One of the most challenging and horrifying aspects of World War II and the Holocaust was the brutal fact that many, if not most, of those who allowed and did the work of the extermination of millions of innocent Jewish men, women, and children considered themselves "good" Christians. Centuries of Christian persecution of Jews had finally contributed to the evil fruit of genocide. Many repentant Christians and traumatized Jews realized that it was time to build a bridge of prayer and dialogue to develop peace and understanding between these two peoples of God whose religious identities are intertwined.
As Paolo Gamberini notes in the article "Understanding the 'Other'," ("America," Oct. 26, 2015) "Out of the smoke of the Shoah, in the spirit of repentance and commitment, Christians have understood that their relation with the Jewish people cannot be seen as an option or a transient historical element, an embellishment for the Christian identity. After the Holocaust a process began in which Christian and Catholic identity could not be understood anymore without Jewish identity."
By twenty years after the Shoah, in 1965, enough fruitful Jewish-Catholic dialogue had occurred that the Second Vatican Council issued a document, "Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions." At its beginning it states that the Catholic Church acknowledges with sincere reverence and rejects nothing that is true and holy in other religions.
One of the main reasons for this statement was a desire to heal relations with the Jewish people.
Ongoing dialogue was revealing the true uniqueness inherent in the relationship between these two faiths. So Cardinal Augustin Bea and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who had developed a sincere friendship, worked at the Council to ensure that this declaration both clarified and enhanced Jewish and Catholic identity. Gamberini notes:
"Rabbi Heschel worked hard to remove from the teaching of the Catholic Church any anti-Semitic words and any reference to a mission of the Church for the conversion of the Jews....he asked the council fathers to eliminate once and for all any accusation of deicide on the part of the Jewish people, to acknowledge the integrity and the perpetuity of the election of Jews in the history of salvation and, lastly, to give up proselytizing Jews.....He wanted the council fathers to know that a Jew has a dignity as a Jew and not as a possible convert to Christianity....He repeated quite often 'If I were asked either to convert or to die in Auschwitz, I'd rather go to Auschwitz.'"
The Council compromised: "The council's degree asserted that the death of Jesus was not to be blamed on all Jews collectively, eliminated the word 'deicide' and condemned any form of anti-Semitism. The Catholic Church acknowledged the abiding validity of God's Covenant with Israel. The Council fostered and recommended mutual knowledge and respect between Jews and Christians. Pope Paul VI promulgated the text immediately as official church doctrine." (Gamberini.)
Rabbi Heschel urged Christians to rediscover the Jewish roots of their faith and not worry about converting Jews. He also acknowledged the spiritual validity of Christianity. He said to Christians: "I recognize in you the presence of holiness. I see it; I perceive it; I hear it. You do not embarrass us; we want you not to be embarrassed by what we are."
How clearly Heschel saw that Jewish and Christian identities are woven together! He made this profound observation:
"A Christian ought to realize that a world without Israel will be a world without the God of Israel. A Jew, on the other hand, ought to acknowledge the eminent role and part of Christianity in God's design for the redemption of all men."
In dialogue with the American Jesuit Gustave Weigel, S.J., Rabbi Heschel asked with great intensity "Is it really the will of God that there be no more Judaism in the world? Would it really be the triumph of God if the scrolls of the Torah would no more be taken out of the Ark and the Torah no more read in the Synagogue, our ancient Hebrew prayers in which Jesus himself worshiped no more recited, the Passover Seder no more celebrated in our lives, the law of Moses no more observed in our homes? Would it really be to the honor and glory of God to have a world without Jews?"
Heschel highlighted the truth that Christianity cannot stand without Judaism and that both religions have their specific roles in redemption. In his many dialogues with Christians during which he both listened and spoke, he did not discuss controversial issues that still divide Catholics and Jews, like the divinity of Jesus or the Trinity. He believed that the purpose of interfaith dialogue was not to flatter each other, or to refute the other's beliefs, but to help one another by sharing insight and learning, to cooperate in academic ventures, to acknowledge the other as a faith-filled person, "to search in the wilderness for well-springs of devotion, for treasures of stillness, for the power of love and care for man."
Heschel believed that the deep, prayerful heart of each person's faith unites him/her to true believers of all faith traditions and to the God Whose will it is that there is diversity in our forms of devotion and commitment to Him. In recognizing and respecting each other's faith commitment, we grow in understanding and are one in love.
A later document (1994) of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, "Dialogue and Proclamation," reflected his beliefs by stating that "Christians must be prepared to learn and to receive from and through others the positive values of their traditions. Through dialogue they may be moved to give up ingrained prejudices, to revise preconceived ideas, and even sometimes to allow the understanding of their faith to be purified." (No. 49.) What a way to grow in humility!
Rabbi Heschel's vision for the Jewish-Christian dialogue was fulfilled in November 2001 in the speech given by Cardinal Walter Kasper in Jerusalem.This former president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity and the Commission for Religious Relations with Jews said the following on behalf of the Catholic Church:
"The term 'mission' properly refers to the conversion from idols to the one true God, to the God Who revealed Himself in the history of salvation of His chosen people....; therefore one cannot speak of the mission to the Jews, because they already believe in the one true God."
Pope John Paul II visited the synagogue in Rome in 1986 and spoke words of warmth and spiritual acceptance and healing, words for us all to live by:
"The Jewish religion is not 'extrinsic' to us, but in a certain way is 'intrinsic' to our own religion. With Judaism therefore we have a relationship which we do not have with any other religion. You are our dearly beloved brothers and, in a certain way, it could be said that you are our elder brothers."
The post-Holocaust bridge of dialogue and prayer has re-connected Jews and Christians in a miraculous God-given way: our Divine DNA reveals that our identity is that we are family! In fact Christians can say that our Jewish brothers and sisters are the oldest ones in our mutual and unique House of Faith! In this holy and on-going dialogue, the words of our mouths and the prayers of our hearts, as the psalmist says, must be truly pleasing to our God.