Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana
Piazza della Pilotta 35
00187 Rome
editricepugpib-info@biblico.it.
Nostra
Aetate and the Discovery of the Sacrament of Otherness
Prof. Alberto Melloni
Rome, 9th November 2004 at the Pontifical Gregorian University
Alberto Melloni is professor of contemporary history at the University of Modena-Reggio Emilia and a member of the Board of the John XXIII Foundation for Religious Studies, Bologna where he acts as Director of the Dossetti Library and vice-secretary of the Foundation.
What
follows is a rapid presentation of the pre-conciliar work that led to the
declaration
If
I choose to go over the stages of a long and difficult struggle such as the one
that led to the document
Before
presenting a few, extremely short points of reflection on this topic, I would
like to go over the rapid succession of drafts texts in an order that is still
provisional, and which requires a detailed work on the texts themselves, as well
as on the archive of the general secretariat, on the papers of Bea, Rudloff,
Oesterreicher, Congar, De Smedt, and many others, so as to go from an
individuation of sequential segments to a more articulate pattern.8
The pre-history
The
idea to submit for the Councils consideration the problem of the relationship
between the Church and the Jews was an important concern for many of the
protagonists of the preparation of Vatican II: not wholly absent even from the
chastened proposita of the Catholic
Universities,9
the question did not merely torment the German Churches, but also the
theological culture as a whole and Jews especially asserted the topic as
demanding reform. From 1955, Jules Isaac had attempted to convince a highly
reluctant Pius XII of the necessity of a visible re-thinking of the Jewish
question through the modification of the oratio
universalis of Good Friday, and the question, having all sorts of
implications that were extremely relevant for the time, would later be brought
to the attention of the former legate to Istanbul, who was then actively
involved in the attempt to rescue the Jews from genocide, and who would become
Pope in 1958 with the name of John XXIII.
It
is well known that in this attempt to exert pressure on the higher echelons of
the Church involved people of very different backgrounds: Catholics who were not
particularly appreciated in the wintery end of Pacellis pontificate,
individuals of Jewish origin who were not always regarded with instinctive
benevolence, militant members of the organizations of world Jewry or of the
foreign policy of the recently established State of Israel. Congar is not
Oesterreicher, Baum is not Herzog, Riegner is not Isaac, Golda Meir is not Golan
but in any case it is the summation of these contacts that achieved not only
the revision of the ritual of Good Friday, timidly begun under Pius XII,10
but also the decision on the part of John XXIII to charge Cardinal Augustin Bea
SJ with the task of considering the possibility of a Secretariat for Christian
Union, effectively a secretariat for the unthinkable problems and the impossible
missions of Roncallis curia.11
Draft A
An
outline presented by Oesterreicher at the plenary session held in Ariccia by the
Secretariat for Christian Union in November-December 1961,12
and a proposal for a declaration worked out by a commission of which Gregory
Baum was a member, led to the composition of a first draft (A), which ought to
have taken up the suggestions of Jules Isaac welcomed by the Pontiff as an
appropriate topic of discussion for the coming council.13
This draft was then presented to the central preparatory commission in 1962. The
result was disappointing for a series of reasons that are not reducible to the
real protests of the Arab countries and the clumsy machinations on
Israels part that are mentioned by Miccoli.14
Si
de Judaeis cur non etiam de Mahumedanis? (If we discuss the Jews, why not also the Muslims?) asked Cardinal
Cicognani [then Secretary of State] who still believed in Pius XIs illusion
of a dialogue conceived as an anti-Communist and anti-atheist alliance by those
who believe at least in God, and that reaffirmed that the Church had no
reluctance toward a Jew who wishes to embrace the Catholic faith
15
A
new Isaac draft, turned into a Bea draft in December 1962, raised
again the question [of Jewish-Christian relations], reflecting an awareness of
the fact that in a time (as Congar writes) after
Between
these two moments, which are eleven months apart from each other the
dismissal of the first draft and the discussion in the conciliar sessions
the controversy over Hochhut exploded: the presentation on
Text B
Despite
the intensification of this polemic, Bea (maybe deliberately, or maybe by
chance) came to the Council with a text and with a series of arguments that took
up, point by point, the theses of December 1962. On
During
the conciliar sessions there was no explicit vote on this chapter, but only
opinions expressed in the interventions or in the written motions: favorable
reactions (from the Americans and the Germans) and criticisms (from the Eastern
Patriarchs) remained in the shadows, while diplomacy worked in a direction that
could be discerned very easily. The series of problems that now we can quite
easily disentangle, but which were far from clear to the Catholic Church in
1963, included different issues: the need to cut the Catholic roots of
anti-Semitism with a conceptual razor other than denunciation, thereby removing
from racist ideologies their pretended theological foundation. Then there was
the problem of dialogue with Judaism where Jewish associations and Israeli
structures were in objective competition with each other. There was also the
problem raised by the fact that pieces of Nazi anti-Semitism were migrating into
the Christian Arab world as a consolidation of their hostility towards
In
this web of questions and ideas, the temptation to solve everything by moving a
short sentence against anti-Semitism into a different context (such as the
chapter de populo Dei in the
constitution on the Church, or the document on the contemporary world) was not
incomprehensible, and even the Secretariat had discussed during the preparatory
phase the possibility of transferring the theme of the relation between the
Church and the Jews to the draft of the constitution on the Church, in the hope
of thereby avoiding the necessity to make explicit pronouncements about Israel.23
Nevertheless, instead of encouraging voices of the most unbridled anti-Semitism
to be more cautious or to disguise themselves, Beas sophisticated theses
roused them and brought them into the open. The fact that the theses of an
anonymous author who signed himself Un Prêtre
(and who claimed that the genocide had been planned by the Jews so as to weaken
healthy anti-Semitism) generated a scandalized reaction on the part of the
Council Fathers who had received his pamphlets
is certainly not without significance
24.
The
discussion during the 1963 conciliar session which was not specific and did
not culminate in a vote on the chapter creates an interpretative difficulty
that would not only remain constant throughout the various iterations of what
would become
Text C
This
is the reason why the chapter presented by Bea and which the fathers did not
subject to an analytical evaluation eventually undergoes a thoughtful and
attentive revision in the plenary session that the secretariat holds at Ariccia
at the end of the winter of
Cicognani,
who received Beas draft by virtue of his position as president of the
coordinating commission, would then present the document De Oecumenismo at the meeting of the same coordinating commission
that took place on March 16-17th.. The old cardinal, who had been a
diplomat in the
The
reaction of the Secretariat was actually not hostile to these directions, one of
a series of ambiguities typical of the time; but at the same time it did not
invite additional persons to take part in the ongoing discussions of its core
group that by then was simultaneously working in Via dellErba on three very
delicate points (ecumenism, religious freedom, and Judaism). The proof of this
is the fact that Willebrands asked Yves Congar and Charles Moeller for an
extended version of the text according to the directions of the coordinating
committee, and without further obligation on the part of the Secretariat in its
plenary form. This extended text was produced extremely quickly (it was ready by
the evening of Match 27th, 1964), and in this text the whole of draft
C is preserved, with the exception of the word deicide.29
Congar, according to his own theological understanding of the problem, proposed
to describe a constitutive link between the paternity of God and the fraternity
of all the people, a new magna observantia
by which a new Christian attitude of toward the other religions could be framed:
within this framework, according to Congar, are respect for all people and the
condemnation of discrimination.
The
revision by Congar and Moeller was not sent to the conciliar fathers (is this
what Willebrands really hoped?), but handed over by the general secretary
Pericle Felici (who met him on May 2nd) to Paul VI in person on May 6th;
a note by Felici denounced Beas presumed circumvention of Cicognanis
suggestions: The text which refers to the Jewish people has been lengthened
beyond the short passage indicated by the Coordinating Commission
so as to
condemn the hatreds and the vexations against the Jews. But this according
to the specified directions ought to
have been said in an aside and in a general form in favor of all the people
Finally the new text invites Christians
to avoid all form of discrimination. But this again according to the
specified directions ought to have been a general invitation addressed to
all people and not solely to Christians.30
Paul
VI whom Felici evidently regarded as susceptible to these insinuations with
obvious overtones was not an unprepared or naïve reader, however. A few
months earlier he had returned from the first trip to the
Actually
in this case Paul VI asked for corrections, of which Felici shall be a far too
zealous interpreter. The Pope, indeed, asked to eliminate the expression sive
anteactis sive nostris temporibus (either in the past or in our time)
concerning the persecutions of the Jews, because they can give rise to
endless recriminations derived from history, and asked in addition to add a
reference to the hope in the future conversion of Israel. Such a reference
would indicate that the condition in which the Jews find themselves now even
if worthy of respect and sympathy is not to be approved of as perfect and
definitive, also considering that this hope is also explicitly expressed in St.
Pauls doctrine on the Jews.33
These
papal instructions (together with the observations of the Latin scholars of the
secretariat for the briefs to the principles) were then communicated to Bea on
The
corrections, quickly leaked in the diplomatic and the journalistic milieux,
disturbed people such as Spellman who did not want a declaration De
Judaeis at all costs, but who did not want now to pay the price of a public
debacle which in his view could be suspected of anti-Semitism; others who did
not like such public statements (such as Cullmann) displayed their indignation;
deep concern was then voiced by those who, like Rudloff, declared in public that
an enormous disaster of credibility for the Church as a whole was in
preparation.37
Felicis activism
Cicognani,
as we said, approved Beas move, and brought the text back to the meeting of
the Coordinating Committee on June 26-27th. Felici who was
convinced that it had been Bea who had alerted the press enclosed with the
text a memorandum on the revision
where he notes that he has made inquiries as to the Popes intentions, and he
has found Paul VI ready to countenance only an expression that does not let
the Jews of today bear responsibility for the acts of their ancestors, about
which he asks the opinion of the Coordinating Committee.38
During the session, Felici brought forth an immense number of opinions
opinions that, according to him, all came directly from the Pope
He
voiced an opinion by Paul VI opposed to the quotation of Acts 3, 15-17, opposed
to the discussion among theologians, in favor of not considering guilty of the
death of Jesus all Jews, especially those of today (sic!).39
Of course, the activism of the Secretary General unmasks who is the true author
of Montinis doubt, but it did not manage to gain the upper hand in the
discussion. One option was still open: that of Cardinal Lercaro, who suggested
to quote Trent (Christ died propter
peccata omnium hominum, for the sins of all of humanity), and to
exclude apertis verbis that it is
possible to impute [any guilt as to Christs death] to the Jews of later times
a formulation that was generally liked and that, it was decided, would be
immediately sent to the Pope for an opinion.40
Over
the following days, however, Felici again took the text in hand, always because
of a decision by the Pope who was under pressure by the supporters of the Ciappi-Browne
line, whose incessant work has the previously mentioned rationale; the sentence
by Lercaro was changed into an exhortation not to impute the death of Christ to
the Jews of our time; the sentence that claimed that forms of contempt against
the Jews voluntati Christi repugnant
(are repugnant to Christs own will) was eliminated; and the mention of
the common patrimony of Jews and Christians was turned into an expression of
appreciation for the patrimony that the Christians have inherited from the Jews.41
A
struggle, therefore, was underway around critical points of theological
anti-Semitism: it is not the anti-Semitism of the Arab Christians that causes
concern an anti-Semitism that is partly dissimulated, partly disguised as a
pan-Arabic solidarity, and which even the great Patriarch Maximos IV had largely
shared; even the anti-Semitism of the Nazi and the Fascist type that was echoed
in a few voices was only a secondary factor. The problem was theological
anti-Semitism, with the political implication that the whole respublica
christiana in general and in the State of the Church in particular had
inspired centuries of history and of culture. In fact, suspicions linger that
the Pontiff himself supported this point of view: the then theologian of Frings,
Prof. Ratzinger, argued that the Pope is convinced of the collective
responsibility of the Jews for the death of Jesus, and that therefore the
difficulties cannot be eliminated;42
Card. Seper says the opposite. The point however cannot be reduced to a
mechanical delineation of De Judaeis,
but to the context of the beginning of that summer that was so difficult for
Paul VI, who sensed how the conciliar minority was exerting an ever more violent
pressure, but even for the majority, which saw the Pope (whom until the previous
year they considered their own) as growing increasingly distant.
On
July 7th, 1964, two declarationes
are sent to the Council Fathers two declarationes
that had resulted from the text De
Oecumenismo (according to the decision of the Coordinating Committee of
April 16th, 1964) and that the previous year were merely chapters: a
first De libertate religiosa,43
and a declaratio altera dedicated to the theme De Judaeis et de non-Christianis which was by now a draft D.
Draft D in the debate of the Council
I
do not wish to linger on the reactions to the texts sent on July 7th,
but rapidly move instead to the discussions of September 1964. Cardinal Bea went
on to present the declaratio altera to
the Council on September 25th, a critical moment for the Council that
was struggling with the unwritten decision to enter forcefully into a discussion
of the relationship with society and with modernity questions that had been
tormenting the Church for almost two hundred years
44
Surrounded
by obvious sympathy, but hurriedly because of his role in the imminent departure
of the relics of Saint Andrew that were going to be returned to the Orthodox
Church,45
Bea presented the De Judaeis et de non-Christianis
in the face of the certain support of only the German episcopate, the more
tactical support of the American bishops, and the opposition of the episcopate
of the Arab countries.46
Bea
spoke putting forth his diversified credentials: Bea the Cardinal, Bea the
Jesuit, Bea the German, Bea the ecumenist, Bea the scholar of Judaism, Bea the
confessor of Pius XII
He focused on the problems connected with the
expectations of the public and on the question of credibility touched on by
Spellman, while emphasizing that the Church must be faithful to itself: he
mentioned indirectly his agreement with Cicognani, and went on to tackle the
question where (allegedly) Paul VI stopped: deicide. He rejected the accusation
of having involved the press, but acknowledged that the question must be faced
in all its brutal frankness, the same frankness with which the newspapers have
raised it: and to this blunt question on deicide, the Council must answer yes or
no. Bea proposed a clear and absolute no. Having done this, he went on to
assess the possible political implications and without omitting a mention of
John XXIII went overboard to stress the religious character of the
text which an excusatio non petita?
did not seem to be at the center of the debate: non loquimur hic de Sionismo nec de Statu politico
The
debate the first one to be open to the public from 1960 onwards took
place on September 28-29th, after an epic struggle on religious
freedom.48
As Oesterreicher would comment, the problem of all problems was touched here:
the encounter of man with man, of God with man. A large proportion of
Fathers embraced Beas vision; but an equally large proportion made a number
of reservations that are difficult to characterize: disconcerting, or revealing,
or merely naive?49
The
sequence [of these comments] can be easily found in the Acta Synodalia,50
and it creates a gallery of opinions that shocking because of the resonance they
have with a tradition of Christian anti-Semitisms of different forms and degrees
of danger that goes back for thousands of years: to talk of the Jews is not
opportune (Tappouni); to invite the preachers not to talk of deicide is
useless because nobody thinks that anymore, and to mention it would be
disturbing (Bueno y Monreal);51
the text must express the hope that all Christians one day shall be united in
the Church (Gdansk);52
it is necessary to invite the Jews to respect the Christians, since no-one
ignores that up to the present day the Jews follow the doctrine of the Talmud,
according to which other men are to be despised because they are similar to
beasts, while it is also necessary to affirm that the freemasons, who are
accustomed to plot against the Church, are supported and favored by the
Jews (Ruffini); an appeal to conversion is invoked (Rwanda); a father (Catro
Meyer) asks (in scriptis) that the
declaration affirm that all discriminations are healthily based on the
differences intended by the Creator. For a bishop of
These
interventions reflect the tones of reactionary, harsh and aggressive pamphlets,
but they also clash with many voices of support for Beas approach: voices
from America (Leven, Cushing, Ritter), Jugoslavia (eper), Mexico (Méndez
Arceo), France (Elchinger), Italy (Lercaro) voices which, following Heenan,
put forth again the sense of the original proposals that had been distorted by
the corrections inserted in June, and which tried to reaffirm that the document
did not merely respond to an occasional or historical necessity, but had a
primarily theological dimension, whose goal was to overcome the theories of
supersession. The judgment of Henri Fesquet une victoire éclatante pour le cardinal Béa et un sevère échec pour
la commission de coordination qui a cru devoir atténuer la première version
(a triumphal victory for Cardinal Bea and a severe defeat for the
Coordinating Commission which had thought it necessary to water down the
original version) was reasonable, or at least so it seemed.54
The October Shock
So
it seemed, because two letters by
The
whole initiative Cicognani says so explicitly came from a request by the
Pope, upset the different
alignments: members of the majority declared their shock, Siri was ready to
resist all pressure, whereas Lercaro said he could accept the absorption of the
text into the De ecclesia; Agagianian
is ready to keep something (even if from the Jews one cannot expect too
much); Felici ready to say that his superiors have always been opposed to
this document, an assertion flying in the face of what John XXIII stood for
56
The way in which Felici summarized this debate and its conclusion for Paul VI
was neither faithful nor balanced: but it obtained the nihil
obstat approval which ensured that the Secretariat was relieved of all
responsibility for De Judaeis, while
the freedom of discussion was severely curtailed.
What
had happened is well explained by Silvia Scatenas immense research on
religious freedom, from which Miccoli draws as well.57
And this question has not merely a procedural dimension, but also a substantial
one: the very identity of the Second Vatican Council. It is from here that we
must start because the problem of those weeks is the Council, not just a part or
a fragment of it. The offensive of
the minority that no longer wishes to remain a minority puts all its hopes on
Paul VI and on his intention not to contradict the anti-modernist magisterial
teaching of the recent Popes: from this entanglement Montini is unable to free
himself, if not with actions; in the texts he sees no way out, and that forces
him to take up points of view that do not belong to him (and certainly not those
of the Melchites who saw themselves as the decisive minority controlling the
development of the document
).58
And yet, at this moment something more is being decided is because both in the
discussions on [religious] freedom and on Judaism questions are at stake that do
not merely relate to the institutions of the Roman Catholic Church, but rather
concern the status of otherness in its life of faith.
Bea
reacted to this polluting maneuver by showing the weaknesses and contradictions
of Felicis apparently strong and harsh instructions: to whom should then the
new text on freedom be handed over? And this text, would it then really
be the final version? Who would have calmed down the anxieties of the
episcopates that were waiting for the opinion of the Secretariat? He asked this
in writing to the secretary general and in an even stronger way to the Pope, who
he asks for an account of the instructions given to him a cardinal vivae
vocis oraculo (orally) on October 5th and of those
transmitted by Felici: Bea asked the Pope for a final word, not without advising
him as to the effect that would result if it were perceived that the Pope
who so scrupulously has always safeguarded the freedom of the Council
was now obstructing the Councils work. Finally, he also asked whether a
simple meeting would be sufficient to bring the document De
Judaeis into the De ecclesia
59
On
Paul
VI, at this point, made a decision: perhaps he chose also to take actions that
shall enflame what is called the black week of Vatican II, but certainly
he chose what to do with the draft concerning the relationship with Judaism, and
he distanced from Ruffini: It seems to us that we can reassure him concerning
the letter to which he refers: its purpose is to protect the rights of the
Council, not from the interference of the Pope, but rather from the initiatives
of other people that might be considered excessive or abusive. It is in any case
deplorable that an indiscreet publicity spreads around pieces of information
that ought to be kept secret, deforming their content and their sense.61
If
this was meant to put De libertate
back on track, for De judaeis it also
entailed an even more fundamental re-establishment of the identity and
individuality of the conciliar act. Paul VI had already told Bea on October 11th
that the text would no longer undergo clumsy cuts, and the nothing new put
forth by Felici to Bea on October 13th could lend itself to a more
optimistic reading than the one given by Willebrands, who saw in it only new
good premises. Among all these there was also the hypothesis to save it by
including it into the De ecclesia, and
was it for this purpose that on October 20th Congar and Moeller meet
also with König, Pfister and Neuner? Maybe yes: though soon enough the idea was
put forth to save the identity of the document on the relationship of the Church
with non-Christian religions by asking new experts to participate.62
The approval of 1964 and the final insertion of
text E
A
new series of changes received the final approval of the Secretariat on October
30th, after a complex work undertaken by a sub-committee formed for
this purpose and by its working groups.63
This sub-committee revealed Beas attention to what had emerged in the debate,
as well a more general concern for the obvious instances of interference with
what was happening in the wider context of the Council. This version (E) was
distributed in the conciliar sessions on
The
approval by this vote seems to have startled the Vatican diplomats, who
pretended an article from Bea (whose article on the theme of Judaism for Civiltà
Cattolica had been vetoed in the Summer of 1962!) so as to discourage any
political interpretations of the text, and take out the momentum from
those reactions in Syria and elsewhere which, in less controversial times, had
already made an observer such as Oesterreicher think of a Jihad.65
In a note of December 7th, 1964 to Felici, Cicognani lamented the
failure to evaluate Arab reactions, and Bea, who replied emphasizing the fact
that 1700 fathers had voted in favor, did not miss his opportunity to reject the
conditioning collaboration of new theologians, behind whose back was
already seen a plan by Felici.
In
fact, the atmosphere was really tense: but there also instances of opportunism (Gori,
for instance), and of alarmism, to which Bea suggested to respond sending a
formal note before the final approval of the draft. And there was a resistance
to backtrack on a point that was crucial for reactionary Catholicism, the
right-duty to protect the Church from the Jews in conformity with a brief,
but certainly inflammatory tradition of the magisterium: but the fact that the
resistance was identified with Carli was a sure sign of its agony.
The
changes were accordingly examined at the beginning of March 1965 by a working
group that had already been tried out in October-November: Congar, Neuner,
Baum, Oesterreicher, and Moeller, who then gave a report at the plenary session
of the Secretariat.66
Not only the changes, but even new sensations: Willebrands explained for
instance that the Arab reactions had come from a transmission of Israeli radio
that had talked of an absolution of the Jews from the accusation of
deicide, and the commission intervened on the text by inverting the sentence on
the limits of the responsibility for the death of Jesus, and the retraction of
the accusation of deicide. Even Bea, in a plenary session, wanted to show
himself open to the concerns of the Arabs, who, unwilling to distinguish
politics and religion, interpreted wrongly the declaration as if it had been a
pronouncement in favor if Israel.
Along
this line which asked to give an explanation of Acts 3, 15, auctorem
fidei interfecistis (you killed the founder of the faith) it would
have been possible to come to drastic changes: against which, however, Sheenan
made his voice heard, saying that backtracking from the condemnation of the
accusation of deicide would have meant that the whole purpose of the text would
have been lost. The conflict was not resolved, and in the end the Willebrands
formula remained in the text, waiting for a further examination in the plenary
session of the following May 10th.
In
the meantime, Willebrands and Duprey started a journey in the
The
result in May? Chaos! And totally chaotic was also the plenary session of
the Secretariat that month, in which Willebrands gave a report of his journey,
and Bea talked of the new pressures from the Pope: only two possibilities
appeared left, either to sweeten the text, or to postpone everything to the
period after the Council. Congar perhaps was not the only one to think so, but
his intuition was rather that it was necessary to follow a different path: to
elaborate a more organic and more theological act, which would transform into a
resource all the lost opportunities and the opportunisms. His project was
transmitted to Bea and appeared to be a solution, but it was initially sidelined
because Willebrands thesis if it is not possible to do anything, better
to postpone was gaining growing support in the debate, including the
approval of Oesterreicher and of Congar himself.
Towards a text F
On
May 12th, after the meeting of the coordinating committee, the debate
took a different turn: a less categorical Willebrands and a more inventive Bea
sought to find new ways to disentangle the problem and the debate
regained momentum. De Smedt pushed for the discussion to continue, even if the
price was to include a premise on the non-political character of the text;
Martin, Charrière, Gran supported him.68
The German Stangl reaffirmed the thesis of Congar twenty years after
Auschwitz it is no longer possible to remain silent and Bea read a text with
a few suggestions that perhaps are the same as those jotted down by Congar a few
days earlier: but he dod not go ahead, because no-one, in such confusion, wanted
to risk starting from a text that had not passed though the sessions of the
Council.
Thus
began a period of operative discussion. Votes and formulations followed one
another: to eliminate the direct mention of deicide passed by 15 votes to 9, and
in a vote of control by 17 to 6; to reduce damnat to reprobat passed
by 15 to 8; the anti-political remarks by De Smedt were also approved. The
debate says however something very important about the situation: if this is the
way the Secretariat proceeded, what would happen in the Conciliar session? De
Smedt proposed to prepare two propositions to bring to the Council if the draft
were rejected, but he was not supported in this by Bea, who by this time was set
on going to the plenary session with a draft.
The
outcome of these tormented discussions was text F, which welcomed the proposals
of (or vehicled by) Paul VI: no deicide, no condemnation. A débacle? Perhaps
not, but certainly a cause for discontent. Suenens admitted as much to
DellAcqua, and told him of his fears that the Popes own prestige might be
damaged by this whole story: Il sagit
en effet dun texte déjà voté par une immense majorité qui a expressément
voulu réintroduire certaines formules que lon envisage en ce moment de
supprimer. Ces
modifications, venant du Secrétariat comme tel, sont formellement opposées au
règlement du Concile qui nadmet pas des retouches substantielles post
sufragationem. Le Secrétariat pour lunité ne peut donc les proposer de sa
propre autorité. [
]
on ne voit donc pas la possibilité de ne pas découvrir la couronne
(We are here talking of a text that has already been approved by an immense
majority, which explicitly decided to reintroduce certain formulas that now they
want to suppress. These modifications, coming from the Secretariat as such, are
formally opposed to the rules of the Council, which do not admit of substantial
changes after the vote [
] they do not realize that in this way they can leave
the authority of the Pontiff exposed.)
Felici,
who received a copy of the letter by Suenens, was of the opposite opinion: let
it be known that it is the Popes will and everything shall be solved or
rather, they can include a reference in draft XIII
This
is a moment when the Catholic press played a very special role: the Jesuits of
the magazine America asked for clear
words, whereas Msgr. Carli, in the review Palestra
del clero, asked to discuss openly the Jewish question, while in June
much authoritative press gave up on the declaration as dead
69
When, on September 15th, the Secretariat took up for the last time
the old De Judaeis, which in the meantime had substantially grown, nothing
was certain, neither for the declaration, nor for the entire final phase of the
work, where every segment of what appeared ready for promulgation appeared
vulnerable to fatal attacks.70
On
September 30th, 1965, the fathers were thus to receive a final text,
text G, articulated under nine headings that were going to be subject to the
vote71
before which the divisions among the different groups was clearly
delineated.
Opposed
to the text were the members of the Coetus
internationalis patrum, who, during the session of October 11th,
openly campaigned for the non placet,
distributing pamphlets with their Suggestiones
circa suffragationes mox faciendas de Schemate: De Ecclesiae habitudine ad
religiones non christianas, which are an attack on the Secretariat and a
politically sophisticated move: the conciliar right proposed to soften in a few
places three of the four parts destined for the vote, while advancing the cause
of only one unqualified rejection, for the part which revoked the doctrine
of deicide. On the first part (the passages concerning dialogue with
non-Christian religions) theological reservations were advanced which Mauro
Velati rightly considers malicious against the stubborn search for a denominator communis.
The
opposition of the Arabs, on the other hand, had been placated by a few moves:
after having appointed to the Secretary for Christian Unity Fr. Cocq, who had
previously been responsible for the commission on Islam within the Secretariat
for the non-Christians, a translation of the draft was prepared which was then
handed over to all Arab embassies: these, with the single exception of Iraq,
assumed a more accommodating tone, and this exerted an equally calming impact on
the position of the Arab bishops, who thought of a common voting declaration
(which would fail because of the opposition of the Maronites) and who remarked
how the Popes visit to the United Nations had attenuated certain polemical
excesses of pan-Arab nationalism.
A
variegated area of opposition was instead that of the informal organizations
within Judaism which regard as an ill-fated move the choice to omit the term
deicide, and the reduction of the damnat
(referring to anti-Semitism) to a mere deplorat:
Joseph Lichten, for Bnai Brith,
telegraphed the consternation of the American Jewish community, and the
Texas bishop Leven would be ready to vote against n. 4 for reasons opposite to
those of the Coetus, even though at
the moment of the vote they would be confused with them.
There
are also those who remarked in the newspapers, or in the embassies that
the expensio modorum handed over to
the Fathers did not explain the reasons for the softening of the text, which
paradoxically could end up bringing about a convergence between traditionalist
anti-Semites and disappointed innovators: once more,
Laurentins
reflections on this issue exemplify how many people at the time failed to
realize the implications of what they were doing: he thought that rejecting the
draft would have led to an improvement of the relationships with the Jewish
world, whereas the approval of the paragraph on deicide and anti-Semitism would
have calmed the opposition on the part of the Islamic world neither of which
assertions corresponded to reality. Even the supporters of the more open and
straight-forward solutions were unable to grasp the difference between
important, but national, organizations, and European Judaism, as well as the
difference between Judaism in Israel and the State of Israel as such a State
which indeed did find its roots in something different from the explosion of
Nazi and Fascist anti-Semitic ideology and genocide.
The
sequence of the votes chapter by chapter (October 14th-15th)
did not however result in violent shocks: the first paragraphs received 110, 184
and 189 negative votes; some of the paragraphs on Judaism received as many as
245 non placet, which however had no
consequence on n. 6; the last paragraph saw a decrease in the front of those
opposed, which came to include a mere 58 fathers. The whole of the text is
punished with 243 contrary votes, due to the backlash of a few sectors
the bishops of the Arab world or of the African world whose religions were not
mentioned.73
Perhaps
out of fear of irritating the Council fathers before the end, Lercaro had not
included
Seven
years had elapsed since the election of John XXIII.
The Sacrament of Otherness
As
I said at the beginning, much work still needs to be done to understand what is
hidden and what emerges in the public debates, in the private struggles in which
attempts were made to reject the idea that, 750 years after the Fourth Lateran
Council, a Council could approve the document De Judaeis with a different tone from that of Innocent III.74
There is much that must still be simply thought out in order to understand how
the impact of the declaration is being received at the various levels that make
up the life of the Christian community: from commentaries to the ecumenical
world, from papal diplomacy to the popularizing pamphlets, from various
initiatives that transfer [the decisions of] the Council to the members of
the Church, from Europe to the Arab world, from America to Israel. With due
caution, therefore, I limit myself to put forth, as a hypothesis, a
hermeneutical key which, if confirmed, I think can give a historical account
(though even with a few implications that go beyond the level of the mere
reconstruction of the facts) of the journey that has briefly been reviewed in
these pages.
The
history of the redaction of
From
the point of view of the redaction, this might appear to be the case,76
but in substance, the opposite is true. In the text and in life, in experience
and in history, Judaism has become the paradigm not only of inter-religious
dialogue, but also the paradigm of every difference, the sacrament of all
otherness, the locus theologicus where the Christians can show that every
other alludes in its very alterity to the One who is totally Other and yet
is totally Close to every woman and to every man.77
It is this mystery of salvation that marks our age. In the documents of
the Second Vatican Council, it is affirmed that our time can respond to the
challenge that this mystery represents.
1
Cf.
2
Cf. E.J. Fisher (ed.), Visions of the
Other: Jewish and Christian Theologians Assess the Dialogue. Studies in
Judaism and Christianity. A Stimulus Book,
3
Cf. Storia del concilio Vaticano II,
directed by G. Alberigo, Italian version edited by
4
Cf. D. I. Kertzer, The Popes against
the Jews: The Vaticans Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism,
5
Cf. D.J. Dietrich, God and Humanity in
Auschwitz: Jewish Christian Relations and Sanctioned Murder,
6
Cf. E. Schlusser-Fiorenza- D. Tracy (eds.), The
Holocaust as Interruption, Edinburgh, T&T Clark, 1984; also
7
Cf. M. Phayer, The Catholic Church and
the Holocaust, 1930-1965, Bloomington/Indianapolis,
8 On the sources, cf. M. Faggioli G. Turbanti, Il concilio inedito. Fonti del Vaticano II, Bologna, Il Mulino,
2001.
9
Cf. G. Miccoli, La libertà religiosa e le relazioni con gli ebrei, in Storia
del Concilio Vaticano II (from now, Miccoli, op.
cit.).
10
On the contacts, cf. Sens 2002/4,
with the papers of Jules Isaac.
11
Cf. J. Willebrands, Il Cardinale Agostino Bea: il suo contributo al movimento ecumenico,
alla libertà religiosa e allinstaurazione di nuove relazioni col popolo
ebraico, in Simposio card.
Agostino Bea (Roma, 16-19 dicembre
1981), Roma, Pontificia Università Lateranense, 1983, p. 17; for a
further reflection on this topic, cf. S. Schmidt, Agostino
Bea. Il cardinale dellUnità, Roma, Città Nuova, 1987.
12
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 162.
13
The story of the encounter between the Pope and Isaac is told in SIDIC
(1968), n. 3, pp. 10-12; the text with the requests handed over to John
XXIII can also be found in J. Toulat, Una visita a Jules Isaac, in
Rassegna mensile dIsrael, 11/12 (1972) [5733], pp. 3-13.
14
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 163.
15
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 163. For
the political and diplomatic context, cf.
16
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 163. For the problem of later theology, cf.
17
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 164.
18
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 164.
19
Cf. J. Nobècourt, Le Vicaire et lhistoire, Paris Seuil, 1964; in the context
created by this piece, Paul Rassinier invented a sort of personal
negationism, discussed by F. Brayard, Comment
lidée vint à Rassinier. Naissance
du révisionism,
Paris, Fayard, 1996.
20
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 165.
21
Obviously he did not refer to the missing encyclical by Pius XI on this
topic, published in G. Passelecq-B. Suchecky,
LEncyclique cachée de Pie XI, Paris, La Découverte, 1995.
22
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 164.
23
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 166.
24
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 167.
25
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 167.
26
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 168.
27
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 168-169.
28
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 169.
29
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 170.
30
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 171.
31
Cf. the Popes own observations in AS,
V/2, pp. 572ff.
32
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 175.
33
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 171.
34
35
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 171.
36
AS, V/2, p. 558; cf. also Miccoli,
op. cit., p. 172
37
The letter by Rudloff to Paul VI, dated
38
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., pp.
173-174.
39
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 174.
40
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 174.
41
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., pp.
174-175.
42
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 177.
43
Cf. S. Scatena, La fatica della libertà. Lelaborazione della dichiarazione
Dignitatis humanae on religious freedom by Vatican II, Bologna, Il
Mulino, 2003. The depth and breadth of the documentary and
interpretative references of this text evidence how much work still needs to
be done on
44
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 178.
45
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 160.
46
For the diplomatic context, cf. the index of
47
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., pp.
178-179.
48
Cf. Scatena, La fatica della libertà,
op. cit..
49
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 181.
50
Cf. AS, III/2, pp. 567-610, and AS,
III/3, pp. 9-55.
51
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 181.
52
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 190.
53
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 191.
54
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 192.
55
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 193.
56
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 204.
57
Cf. Scatena, La fatica della libertà,
op. cit..
58
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 201.
59
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., pp.
208-209.
60
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 215.
61
Cf. Miccoli, op. cit., p. 216.
62
Cf. Miccoli, op .cit., p. 218.
63
Cf. Oesterreicher, The New Encounter,
op. cit., pp. 228-233.
64
The synopsis of text C and of its changes is in AS
III/8, pp. 637-647.
65
Cf. Oesterreicher, The New Encounter,
op. cit., pp. 237-238.
66
Cf. Oesterreicher, The New Encounter, op. cit.,
pp. 247-249. Other documents are also in Fondo
De Smedt nn. 1463-1466.
67
For the reactions, cf.
68
Cf. Fondo De Smedt, n. 1441; there
is other material under the nn. 1467-1472.
69
Cf. Oesterreicher, The New Encounter, op. cit.,
pp. 253-260. On the reactionary
milieux, cf. N. Buonasorte, Fra
Roma e Lefebvre. Il tradizionalismo cattolico italiano e il concilio
vaticano II, Roma, Studium, 2003.
70
The synopsis of the text which is presented to the attention of the Fathers
on
71
Cf. Oesterreicher, The New Encounter,
op. cit., pp. 272.
72
For the reactions of the embassies, cf. the index of
73
Cf. Oesterreicher, The New Encounter,
op. cit., pp. 274-6.
74
Cf. S. Simonsohn, The Apostolic See
and the Jews: History, Toronto, Pontifical Institute of Medieval
Studies, 1991.
75
Cf. J. Neusner- E.S. Frerichs (eds.), To
See Ourselves as Others See Us. Christians, Jews, Others in Late
Antiquity,
76
This was the thesis of M. Ruokanen in The
Catholic Doctrine of Non-Christian Religions According to the Second Vatican
Council,
77
With reference to this intuition by Barth, an overview of the recent
theological discussions can be found in J.T. Palikowski,