Friday, May 15, 2009

Does Being Catholic Mean Always Having to Say You're Sorry?

Or for that matter, does being German? Criticize, sure, but criticize when appropriate

Pope John Paul II with Chief Rabbi Israel Meir Lau and Sheikh Taysir Tamimi at the Interfaith Gathering in Jerusalem in 2000. It was a disaster back then, and it was a disaster during Benedict's visit this year too.


"It's hard to imagine, but it's true that the Jews are not at the top of the agenda of everyone else in the world."
-- Rabbi Jacob Neusner, Professor of Jewish studies at Bard College, commenting on the recent criticism of Pope Benedict coming from various Jewish sources
This is about as Jewish-friendly a Catholic blog as you are likely to find anywhere.

I've posted early and often here about the danger of resurgent anti-semitism, spoken of my appreciation for Nostra Aetate, taken issue with the tendency of certain Christian teachers to make caricatures out of Judaism as a religion of works-righteousness as they preach supersessionism, and I've welcomed the input of Jewish scholars as they've weighed in on the person of Jesus and on New Testament studies in general. I've been quick to raise criticism of the SSPX and the anti-semitism imbued within it, and when Pope Benedict lifted the excommunications on the four SSPX bishops, I chewed him out loudly over it.

In other words, I haven't been shy about criticizing popes or some of the legacies of my own Church vis-a-vis Judaism. Nevertheless, I find that some of the criticism being directed at Pope Benedict after his recent remarks at Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Center to be unfair and unsettling.

For example, he's been criticized for the "coldness" of his delivery and for saying that the victims were "killed" instead of "murdered." For saying that "millions" died instead of "six million," and so forth...

Well... he is what he is. It's true... for someone who was at least nominally a member of the Hitler Youth and the Wehrmacht, yes, you'd think he'd show a bit more sensitivity about these matters. We all know that John Paul did this sort of thing better than he does, and quite frankly, John Paul already did it on behalf of the Catholic Church.

Rabbi Neusner is right. Benedict cares about our relationship with Jews to be sure, but it's not at the top of his agenda. The crumbling Church is his main concern, as effective or ineffective as his own approach to that problem may be.

I hate to say it, but it seems that for some things it's just not possible to apologize enough. Just watching the sexual abuse scandal unfold in my own diocese, for example, I've seen that there are cases where no matter what gets said or done (and there is still more to be done, admittedly), it will never be enough. There are some people so wounded by it that no amount of apology will ever be enough. They wouldn't be satisfied unless the Catholic Church simply ceased to exist, and perhaps not even then. I'm afraid I have to conclude that the Holocaust has had this effect on some people as well.

Time magazine had a pretty interesting article called Pope Benedict on the Question of Judaism, and while I agree heartily with these remarks and find much merit in them...
Concern about the muddiness of Benedict's message first surfaced when he visited Auschwitz in 2006. Those attending the event were moved by his obvious emotion at the former death camp. But his address that day was marked by some highly peculiar ellipses. He failed to mention anti-Semitism, instead contending that "ultimately" the Nazis' motive in killing Jews was to "tear up the taproot of the Christian faith." And although he claimed to speak as a "son of the German people," Benedict seemed to downplay any ordinary-German implication in the Holocaust. Instead, he placed blame on a "ring of criminals [who] rose to power by false promises ... through terror ... with the result that our people was used and abused as an instrument of their thirst for destruction and power."

Both assertions are highly suspect. Although the German people as a group were not guilty of mass murder, neither were they innocent dupes throughout the process. And the idea that Hitler killed 6 million Jews to get at Christianity approaches the perverse. When Jewish groups complained, Benedict devoted a general audience to condemning anti-Semitism--although he revisited neither his church's nor his homeland's role in the Holocaust...

As (German Chancellor Angela) Merkel made clear, Germans have a special obligation. "We don't want [history] to repeat itself," as papal adviser Walter Kasper says. The Holocaust also remains an affront to the self-understanding of Christians, and Western civilization as a whole. We learned the word genocide through the Jews. Since Vatican II, the Roman Catholic Church has set the post-Shoah standard in acknowledging the absolute unacceptability of the Jewish loss. Without the Catholic Church's leadership on the issue, other Christian groups might not have followed.

Since papal conclaves have a cutoff age of 80 and tend to elect Popes from their own number, Benedict is likely to be the last Pontiff who can say, "We remember," and mean it literally. As the church's center of gravity moves southward, he may also be one of the last European Popes, and Jewish relations tend to be low on the radar of African and South American bishops. (One of the latter recently said the Jews own the media.) When Benedict is gone, says Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, "not only may Judaism be off the agenda--it may face opposition. There's a clumsiness to how Benedict has dealt with some of these issues, and we really hope he fixes them while he's still here. Because the next guy may not be fixing any of it."
...I'm still inclined to find appreciation in the following remarks as well:

From Michael Sean Winters:
I watched the Pope’s speech. I read it. The Pope does not wear his emotions on his sleeve, to be sure. But, the Pope grasped, perhaps in a way a 29 year old cannot, that before the enormity of evil that was the Shoah, silence is an appropriate emotional response. Silence is not, of course, an appropriate political response and the Pope made clear that we must speak out so that the world will never forget what happened. But, he is being criticized for not saying something "touching" as one columnist wrote. It is unfair...

I do not know what Pope Benedict felt when he went to Yad Vashem. His words, "I have come to stand in silence before this monument, erected to honor the memory of the millions of Jews killed in horrific tragedy of the Shoah" seemed to me excruciatingly appropriate. This Pope – who never tires of telling us Christians that our faith is about God and therefore about us, not the other way round – seemed to be saying, "My visit here is not about me. It is about the victims and their God." That may not play well in an age when our culture encourages vicarious emotional responses. But, it struck me as profoundly true.
From this week's Tablet editorial:
He applied gentle but effective pressure on Israel's coalition Government and its Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, not to wander too far from the road map defining the "two-state" peace process, which in the view of the Vatican, Washington and most of the rest of the world, offers the only real prospect of peace. Perhaps to neutralise his influence, voices inside Israel were quickly raised, criticising his stance particularly with reference to the Holocaust. If the Pope is not on their side, they would prefer to see him discredited.

But they failed, although the Israeli media gave wide coverage to the complaint from some Jewish figures that Pope Benedict had refused to apologise as a German for what his fellow countrymen did to the Jews 65 or more years ago, and as a Pope for the failings of his predecessor Pius XII to denounce those actions more forthrightly. There seemed to be a strange doctrine of collective guilt behind these complaints, and a suspicion of bad faith that will never be completely banished because it is irrational. In fact, fair-minded Jews were inclined to judge Pope Benedict by his actions and words now. He said all they wanted him to say: "May the names of these victims never perish! May their suffering never be denied, belittled or forgotten! And may all people of goodwill remain vigilant in rooting out from the heart of man anything that could lead to tragedies such as this!"
A charge of anti-semitism or even aloofness towards Judaism and the Holocaust cannot justifiably be pinned on Benedict, in my view. He has flaws, don't get me wrong, but he's not going to apologize merely for being a Catholic or for being a German. Nor should he.

19 comments:

crystal said...

Yay - a new post :)

I'm less sympathetic to Benedict than you, I guess. Given that he's German and was in the Hitler Youth, to not say anything personal, and to avoid the Holocausr Museum, just seemed thoughtless at best to me. I don't think it's that he has to apologize for being Catholic or for anything else, but he could show that he empathizes, as he did in some of his other speeches during his trip. Of course, maybe he doesn't.

Jeff said...

Hi Crystal,

Another persuasive case built by me. :)

crystal said...

It's not that your case is unpersuasive. I think it takes a lot to make someone change their minds, and I'm pretty entrenched :)

it seems that for some things it's just not possible to apologize enough.Maybe that's because in some cases the damage done is still causing hurt? There's no way to really undo the badness of clerical sexual abuse or of centuries of anti-semitism, no "restorative justice", just being sorry.

Jeff said...

Well, if there's nothing that can be done, there's nothing that can be done. We're not going to close down shop just yet, so the people who are dead-set on hating us are just going to have to deal with it a bit longer.

Being held less than 20 years after the end of World War II, I'd say Vatican II was a clear recognition on the part of the Church that something had gone horribly wrong, or had been wrong for centuries upon centuries. Nostra Aetate is a truly remarkable document considering where it came from.

I'm immensely proud that the Catholic Church has made remarkable progress in this particular area. Have the other churches apologized for their part in the Holocaust and for their indifference?

Aside from isolated individuals, NOBODY did right by the Jews during World War II.

Have the Eastern Orthodox ever apologized on behalf of their beloved St John of Damascus and his Adversus Judeaus?

Have the Lutherans apologized for Martin Luther's On the Jews and Their Lies? It was a proto-Nazi document if there ever was one. Did they cover that topic in the hagiographic movie they made about Luther a few years back, the one with all the fat dissolute Catholic cardinals in it?

What about Reformed Protestants? Do they apologize for continuing in their mistaken reading of St. Paul and in their flawed theology to misrepresent Judaism as a legalistic religion of works righteousness?

Do liberal Emergent Christian types apologize for their contempt of everything they consider to be sectarian, violent, bigoted, partriarchal, and parochial in the Old Testament?

Garpu said...

I'm warming to Benedict, actually. I was only parenthetically following his trip, but it seemed like there was a lot of prejudice before the guy actually arrived. I think whatever he said would've been taken badly, to be honest.

victor said...

Jeff, I've just posted a comment on Crystal's blog and then decided to check yours out and found this post very interesting and to be honest, commenting about wolves in sheep clothing is mild compared to what I will probably say now but then again, The Lord, The Holy Spirit and/or is it just me, myself and I who are pulling the strings. God only knows but anyway here I go so don't be too hard on me cause I'm no historian like you are! :)

Some of this post reminds me of when I was a child and we had a large rock which in reality separated our property from our neighbor who was our cousins. To make a long story short, the property line was right in the middle of this "Rock" and if any one of our cousins crossed "IT" then "IT" was a children's war and words like, My Father can beat UP your father and it went on and on.

The way I see "IT" here concerning our brothers and/or whatever some may want to call them is really not much spiritual difference as far as I'm concerned. Except for the fact that our Heavenly Father is on a long, long journey and many are hurting because The Evil Trinity has convince them that we're really all nothing but a bunch of "Bastards" and some would go as far as being nailed to the cross to prove that their father is the most “Powerful”

Forgive me Jeff cause I was honestly planing on saying a lot more but I think I better stop now.

I hear ya! I think you better cause I came very close to deleting your comment! :)

Who's laughing?

Peace?

Jeff said...

Jen,

That may be the case. I'm just trying to be fair and call each case according to its merits, that's all.

In Crystal's response to this post came this comment:

Well, the die hard defenders of B16 never give up. They play like their not 100% papists, but always come through for dear old papa. No doubt they're busy tonight thinking of excuses for the weirds that are protesting Obama at ND. Wait and see.
Well, that sounds familiar. Yeah, sure. I'm a real die-hard defender of Benedict. He never gets criticized here.

I do plead guilt to being a "papist" though. Geez...

See, this is the kind of polarizing knee-jerk response that's so common in the blogosphere and is driving me crazy. There's so much groupthink driven by politics and so little independent thought.

Vic,

I'm not trying to give you short thrift at all, but maybe I'm just too thick to get the clever stuff you put together. I've read your post several times now and I'm afraid I just can't understand it. Can you try to get that idea across in plainer language please?

victor said...

I'm sorry Jeff for not making my comments very clear and I agree with you that there is probably too much reading needed between the lines. Again I'm sorry for that but that's the way I am. What I can suggest is that if you ask me a direct question as to what you need me to make clear, I can try to answer.

Hey! You and Jack do have something in common cause he also finds "IT" hard to understand me! :)

Peace

crystal said...

I don't think you're a "papist" .... that's why I linked to your post, which I thought was really good.

Jeff said...

Vic,

Hey! You and Jack do have something in common cause he also finds "IT" hard to understand me! :)
We may have that in common, but here's a big difference - I'm sincerely interested in understanding whatever the hell it is you're trying to say. Really.

Crystal

I don't mind that old "papist" Whore of Babylon epithet. I'm a Catholic and I believe in the petrine charism. Suits me fine.

victor said...

>>Vic,
Hey! You and Jack do have something in common cause he also finds "IT" hard to understand me! :)
We may have that in common, but here's a big difference - I'm sincerely interested in understanding whatever the hell it is you're trying to say. Really.<<<

With all do respect Jeff, you don’t care anymore about me than Jack does and he’s shown it in ways that only the heart can tell.

If you’re really that interested in knowing me then send me an email and I’ll send you the name and address of our good bishop who has plenty of material from me and will probably send most to you. I would suggest that if you value your sanity then you’ll simply pray that The Holy Trinity shows us the way but then will we really listen if what HE SAYS is not the way we see “IT?”

Here’s a little story I just made UP after praying,

Once upon a time there were two angels at a heavenly unction betting on a special DNA CELL more valuable than any of earths precious stone of reality. These angels were wealthier than all human wealth combine but still they could not afford to buy that item because “IT” had free will.

I want you to work for me on earth and I’ll put you in charge of everything I own and the other said, I’ll do the same and I’ll even make you my partner.

The Cell didn’t know what to do but he knew that he was no longer just an ameba and he had built a little kingdom of his own which attracted these heavenly angels.

If you follow me I’ll make sure that you never lose a fight during your stay on earth and I’ll even make you in charge of my hell fire. I can match that offer said the other and also temper you in my hell which will make you as powerful and as strong as I am.

The DNA CELL did not know what to say or do because he really did not want to UPSET either one so he looked into his heart of heart and walked into his cathedral and said a prayer and while he was standing there with the two angels looking at him, a voice was heard saying,

What is it My Son?

Dad can I, me and myself come UP now cause it really is not much fun down here after all!

Sure Son come on right UP cause “The Banquet” that I originally made for you has been waiting for an Eternity and a day. There’s another surprise now cause so are all your loving brothers and sister waiting for you with open “Arms?”

I could go on and on Jeff but I believe that you’re a good man and will try to understand.

God Bless,

Peace

charles said...

The pope has done much and will need to do more to address anti-Semitism and the evils that it has wrought. But I need to see something from the other side as well. There has been a tendency in recent years to paint the whole Nazi regime and its crimes as Christian or Catholic. I find this deeply offensive, and a disgrace to the memory of my father, uncles, and many others who fought and risked their lives to defeat the Nazis. A historical reality check must be used to curtail their own bigotry, or else this will go around and around...

Jeff said...

Victor,

"With all do respect Jeff, you don’t care anymore about me than Jack does and he’s shown it in ways that only the heart can tell.

If you’re really that interested in knowing me then send me an email and I’ll send you the name and address of our good bishop who has plenty of material from me and will probably send most to you. I would suggest that if you value your sanity then you’ll simply pray that The Holy Trinity shows us the way but then will we really listen if what HE SAYS is not the way we see “IT?”
"
....

I'm sorry you feel that way about me, Victor. I've never ignored your posts. As I recall, I've always engaged with them with more than a mere "Hi Victor" as far as I've been able to follow them. I really don't know why it's necessary to email you or to contact your bishop in order for you to be clear in what you are saying. If you can present clearly articulated writings to the bishop, I don't know why you can't do the same for me when I've asked you to do so. Peace.

Friar Charles,

Thanks for weighing in here on this. I do believe that Christians have something to answer for in the hostile climate they set around Judaism for centuries, but there has been a disturbing tendency among radical atheists lately to claim that Hitler and his retinue were some kind of Christians instead of the neo-pagans and social darwinists that they were.

charles said...

I'm flattered that you would call me Friar, but that may be another Charles - I'm just a struggling Catholic. But websites like yours restore my faith in the Church. Keep up the good work.

Jeff said...

Oops! Sorry, Charles. I assumed you were someone else I already knew well. :)

victor said...

>>I'm sorry you feel that way about me, Victor. I've never ignored your posts. As I recall, I've always engaged with them with more than a mere "Hi Victor" as far as I've been able to follow them. I really don't know why it's necessary to email you or to contact your bishop in order for you to be clear in what you are saying. If you can present clearly articulated writings to the bishop, I don't know why you can't do the same for me when I've asked you to do so. Peace.<<

Your point is well taken and for a third time I’m sorry if you feel that way about me also. I know that you never ignored any of my posts and also that you did engage with more than a mere “Hi Victor” and if I wrote as many comments in your blog as I do on Crystal’s blog then you might be tempted to do it on occasions. What do you mean by that sinner vic? Really nothing Jeff! :)

In my suggestion, I never said that it was necessary to email me or to contact my bishop but as you kindly pointed out, it was a mistake suggesting any of it. Hey! Our Good Bishop might be the last guy to agree that I clearly articulated any of my writings but I know that he’s doing his best to try and understand me. As a matter of fact he even gave me his hand last week in Ottawa and he took a picture with some of the people from our bus including myself.

Jeff, clearly articulating for me to anyone is kind of like having my heart wide open and for those Christians and not, who have gotten to know and care simply give me a little time compressed with a little patient and sprinkle “IT” with a little “Love” or else they just ignore me completely! :)

I hear ya Jeff! Hey, let’s give “IT” some more time and who knows, we might someday even get pass those skitso friends of yours and then get to know the real “Victor"

Peace

Jeff said...

Vic,

Now, that was pretty easy to follow. I'm still not clear on why you simply can't extend that courtesy to me on what your initial analysis of my post meant, but I don't want to force you out of a comfort zone either, so all of this is entirely up to you. :) I'm patient with commentators of good will. Peace.

Marcus Aurelius said...

Even 70 years later it is pretty tough to condemn one's own family as evil and that seems to be what some Israelis want him to do. They were bombed half to death, invaded, subdued, and reconstructed.

In our own nation the southeast was a bit wrong headed in the civil war and they were likewise militarily crushed. After 150+ years there are still people waving confederate flags around and claiming (actually with some history on their side) that the north was the leading importer of slaves and so forth. My point here is that 70ish years is not a long time to get over a military defeat and failed regime and Germany has actually done it really, really well.

So even it if is true that Benedict feels his people were taken by a cabal rather than culturally as a people I can sympathize a bit with that, to an extent. It is true that anti-semitism was perhaps tolerated in folklore and culture in pre-war Germany which gave the nazis an edge. But then, that is probably true everywhere of some ethnic group or another including good 'ol USA. At the moment it seems as if Palestinians have been dehumanized as amelekites by some rabbis. Surely that does not mean all Israelis are evil? Or how about the cabal of Bush/Cheney? They tortured in our name, but surely that does not make all Americans evil?

I'm with you here Jeff, I think the critics were loudmouths of the sort that would never be satisfied. And at some point Catholics (and probably Germans) have apologized enough.

Jeff said...

Hey, B., how've you been?

Thanks for the thoughtful post. I do think that the Germans bear a special responsibility from here on out regarding their past, and that Benedict should have a special awareness of the weight of his words, when he's speaking both as a Catholic and a German, but yes, I think The Tablet put it well too - There seemed to be a strange doctrine of collective guilt behind these complaints, and a suspicion of bad faith that will never be completely banished because it is irrational. In fact, fair-minded Jews were inclined to judge Pope Benedict by his actions and words now. He said all they wanted him to say: "May the names of these victims never perish! May their suffering never be denied, belittled or forgotten! And may all people of goodwill remain vigilant in rooting out from the heart of man anything that could lead to tragedies such as this!"