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TO BE TOGETHER ‘A LIGHT TO THE NATIONS’ THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC-JEWISH RELATIONS
Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy, February 18, 1999*


I am very pleased to have this opportunity to reflect on the future of Catholic-Jewish relations in the light of the approaching Jubilee 2000 and the possibility of using this “graced time” for reconciliation between our two faith communities. Over the past 35 years, Jews and Christians have begun slowly but resolutely to forge a new relationship. The recently elected president of the International Council of Christians and Jews, Orthodox Rabbi David Rosen, has described this process “as one of the greatest revolutions in human history.” For him, the church is no longer to be seen as being part of the problem for Jews, but rather as “part of the solution.”1

I am well aware that this new relationship to which Rabbi Rosen refers is still fragile. The coming Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 calls Christians to a real conversion, both internal and external, before God and before our neighbor. As members of the church but also as ordinary members of the human race, past history questions us. The silences, prejudices, persecutions and compromises of past centuries weigh upon us. If we could heal the wounds that bedevil Christian-Jewish relations, we would contribute to the healing of the wounds of the world, the tiqqun ‘olam (the mending of the world), which the Talmud considers to be a necessary action in building a just world and preparing for the kingdom of the Most High.

In his letter accompanying the Vatican document on the Shoah, Pope John Paul II expresses the fervent hope that “We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah” will help heal the wounds of the past and “enable memory to play its necessary part in the process of shaping a future in which the unspeakable iniquity of the Shoah will never again be possible.” Speaking recently to members of the United Jewish Appeal Federations of North America, His Holiness recalled the “very close bonds of spiritual kinship which Christians share with the great religious tradition of Judaism stretching back through Moses to Abraham” and went on to state:

For the good of the human family, it is crucial at this time that all believers work together to build structures of genuine peace. This is not just because of some political necessity which will pass, but because of God’s command, which endures forever. (cf. Ps 33:11) In our different ways, Jews and Christians follow the religious path of ethical monotheism. We worship the one, true God; but this worship demands obedience to the ethic declared by the prophets: ‘Cease to do evil, learn to do good; correct oppression; defend the fatherless; plead for the widow’.” (Is 1:17)2

This, I believe, is the challenge that faces us, Jews and Christians, in view of growing secularism, religious apathy and moral confusion, in which there is little room for God. We may feel secure in a pluralistic, liberal-oriented society, and there are good reasons to do so. Yet it might be wise to keep in mind the possibility that a society with little room for God may one day find little room for those who believe in God and wish to live according to his law and commandments.3 Rabbi Abraham Heschel, who exercised such vital influence on the decision of Pope John XXIII to include Jewish-Catholic relations on the agenda of the Second Vatican Council, once wrote:

Nazism has suffered a defeat, but the process of eliminating the Bible from the consciousness of the Western world goes on. It is on the issue of saving the radiance of the Hebrew Bible in the minds of man that Jews and Christians are called upon to work together. None of us can do it alone. Both of us must realize that in our age anti-Semitism is anti-Christianity, and anti-Christianity is anti-Semitism.”4

As we leave behind this tragic century, we Christians and Jews are no longer called simply to reconciliation, but to genuine partnership. Rabbi Rosen, in the interview already quoted, puts it like this: “I think we have to try to have a deeper communion, while respecting those very fundamental differences. I see us as partners in divine destiny with two different models of the message.”5 We are called to speak a prophetic word to the world in which we live. We do not live for ourselves alone but to be “a light to the nations”. (Is 49:6; Acts 13:47) For this we need to deepen our understanding, each of the other, and while we maintain our distinct identities, witness together to a new consciousness and a new conscience, based on the common core of belief that is embodied in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible. As we have stated so often, there is need for a much greater effort in the work of formation, so that this new spirit replace the former spirit of “suspicion, resentment and distrust.”6

The possibilities for common witness and cooperation are immense. Is there any reason why we cannot work together for a better, more just society? Or fight together against every form of evil in our societies, and especially every manifestation of racism and anti-Semitism? Are we not called by our common heritage to promote together the care and conservation of the environment, respect for life, the defense of the weak and oppressed? Have we not motives for defending together the family, protecting our children and helping the young in their search for meaning, nurturing the hearts of all by sharing the treasures of our respective spiritualities? Could we not, for example, say something together to a world in which millions lack the basic necessities of human existence, while nations spend billions of dollars on armaments and weapons of mass destruction?

Then there are challenges for us in the field of human rights, for the protection of the rights of religion, for dialogue with the other great religions of the world - with a special place in this context for dialogue with the believers of Islam, and for collaboration in the realm of culture. For those of us who have the possibility and the responsibility of building up this partnership, there is a further agenda that has still to be explored. As two faith communities with common roots, I am convinced that the time has come for us to move beyond the agenda of the past 35 years and begin to examine more closely the spiritual bonds that unite us, while at the same time seeking to deepen our understanding of the various teachings of our faiths that constitute our separate identities. We must throw off all fear in this regard. What is there to be afraid of if we approach this dialogue with sincerity and with respect for each other’s identity? Will not a dialogue that goes beyond a discussion about problems and concentrates rather on what can bring us to a deeper understanding one of the other be valuable also in helping us to proceed further and more securely along the path of common action?

In April 1997, the Pontifical Biblical Commission met in Rome to study the relationship between the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament and the influence of this on relations between Christianity and Judaism. Addressing the participants, Pope John Paul II noted that “it is not possible fully to express the mystery of Christ without having recourse to the Old Testament.” At the same time, His Holiness stated that we cannot ignore that the New Testament preserves traces of clear tensions that existed between the early Christian communities and some groups of non-Christian Jews. And he observed that if a Christian, by his adhesion to Christ, is convinced that he has become a “descendent of Abraham,” “he will never be able to accept that Jews be scorned or much more badly treated, just for being Jews.”7 Is this not a subject that should be studied by Jews and Catholics together?

We are at last heading in that direction, and this, I believe, is a sign of the maturity of our new relationship. We hope in the coming year to begin to discuss freely and without coercion questions like that just indicated and others connected with the relationship between the two covenants. It is here in particular that the Commission for Religious Relations With the Jews intends to concentrate in the years ahead. We are people of religion, and we wish to dialogue with people of religion about religion.

For the Catholic Church, the program of study and action that I have set out is one to which we are deeply committed. I believe that the great majority of our members support these efforts, if not by positive involvement, at least by silent approval. [...] This is not something new that I am proposing. In Prague, in 1990, the International Liaison Commission of IJCIC and the Commission for Religious Relations With the Jews set before us an agenda, much of which we have succeeded in fulfilling. That agenda called for “cooperation, mutual respect and understanding, good will and common goals.”8 As we prepare to cross the threshold of the new Christian millennium, Jews and Christians need still to respond sincerely and enthusiastically to that same challenge.

We cannot and should not forget the past. But we must not remain chained to the past. A new and wonderful opportunity has opened up before us. Let us not miss it! All that is required of us is to learn to listen to each other, to seek to understand the other as the other understands him/herself, to be open to and respect the other, to work together without compromising faith or distinct identity, to be seen as children of the one and only God who know that God loves them and wants all men and women to know and experience that love, to be together a “light to the nations.”


* This message, delivered in Baltimore, MD on behalf of Cardinal Cassidy, has been slightly shortened for space and editing purposes.
1 Ecumenical News Service, Sept. 17, 1998.
2 L’Osservatore Romano, Sept. 4, 1998.
3 In the former East Germany, less than 25 percent of the population has a church affiliation. The area known as Lutherland (Sachsen-Anhalt), which includes names dear to Lutherans (such as Wittenberg, Eisleben, etc.) was 90 percent Christian before the war. Only 7 percent today are Lutheran, 3 percent Catholic. There are a few Jews and Muslims. The rest are without a religion.
4 A. J. Heschel, “No Religion is an Island,” Union Theological Seminary Quarterly 21:2.1 January, 1966.
5 Ecumenical News Service, Sept. 17, 1988.
6 Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Information Service, 75/IV, 1990, p. 176.
7 L’Osservatore Romano, April 12, 1997.
8 Pontifical Council, ibid.