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Two Pioneers - The Pope and the Cardinal, the Secretariat and the Jews
T. F. Stransky

It seems useless to torture history by disentangling events from the persons who helped to shape them. Without Pope John XXIII and Augustin Cardinal Bea, would the second Vatican Council ever have launched the Church, almost abruptly, into the movement towards the unity of Christians and into a new era of mutual understanding and esteem between Roman Catholics and Jews? Did these two old men not play divine tricks on their supposedly more alert, more up-to-date and realistic younger church leaders? But why try to answer "would have's"? Honest men rest content with facts, not hypotheses.

I first met Cardinal Bea in September 1960 after I had been asked to be one of the three staff members in the new Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. Its modest offices were to open in October. I then saw in that 82-year-old, with bent shoulders, the mark of one long huddled over a desk, his slender back like "some frail tree exposed to a constant gale of scholarship". I only knew of him as one who could move confidently both in the world of Hebrew and Syriac, Arabic and Latin, biblical exegesis and archeological digs, and in the complex Sacred Palaces of the Holy See, a short distance from his simple quarters in the Brazilian College. I then did not know, for example, that in the later years of Pope Pius XII's reign, the Jesuit had been a consultor on ecumenical affairs to the Holy Office; that the small group of ecumenically-minded theologians who formed the International Catholic Conference on Ecumenical Questions in 1952 had always found a friendly listener and adviser in Father Bea, especially through the conference secretary, Mgr. J.G.M. Willebrands.

At that first meeting we talked at length, in 2the hope, I guess, that first impressions would be accurate, needing only later confirmation by day-to-day experience. I judged immediately that the Cardinal lived his borrowed principle: Do the truth in charity (Eph. 4:15). At the same time I saw in his judgements dove-like simplicity and serpentine wisdom (cf. Mt. 10: 16). What I did not perceive then would be revealed during eight years of working with him: a man who never lost his nerve or his calmness — an obvious charismatic quality in this age of an over-nervous Church.

Pope John had announced the creation of the Secretariat on June 5th 1960; the next day the appointment of Cardinal Bea as the Secretariat's president was published. When Father Bea became a cardinal on December 14th 1959, Pope John appears to have known little about him. The Pope evidently wished to show respect for his predecessor by promoting so intimate a servant — and confessor — of Pius XII, to show recognition for biblical scholarship and perhaps to show honor towards the Jesuits. Only in early 1960 would the two begin to know and trust each other as collaborators.

Towards the end of December 1959 Archbishop Lorenz Jaeger of Paderborn had asked the newly-created Cardinal for his opinion about a preparatory commission to handle church unity concerns in the Council preparations. The Cardinal was in full accord, and offered some suggestions for a final proposal to the Holy See. On March 11th 1960, the German archbishop sent the plan to Pope John through Cardinal Bea. It took the Pope only two days to answer — positively. He asked the Cardinal to discuss particulars with him. By March 25th the two sensible and optimistic reformers had worked out details.

In May Pope John informed the Cardinal that the new organ should be called a secretariat rather than a commission. The decision was not based on the comparative importance of the two organizations. He reasoned that since the Secretariat was to find' itself in a completely new and unfamiliar — and therefore criticized — field, it was important that it be kept free from the traditional procedures of the Roman Curia, which would probably not serve to help but might even hinder its activity. This very freedom of action provided the opening for the Secretariat's handling of Catholic—Jewish concerns at the Council. Pope John had confidence that the biblical scholar would be the most competent man to handle the question and his Secretariat the only preparatory council organ to manoeuvre in comparative freedom.

Catholic concern for improving attitudes and behaviour towards sons of Abraham was no strange abstraction for the Pope who could not forget the Jews of the Nazis' obscene persecution and his inability to render them other than individual and limited aid while Apostolic Delegate at Istanbul (1935-1944). As Pope he had already ordered the omission of "perfidious" from the customary prayer for the Jews on Good Friday (1959). But the same pope did not receive much explicit encouragement or positive concern for the Jews from the 2, 594 bishops who had been asked in 1959 to submit suggestions for possible Council topics. In the seven thick volumes of replies, I can find only one strong reference to the Jews. A Latin American prelate pleads for the "condemnation of every persecution against Jews because of their religion or for ethnic reasons", but he adds that the Council should not forget past facts and clear assertions of International Judaism; for centuries the leaders of this Judaism have methodically been conspiring by unending hate against the name of Catholics and are preparing for the destruction of the Catholic Order and for the construction of the Order of Imperial World Judaism.... Should we hate? No! But vigilance, charity, systematic fight against the systematic fight of this 'Enemy of Man' whose secret arms are the ferment of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy.

Not exactly a good outline for an eventual conciliar draft!

Catholic universities and higher institutes of learning were also formally asked for suggestions. In its response the Pontifical Biblical Institute, of which Father Bea had been former rector (1930-1949), included a section, De antisemitismo vitando, in which positive biblical reasons were given for rejecting the all too popular notion of the "malediction", "reprobation", or "collective responsibility" of the Jews in the death of Jesus and their consequent divine punishment of permanent wandering.

Two known Catholic sources took the initiative to send proposals to appropriate Council authorities. In June 1960, Mgr. John J. Dough erty, professor of exegesis at the Darlington, New Jersey (USA), seminary (now Auxiliary Bishop of Newark and President of Seton Hall University), along with ten priests, submitted a petition on the improvement of Catholic relations with the Jews. In August 1960, Catholic priests and laymen concerned with the same theme met in Apeldoorn, Holland, and formulated a detailed position paper which was later sent to the Secretariat (cf. Sidic, I : 3, 1968, p. 13).

It is difficult to know what influence these reports had on the eventual decision of Pope John to charge the Unity Secretariat with the task of preparing a statement on Catholic—Jewish relations. I suspect the reports never reached the papal desk. Nor did the topic occur in Archbishop Jaeger's proposal or in the discussions between Pope John and Cardinal Bea prior to June 1960. On June 5th the Pope had announced the basic structure of the preparatory commissions and secretariats. He commissioned the Unity Secretariat to enable "those who bear the name of Christians but are separated from this Apostolic See... to follow the work of the Council". No allusion to Jews.

Exactly one week later, on June 13th, Pope John had a visit from Professor Jules Isaac, the French historian and promotor of the society of Jews and Christians, Amitie judeo-chretienne. Among Isaac's proposals was the creation of a conciliar subcommission which would study the reasons for anti-Jewish bias. According to Isaac's memoirs, the Pope immediately responded, "Since the beginning of our conversation I've thought of that... I'm the chief, but I also must consult, have the offices study the questions raised". At the end of the visit, the Pope asked the Jewish professor to see Cardinal Bea. Neither had met each other until then; two days later they discussed the same proposals.

It was the visit of Jules Isaac with John XXIII and Augustin Bea that initiated the search for the proper Council structure which could handle an even more touchy subject than Christian unity. The search ended in the decision of September 18th 1960: the Cardinal was told that the Secretariat should prepare a statement dealing with the Jewish people. I am convinced that this decision was not based on any twisted or any authentic rationale on the relationship of Jewish—Christian stance to Christian unity concerns or on the distinction between the aims of both dialogues. The pro and con arguments, among Jews and Catholics, for the inclusion of Jewish concerns within the framework of the Secretariat would come only later. The decision was purely practical. Jewish concerns must be Second Vatican Council concerns. Cardinal Bea and his Secretariat were more likely to steer the future work in the right direction. But if I am allowed to violate my own principle about historical conjectures, I doubt very much if the Secretariat or, a fortiori, any preparatory commission would have received a papal mandate to be the official Catholic—Jewish lobby at the Council, if it were not for the person and competence of the Secretariat's president and for the almost instant trust which developed between him and Pope John in 1960.

At the first Secretariat meeting of members and consultors in November 1960, Cardinal Bea announced the papal mandate. The first step for a first report was voted upon — on November 16th, — exactly eight years before the death of the Cardinal who, with Pope John, has taught so many of us to learn "the art of the timely answer from old men" (Eccles. 8:9).