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PAGE 3—January 23, 1975
Reliance on T error Balance Deplored by Pope
BY JAMES C. O’NEILL
VATICAN CITY (NC) - Pope Paul
VI has warned the world against reliance
on an atomic “balance of terror” as a
means of safeguarding peace when peace
seems to be “gradually deteriorating.”
Speaking Jan. 11 to the diplomatic
corps accredited to the Vatican, he also
defended the Holy See’s diplomatic
activities in the interests of peace and
human rights, and pointed to danger
spots in the Middle East, Vietnam and
Cambodia.
In an almost 2,500-word speech at
the Vatican on the occasion of the
annual New Year audience for
diplomats accredited to the Holy See,
the Pope began by speaking of his
“growing preoccupation” with the
current situation of the world.
Pope Paul said that that situation
“appears to be gradually deteriorating,
to the extent that it causes some to
speak of a transition, already begun,
from a ‘post-war’ to a ‘pre-war’ phase.”
The prospect, he said, has a
“terrifying import” for all concerned
with peace and asked:
“Has there not perhaps been till now
a sort of convergence of judgments -
and of fears -- concerning what could be
the meaning for the world of the
outbreak of a conflict that - should it
prove impossible to keep it in
proportion, always very painful for the
victims, but at least territorially limited
- would almost inevitably become
atomic, because of its seriousness and
extension?”
The “terror” of such a war, the Pope
VATICAN CITY (NC) - Penance
leading to peace of conscience is the
“first breath of the spirit of Holy Year,”
Pope Paul VI said in his Angelus talk
Jan. 12.
Pope Paul, speaking to thousands
gathered in St. Peter’s Square in damp
and cold weather, called peace of
conscience the “heaviest responsibility
borne by man in his advanced state, a
responsibility which cannot, be resolved
by forgetting about it or by suppressing
it with an evasive answer.”
continued, “is currently considered to
be the main if not perhaps the only
guarantee against events that would
appear for that very reason too
dangerous for the very people who
would have felt sufficiently strong to be
able to win by surviving the other
contenders.”
Some Vatican observers interpreted
the Pope’s words as a reaction,
diplomatically phrased, to the
declaration of U.S. Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger that the United States
has not ruled out the possibility of
military action if oil-producing
countries should threaten to strangle the
economies of the industrial nations.
However, Vatican officials were
unwilling to take the Pope’s words any
further than he had himself.
Pope Paul pointed out to the
assembled ambassadors: “As you know,
the Holy See has never shown itself
enthusiastic for the formula of the
‘balance of terror’ as a means of
safeguarding peace.”
He gave four reasons for rejecting the
“balance of terror” approach to
peacekeeping.
-- “It has always seemed to this
Apostolic See to be too detached from
the moral basis upon which alone peace
can prosper.”
-- “It has likewise seemed too
extravagant, through continual
competition in equalling and surpassing
one another in terms of powers and
arms, too extravagant we say, of means
and energies that ought on the contrary
to be devoted to quite other ends: to
the well-being and progress of all
peoples.”
The Pope said that only a brave and
sincere feeling of remorse and of the
need for pardon and renewed hope
yields peace of conscience. “This is the
first breath of the spirit of Holy Year:
the Spirit of penance which is reflected
immediately in the transcendent sphere
of our religious relationships. God is the
judge of our way of life and vindicator
of His own justice.”
In addition to the spirit of penance,
according to the Pope, “another breath
of the same Spirit invades the man who
- “It has seemed destructive of
thoughts of harmony and mutual
understanding.”
-- “It has seemed, finally, too fragile a
shield against the onslaught of so many
situations of tension and conflict. ..”
Pope Paul said that to “the voice of
force” it is necessary to “oppose the
strong and serene voice of reason.” The
world needs today, he said, “perhaps
more than in past years, the courageous
and persevering action of wise
diplomacy oriented towards the
safeguarding of peace, in all its
dimensions, in its causes and in the
conditions that render it possible and
secure.”
In another passage also which could
be interpreted as referring to Kissinger,
whom the Pope has in the past praised
as a worker for peace, Pope Paul
declared:
“Our message is therefore one of
praise for all those who are dedicating
themselves in this way (and more than
once we have had occasion to express
this sentiment directly in the meetings
which we have recently been able to
have with some of these ‘makers of
peace’).”
Kissinger visited privately with Pope
Paul, Nov. 5, for an hour before
addressing the United
Nations-sponsored World Food
Conference in Rome.
The Pope pledged that the Holy See
would continue working for the “causes
of peace” by contributing “not only its
moral support but also all the concrete
help within its power.”
This led the Pope to the second part
opens himself to this supreme
experience: it is living breath of
unspeakable kindness, of a much
sought-after mercy ... a blessed and
easy meeting with the Father, always
waiting for our step toward the
threshold of the blessed house of His
life and our faith.”
Holy Year, he concluded, “is the
discovery of pardoning, redeeming and
reviving love. It is a good opportunity to
become once again real men and new
Christians.”
of his speech, in which he expressed
some thoughts of the Holy See’s
diplomatic activities.
He began by saying: “This diplomacy
is not inspired by a desire for
self-affirmation and human prestige, or
by a wish to interfere in matters which
are alien to the nature of the Catholic
Church.
“On the contrary, the first and
fundamental purpose of this diplomacy
is precisely to render faithful service to
the Church, to her potentialities for life
and action, in all places and in all
historical, political or social situations,
and to her legitimate freedom, even if
this service is not easy and not always
adequately appreciated.”
The Pope said that in defending the
legitimate interests of freedom of
religion, the Church also makes a
significant contribution to civil society
itself and to the defense particularly of
human rights.
Summing up his argument, Pope Paul
declared:
“On a vast stage of today’s world the
Holy See’s diplomacy intends to operate
with fidelity to its own principles but
with loyalty, cooperation and friendship
towards the other members of the
community of peoples, even when, on
some crucial problems, the respective
positions may not be fully
concordant...
“In other words, the Holy See
intends to act with strength in order
that operative principles of solidarity
and brotherhood may replace those
which are ever present as a continuing
threat to the peaceful coexistence of
peoples, - namely egoism whether
national, group-oriented, racial or
cultural.”
In the third and final part of his
address, Pope Paul turned to danger
points in today’s world.
He said: “We are thinking here of the
Middle East, about which we have had
to speak so often and about which we
must speak again, and of the new and
more threatening complications caused
by the so-called ‘war of energy
sources.’”
He also referred to Vietnam and
Cambodia, “which are witnessing in
these days a menacing rekindling of the
smouldering coals of hostility and
guerrilla warfare ... May the conscience
of the civilized world not forget or
disregard a tragedy that is no less
painful because it is prolonged.”
In a passage that seemed to apply to
Northern Ireland the Pope expressed the
hope: “May the doors, of understanding
and compassion open also within the
individual nations, where situations of
conflict or of tension continue to
produce disorder, not infrequently of a
Woody nature, and reprisals no less
serious, agitation and heavy-handed
repression.”
Penance for Peace of Mind
DAD OFFICIATES - Permanent Deacon Michael Angela Keffala at Our Lady of Sacred Heart Church,
Newman, editor of the Southern Cross, San Diego San Diego. At right is Father James Poulsen, chief
diocesan newspaper, performs his first wedding concelebrant of the wedding Mass. In the center is
ceremony by witnessing the vows of his son, Paul, with maid of honor Colleen Mauricio. (NC Photo)
Pope Calls for ‘True Dialogue’ Between Jews and Catholics
BY JOHN MUTHIG
VATICAN CITY (NC) - Pope Paul
VI told members of a high-level
Jewish-Catholic liaison committee here
that he hopes for the establishment of
“true dialogue ... in a manner
appropriate to our age” between
Judaism and Catholicism.
In a private audience Jan. 10 with 12
members and experts of the Liaison
Committee between the Catholic
Church and World Judaism, Pope Paul
said the history of relations between the
two faiths has included elements of
“real and profound esteem” as well as
“difficulties and confrontations.”
The liaison committee, which met in
Rome Jan. 7-10 at the offices of the
Vatican’s Secretariat for promoting
Christian Unity, discussed guidelines for
Catholic dialogue with Jews published
Jan. 3 by the Vatican’s Commission for
Religious Relations with the Jews. The
commission was established by Pope
Paul in October.
During the audience, Dr. Gerhart
Riegner, secretary of the World Jewish
Congress, told the Pope that the
International Jewish Committee on
Interreligious Consultations feels that
the establishment of the Vatican
commission and the publication of the
guidelines “will encourage a better
understanding and improve relations
between Catholics and Jews in a spirit
of mutual respect and acceptance of our
fundamental differences.”
Dr. Riegner said that the Jewish
committee “accepts with favor” the
condemnation of anti-Semitism found
in the guidelines “at a moment when
this old hatred is again promoted by the
enemies of the Jewish people.”
Members of the committee are the
World Jewish Congress, the Synagogue
Council of America, the American
Jewish Committee, B’nai B’rith
Anti-Defamation League, and the Israel
Interfaith Committee.
According to the Jewish leader, the
International Jewish Committee on
Interreligious Consultations also hopes
that the guidelines’ invitation to
Christians to “learn by what essential
traits the Jews define themselves in the
light of their own religious experience”
will lead to a “broader appreciation of
the essential place which the people and
the land hold in the Jewish faith.”
(This appears to be a reference to the
land of Israel.)
Dr. Riegner added: “We appreciate
warmly the recognition made by Your
Holiness in your recent discourse to the
Sacred College of Cardinals on the place
of Jerusalem in the longings and the
love of the Jewish people.”
In his Christmas speech to the
cardinals, the Pope called Jerusalem the
holy city “of the Christian world, and at
the same time the center of the love and
centuries-old longings of that people
whom God has mysteriously
forechosen. Signifying in them ‘His’
people in whom we recognize ourselves;
it is dear likewise to the large religious
family of Islam.”
The relationship between the Jewish
people and the land of Israel was not
mentioned in the guidelines for dialogue
issued by the Vatican commission.
Dr. Riegner, who spoke in French,
told the Pope that the committee
“receives favorably the invitation to
common social action” with the
Church.
The Pope, also speaking in French,
told the liaison committee that the
Vatican commission’s guidelines “evoke
the difficulties and confrontations, with
all the regrettable elements involved,
which have marked relations between
Christians and Jews over the past 2,000
years. While this reminder has been
salutary and indispensable, one should
not forget that there have also been
between us down through the centuries
elements other than confrontations.”
The Pope then mentioned efforts
made by the Catholic Church during
World War II “in Rome itself, under the
energetic impulse of Pius XII, as we
personally testify,” and by bishops,
priests and lay Catholics “ to save
innocent Jews from persecution, often
at the peril of their own lives.”
He also called attention to the
“connections, often too little remarked
upon, between Jewish thought and
Christian thought.”
The Pope pointed out that the great
Catholic theologian St. Thomas Aquinas
made “numerous references” to Moshe
Ben Maimon, also known as
Maimonides, a rabbinical scholar from
Spain who died in Egypt at the
beginning of the 13th century. Among
Jews, the Pope added, a “whole Jewish
Thomistic school” existed in the Latin
West in the 13th and 14th centuries.
These and other examples “bear
witness to the fact that at different
periods and at a certain level there has
been real and profound mutual esteem
and a conviction that they had
something to leam from one another,”
the Pope told the committee members.
“We formulate, gentlemen, the
sincere wish that, in a manner
appropriate to our age and thus in a
field that to some extent exceeds the
limited domain of merely speculative
and rational exchanges, a true dialogue
may be established between Judaism
and Christianity.”
The Pope concluded: “We dare to
think that the recent solemn affirmation
of rejection by the Catholic Church of
every form of anti-Semitism and the
invitation we have extended to all the
faithful of the Catholic Church to pay
heed in order ‘to leam by what essential
traits the Jews define themselves in the
light of their own religious experience’
may, on the Catholic side, provide the
conditions for beneficial development.”
Following the audience in the Pope’s
BY JOSEPH R. THOMAS
EAST ORANGE, N.J. (NC) - The
key element in the Vatican’s guidelines
on relations with the Jews is the
document’s insistence that we “cleanse
all our teaching and preaching of any
kind of anti-Judaism,” according to a
pioneer in Christian-Jewish relations.
Msgr. John M. Oesterreicher told the
Advocate, Newark archdiocesan
newspaper, that anti-Judaic
interpretations “not only harm Jews but
also harm Christians because they are
totally incompatible with true Christian
attitudes.”
Msgr. Oesterreicher is founder and
director of Seton Hall University’s
Institute of Judaeo-Christian Studies.
A convert from Judaism, Msgr.
Oesterreicher said the Vatican is
“warning us particularly against
misunderstanding of the term “the
Jews’ in St. John’s Gospel and the term
‘Pharisee’ in St. Matthew’s Gospel.” It is
Msgr. Oesterreicher’s position that in
some cases these terms have been
misinterpreted as condemning all Jews.
Msgr. Oesterreicher indicated that
this is one reason he believes the
Vatican document “to be a good one --
one which I welcome.” A principal
author of the Second Vatican Council’s
statement on the Jews - to which the
new document is a follow-up - the
Seton Hall priest has long cautioned
that such terminology must be seen in
y
private library, the liaison committee
issued a press release regarding its
meetings. According to the release,
Jewish participants “raised questions
about several aspects of the guidelines”
published by the Vatican commission.
Among questions raised about the
guidelines was “their failure to note the
essential significance of peoplehood and
land in the Jewish faith.”
The release praised the guidelines for
opening up “new avenues for further
clarifications of important and
sometimes controversial issue.”
Also discussed were sections of the
guidelines referring to the “obligation of
Catholics to witness to their faith within
its historical context and in light of the
intehtions of the original authors who
were writing out of their own Jewish
tradition.
Asked for his general reaction to the
guidelines, however, Msgr. Oesterreicher
said: “What we need is not more
guidelines - we have had quite a few --
but more thought, more study, more
information, more action.”
Commenting on the development of
the latest document, he said that the
original version, made known through
Cardinal Lawrence Shehan of Baltimore
some years ago, was stronger on several
points.
“For instance,” the monsignor said,
“it stressed the link of the Jewish
people to the Promised Land and this
supported the historic significance of
the state of Israel.”
The aging scriptural scholar, who has
been a priest since 1927, admitted to a
personal regret that this link was not
mentioned, “particularly at a time when
the life, the sovereignty of Israel has
become more precarious than ever.”
However, he said he does not agree
with those who see a conversionary
tendency in the document because it
makes mention of the mission of the
Church to preach the Gospel.
“This is a non-issue,” he said in
answer to a question. “There isn’t
anywhere in the world an organized or
the context of dialogue and the
suggestions for common prayer,”
according to the release.
Catholic delegates, it added, made it
clear that the guidelines should be
understood in no way as an attempt to
proselytize Jews. They also pointed out
that the guidelines make no general
"recommendations for common prayer,
but “referred only to circumstances in
which this would be acceptable to both
sides,” according to the release.
Some Orthodox Jewish groups have
said that common prayer with
Christians would be unacceptable to
them.
concerted official effort to missionize
the Jews.”
“But Jews are conditioned to see
conversionary tendencies even where
there aren’t any,” he said. “The
recollection of false Baptisms and the
like is in their marrow. It is easy to
understand that they are quite sensitive
on this point.
“ At the same time, those who accuse
this document of proselytizing
tendencies live in an unreal world. What
do they expect the Church to say: that
she does not preach Jesus Christ to the
world?
“What more can such a document say
other than that in giving witness to
Jesus, Catholics must be on their guard
not to give offense to Jews and must
always show the greatest respect to
religious freedom?”
Msgr. Oesterreicher said he felt the
document has shortcomings. It’s a
human document and all human
documents have shortcomings. Buy why
dwell on shortcomings? The spirit of
dialogue should lead us to stress all that
is positive and affirmative and therefore
life-giving, without, however, ignoring
the shortcomings.”
Msgr. Oesterreicher admitted to some
pleasure at the document’s stress on the
establishment of academic centers for
promoting Christian-Jewish relations.
Even as the document was being
released, his office was distributing
brochures announcing a graduate degree
program on the links and conflicts
between Christians and Jews.
} V
* —
Preaching Cross Urged
VATICAN CITY (NC) - The bishops of Poland have declared that Christian
evangelizers must preach the Cross of Christ as well as work for human liberation.
»
In a pastoral letter reflecting on October’s world Synod of Bishops at the Vatican,
which discussed evangelization in the modem world, the Polish bishops warned against
preaching of an earth- centered gospel. j
According to a Vatican Radio broadcast of Jan. 14, the bishops reaffirmed the
“close link between evangelization and the duty to work for human liberation.” But
they also “warned against an exclusively terrestial messianism.”
Vatican Radio added: “The bishops recalled that the complete salvation of man
comes through the cross of Christ, and the cross for that reason cannot be missing in
the work of evangelization.”
The bishops also said that evangelization is the Church’s “reason for being,”
according to the broadcast.
“The preaching and acceptance of the Gospel leads to the full libertation of man in
whatever situation he finds himself, ” they said.
Anti-Semitism Warning Seen 6 Key 9
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