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A Jewish View
The Vatican Council
i
The Southern Israeli
does not share the
extreme views
expressed by Rabbi
Ohrenstein, who we
trust is indulging in
strident contrast more
to press home a point
than to aspire to truth.
Some writers and
speakers use exaggera
tion to achieve effect.
Certainly Christianity
did not cause World
War I or II simply
because it was not
powerful enough to
prevent these conflicts,
any more than the Jews
caused the Nazi
extermination schemes
because they failed to
prevent them.
Nor do we consider
religion has failed or is
bankrupt because of
man’s refusal to learn
its lessons through the
ages, any more than
medical science is
bankrupt or has failed
because it did not
eliminate plagues of the
Dark Ages, nor has as
yet found a cure for
cancer and other
human ailments.
—THE EDITOR
The Southern Israelite
The Catholic Church in Rome is
confronted with one of its most
serious crises since its official en
try on the historic arena.
Every scientific advance, every
intellectual step forward, every
new discovery, every man’s hori
zon is widened, all this shakes up
its old-fashioned security, its theo
logical convictions and,rationaliza
tions, as well as its seif-confidence.
For the Catholic Church, (his is a
time when many things are falling
apart; its old values, its dogmatic
certainties, and its cherished illu
sions.
On the surface, it appears that
Christianity as a world religion is
in the best of shape. After all there
are no less than nine hundred mil
lion Christians in the world today,
out of which about a half a bil
lion are Catholics. In the United
States alone, which is predomin
antly a Protestant nation, there are
over thirty million Catholics, whose
political influence is way out of
proportion to their number.
As for its political sway among
the nations, though the Vatican is
not “backed by armed battalions - '
as Stalin once mockingly remark
ed, the political chancelaries the
world over, are still paying care
ful attention to its voice, and its
pronouncements still carry a lot
of weight even in the Council of
the United Nations.
And yet, all this external power-
cannot conceal the inner moral and
religious crisis which besets fhris-
tianity in general and Catholicism
in particular.
Anyone who is familiar with
statistical juggling knows that dry
figjwes alone, no matter how im
pressive, do not tell the full story.
They can be very illusive and mis
leading. This seems to be the case
with regard to the numerical
strength of the Catholic Church.
Thus for instance, a pertinent
question today is, how many, out
of this half a billion Catholics or
nearly billion Christians still be
lieve in the basic Christian dogma
of the Mother-Father-Son-and-
Holy Ghost. How many Christians
still accept the physical aspect of
the "God-Son” Gestalt? Can the
millions of Russians, for example,
who are included in this attrac
tive billion figure, and who have
exchanged their Chiistian Faith
for communist ideology, still be
counted as Christians?
These fundamental problems and
questions of the Church can no
longer be dismissed by a simple
explanation. For Christianity does
not look upon its non-religious or
anti-religious elements the same
way we do. In Judaism, whether
a Jew is religious, non-religious or
anti-religious, as long as he did not
sever his historical ties with his*,
people, he still remains a Jew. But
when a Christian becomes an ath
eist, from the Church’s point of
view, he is no longer considered
a member of the Christian Faith.
Since many have a long time ago
given up the belief in the physical
aspects of Christian creed, and the
number is steadily on the increase,
it is apparent tha+*>some revision
of that belief has become neces
sary.
As a moral and ethical force
too, Christianity does no longer
command the respect of millions
throughout the world. It cannot
be denied that Christendom in the
past half of this century, led the
world into two worid wars and to
the brink of a third. The dubious
A survivor of a
cone entration
camp himself,
Rabbi Ohren
stein served
with Congrega
tion Beth El in
Atlanta before
going to Far
Roqkaway, N.-
Y., as assistant
to the noted
Rabbi Robert
Gordis.
and expedient role which Pope
Pius XII played during the Nazi
holocaust with regard to millions
of Jewish victims, did not bolster
the prestige of the Catholic Church
either. No form of casuistry will
ever be able to explain away the
fact that the Holy infallible Fa
ther had nothing to say at a time
when God's image wes drowned in
rivers of innocent blood.
It goes without saying that that
which is generally described as
Christian civilization, is bankrupt.
For not only did it fail to improve
man, not only did it fail to raise
the moral and ethical level oif
mankind, but has on the contrary
brutalized man more than ever,
and succeeded in bringing out of
him his basest animalistic instincts
as evidenced by the events of
World War Two.
Now Pope John the 23rd. who
is a diplomat with an open mind,
is fully aware of the spiritual,
moral and political crisis of the
Christian Church. He therefore
summoned over two thousand Car
dinals and Bishops from all the
comers of the world in order to
find a solution to its many vexing
problems, and in his very own
words,” to let some fresh air in
into the Church.”
. You might askr after all these
are primarily internal matters of
the Catholic Church, what has all
this to do with us Jews? Well it
has! The deliberations of the Ecu
menical Council in Rome is of deep
interest not only to hundreds of
millions of Catholics and the en
tire Christendom, but is also of
profound concern to world Jewry.
Strange as it may seem, it is a
fact that most of the two thousand
Catholic clerics who came to Rome
from all over the world, have
brought with them not only Chris
tian problems, but also their own
special “Jewish problem.” Their
problem is, to put it in a nut shell,
“what to do with the Jews?”
It is interesting that many of
them do show profund concern for
the Jewish problem. One promin
ent representative of the Roman
Catholic Church in France, the
Bishop of VersaiHe, Alexander
Rena, has diplomatically formulat
ed the entire problem as follows:
“Actually the present Ecumen
ical Conference was called for the
purpose to find a solution to the
problem of the twentieth century.
Most of us have felt for a long
time that this century has created
difficult problems for the Church.
We have been living in the world
of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, and with concepts that
have been outdated. And so, Pope
John assembled the representatives
of Catholicism, invited our bro
thers, the Protestants and the
Greek Orthodox, and we began to
talk . . . AmOng our pressing prob
lems however, is the Jewish ques
tion, namely our attitude toward
Judaism, toward the Jewish people
and toward the Jewish religion and
philosophy.”
As is to be expected, most cler
ics will not admit that the Jew-
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