the other awaits the coming of a Messiah, whose features remain hidden till the end of time; and the latter waiting is accompanied by the drama of not knowing or of misunderstanding Christ Jesus. So Jews are misguided, or at least not yet properly guided, and as a result we characterize their religious lives as full of drama until they figure it out and join our team? :dubious: There must be lots of scholarly interpretation on this - like most Bible verses, it appeared to not really stand on its own and require interpretation and consensus. As it stands I think this can be interpreted as mild acceptance to a signal to “go reel them in!” as one sees fit. My guess is most on this thread lean towards the former, but just the same, can you help me find the consensus, whatever it is, and also the dissent if any? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2009, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-benedict-xvi-and-catholic-jewish-relations/483564/283 "2009-03-03T18:12:56Z")
> [@not\_alice](#): > > I for one simply don’t buy the “just blew up” part. > > Even I knew of this guy decades ago. > > It is too much to ask the world to believe, on faith, that the Pope didn’t know of him, and that decades of inactivity were reached with milestones of accomplishments as a German Pope who had served as Hitler’s Youth took office and made other liturgical changes that appear to provide muddy waters to hide this one in. Most of the pope’s discussions appear to have been directly with Bernard Fellay, the recognized leader of the SSPX group, (following LeFebvre’s death), whom I have never seen associated with an anti-semitic statement. Williamson had been hanging out in Argentina. I have no doubt that Benedict knew that anti-semitism has been rife within SSPX, but it is not the sum total of the SSPX beliefs and I have seen numerous articles over the years in which different SSPX authors have made very different statements regarding the Jewish faith or people. Of course, once anyone in the post-WWII era is described as “anti-semitic,” there is a tendency to say that the group to which they belong is anti-semitic. This may not even be an unfair association, given the nature of anti-semitism. However, such association is not accurate when addressing the individuals within a group. The congregation within the Vatican that is in charge of promoting dialogue with the Jewish community was expressly outraged at this incident and their spokesman specifically noted that he felt that the congregation in charge of attempting the reconciliation with the SSPX had failed to make clear Williamson’s recent statements on the issue of the Holocaust. To me, this indicates that there is more going on, here. I would be suspicious of any claim by Benedict that he was unaware of any anti-semitism within SSPX. On the other hand, he was dealing with four specific individuals, here, not a cartoon of the group as a body. I could see where he would rerly on his aides to do due dilligence on the individuals involved in the reconciliation while they might suppress any information from the last couple of years that might cause a ripple in “their” project. People at the top of the heap in any organization tend to have so much information to digest that they tend to organize paths of information that have a filtering effect. (Remember GHWB’s interest in grocery scanners–a technology that only made it to the public after he became vice-president even though the whole country was using them before his comment.) Williamson’s Swedish TV interview was broadcast in the middle of January, after the late December agreement regarding the the excommunications, but before the late January announcement. How many statements has Williamson made publicly on the issue in the last five years? How many of his statements have been sufficiently widely broadcast that they could actually be deemed “common knowledge”? I don’t actually know the answers to those questions, but I suspect that the answers might have a bearing on how much information Benedict had available to him. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2009, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-benedict-xvi-and-catholic-jewish-relations/483564/284 "2009-03-03T18:18:25Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > My problem is that you are judging Catholicism and the future of Jewish-Catholic relations by a minority extremist fringe and then claiming it’s not intolerant. No. I’ve pointed out that the change in the Tridentine Mass is offensive for historical reasons and that the Pope’s lack of immediate and forceful (unprompted) denunciation of anti-semitism, concurrent with the public de-excommunication, was worrisome. I’ve also pointed out that there’s no problem with Catholics believing that all people should accept Jesus as the messiah as long as they don’t single out Jews for conversion for obvious historical reasons. Think of it this way. There’s a difference between “Human nature is that people are schmucks”. And “Hey you? You’re a schmuck!” Especially if, in the past, every time you were called a schmuck there was a good chance that someone was going to try to kick your ass. You want to make this about the entire Catholic Church, and it’s not. It about how the Pope handled the initial stages of the controversy and how that, in the context of liturgical changes which are validly seen as being offensive to Jews, is not conducive to warm interfaith relations. > [@mswas](#): > > If we were judging Jews by the actions of Haredim in Jerusalem, you would call it bigotry. That is precisely what you are doing here. No, it isn’t. A rough analogy would be if I said that the Haredim were assholes for considering all other forms of Judaism to be non-authentic and that if an Orthodox synagogue invited them to speak on the High Holy Days, that it would display a level of tone-deaf cluelessness or willful ignorance to not consider how that would effect relations with the various other sects of Judaism. > [@mswas](#): > > I’ll give you one concession though, the Pope’s handling of this was imbecilic. He dropped the ball and then tried to quibble about it. Good, we’re half of the way there at least. 😃 > [@mswas](#): > > Stupid yes, but it saddens me that there is a prominent opinion amongst many Jews, you as well as others that this signifies a shift in Jewish-Catholic relations. One need not be Jewish OR Catholic to think that good relations between the two is indeed a good thing. That’s the point though, I’m pretty sure all the Jews posting in this thread, and most in the world would simply love good relations with all Christians on the planet. And all Buddhists. And all Muslims. And… The problem isn’t so much that the Pope’s hamfisted handling of this controversy is a red flag, but that handling when taken in context with liturgical changes which echo millenia of violence and bloodshed directed at Jews because they wouldn’t convert to Christianity? Well, in that context it betrays either a tone-deaf cluelessness, willful ignorance or malice. I think that the first two are vastly more likely, but having a Pope who is tone-deaf or wilfully blind when it comes to interfaith relations isn’t any better. And it doesn’t help that when compared to the work his predecessor carried out, there’s no conclusion other than that the current Pope has fallen well short of the high water mark. Again, think of it in terms of the Jewish experience. For century after century, in nation after nation, Jews were demonized and murdered for being “Christ-killers”. Jews were tortured and persecuted if they did not convert. Jews were prohibited from working most trades other than money lending, and then demonized for being greedy money lenders. Jews were expelled for not being Christians. Spain was particularly brutal to its Jewish population, and the Maranos (translated alternately as “damned”, “accursed” and “pigs”) did not have an easy time of it. As late as the middle of last century, Coughlin was a very powerful force in America, and a vile Jew-hater whose popularity didn’t really fall until he essentially supported a coup against the US government. Even some of the Jewish children who were saved by Catholics during WW II [were explicitly and deliberately kept from being returned to Jewish families.](http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=521178&contrassID=1&subContrassID=9&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y) Etc, etc, etc. We’re not talking ancient history here. So when the Catholic Church reinstutes a prayer, however toned down, that specifics Jews \*specifically by name \* and calls for their conversion, and the Pope makes a rather blatant clusterfuck out of what should have been a simple matter of reconciling rogue clerics while still making clear that their anti-semitism was slimy, it’s a bad scene. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2009, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-benedict-xvi-and-catholic-jewish-relations/483564/285 "2009-03-03T18:20:35Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > I didn’t attack anyone personally. And this is the sort of disingenuous, mealy-mouthed, passive-aggressive hostility that gets you reprimanded in **Great Debates** , not any disagreements with your views (if you actually have any). As to your continued attempts at personal definitions for words along with this sort of deliberately misleading (as well as deliberately insulting) language: > [@mswas](#): > > So you’re right the ENTIRE church is moving away from Jewish-Catholic relations due to the fact that hte SSPX can eat crackers in a mainstream church. :rolleyes: Take it out of this thread. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2009, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-benedict-xvi-and-catholic-jewish-relations/483564/286 "2009-03-03T19:22:59Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > And this is the sort of disingenuous, mealy-mouthed, passive-aggressive hostility that gets you reprimanded in **Great Debates** , not any disagreements with your views (if you actually have any). > > As to your continued attempts at personal definitions for words along with this sort of deliberately misleading (as well as deliberately insulting) language:Take it out of this thread. No, that’s what this thread is about. You can ban me if you like. Intolerance is intolerance, period. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2009, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-benedict-xvi-and-catholic-jewish-relations/483564/287 "2009-03-03T19:42:51Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > No. > I’ve pointed out that the change in the Tridentine Mass is offensive for historical reasons and that the Pope’s lack of immediate and forceful (unprompted) denunciation of anti-semitism, concurrent with the public de-excommunication, was worrisome. I’ve also pointed out that there’s no problem with Catholics believing that all people should accept Jesus as the messiah as long as they don’t single out Jews for conversion for obvious historical reasons. Has your opinion changed at all with **Tomndebb** ’s explanation of the Tridentine mass? If not, why? > [@](#): > > Think of it this way. There’s a difference between “Human nature is that people are schmucks”. And “Hey you? You’re a schmuck!” Especially if, in the past, every time you were called a schmuck there was a good chance that someone was going to try to kick your ass. I completely understand the historical significance. So let me ask you a question. Outside of the context of this thread, do you think it is possible for people to be made intolerant by enduring trauma? > [@](#): > > You want to make this about the entire Catholic Church, and it’s not. It about how the Pope handled the initial stages of the controversy and how that, in the context of liturgical changes which are validly seen as being offensive to Jews, is not conducive to warm interfaith relations. Ok, fair enough. How do you suggest the balancing of Catholic desire for tradition with the feelings of Jews on this matter? Do you think that Catholics are the only ones who need to compromise on this matter? What if the prayer doesn’t result in forced conversions? If prayer, a wish were as far as it went, how would that sit with you? > [@](#): > > No, it isn’t. > A rough analogy would be if I said that the Haredim were assholes for considering all other forms of Judaism to be non-authentic and that if an Orthodox synagogue invited them to speak on the High Holy Days, that it would display a level of tone-deaf cluelessness or willful ignorance to not consider how that would effect relations with the various other sects of Judaism. No, that’s a terrible analogy, because it implies power to the offensive haredim. In a proper analogy the offensive haredim was just invited to sit in the pews at the temple. The difficult part of this conversation is separating the Tridentine mass from the reconciliation. They are both a part of the Pope’s desire to give more credit to conservatives, but I don’t think they are part of a single action, they happened months apart, and the only real similarity is that the Tridentine mass is desired by conservatives and the SSPX sect happens to be one of many conservative voices in the church. > [@](#): > > Good, we’re half of the way there at least. 😃 At least. 😉 I just see it as bungling whereas you see something more pernicious at work. > [@](#): > > That’s the point though, I’m pretty sure all the Jews posting in this thread, and most in the world would simply love good relations with all Christians on the planet. And all Buddhists. And all Muslims. And… I am sure they would, but good relations don’t necessarily mean you get to have a final say on internal religious opinion toward you. Tolerance is not required if something is just fine with you. You are tolerant specifically if you allow someone to do something that offends you. If you and I are sitting at the same lunch counter and I don’t like your Pastrami sandwich, but it doesn’t offend me at all that you are eating it, I am not being tolerant, I am being apathetic. If I hate the smell of Pastrami, and it affects my enjoyment of my sandwich but I choose not to make you uncomfortable over it, then I am being tolerant. > [@](#): > > The problem isn’t so much that the Pope’s hamfisted handling of this controversy is a red flag, but that handling when taken in context with liturgical changes which echo millenia of violence and bloodshed directed at Jews because they wouldn’t convert to Christianity? Well, in that context it betrays either a tone-deaf cluelessness, willful ignorance or malice. I think that the first two are vastly more likely, but having a Pope who is tone-deaf or wilfully blind when it comes to interfaith relations isn’t any better. And it doesn’t help that when compared to the work his predecessor carried out, there’s no conclusion other than that the current Pope has fallen well short of the high water mark. But the Tridentine mass was edited. I think the new mass speaks of a desire for brotherhood with the Jews. Or at least CAN speak to that, depending on who uttered it. > [@](#): > > Again, think of it in terms of the Jewish experience. For century after century, in nation after nation, Jews were demonized and murdered for being “Christ-killers”. Jews were tortured and persecuted if they did not convert. Jews were prohibited from working most trades other than money lending, and then demonized for being greedy money lenders. Jews were expelled for not being Christians. Spain was particularly brutal to its Jewish population, and the Maranos (translated alternately as “damned”, “accursed” and “pigs”) did not have an easy time of it. As late as the middle of last century, Coughlin was a very powerful force in America, and a vile Jew-hater whose popularity didn’t really fall until he essentially supported a coup against the US government. Even some of the Jewish children who were saved by Catholics during WW II [were explicitly and deliberately kept from being returned to Jewish families.](http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=521178&contrassID=1&subContrassID=9&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y) Etc, etc, etc. Yes, but is it not possible to accept that this is a different time and a different place, and that a prayer for kinship with Jews is that and only that, a prayer for kinship with Jews? You see conversion as utter destruction, maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. Your tribe’s genealogy was already taught to my ancestors. In fact it superseded and replaced my own history. No one even cares or considers that. My genealogical history was utterly wiped out by the organization you fear, whereas yours is enshrined and revered. > [@](#): > > We’re not talking ancient history here. No, but it was a while back, and it is not fair to lay the Holocaust which was performed by Ethno-Nationalist Germanic Pagans at the feet of the Catholic church. For much of the twentieth century, a sort of hushed tolerance has layed atop religious and racial relations. The problems were not solved, and now we have moved to an era where we are re-examining our genetic and cultural heritage, this is part of that. > [@](#): > > So when the Catholic Church reinstutes a prayer, however toned down, that specifics Jews \*specifically by name \* and calls for their conversion, and the Pope makes a rather blatant clusterfuck out of what should have been a simple matter of reconciling rogue clerics while still making clear that their anti-semitism was slimy, it’s a bad scene. Yes, it’s a bad scene. I’ll concede that. ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2009, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-benedict-xvi-and-catholic-jewish-relations/483564/288 "2009-03-03T19:50:51Z")
nevermind. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2009, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-benedict-xvi-and-catholic-jewish-relations/483564/289 "2009-03-03T20:22:04Z")
By the way, I should probably elaborate on the original cite I provided. I didn’t check it thoroughly enough, and its claims weren’t properly updated based on the information which was available in 2005. Anyways, [Rychlak pointed out](http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/2005/01/Postwar-Catholics-Jewish-Children-And-A-Rush-To-Judgment.aspx?p=1) that the original memo which was reported on wasn’t an official communication from the Vatican to the French clergy. AIM, however, [pointed out](http://www.aim.org/aim-column/new-york-times-publicizes-phony-memo-from-the-popes-pope/) amidst its denunciation of the Times, that the French memo was evidently a mistranslation of the original Italian (and thus we can assume, might have been disseminated, mistakes and all). > [@](#): > > t turns out the directive was not a standalone document, but was part of a three-page dossier housed at the Centre National des Archives de L’Eglise de France. Historian Matteo Luigi Napolitano told AIM that the French memo was discovered by an anonymous student researcher who gave a copy of it to her professor: “It was discovered by an anonymous researcher who transmitted it to her professor, and I suppose the latter passed it to Melloni. The document was newly-discovered since it pertained to a private archive and to a closed dossier. For sure, the researcher who discovered it did not suppose it was going to be published in Italy by Melloni.” After the initial story broke, Napolitano then discovered the three-page dossier himself, and the original Vatican directive contained therein, and soon informed Tornielli about it. Their scoop debunking the letter followed. > > It’s too bad the New York Times didn’t exercise the curiosity that Napolitano did. The unauthorized French memo was a poor translation of a true Vatican directive, which it was attached to. Nor is the situation cut and dry. Even the [initial Times article](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/09/international/09vatican.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2) which was proven to be based on less than stellar research of the original document, did discuss the case of Robert and Gerald Finaly. The historical record there shows that: > [@](#): > > In the most well-documented case in France, two Jewish boys, Robert and Gerald Finaly, were sent in 1944 by their parents to a Catholic nursery in Grenoble. The parents perished at Auschwitz. Family members tried to get the boys back in 1945, but in part because they had been baptized, it took an additional eight years and a long legal battle to prevail over the church. Likewise, the original story broke with [a particularly relevant forward](http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/2005/01/The-Churchs-Kidnapping-Policy.aspx): > [@](#): > > The Forward has printed the heartbreaking testimony of a man from Belgium who says the Church “took away my childhood”: “With the complicity of Catholic and civil officials, my name was changed to Antoine Benoit and I went through a series of Catholic schools. At the same time, my uncle investigated about me and was told many lies, including that I had died.” But his uncle persisted, finally succeeding in rescuing him after twelve years. It was also reported that: > [@](#): > > a second French Church document has also been discovered: a letter from July 1946 to Roncalli from the grand rabbi of France and the head of the Jewish Central Consistory asking for help in retrieving 30 Jewish children. “Almost two years after the liberation of France, some Israelite children are still in non-Jewish institutions that refuse to give them back to Jewish charities.” It is not known what happened to these children. Abraham Foxman, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, was similarly hidden from his parents (who survived the Holocaust and returned to Poland to claim him) by the Polish Catholic woman who had earlier saved him. Marrus summed up the situation in 2006 [by saying](http://www.catholic.org/printer_friendly.php?id=18311§ion=Cathcom): > [@](#): > > Gumpel’s suspicions notwithstanding, there seems to be little doubt that the document discovered by Melloni is authentic. Unsigned and written in French, it comes from the Paris nunciature, the Vatican’s diplomatic representation in France, and appears to be an instruction from the Vatican’s Congregation of the Holy Office on how to deal with the vexed issue of “Jewish cildren who, during the German occupation, were confided to Catholic institutions and families and who are now reclaimed by Jewish institutions.” > > Investigative work by several Italian researchers has shown that the document is itself a summary of a previous Vatican communication in which the papal aide Domenico Tardini set forth the congregation’s views on how to respond to an appeal by Isaac Halevi Herzog, chief rabbi of Palestine, for assistance in locating such children and restoring them to Jewish hands. “The eminent fathers decided that if possible there should be no response to the grand rabbi of Palestine,” that document had declared, indicating that despite the rabbi’s meeting with the pope on the matter the previous March, the status of Jewish children in Catholic custody remained a thorny issue. > [@](#): > > With approximately 30,000 Jewish child survivors, France was one of the main centers of attention. In June 1945, the principal children’s relief organization in France, the Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants, reported that there were still 1,200 children in non-Jewish families or institutions in that country. But obstacles to restitution remained. The Sisters of Notre-Dame de Sion, who had rescued some 450 Jewish children in France, had 30 children in their custody as late as January 1946. > > The French Catholic Church took no official position on restitution, and as French researcher Katy Hazan reports, it constructed “a wall of silence against inquiries as to the real number of Jewish children living in Catholic institutions.” Assistance from the Vatican on this matter, while promised, had never materialized. What is clear between the various letters, however, is that Jewish children without family were sometimes prohibited from being returned to Jewish organizations/charities and were instead, in effect, raised as Catholics. And that someone in the Catholic Church in France had either deliberately or mistaken mistranslated actual Papal instructions so as to make it more difficult for Jewish children to be raised as Jews. Nor was that unique. In the Netherlands, for example, [roughly 300 Jewish children were given to non-Jewish families](http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/hiddenchildren/insideX/) after the Holocaust. In other cases: > [@](#): > > rescuers refused to release hidden children to their families or Jewish organizations. Some demanded that the child be “redeemed” through financial remuneration. Others had grown attached to their charges and did not want to give them up. In the more difficult cases, courts had to decide to whom to award custody of the child. Some rescuers defied court decisions and hid the children for a second time. It’s hard to understand modern Jewish reactions to efforts at conversion without understanding the history of conversion attempts that stretch right up to the modern era. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2009, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-benedict-xvi-and-catholic-jewish-relations/483564/290 "2009-03-03T20:36:18Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Has your opinion changed at all with **Tomndebb** ’s explanation of the Tridentine mass? What is unclear about my response to Tom and my statements after that about why it’s offensive to Jews? > [@mswas](#): > > Ok, fair enough. How do you suggest the balancing of Catholic desire for tradition with the feelings of Jews on this matter? Do you think that Catholics are the only ones who need to compromise on this matter? What if the prayer doesn’t result in forced conversions? If prayer, a wish were as far as it went, how would that sit with you? There are a few options. The Catholic hierarchy can make a deliberate attempt to not offend Jews, the Catholic hierarchy can make a moderate attempt to not offend Jews as long as they satisfy the desires of the Traditionalists, the Catholic hierarchy can decide that it doesn’t give a fuck what the Jews would like. It can also understand that if it promulgates offensive statements directed at Jews, Jews will take offense. Think of it like this. While it is in accordance with Jewish theology to say that Jesus was just a poor Jewish kid who got caught up in the politics of the time and the Romans killed him for it, Christians would have a legitimate gripe if the UAHC adopted language in its prayer books that said “And let us pray that our Christian brothers get over this silly fascination with an old dead Jew from ancient Israel.” No, Christians wouldn’t have veto power (just like Jews can’t rewrite the Tridentine Mass), but Christians would be perfectly justified in pointing out that Jews were being needlessly inflammatory and damaging interfaith relations. And as I’ve pointed out, the attitudes that the Jews, in specific and by name, need to be annihilated as a religion via conversion to Christianity is offensive. And, of course, that even prayers have results in the attitudes of people and that Jews are perfectly justified in seeing renewed calls for the conversion of Jews in specific, as red flags. History has shown, time and again, that when a climate is created whereby mass Jewish conversion to Christianity is seen as the only just path, bad, bad shit tends to happen. And no, I’ve pointed out several times that willful blindness and/or tone-deaf cluelessness are much more likely than anything more pernicious. But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a red flag or that even well intentioned calls for Jews to be converted to Christianity don’t have a very long history of making very bad shit a much more likely outcome. And it’s not a prayer for kinship. A prayer for kinship would be just that, a prayer for warmer relations and brotherhood with the Jews. It’s a prayer for Jews to become not-Jews, or more to the point, Christians. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2009, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-benedict-xvi-and-catholic-jewish-relations/483564/291 "2009-03-03T20:40:33Z")
**FinnAgain** It’s interesting to me that you see the salient point being a number of the children whose parents died were kept as Catholics, rather than the salient point being that Pius XII threw open the doors of churches across Europe to save the lives of Jews. It certainly is a sticky issue. But I don’t necessarily understand that part about giving children to Jewish organizations. If someone is being raised by a family since infancy, the child’s family is dead, why should they be given over to a Jewish orphanage? I agree it’s bad that it happened when there were actual living relatives. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2009, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-benedict-xvi-and-catholic-jewish-relations/483564/292 "2009-03-03T20:44:38Z")
**FinnAgain** I see it as fundamental. It would be odder for Christians NOT to wish for Jews to accept Jesus as Messiah than it would be for them to wish for it. Jesus appeared TO THE JEWS. That’s why Jews are singled out. Yes the historical aspects are unfortunate. But it shouldn’t be baffling as to why Jews are singled out. Also, eschatology says that the Jews will be the last to convert, so by wishing for the conversion of the Jews it’s implied that everyone else has already done so. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2009, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-benedict-xvi-and-catholic-jewish-relations/483564/293 "2009-03-03T20:51:25Z")
This is what I think is particularly relevant: [QUOTE=tomndebb] Yeah. I would note that the church also prays for our **“separated brethren”** among the Christians as well as “all those who do not know Jesus.” I acknowledge that the objects of those prayers can find them offensive. There is a tension between the church’s perceived mission to bring all people to God through Jesus and the free will of everyone else that is simply not going to be resolved in a way that is acceptable to all. [/QUOTE] I think that’s important, that Jews are considered on par with other Christians as separated brethren. ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2009, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-benedict-xvi-and-catholic-jewish-relations/483564/294 "2009-03-03T20:58:36Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > If someone is being raised by a family since infancy, the child’s family is dead, why should they be given over to a Jewish orphanage? > > I agree it’s bad that it happened when there were actual living relatives. And then, if it is so important to just raise them, then why the need to convert them? Or is it that the Ctholic orphanges realize and the Jewish ones do, that they each are best equipped to raise children in the faith and culture they (= the orphange) are? So it seems to me the issue is, can you separate the kid himself from th organizational need to raise it in the culture that you know how to raise it as? Which was more important to the Catholic orphanages - the plus sign in the soon to be invented spreadsheet tracking baptismal conversions, or the recognition that the kid should be brought up among his own faith? It appears, that in at least some non-significant number of cases (IMHO 1 would be non-significant, but far more then that I am sure) the Orphanage chose or was directed to prefer to take the soul over giving it back. ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2009, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-benedict-xvi-and-catholic-jewish-relations/483564/295 "2009-03-03T21:02:20Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > This is what I think is particularly relevant: > > I think that’s important, that Jews are considered on par with other Christians as separated brethren. yeah, when I hear that at Mass, I find it offensive on par to the one about the Jews that is so special it can only be trotted out once a year. Which is perceived as more offensive to folks here - if you express it once a year on Good Friday by specific name or every day by implication? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-benedict-xvi-and-catholic-jewish-relations/483564/296 "2009-03-12T20:18:14Z")
[The Pope speaks:](http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1070699.html) > [@](#): > > Dear Brothers in the Episcopal Ministry! > > The remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated in 1988 by Archbishop Lefebvre without a mandate of the Holy See has for many reasons caused, both within and beyond the Catholic Church, a discussion more heated than any we have seen for a long time. Many Bishops felt perplexed by an event which came about unexpectedly and was difficult to view positively in the light of the issues and tasks facing the Church today. Even though many Bishops and members of the faithful were disposed in principle to take a positive view of the Pope’s concern for reconciliation, the question remained whether such a gesture was fitting in view of the genuinely urgent demands of the life of faith in our time. Some groups, on the other hand, openly accused the Pope of wanting to turn back the clock to before the Council: as a result, an avalanche of protests was unleashed, whose bitterness laid bare wounds deeper than those of the present moment … An unforeseen mishap for me was the fact that the Williamson case came on top of the remission of the excommunication. The discreet gesture of mercy towards four Bishops ordained validly but not legitimately suddenly appeared as something completely different: as the repudiation of reconciliation between Christians and Jews, and thus as the reversal of what the Council had laid down in this regard to guide the Churchs path. A gesture of reconciliation with an ecclesial group engaged in a process of separation thus turned into its very antithesis: an apparent step backwards with regard to all the steps of reconciliation between Christians and Jews taken since the Council … I have been told that consulting the information available on the internet would have made it possible to perceive the problem early on. I have learned the lesson that in the future in the Holy See we will have to pay greater attention to that source of news. … Another mistake, which I deeply regret, is the fact that the extent and limits of the provision of 21 January 2009 were not clearly and adequately explained at the moment of its publication. The excommunication affects individuals, not institutions. An episcopal ordination lacking a pontifical mandate raises the danger of a schism, since it jeopardizes the unity of the College of Bishops with the Pope. Consequently the Church must react by employing her most severe punishment excommunication with the aim of calling those thus punished to repent and to return to unity. Twenty years after the ordinations, this goal has sadly not yet been attained. The remission of the excommunication has the same aim as that of the punishment: namely, to invite the four Bishops once more to return. This gesture was possible once the interested parties had expressed their recognition in principle of the Pope and his authority as Pastor, albeit with some reservations in the area of obedience to his doctrinal authority and to the authority of the Council. Here I return to the distinction between individuals and institutions. The remission of the excommunication was a measure taken in the field of ecclesiastical discipline: the individuals were freed from the burden of conscience constituted by the most serious of ecclesiastical penalties. This disciplinary level needs to be distinguished from the doctrinal level. The fact that the Society of Saint Pius X does not possess a canonical status in the Church is not, in the end, based on disciplinary but on doctrinal reasons. As long as the Society does not have a canonical status in the Church, its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the Church. There needs to be a distinction, then, between the disciplinary level, which deals with individuals as such, and the doctrinal level, at which ministry and institution are involved. In order to make this clear once again: until the doctrinal questions are clarified, the Society has no canonical status in the Church, and its ministers even though they have been freed of the ecclesiastical penalty do not legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church. … Submitted for your consideration. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-benedict-xvi-and-catholic-jewish-relations/483564/297 "2009-03-12T20:25:01Z")
Ok so Excommunication IS a punishment. That’s a very concise explanation. Thanks for posting it. ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-benedict-xvi-and-catholic-jewish-relations/483564/298 "2009-03-12T23:14:37Z")
I guess that means “Sorry you feel the Council is no longer valid. It is, but we are still thinking about it the doctrinal issues but have not ruled out what has been suggested of us, so hold your horses and don’t jump the gun. - there will be plenty of time for that later” ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-benedict-xvi-and-catholic-jewish-relations/483564/299 "2009-03-13T22:03:01Z")
Let’s give some props where they are due. It isn’t often a Pope admits to fallibility. Yeah, he makes some lame excuses (kinds cute really that - paraphrased - “I hear that there’s this thing called the internet that we could have used to get news … dang, the carrier pigeons missed telling me this … we will have to use this source in the future.”) but he does articulate the regret and the concern more than an infallible Pope might be expected to, or usually does. And it clears up some of the issues discussed in this thread. Yes, excommunication is a punishment, not just a recognition of a state one has placed ones self. And, no, there was nothing more ceded to the Pope in return for this remission of excommunication other than “their recognition in principle of the Pope and his authority as Pastor, albeit with some reservations in the area of obedience to his doctrinal authority and to the authority of the Council” … it was instead done because punishment was not working, so maybe some big hugs will bring them along and return them with true repentance. That much _is_ internal to the Church and none of my concern. He understands that such an action was interpreted by many, Jews and Catholics among them, as signifying “the repudiation of reconciliation between Christians and Jews, and thus as the reversal of what the Council had laid down in this regard to guide the Churchs path”, takes responsibility for that, and that signal _was_ appropriately my concern. Is it a completely reassuring letter? No. As **not alice** expresses it explicitly states that doctrinal issues are now to be addressed and that compromises will be made: “… the Church’s teaching authority cannot be frozen in the year 1962 this must be quite clear to the Society. But some of those who put themselves forward as great defenders of the Council also need to be reminded that Vatican II embraces the entire doctrinal history of the Church. Anyone who wishes to be obedient to the Council has to accept the faith professed over the centuries, and cannot sever the roots from which the tree draws its life.” So we “others” remain with reasons for concern, but reassured nevertheless that this Pope does seem to truly desire mutually respectful relations with us “others”. I think he has learned something from this (and certainly I have as well, and likely so have many other of us outsiders) and perhaps relations between The Church and the rest of us can become stronger now as a result of that. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2009, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-benedict-xvi-and-catholic-jewish-relations/483564/300 "2009-03-13T22:09:04Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Let’s give some props where they are due. > > It isn’t often a Pope admits to fallibility. Yeah, he makes some lame excuses (kinds cute really that - paraphrased - “I hear that there’s this thing called the internet that we could have used to get news … dang, the carrier pigeons missed telling me this … we will have to use this source in the future.”) but he does articulate the regret and the concern more than an infallible Pope might be expected to, or usually does. Being involved with an organization that has a lot of old guys in it, the internet thing is really a real issue. Yeah it’s funny and we like to be flip about it, but it’s really hard to organize things when the younger guys have the internet but the older guys don’t. As I bet he’s surrounded by old men it’s not surprising that the internet is barely on his radar. As unbelievable as it might sound he has probably spent the last 30 years blissfully unaware of what the saturation of the internet truly is. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-benedict-xvi-and-catholic-jewish-relations/483564.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-benedict-xvi-and-catholic-jewish-relations/483564.md?page=16)