This Week
Crossed Signals
A new channel in Vatican-Jewish dialogue
opens possibilities for miscommunication.
- s
J.J. GOLDBERG
Special to the Jewish News
)**
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22
New York
enior Catholic Church offi-
cials are scheduled to meet in
mid-June in Washington with
a new group of rabbis, hailing
from three continents and represent-
ing the three major Jewish denomina-
tions, to begin what both sides envi-
sion as a new dialogue between
Judaism and Catholicism.
The initiative is the latest twist —
and perhaps the strangest — in a
continuing Catholic-Jewish relation-
ship that has gone through more flip-
flops than the NASDAQ stock
exchange in recent years.
Relations hit a low about 14
months ago, when the Vatican sus-
pended ties with its longtime Jewish
negotiating partner, an international
coalition of Jewish organizations led
by the World Jewish Congress. The
coalition, known as the International
Jewish Committee for Interreligious
Consultations, or IJCIC, had
worked with the Vatican steadily
through 30 years of profound
church reforms. Last year's freeze
followed months of intense bicker-
ing over the church's behavior dur-
ing World War II.
Then, last month, relations hit a
high point with the visit of Pope
John Paul II to Israel, where he
prayed at the Western Wall and
toured Yad Vashem, Israel's national
Holocaust memorial. Jews in Israel
and around the world proclaimed the
visit dramatic evidence of a new
Catholic attitude toward Jews.
The upcoming Washington dia-
logue is meant to raise communica-
tions" between the faiths to a new
level, say spokesmen on both sides.
Discussions will focus on issues
like the divine roots of human ethics.
Church leaders had for years been
pressing IJCIC, their traditional part-
ner, to move beyond discussions of
historic antisemitism and address the
theological links between the two
faiths. That's met with little success.
IJCIC leaders cite a traditional
Orthodox ban on interfaith theologi-
cal "disputation."
Diverse Theologians
The new rabbinic group, the
Rabbinic Committee for
Interreligious Dialogue, includes
internationally respected Jewish the-
ologians. Among them are Israeli
philosopher David Hartman, incom-
ing U.S. Holocaust Memorial
Council chief Irving "Yitz"
Greenberg, University of Judaism
Provost Elliott Dorff and former
French Chief Rabbi Rene Sirat. Also
included are two of America's best-
known pulpit rabbis, Harold
Schulweis of Los Angeles and
Ronald Sobel of New York's Temple
Emanu-El.
"These kinds of people are very
important to us, because they are not
representatives of secular organiza-
tions but religious representatives,"
says Father Remi Hoeckman,
Belgian-born secretary-general of the
Vatican Commission on Religious
Relations with the Jews.
What's odd about the new group is
that, in a crucial sense, they're not
representatives at all. In' fact, the rab-
binic committee was convened under
the auspices of a Catholic college. Its
founder, Rabbi Joseph Ehrenkranz, is
director of the Center for Christian-
Jewish Understanding at Sacred
Heart University in Fairfield, Conn.
That's a strange pedigree for a group
purporting to represent Judaism.
Vatican officials are noncommit-
tal on the significance of the new
dialogue.
"We are open to relating to any
group of people that wants to share
an agenda with us," say Hoeckman.
They haven't always been so open.
For 30 years, they've refused to recog-
nize any formal partner but IJCIC.
Indeed, IJCIC first was established at
Vatican request, after the Second
Vatican Council in the mid-1960s
ordered the church to begin a long-
term dialogue -with Judaism.
What emerged was a coalition that
included Judaism's three main reli-
gious wings plus the World Jewish
CROSSED SIGNALS
on page 24