Sunday, May 25, 2014
A Rare Pope Indeed
By Ken Spiro
From the
perspective of the Jewish people Pope Francis is a rare pope indeed.
It would be
a huge understatement to say that historically Catholic-Jewish relations
haven’t been very good. It would
probably be more accurate to say that the Church is directly or indirectly
responsible for much of the horrendous anti-Semitism suffered by European Jewry
during the last 2,000 years.
The roots of
this tremendous animus go back to the very beginnings of the early church and
even earlier.
For two
thousand years-from the time of Abraham until the birth of Christianity, Judaism
existed alone as the world’s only monotheistic faith. The Jewish people’s
unique beliefs and different lifestyle
set them apart from the pagan world and the great classical civilizations of
Greece and Rome. The differences led to open hostility toward the Jews and both
the Greek and Roman Empires, which occupied ancient Israel, attempted at
various times to eradicate Judaism.
Early
Christianity began as a splinter sect of mainstream Judaism most-probably
sometime in the early 1st century CE. During the second century it continued to
evolve and diverge from Judaism, eventually separating completely into a faith
that attracted a large number of pagan converts.
Despite
numerous attempts by the Roman Empire to eradicate nascent Christianity, in the
4th century CE the Roman emperor Constantine made it the official
religion of the Empire. A great leap forward for the spread of monotheism but
now traditional Roman animus toward Judaism took on a new theological undertone.
Toward the
end of the Great Revolt against the Roman Empire (67-70CE) the Roman legions
had burned the Temple in Jerusalem and leveled the city. Centuries later the
young Roman Catholic Church put a theological spin on the destruction. The destruction of Jerusalem and the temple
together with the exile of the Jewish people from the land of Israel was far more
than mere- Roman punish for rebellion.
It was divine retribution-The wrath of God. From the perspective of the church the Jews
had rejected Jesus as the messiah and were instrumental in his death. As punishment for their sins God rejected the
Jews, destroyed their temple and caused them to wander the earth until the
second coming of Jesus.
These
unpardonable sins were at the root of the tremendous hostility and suspicion
embedded in the collective consciousness of the church and actively spread by
the church and the early church fathers to the masses of Christendom.
In the eyes
of the church the Jews were perfidious Christ-killers, in league with the
devil; poisoners of wells who deliberately spread plagues to destroy
Christendom. They kidnap Christian
children and use their blood to bake matzot (unleavened bread eaten during Passover)
while bleeding Christendom dry of its
wealth though their usury, greed and conspiracies.
Church-driven
anti-Semitism led to open violence against Jews, especially at the time of the
first Crusade as well as constant persecution, punitive taxation, humiliation,
ghettoization, expulsions and mass murder.
As Europe
emerged from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance and into the Enlightenment
the church’s powerful hold on the masses weakened and anti-Jewish violence in
western Europe waned.
But then came the Holocaust and while Hitler’s
attack against the Jews was not specifically theological there is no doubt that
he would not have been able to do what he did to European Jewry without
building on 2,000 years of Christian anti-Semitism. At the same time, the role of the war-time
Pope Pius XII and his apparent failure to confront the horrors of Nazism remains
a dark stain on the history of the church.
Out of the ashes
of Auschwitz the State of Israel emerged yet despite the death of 6 million Jews and
miraculous re-birth of the Jewish state it took decades for the church to make
any major steps in re-evaluating its attitude toward Judaism and the Jewish
people.
FORGIVENESS-Finally in 1965 the first bold move
came at the end of Pope Paul VI’s tenure.
It is known as Vatican II and the document makes three very significant
statements about the Jewish people:
-Only a few
Jews were involved in the plot to kill Jesus
-No Jew alive
today can be held responsible for Jesus’s death
True, the
Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of
Christ; still, what happened in His
passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then
alive, nor against the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new people
of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if
this followed from the Holy Scriptures. …Furthermore, in her rejection of every
persecution against any man, the Church, mindful of the patrimony she shares
with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel's spiritual
love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against
Jews at any time and by anyone. Vatican II –Nostra Aetate
After two
thousand years the church was finally able to forgive the Jews for something
they never did in the first place.
ACCEPTANCE-The next major step came from Pope
John Paul II in 2000 and it was even more significant. He established diplomatic relations with
Israel and visited the country even praying at the Western Wall. If God had allowed the Jewish people to
return to Israel and re-unified Jerusalem maybe He hadn't rejected them after
all. This represented a huge shift in
the church’s attitude toward Judaism.
RECONCILIATION AND LEGITIMIZATION-Pope Francis is proving to be quite a
maverick. He eschews much of the
formality and pomp of his office while working hard to rejuvenate the church
and reconcile the church not only with modernity but also with other faiths.
Based on
past statements made by Francis it could well be argued that he will bring
about the greatest shift in the church’s attitude toward Judaism in 2,000 years:
We hold the
Jewish people in special regard because their
covenant with God was never revoked….With them we believe in one God who
acts in history and with them we accept his revealed word. Pope Francis- Evangelli Gaudium 2013
The notion
that the Jewish people’ covenant with God remains intact is truly a radical
break with classic Catholic theology and reminiscent of statement made by
dual-covenant, pro-Israel, evangelicals like Pastor John Hagee.
This new
perspective will hopefully lead to a significant re-evaluation and improvement
of the relationship between the Catholicism and Judaism, Catholics and Jews and
the Vatican and the State of Israel.
Since the
church of Saint Peter was established almost 2,000 years ago there have only been
three popes out of 266 brave enough to make significant changes in the
relationship between the worlds’ largest faith and one of the smallest. Let us hope that trend continues.
# posted by The View from Jerusalem @ 5/25/2014 
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
