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Catholic - Jewish relations - Laying the foundations - In the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, 1966 to 1972
Jorge Mejia

Prof. Cornelis Rijk was called to the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity from his teaching assignment in the Warmond Seminary, Holland, where he held the chair of Old Testament Studies, by the late Cardinal Bea and his former colleague in the same seminary, the then Mgr. Willebrands. He was called on account of his competence and the interest he had in Jewish-Christian Relations. He came to Rome in 1966 and was given the responsibility for the desk on such relations, the office for Catholic-Jewish relations as it then was. His main task was to put into practice the orientations given by the Declaration "Nostra Aetate" (No. 4) of Vatican Council II. At that time official relations with Judaism were already developing in different places, also with Rome, and Prof. Rijk had to deal with the first decisive steps along this road. Many unofficial contacts bad already taken place during the Council. After that, the time for official dialogue seemed to have arrived. Various important Jewish organisations (World Jewish Congress, Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, the Synagogue Council of America, the Israel Interfaith Committee) came together in a kind of co-ordinating body called the International Jewish Committee of Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC). A Memorandum of Understanding was arrived at with representatives of this body. Then the International Liaison Committee — uniting representatives of the Roman Catholic Church and IJCIC — was launched and its first meetings took place at Paris and Marseilles.

At the same time the document for the application of the Council Declaration had to be prepared with the help of experts and the members of the Secretariat. A meeting was called in Rome of various experts from different parts of the world to study the general problem of the application of "Nostra Aetate" (No. 4) and to draw up some kind of an outline. This first draft passed through different stages, becoming finally the "Guidelines and Orientations" which are known to everyone. Thus Prof. Rijk made the first decisive steps on the road leading finally to the publication of the document in 1975.

He organized, among other things, his two importanttrips to Latin America and the U.S.A. which helped very much to give him first hand knowledge of the situation of Jewish-Christian relations in these two important centers of Jewish life. In his trip to the United States Prof. Rijk was able to contact many leading Jewish personalities even in the Orthodox community, Rabbi Soloveitchik, for example. He was also able to profit there from work already done by the Jewish organizations and the Secretariat for Jewish-Catholic Relations of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops on the local scene, where, as it is known, the largest Jewish community in the world lives.

In Latin America Prof. Rijk met, especially in Buenos Aires, those who were working in the CELAM (Latin American Bishops' Conference) Department for Ecumenical relations, among them Prof. Rivas and myself. He was also put in contact with representatives of the important Jewish community in Argentina. Thus, the work being done by him in Rome could be guided and helped through his many and always growing personal contacts everywhere.

Prof. Rijk had been closely connected with the Sisters of Our Lady of Sion since he first came to Rome. He thus seemed to be the man to take over the directorship of SIDIC when this institution began to develop. He left the Secretariat in 1972, to everyone's distress.

If one has to sum up in a very inadequate way Prof. Rijk's contribution to the difficult and very important task of re-establishing relations between the Roman Catholic Church and Judaism during his term of office in the Vatican, two things should be said. First, he had simultaneously the privileges and the problems of those starting out upon a new road. Second, without him, his personal capabilities and his commitment, one may wonder how things would have developed along the road he helped to open.

However that may be, those following him, first in the desk he had inaugurated, later in the Commission for Religious Relations with Judaism, have since been working on the foundations he had laid.