Timely Talk
Participant Responses
Rabbi David Greenspoon
A Rabbi's Plea to Catholics
I write this to my Catholic sisters and brothers — most of whom I have never met and never will meet — out of deep respect for the Roman Catholic faith and the Roman Catholic faithful. You won't recognize my name as a major author or professor of Jewish studies. I am not on the national lecture circuit nor do I have a weekly radio or television show. I could be your local rabbi. I could be your neighbor.
I have been deeply involved in interfaith dialogue for over twenty years, even before my ordination. I have worked closely with people of faith from many different faiths. I have had the blessing of participating in Catholic-Jewish dialogue in various venues, including Carlow College in Pittsburgh, PA and teaching at St. Joseph's High School in Tarentum, PA as a rabbinic faculty member through the Catholic-Jewish Educational Enrichment Program of the American Jewish Committee. These and other experiences have taught me that most Catholics are deeply concerned for their Church. It is this knowledge that prompts this letter to you now.
There is a growing fear among many Jews that the Church is distancing itself from the climate of openness that the Second Vatican Council inspired in their deliberations and proclamations. In particular, many of us are concerned that this rejectionist turn will undo much of the holy work of Pope John Paul II accomplished in his amazing papacy. The breath of fresh air that has rejuvenated the Church and her faithful has also pollinated the efforts for mutual understanding between Catholics and Jews. Many Jews fear the gradual closing of that window is underway. Here are a few reasons why that view is emerging, and why many Jews are feeling cause for concern:
Pope Benedict's proposed rehabilitation of four schismatic bishops of the Society of St. Paul X dissolves the common cause engendered by the Second Vatican Council's Nostra Aetate. This act minimizes the value the Church places on Catholic-Jewish dialogue and outreach by embracing a movement outside the Church that is both theologically anti-Jewish, and politically anti-Semitic. If Nostra Aetate is negated, how long will it take before the spurious charges of deicide are revived? Once that happens, what is next? Will there be more crosses placed outside of the next Auschwitz by Carmelite nuns?
The revival of the Tridentine Mass not only calls for the conversion of Jews; it simultaneously nearly eliminates the presence of the biblical texts we share from the Catholic liturgy. Catholics are thereby deprived contact with the Holy Scriptures shared in common with Jews and Judaism. In one fell swoop Judaism is denied legitimacy in its own right, and the Jewish foundations of the Christian faith are effectively made to vanish. The implication is clear: If Judaism isn't vital and legitimate as a religion, then isn't it fair to ask if Jews are vital and legitimate as individual people?
Pope Benedict's preference for "intercultural" vs. "inter-religious" dialogue appears to undermine the Church's teaching that God's Covenant with the Jewish people is a gift that God will never repent of making. It seems to make the statement that Rome can talk with different cultures, but not differing theologies. The question becomes, "At what point will this perforce affect the catechesis of the Church, and to what effect?"
I am not a Catholic; I offer these observations not as a critique of the Church. That can only come from within the Body of the Church itself. Yet as a person of faith who holds Catholicism and Catholics in deep respect, I can and do ask you to consider these two questions:
Do these positions of the Church lead you to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind?"
Do these positions of the Church lead you as a Catholic to "Love your neighbor as yourself?"
If you cannot answer yes to these questions or even if they are discomfiting to you, I leave you with this plea: Help your Holy Mother Church find her way… before it is too late for us all.
In the blessing of God's love, and God's peace —
Your neighbor,
Rabbi David Greenspoon
Baltimore, MD
