Plebe

I am posting this here in political discussions only because religion is and historically has been so often intimately a part of the furtherance of various political persuasions. This arrived in my email today and when I saw the subject header I was surprised it would be coming from William F. Buckley's publication, but then again...

INVESTOR'S NOTEBOOK -Friday, September 20, 2002
"A Digest of Investment Opinion From the
World's Leading Financial Advisers"

ON THE RIGHT by William F. Buckley Jr.

TOWARD THE DISAPPEARANCE OF CHRIST

Attention is drawn in The New York Times to a little-noticed document issued on Aug. 12 in Washington by a group of American rabbis and Roman Catholic bishops. It is called "Reflections on Covenant and Mission" and argues the astonishing proposition that Catholics should not try to convert Jews. The Bishops' Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs summarizes: "The Catholic Church has come to recognize that its mission of preparing for the coming of the kingdom of God is one that is shared with the Jewish people," in as much as the Jewish people "also abide in covenant with God."

The New York Times' reporter, Daniel Wakin, aptly summarized the meaning of the "Reflections." "Put another way, your road to salvation is as good as mine."

There are historical and sociological factors that figure in the work of the Bishops' Committee. The first, the nightmare of the Holocaust. The church has never assumed responsibility for it, no more than it assumes responsibility for Hitler. But the long tenure of Pope John Paul II is marked by dramatic efforts to disown, as indeed un-Christian, that much of church history that tolerated and encouraged what we would now call anti-Semitism, considered, back then, evangelical ardor. The pope not only "apologized" for those heavy footprints in Christian history, he sought out opportunities to dramatize a kind of theological consanguinity between Christians and Jews, traveling to Jerusalem, praying in a synagogue and shedding symbolic tears at the Wailing Wall.

But the bishops who assented to the "Reflections" have gone a step further. Catholic recognition of Judaism's theological legitimacy is not new. This is one step further. Mr. Wakin quotes the Rev. Jerry Blaszczak, chaplain of Fordham University, to the effect that the church has generally stopped trying to convert Jews as a result of a movement that began with the Second Vatican Council nearly 40 years ago, which, in Mr. Wakin's words, "affirmed the closeness of the two religions."

Immediate opposition to this holistic view of Christian/Jewish relations was registered by Jim Sibley, coordinator of Jewish Ministries for the Southern Baptist Convention. "There can be no more extreme form of anti-Semitism," he said, than to deny Jews access to evangelization. A Catholic was finally found, in the Times story, to back off from the new exhortation to deny Christian concern for Jews. The Rev. John Echert, who teaches scripture at St. Thomas Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., is said, in the Times paraphrase, to have called the document "an embarrassment that lacks teaching authority."

It is one thing to acknowledge the historical role of Judaism and to project its eternal theological claims. The "Reflections" quote John Paul (in 1982) as urging Christians to remember "how the permanence of Israel is here accompanied by a continuous spiritual fecundity, in the rabbinical period, in the Middle Ages and in modern times, taking its start from a patrimony which we long shared."

The survival of Israel is accepted as divine testimony to the special sanction of God. But the ecumenicists brush up against contradiction in interpreting the singularity of Judaism's covenant as protecting it from the basic claims of Christianity. St. Paul (Romans 10: 1-4) used language that either means nothing at all, in which case nor does any biblical language, or else something beyond the reach of bishops to ignore, let alone undo. "For they (his fellow Jews) being ignorant of God's righteousness," wrote Paul, "and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes."

So why should it offend if Christians continue to pray for "the conversion" of the Jews? Are we supposed also to deplore the solicitude of those Christians who converted Jean-Marie Lustiger, who is now cardinal archbishop of Paris? Immediately after World War II, the chief rabbi of Rome converted to Christianity. Do we assume that to have been a thoughtless act? On the local scene, Lewis Lehrman ran for governor of New York in 1982, and soon after joined the Catholic Church and abandoned politics, perhaps because there is gnashing of teeth when prominent public figures cross the theological aisle -- an aisle that the "Reflections" people are suggesting doesn't really exist.

The bishops who suggest that it is understandable for Christians to proceed as if Christ had never happened are engaged in emasculating the faith. And to say to a Jew that Christians are unconcerned about him is, as suggested by Mr. Sibley, less an injunction to acknowledge the covenant of Israel than an act of condescension and indifference.
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END OF INVESTOR'S NOTEBOOK
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{Wizardry: Edited to fix formatting and remove ALL CAPS in the title}

[ September 21, 2002: Message edited by: Wizardry ]</p>

99Percent

This is really a religious discussion on whether Catholics should try to convert Jews or not.

Off to Miscelaneous Religious Discussions.

sakrilege

Plebe, this would be easier to read if you edited out all the extra stuff.

Susan

Anunnaki

Baloney! Those ads are great and I`m ordering my "War years" audio CD collection right now.

Not!

sakrilege

I find this to be a disturbing attitude. At least some of the catholics are defining their relationship to judaism with the jews and not unilateraly.