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Update on Catholic Education on Jews and Judaism

Eugene J. Fisher
Israel (1994/05/26)

 

Paper delivered at the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee,Jerusalem, 23-26 May 1994

Introduction (1)

I have been asked to update teaching about Jews and Judaism in English-language materials since our last meeting in May of 1992. The ILC has been tracking developments in both Catholic and Jewish education for many years, and the present effort will presume those earlier reports rather than attempting to duplicate them2.

Along with these earlier reports and studies, the conceptual frame for the present brief survey, its "base-line", can be found in the presentation on Catholic Education of Fr. Remi Hoeckman, OP, to the Baltimore ILC meeting representing at that time the Holy See's Congregation for Education. That text, "The Teaching of Jews and Judaism in Catholic Education", was subsequently distributed widely by the Congregation for Education and more recently published by the Anti-Defamation League's In Dialogue3.

1. 1992 Cunningham Study of Catholic Textbooks

At the 1992 ILC meeting in Baltimore, I reported informally on the then just completed study of contemporary Catholic textbook treatment of Jews and Judaism made by Dr. Philip Cunningham in the form of a doctoral dissertation for Boston College 4. I would note here that Cunningham's study is the third in a series of Catholic textbook analyses that began before the Council (Thering, 1960; Fisher, 1976; Cunningham, 1992)5. It is useful here at least to review Cunningham's findings.

There was approximately a decade and a half time period between my study and Thering's, and between Cunningham's and mine. As my study showed measurable improvement from before to after the Second Vatican Council in key areas, especially where Nostra Aetate had been explicit in its mandate to the Church, so Cunningham's showed continuing progress from the mid-1970s to the early l990s. Both of our studies, of course, pointed to significant areas where further advances in the accuracy of a portrait of Jews and Judaism remain not only possible but also, I would argue, urgent for the Church to consider today.

Briefly, Cunningham's results can be summarized as follows: Jews as they appear in the Hebrew Scriptures (Tenach) tend to be depicted positively, rather than negatively as so often prevailed in the past, where Jewish "faithlessness" to the covenant was often highlighted. The text of the Hebrew Scriptures is more clearly revered as God's Word in its own right in accordance with Dei Verbum 14-16, rather than simply as a propadeutic or superseded background to the New Testament as was often the case before the Council.

Such seemingly simple affirmations should not be taken for granted. Prior to the Council, many texts would seek out negatives about Jews and Judaism from the Sacred Text in a misguided apologetic that sought to affirm Christianity by denigrating Judaism. The antiquity of such misplaced Christian zeal can be seen to this day, for example, on the portals of some of the great medieval cathedrals where the Church Triumphant on one side is juxtaposed with the Synagogue, depicted poignantly with the staff of the Law broken and the Tablets of the Commandments tumbling out of her hands. While such images were popularly evoked in the past, often with tragic consequences, they are increasingly rare in Catholic education today, to the point where, I would suggest, future generations of Catholics may need an explanation to understand what is being communicated by the juxtaposed statues of Church and Synagogue, just as younger American Catholics today, in the main, have never (thankfully) even heard the word "deicide".

Similarly, when present-day Jews are portrayed, or contemporary Judaism presented, the language is normally positive in Catholic texts, even to the point of conscious efforts and classroom activities being devoted to breaking down old stereotypes, such as the Shylock image of usurious Jews, which so plagued Christian imagination in the past. The overall impression left in the minds of students who go through a Catholic religious education curriculum in the U.S. today will generally be a positive one, especially among those who graduate from Catholic secondary schools and colleges. Surveys have shown that Catholic teachers and students in the U.S. are more positive toward and have a better understanding of Judaism and Jewish realities than the general population.

Still, as in much of the U.S. education and culture, Catholic and secular alike, there is, in my opinion, insufficient attention paid to history. So Catholics are as little likely today as in previous generations to be aware of and sensitive to, for example, the mixed Jewish reaction to the Cross that is the result of centuries of crusader massacres of Jews, the Inquisition, and forced conversions6. Fr. Edward Flannery's classic study, The Anguish of the Jews, opens with the vivid scene of a young Jewish woman shuddering in fear at the sight of a "huge illuminated cross" on Park Avenue in New York at Christmas time. Looking into the reasons, Flannery concluded that much is missing from Catholic history books. "The pages that Jews have memorized have been torn from our histories of the Christian era"7. That was written in 1964. Thirty years later, newspaper commentaries on the profoundly significant Yom haShoah concert at the Vatican focussed on the words of a survivor of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising who attended the concert: "As a young boy growing up in prewar Warsaw, I feared the sidewalk next to a church. Now, some fifty years later, the unthinkable is happening"8. Evidently we Catholics still need some educating about the fact of deep Jewish fears of Christianity's central symbols, and the long, tragic history that lies behind those quite understandable fears.

Cunningham reports some progress in four key New Testament areas that emerged as problematic in my 1976 study. These are: Jesus' conflicts with his fellow Jews (from -.57 to -.04, with + 1 being all positive statements and - 1 all negatives); a negative portrait of "the" Pharisees as a foil over against which to show the moral superiority of Christian teaching and practice (-.79 to -.23); implications of collective or "religious" reasons for Jesus' death; i.e. blaming all Jews and/or Jewish religion as such (-.42 to -.03); and the confusion of proper "fulfilment" theology with its darker Marcionite counterpart, supersessionism (-.24 to -.06).

It should be evident from the numbers that in these remaining problematic areas, progress does not mean a full resolution of all the issues into a wholly positive portrait. Rather, the move has been from mainly or mostly negative to a relative "balance" of negatives and positives, or to put it another way, accurate statements about Jews and Judaism and inaccurate, often apologetically inspired statements in these key New Testament categories. Still, given the fact that Jesus today, unlike earlier generations, is seen clearly and strongly as Jewish, there is a very real sense of progress to be acknowledged.

What happened between my study and the present to improve textbook treatment of these highly complex and sensitive areas? I suggest that one factor was the promulgation on June 24, 1985 of the Holy See's Notes on the Correct Way to Present Jews and Judaism in the Preaching and Catechesis of the Roman Catholic Church9. This document had a strong influence on statements of Catholic Bishops Conferences in their own subsequent statements on Jewish-Catholic relations (such as in the U.S. Bishops in 1988, the Polish Episcopate in 1991, and the Australian Bishops in 1992). Thus it has had indirect as well as direct influence on textbook publishers and authors, accounting for at least some of the statistical improvement in clarity of presentation in Catholic teaching with regard to Jews and Judaism10.

2. Implementing Official Documents: How Catholic Education Happens

I am often asked how we go about implementing the official documents of the Church. It is all right to have these excellent statements coming from the Pope and the Holy See, it is said, but how do they get "filtered down" to the pews on the "grass roots" level. Mixed metaphor or not, this is always a pertinent question. My point here is that it is already happening. The Cunningham study shows that it is happening in Catholic classrooms. And there are many publications and efforts every year done jointly by Jewish agencies and Catholic organizations ranging from the Bishops' Conferences to local dioceses and educational associations11. What follows will provide a few more ways in which the silent reform of Catholic teshuvah, which includes not only repentance, but also in Catholicism as in Judaism a firm resolve to change from the former path by turning toward righteousness and truth, is taking place today, however slowly.

Pope John Paul II over the years has undertaken a remarkable series of highly symbolic events which it is hoped will have a wide influence on Catholic attitudes toward Jews, and maybe even vice-versa. I will just list them here. In April of 1986, Pope John Paul II became the first Bishop of Rome to visit the Great Synagogue of Rome since the time of St. Peter (who as far as we know was a regular). In September of 1987, the Pope visited the United States, having as virtually his first official act a memorable meeting in Miami with some 400 representatives of the American Jewish community. This was widely covered and reported on in the Catholic press. On December 20th last year, the Holy See and the State of Israel signed in Jerusalem their historic "Fundamental Accord" leading to an exchange of ambassadors between the two tiny Mediterranean states, or, more properly as the Preamble puts it, between "the Catholic Church and the Jewish People". In numerous dioceses throughout the United States there has occurred a wide variety of programs and celebrations to welcome the Accord and educate both Jews and Catholics about its significance. In April of this year the Holy Father and the Chief Rabbi of Rome sat together in the Vatican to hear a Yom haShoah concert honouring the victims of the Holocaust12. One would hope that such joint commemorations of the Shoah would become a regular part of the calendar of cathedrals and dioceses throughout the Catholic world.

Such events taken together, all of them historic "firsts", can have a very powerful educational effect on Catholics in the U.S., as elsewhere in the world. Some events of educational significance may, however, go unnoticed. On Easter Sunday of this year, for example, the magazine, Parade, carried a cover photo and story on the Pope. What was unusual was that the coverage was entirely of John Paul II's teachings on Catholic-Jewish relations, his personal experience of the Holocaust, and his hopes for reconciliation between the Catholic Church and the Jewish People as we near the third millennium of the relationship. Parade is inserted into the Sunday newspapers of approximately 36.5 million American homes. It has, therefore, a potential readership of three to four times that number in the U.S. Similarly, other media such as movies and museums can carry forward the educational task. I will deal with examples of these when I take up the issue of Holocaust education.

Significant progress in Catholic English-language education about Jews and Judaism is hardly the sole preserve of the United States. Equivalent advances have been made, to my knowledge in neighboring (and neighborly) Canada, and I presume in England and Ireland as well, although I have less direct knowledge of recent efforts there. If I report more on my own country than other English-speaking nations, it is simply that I know it better and so can report more accurately.

Since my mandate is a language area rather than the geographical area of the United States, let me include some remarks, however insufficiently or incompletely, on Australia, which I visited in 1990 under the auspices of the Sisters of Sion, who were then celebrating their hundredth anniversary there. The Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference issued its first-ever set of "Guidelines for Catholic-Jewish Relations" in 1992. This text, which took advantage of previous texts and is therefore in many ways the "state of the art" for such statements, is marked by the frankness and clarity of its style as well as the substance of its contents. On education, the Australian bishops focus equally on both of the Church's main "delivery systems" that can be brought to bear in implementing official teachings. These are the classroom and the pulpit.

This mandate of the Bishops' conference seems to have already begun to bear fruit in the educational systems of the island-continent. There have been in the past few years several publications on the issues of the dialogue ranging from popular-level materials to scholarly articles in theological journals such as Pacifica.
3. Mainstreaming the Dialogue

The implications of Jewish-Christian dialogue involve nearly every area of Christian thought and practice, from our understanding of Sacred Scripture to the origins of ecclesial polity and Christian liturgy itself in Jewish life and tradition. It is not surprising, then, that keeping track of the dialogue involves one in a chase running the gamut from biblical and liturgical to historical and doctrinal studies. For a volume with Rabbi Leon Klenicki commemorating the 25th Anniversary of Nostra Aetate, I developed an English language annotated bibliography for the years 1975-1989 that took up some 54 pages of printed text13. Recently, I completed an update from 1990-1993 that will take up 28 pages of the CCAR Journal for Winter 1994, put out by the Central Conference of American Rabbis. This represents something of an explosion in the literature of the field. It shows that interest in it in the Christian community is no longer limited to a specialised dialogical "elite" as some have charged, at least in the U.S. Rather, it is working its way into the mainstream of academic, pastoral and educational agendas. I would like to track, very briefly, the path through mainline literature of just one set of issues central to the dialogue: the need to rethink ancient, largely negative interpretations of the New Testament.

The Spring, 1993 issue of the Journal of Biblical Literature, for example, contains a major article by New Testament scholar Terence Donaldson surveying recent scholarly interpretations of Romans 11. A key issue in the current debates, he cites is "Israel's Rejection and Paul's Gentile Mission"14, an issue that was once rather an "in-house" topic of the biblical scholars active in the dialogue. Similarly, the annual meetings of the Catholic Biblical Association feature an ongoing scholarly seminar on biblical issues of pertinence to Christian-Jewish relations (and vice-versa). Such work is, in turn, reflected in articles in the Catholic Biblical Quarterly.

Again, it should not be a surprise when a major work of the era such as Raymond Brown's two-volume The Death of the Messiah (1994) devotes a special section and several side-bars of ongoing commentary to the author's reactions to and opinions on issues of the dialogue, and sees these issues as having significance precisely because of the importance of the Church's relationship with the Jewish people. One need not agree with all of Father Brown's conclusions to acknowledge with a sense of gratitude the seriousness with which he approaches the implications of the dialogue for his own work.

The "mainstreaming" of issues of the dialogue into ongoing scholarly literature is, in its turn, reflected in the resources that depend on the scholarship that are being developed for use by preachers preparing homilies and by professors preparing seminary courses. For example, the Catholic Study Bible edition of the New American Bible, on which Catholic lectionary selections are also based, takes great care throughout to raise issues of Jewish-Christian concern and to offer helpful approaches to them. Published by Oxford University Press and distributed as well by the U.S. Catholic Conference, the Catholic Study Bible will be on the shelves for ready reference of priests, seminarians and educators for decades15.

A question that will come up in this context can at this time be approached only tentatively. This is the issue of how well the new universal Catechism of the Catholic Church has succeeded in integrating into its presentations of Catholic teaching the documents of the Holy See and of Pope John Paul II with regard to Jews and Judaism, and what the long-range effect of the Catechism will be on Catholic education over the next generation or more. Obviously, it must be left to future ILC meetings to report in any depth on these questions. I have done a very preliminary overview for an article I was asked to do for a recent issue of Interfaith Focus devoted to the Catechism16.

My preliminary survey relied on the November 1992 French edition put out by Mame/Plon. Briefly I found that the Catechism does take into account the 1974 Guidelines and the 1985 Notes, especially in its treatment of Article Four of the Creed ("suffered and died under Pontius Pilate"), where it makes an extended case against any sense of collective guilt being placed on the Jews for Jesus' death (paragraphs 574-600) and in its discussion of "the Church and non-Christians" (839-848), which focusses heavily on Catholic understandings of Jews and Judaism. The Catechism also in appropriate places acknowledges the Church's spiritual debt to Judaism, for example in the origins of Christian liturgical practices. It emphasizes the Jewishness of Jesus and Mary and the early Church. It condemns "genocide" and any persecution or discrimination "by race or religion", although the French does not use either the term "Holocaust" or "anti-Semitism".

What effect these positive treatments will have, ultimately, is difficult to foresee, especially since the English text is at this writing not yet out. I did note a number of passages that could be interpreted in more than one way, depending on translation, and on how one applies lessons from other sections of the text. Only time can tell how much weight will be given to particular sections by textbook publishers. Without wishing to be overly optimistic, I can say that the Catechism does attempt to consolidate the teachings of the Holy See to date17. This too represents a "mainstreaming" of the concerns of this dialogue that will have an impact-on classrooms and pulpits for years to come.

4. Holocaust Education

This is an area that has seen significant development in the last few years. Catholic efforts in the U.S. need to be seen within the context of larger educational and social movements.

Until the mid-1970s, when I gave talks to Catholic groups I could not presume a shared understanding of the word, "Holocaust", but would have to define it, if briefly, by referring to the Nazi genocide against European Jews in World War II. There was, as Elie Wiesel pointed out time and again, a respectful, awed silence even within the Jewish community over the tragedy. With the airing of the NBC-TV mini-series, "Holocaust", however, all that changed. Survivors who had remained silent for decades began to feel empowered to narrate their stories and to accept invitations to speak to students and Church groups. In the 1980s, Centers of Holocaust studies and museums were established in many cities across the country. Holocaust curricula were developed for public schools, and often hotly debated.

Joining the debates, ironically, were the neo-Nazi groups and sympathizers who called themselves "Holocaust revisionists" in an attempt to hide their preachments of hatred under a veneer of self-styled "scholarly" respectability. Their real message was an attempt to deny the Nazi atrocities and so re-write history. These persons for a time found platforms in colleges and academic symposia. They have recently adopted a new tactic of taking out advertisements in college newspapers. In March of 1994, therefore, the ongoing Consultation between the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Synagogue Council of America issued a joint statement warning educators, both Catholic and Jewish, against such tactics by hate groups18. A survey sponsored by the American Jewish Committee in the spring of 1993 found a disconcertingly high percentage of Americans at least willing to entertain doubts about the Holocaust.

The survey just mentioned was commissioned just before the opening of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. in April of 1993. The International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee meeting in Baltimore in 1992 had the opportunity to visit the site and receive a "tour" of the Museum model by Dr. Michael Berenbaum. Since its opening, I have been through the Museum several times and met joint Catholic-Jewish delegations who have come to it together in a spirit of reflection, dialogue and, indeed, pilgrimage. The Museum lives up to the hopes for it expressed to the ILC in 1992.

The U.S. Holocaust Museum has already had a tremendous impact on American society. It is one of the most visited sites on the Washington mall. Those who go through it are two-thirds non-Jewish, with Catholics, interestingly, over-represented within that group. I believe this is because of American Catholics' more "ethnic" and immigrant roots in the U.S. Also, the opening of the Museum and the surrounding events, such as the interreligious service at the Washington Cathedral, were widely covered in the media. This was, then, a moment of intense education about the Holocaust for many Americans, and the Museum itself provides for a continuation of that ongoing educational effort nationally as well as locally.

At the end of the year, the Steven Spielberg film, Schindler's List, came out to critical acclaim and to a far greater audience of moviegoers than had been anticipated. The movie was debated and celebrated, commended and condemned, for all sorts of reasons by many people, Jews no less than non-Jews. Such debate about not only the film but the Shoah and Christian responsibility is healthy. Oskar Schindler, of course, was a Catholic and is buried here in Jerusalem in a Catholic cemetery. But his saving deeds cannot obscure the failings of other Catholics toward their Jewish neighbors.

Spielberg's masterwork has been and will continue to be seen by millions of people around the world. Hopefully, it will also continue to arouse people to debate its issues. In accepting the Academy Award, Spielberg praised and asked support for Holocaust education efforts. Together with the Museum, the film and the discussion around it has changed dramatically the national climate of understanding and awareness of the Holocaust. It would be most instructive to see the American Jewish Committee survey retaken today asking the same questions. My guess is that the responses would not be the same.

Catholics, of course, have been very much involved in the development of Holocaust educational programming in public education as in more specifically Jewish-Christian programs and even joint Yom Hashoah memorial services 19. One thinks here immediately of the work in the field of Holocaust education by Catholic scholars such as Rose Thering OP; Carol Rittner RSM; Eva Fleischner; John Pawlikowski OSM; Harry James Cargas; Mary Boys SNJM; John Merkle; Michael J. Carroll, Michael McGarry CSP and John Morley, among many others. The Catholic community in the United States is also grateful to two fine institutions. First, the Institute and now also Department of Judeo-Christian Studies of Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey, pioneered so much under Msgr. John Oesterreicher. That work, happily, is continuing under Rev. Lawrence Frizzell.

Perhaps less well known is the establishment only a few years ago of the National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education at Seton Hill College in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Co-directed by Sisters of Charity Mary Noel Kernan in Greensburg and Gemma Del Duca at Tel Gamaliel here in Israel, the Center seeks to "educate the educators" with programs co-sponsored with Yad vaShem in Israel and a variety of programs and educational services in the United States. The National Catholic Center provides invaluable resources to and impetus for Holocaust education in the United States.

5. New and Renewed Resource Centers and Institutes

Finally, it is significant that the last few years have seen a surge in the establishment of local and national institutes and other centers devoted to developing educational resources, training educators, etc. Here, I may mention the establishment in Chicago, Illinois, and Brooklyn, New York, of the houses of the Sisters of Sion. Wherever they are around the world, from Australia to here in Jerusalem, one can count on good things happening in Catholic- Jewish relations and Catholic education.

There are also a number of other joint ventures, Catholic-Jewish and Christian-Jewish, developing throughout the United States which have an overall educational agenda. Some examples among many recently begun endeavors that might be mentioned are: the Jewish-Catholic colloquium established as an outcome of the overall efforts of Baltimore's Institute for Jewish-Christian Studies; the Skirball Institute on American Values' annual nationwide conferences, begun last year for students and faculties of Catholic, Jewish and Protestant seminaries; the Center for Christian-Jewish Education co-sponsored by the American Jewish Committee and the Sisters of Sion in Chicago; the Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum Foundation in New York; the American Interfaith Institute headquartered in Philadelphia; and the Institute for Jewish-Christian Understanding at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut. That so many different and exciting programs are currently being initiated offers very solid hope for the future.

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Notes
* Dr. Eugene J. Fisher is Director for Catholic-Jewish Relations, National Conference of Catholic Bishops, U.S.A.

1 Great American pioneers of the dialogue who have died were remembered by the speaker.

2 For earlier reports and analyses, see especial1y the papers from the 1978 International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee (ILC) meeting in Madrid (1978), Regensberg (1979), and Rome (1985). These are conveniently collected in the ILC's volume of its first Fifteen Years of Catholic-Jewish Dialogue 1970-1985 (Rome: Libreria Editrice Lateranense; and Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1988) 63-144, 129-269; along with relevant texts of the Holy See and Pope John Paul II

3 In the second volume of the journal, In Dialogue: Essays on Current Issues of the Interreligious Relationship (New York, Anti-Defamation League 1994) 1-17. The same issue of In Dialogue has an update of analyses of Protestant texts by Stuart Polly (pp. 18-27) and of Catholic education by Rabbi Leon Klenicki and myself (pp. 28-65). I shall naturally draw on some of this material for the present survey.

4 See ibid, 46-51, for my summary of Dr. Cunningham's work.

5 The late 1950s study by Sr. Rose Thering OP, is reported in John Pawlikowski, OSM Catechetics and Prejudice (Paulist 1973). My own is found in Chapter 7 of my Faith Without Prejudice (Paulist, 1977; rev. ed. Crossroad 1993). Comparisons with European studies are possible through C.H. Bishops's How Catholics Look at Jews (Paulist, 1974) and with Protestants through Stuart Polly's article, "What are Protestants Teaching About Jews and Judaism?" in the above-mentioned Vol. II of ADL's In Dialogue (pp. 18-27).

6 On this history, see the essays of Eugene Fisher, ed. Interwoven Destinies Jews and Christians through the Ages (Paulist, 1993); Marc Saperstein, Moments of Crisis in Jewish-Christian Relations (London: SCM Press and Philadelphia: Trinity Press, 1989); and special issues of SIDIC such as Vol. 24, No. 1 on "The Cross in Jewish-Christian Historical Perspective" and Vol. 25 No. 2 "Spain and the Jews - 1492-1992") (Via del Plebiscito 112, 00186 Roma, Italy). Ironically, the Second Vatican Council's Nostra Aetate No. 4, which does not appeal to Patristic or earlier Conciliar sources but relies on Scripture to make its points, twice uses the image of "the cross of Christ" to emphasize its teachings with regard to theology and social morality. The first uses a reference to Ephesians to bolster its very positive interpretation of the somewhat ambiguous image of root and branches in Romans 11:17-24: "Indeed, the Church believes that by His cross Christ, our Peace, reconciled Jew and Gentile, making them both one in Himself (Ep .2:14-16)". The second follows the condemnation of "the hatreds, persecutions, and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews at any time arid from any source". Reminding Catholics that Christ "freely underwent His passion and death", the Council concludes its deliberation on the relationship between the Church and the Jewish People with the affirmation that "it is, therefore, the duty of the Church's preaching to proclaim the cross of Christ as the sign of God's all embracing love and as the fountain from which every grace flows".

7 Edward H. Flannery, The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-three Centuries of Anti-Semitism (New York: Macmillan, 1965).

8 John Tagliabue, "Holocaust Lamentations Echo at Vatican", New York Times, April 8, 1994; cf. also National Catholic Reporter, column by Richard P. McBrien, April 29 1994.

9 Text included in Fifteen Years of Catholic-Jewish Dialogue, op. cit. 304-318. The document was promulgated on June 24, 1985, the feast of Sr. John the Baptist.

10 Again, Fr. Remi Hoeckman's paper, cited above, is definitive on official Catholic documentation with regard to education up to 1992. Pertinent American Catholic documentation and commentary can be found in the revised edition of my Faith Without Prejudice: Rebuilding Christian Attitudes Toward Judaism (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 1993) and in the Stimulus Volume I did with Leon Klenicki for the 25th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, called In Our Time: The Flowering of Jewish-Catholic Dialogue (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1990).

11 Many of these are listed in the bibliography to the revised edition of my volume for Christian educators: Faith Without Prejudice (op.cit.) pp. 195-205. Some examples of joint efforts still in circulation are my Seminary Education and Christian Jewish Relations: A Curriculum and Resource Handbook (National Catholic Educational Association and American Jewish Committee, 1983; revised 1988); Leon Klenicki and Gabe Huck, The Passover Celebration: A Haggadah for the Seder (Archdiocese of Chicago, Liturgy Training Program, and Anti-Defamation League, 1980, 1985); Abraham Our Father in Faith: A Religious Teacher's Curriculum Guide, (originally put out by the Schools Office of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in 1979; revised 1990, this excellent curriculum was distributed nationally in the U.S. jointly by ADL and the NCCB, then translated into Spanish by CELAM for distribution by the Latin American bishops conferences); Eugene Fisher and Leon Klenicki, Understanding the Jewish Experience: Joint Educational Program (US Catholic Conference and ADL, 1980, 1994); Rose Thering OP, Jews, Judaism and Catholic Education Seton Hall University, American Jewish Committee, A.D.L., 1986); David Efroymson, Eugene Fisher, Leon Klenicki, eds., Within Context: Essays on Jews and Judaism in the New Testament (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press in cooperation with the Anti-Defamation League and the American Interfaith Institute, 1993); John Paul II on Jews and Judaism (United States Catholic Conference and Anti-Defamation League, 1987); Alfred Wolf and Royale Vadakin, eds. A Journey of Discovery: A Resource Manual for Jewish-Catholic Dialogue (Valencia CA: Tabor Publishing, 1989); and Annette Daum and Eugene Fisher, The Challenge of Shalom for Catholics and Jews (Union of American Hebrew Congregations and National Conference of Catholic Bishops 1985). Into this list also can be placed the entire, remarkable series of books published by Paulist Press with the Stimulus Foundation. (For information on Stimulus Books FAX 201-825-6921).

12 The remarks of Pope John Paul II and of Jewish representatives A. James Rudin of the American Jewish Committee, Jack Eisner, Warsaw Ghetto Survivor and Roger Tilles of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations at the April 7 1994 Concert Commemorating the Holocaust are published in Origins Washington D.C.: Catholic News Service, Vol. 23, No. 45, April 28 1994) 780-784. The text of the Fundamental Agreement appeared in Origins Vol. 23 (Jan 13, 1994) 525 ff., and the Pope's address in the Synagogue in Rome in Vol. 15 (April 24, 1986) 729 ff. Similarly, statements of the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee can be found in Origins Vol.17 (1987) 197 ff., and Vol. 20 (1990) 233 ff.

13 In Our Time, see footnote 10, above, pp. 107-161.

14 Journal of Biblical Literature (Vol. 112, No 1) 81-98. For the entry of Christian-Jewish issues into the mainstream of biblical scholarship, the name of E.P. Sanders stands out. His work has been of such consistent quality that scholars writing in the field cannot ignore it even when they disagree with this or that conclusion.

15 The 1986 revision of the 1970 New American Bible also made some improvements in its "apparatus" (notes and chapter headings) to take into account Church teaching up to that point. Romans 9: 1-5, for example, is now translated more properly in the present tense ("They are Israelites theirs the adoption, the glory, the covenants...") rather than in the past tense as in 1970 Similarly the headings inserted in the text have in places changed dramatically. In 1970, for example, the NAB headings for Romans 9-11 included: "Israel's Present Rejection... Grief for the Jews... Israel's Unbelief... Israel's Fall... Israel's Final Conversion". in the 1986 revision, the same headings read: "Jews and Gentiles in God's Plan... Paul's Love for Israel.. Righteousness Based on Faith... The Remnant of Israel... God's irrevocable Call". Clearly, the reader is guided toward dramatically different interpretations depending on how the inserted chapter headings are phrased.

16 Interfaith Focus (New York: And-Defamation League, Vol. 1, No. 2). The special issue entitled "Catechism of the Catholic Church: Catholic and Jewish Readings" also contains articles by Rabbi Leon Klenicki and Catholic religions educators Padraic O'Hare and Mary C. Boys. (Cf. SIDIC, Vol. XXVII - 2 - 1994, ed ).

17 Mary Boys in her paper for Interfaith Focus, cit., notes her concern with the Catechism's reliance on typology. Will this inhibit other approaches to the biblical text, such as the 1985 Notes' affirmation of the validity of typology along with other interpretative approaches, including the possibility of "Christians... profiting discerningly from the traditions of Jewish reading" (Notes No. II, 7; cf. Fifteen Years p. 309)? Only time will tell. Certainly the Pope's many addresses and reflections on the importance of understanding Judaism for Catholic self-understanding give rise to positive expectations for the future.

18 Bishops' Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (USA) and the Interreligious Affairs Committee of the Synagogue Council of America, Joint Statement on Dealing with Holocaust Revisionism (New York and Washington, March 14, 1994). The Statement points out that Holocaust revisionists "seek to deny the crimes of the Nazis, particularly the attempt to exterminate the Jewish people. In the guise of holocaust revisionism, the deniers of the evils perpetrated by Nazism against so many peoples and groups in Europe seek to rehabilitate the tattered image of National Socialism... We condemn these prejudiced efforts and the racial hatred they would incite... This is a perversion of the First Amendment. All educational institutions and their publications, whether official or student-sponsored, should unconditionally reject any efforts to deny the horrifying realities of the Holocaust". John Cardinal O'Connor of New York, Episcopal Moderator for Catholic-Jewish Relations, and Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, President of the Synagogue Council of American, head the Consultations, which have been held twice a year since the autumn of 1987, following the Pope's trip to the United States.

19 For example, Leon Klenicki and Eugene Fisher, From Desolation to Hope: An Interreligious Holocaust Memorial Service (Archdiocese of Chicago Liturgy Training Program, 1983; revised 1990) has been used in joint memorial services in many dioceses in the U.S. and is currently being translated into Spanish for circulation in Latin America. It was included also in the volume by Elie Wiesel and Albert Friedlander, The Six Days of Destruction: Meditation toward Hope (Paulist, 1988).