News in Christian-Jewish Relations:  July 2001

This month:

 


Catholic and Jewish Holocaust scholars suspend their activities

The International Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission, in a July 20th letter addressed to Cardinal Walter Kasper, has conveyed its decision to suspend its research into the activities of the Holy See during the Second World War. 

The Historical Commission was originally comprised of three Catholic and three Jewish scholars appointed, respectively, by the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations. It was formed after the March 1998 meeting in Vatican City of the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee. At that meeting, then president of the Holy See's Commission, Cardinal Edward Cassidy, proposed that a joint committee of Catholics and Jews be formed to examine critically the eleven volumes of archival material published by the Holy See’s Secretariat of State (external division) between 1965 and 1981, entitled Actes et Documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la seconde guerre mondiale. According to the Joint Communiqué from that meeting, after reviewing these volumes, "and if questions still remained, they should seek further clarification."

The six scholars chosen to serve on the Historical Commission were: Dr. Eva Fleischner, Professor Emerita of Montclair State University in New Jersey; Reverend Gerald P. Fogarty, S.J., William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Religious Studies and History, University of Virginia; Dr. Michael R. Marrus, Chancellor Rose and Ray Wolfe Professor of Holocaust Studies and Dean of the School of Graduate Studies, University of Toronto; Reverend John F. Morley, Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies, Seton Hall University; Dr. Bernard Suchecky, Researcher at the Department of Social Sciences, Free University of Brussels; Dr. Robert S. Wistrich, Professor of History and holder of the Neuberger Chair in Modern Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The scholars served without compensation on the project which was coordinated by Dr. Eugene Fisher, Bishops Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, National Conference of Catholic Bishops (USA), on behalf of the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews; and Seymour D. Reich, Chairman of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC); and Dr. Leon A. Feldman, Professor Emeritus of Hebraic Studies, Rutgers University, and Secretary of IJCIC. 

The Historical Commission divided the eleven volumes among its six members. These individual evaluations of certain volumes by each scholar ultimately generated a combined list of forty-seven questions that were issued in a Preliminary Report on October 26, 2000. The questions asked if there was further documentation in the archives of the Holy See's Secretariat of State that could shed light on gaps in the published documents. 

On June 21, 2001, the new president of the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, Cardinal Walter Kasper, wrote a letter to the historical team asking if it would submit a final report based on the materials it had reviewed. In this letter Cardinal Kasper indicated that the additional requested material was not available. In press reports, Dr. Fisher explained that this was due to the understaffing of the Vatican's archives, whose personnel have to date processed and indexed materials only up to 1923. The five scholars (Dr. Eva Fleischner had retired from the Historical Commission several months ago) apparently decided that this would be impossible without having their earlier questions addressed by means of the additional archival material.  Consequently, the scholars' wrote to Cardinal Kasper that "We therefore cannot see a way forward at present to the final report that you request, and believe that we must therefore suspend our work."

A July 24th Catholic News Service article by Cindy Wooden quotes Historical Commission member Dr. Gerald Fogarty, a Catholic and a Jesuit, as observing, "There were two different sets of expectations and two different agendas from the very beginning, and they finally clashed." Some of the scholars saw the study as the best way to press for open access to the archives, which, as a historian is a principle with which Dr. Fogarty agrees. "But I thought we went far too fast in focusing on the questions [that required further archival material], when we should have been interacting, then going back and in detail reading the volumes that we had not read," Dr. Fogarty is quoted as saying. "It is a fact, we could not work together with some people wanting greater access and others saying we can do more work [on the published materials]; there was no point in saying we could work together as a group." 

A July 24th article by Tim Cook of the Globe and Mail of Toronto, quoted local Jewish scholar and Historical Commission member Michael Marrus as saying, "Very few serious scholars would believe that there is a smoking gun in these archives or that these archives are going to deeply incriminate the wartime Pope, but surely making these documents available will increase our understanding." He also indicated that Cardinal Kasper's June 21st letter had advised the scholars to seek further information from Rev. Peter Gumpel, S.J. a Vatican official assembling evidence to support the beatification of wartime Pope Pius XII. However, Dr. Marrus "did not find this a constructive suggestion. . . . This is not someone we look to for balance and objectivity."

An opinion piece by Dr. Marrus in the same issue of the Globe and Mail concluded by advising that, "Scholars should continue to ponder this historical issue, should continue to make the case for a balanced inquiry, and should look forward to the day when conditions for all of our work will improve."

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Deputy Foreign Minister Rabbi Michael Melchior supports the historians' decision to halt the work of the Joint Jewish Catholic commission of enquiry into Pius XII due to lack of Vatican cooperation.

Deputy Foreign Minister Melchior said he expects the Vatican to cooperate in the world wide effort to expose the truth of the Holocaust period and open its archives.  The Deputy Minister emphasizes that the good understanding reached between Jews and Catholics in recent years is based on the principle that a better future can be built on the basis of truth and coping with the past, even if it is difficult.

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[Posted July 24, 2001; Updated July 25,26, August 3,7,8.] Further confirmed information or documentation will be posted here or on the news pages for subsequent months as it becomes available. 

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Statement by Cardinal William H. Keeler on Catholic-Jewish Holocaust Scholars Group

[Cardinal Keeler is the Episcopal Moderator for Catholic-Jewish relations of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.]

July 27, 2001

Earlier this week the public learned that the team of Catholic and Jewish historians working together on the 12 volumes of published materials from the Vatican Archives of the World War II period has “suspended” its work for “the present period.”  These carefully chosen words are from their joint letter to Cardinal Walter Kasper, President of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews.

Many questions still remain, as the scholars’ own Preliminary Report and letter to Cardinal Kasper acknowledge.  First, much work remains to be done on the 12 volumes themselves, as the scholars point out.  Admittedly they could not achieve a full consensus on how to proceed at this state of their work.  They do offer the hope that in dialogue with Cardinal Kasper they may yet discern a way forward.  
           
Now the situation has become more problematic. At an early stage a European member of the group, Dr. Bernard Suchecky, caused serious damage to the group’s credibility by leaking its Preliminary Report during their meeting in Rome last October.  This event seriously impeded the work in progress, making it impossible for them to complete a critical phase of their research in timely fashion and diminishing the level of trust of the other members toward one of their number. Earlier this year, another member, Professor Robert Wistrich, troubled the trust level further when, in an interview with the Jerusalem Report, he imputed bad faith to the Holy See.

With sadness I note that the Coordinator of the Jewish side, Mr. Seymour Reich, Chair of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultation, has released to the press the Group’s joint letter to Cardinal Kasper and used the occasion to misrepresent its content in his press release. Neither Dr. Eugene Fisher, Catholic Coordinator for the group, nor the Catholic members of the team were consulted in this by Mr. Reich, and all three Catholics have firmly rejected it.  It now seems more difficult than ever to see a way forward.

It is important to stress that some genuine progress was made by the team of scholars and helpful to recall its origin. Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy, Cardinal Kasper’s predecessor, suggested that such a group be established during the meeting of the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee in Rome in March, 1998.  It became clear that, although a significant number of documents from the Holocaust years have published by the Holy See at the direction of Pope Paul VI, scholars had not seriously studied them.  I was pleased to be present then and again, a year later, in Baltimore, when Cardinal Cassidy had read publicly a prepared address in which he expressed deeply felt disappointment that his offer to facilitate such a study had not been taken up by the IJCIC.  

The spirit of Cardinal Cassidy’s suggestion and, I would like to believe, the spirit with which the group itself undertook their work was one of dialogue.  They were asked to see whether our two faith communities, by bringing together appropriate historical scholarship, could work toward that “reconciliation of memory” called for in the Holy See’s We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah, a document issued only a week earlier.

The publication of We Remember coincided with the actual arrival in Rome from Jerusalem of a joint pilgrimage group comprising six of us American bishops, seven rabbis, two priests and two laymen, one Catholic and one Jewish.  Next day, we listened as the rabbis in the group clearly and constructively raised in direct conversation with Cardinal Cassidy virtually all of the Jewish concerns with the document--along with significant positive reactions as well--that were to come out in the public forum in ensuing weeks and months.  At the ILC meeting the following week the Jewish representatives presented the identical issues.

In view of the general lack of knowledge of the documents of the Holy See, I supported Cardinal Cassidy’s move to put the 12 volumes of Vatican documentation on the table for mature scholarly dialogue.  He wisely decided not to involve someone from the Pontifical Commission itself directly with the group, lest there be the slightest appearance of an attempt by the Holy See to influence the work of the scholars.  I was delighted with his selection as Catholic Coordinator for the scholar’s group of our own staff person at the Bishops’ Conference, Dr. Eugene Fisher, identified to me years earlier by Cardinal Johannes Willebrands as “most qualified” for the consideration of any Catholic-Jewish issue.

Dr. Fisher has served well and ably in the estimation of those involved in the process.  So too, I believe, have all three of the Catholic scholars, Fathers Gerald Fogarty, SJ, and John Morley, and Dr. Eva Fleischner, who later resigned from the team.  All three are Americans, and we in the United States can be proud of and grateful for their generous response to the request made of them by Cardinal Cassidy on behalf of the Holy See.

One question to ask of any dialogue group is whether the members have been able to work through the differing personal and professional experiences they bring with them to the table toward some measure of consensus.  The Preliminary Report of this group indicates that they were able to do so on significant matters if by no means on everything.

It is seen more clearly than ever that the work of reconciliation will be long and immensely challenging. Of crucial importance for the future must be the separation from scholarly research of elements of a politically driven agenda that poisons the atmosphere and makes true progress unattainable.  As Rabbi Bemporad, Director of the Center for Interreligious Understanding, counseled in an address last year at the Centro pro Unione in Rome, the establishment of a proper atmosphere is crucial to the success of any interreligious dialogue. Said Rabbi Bemporad, “if there is a lack of trust, mutuality, or respect, then genuine dialogue cannot take place.”

Joint efforts by Catholic and Jewish scholars working together can bear fruit in the long run, provided the dialogue is conducted in a spirit of mutual respect and trust.  I believe we must continue to look for a way to bring Catholic and Jewish memories of the period of the Shoah together for a reconciling dialogue. Those who might wish to politicize this moment of pain should reflect on what is at stake in our effort to grapple together with our history for the sake of both Jews and Catholics.  In the end, under God, our common message should be one of renewed hope for all humanity.  

Cardinal William H. Keeler,
Archbishop of Baltimore,
Episcopal Moderator for Catholic-Jewish Relations, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

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YES TO NEGOTIATIONS, YES TO PEACE

[The following statement was issued on July 26, 2001 by a group of Palestinian and Israeli intellectuals and peace activists. It urges that it is not too late to put a halt to the spiral of violence.]


We, the undersigned Israelis and Palestinians, are meeting in the most difficult of circumstances for both our peoples. We come together to call for an end to bloodshed, an end to occupation, an urgent  return to negotiations and the realization of peace between our peoples. We refuse to comply with the ongoing deterioration in our situation, with the growing list of victims, the suffering and the real possibility that we may all be drowned in a sea of mutual hostility.

We hereby raise our voices and implore all people of goodwill to return to sanity, to re-discover compassion, humanity, and critical judgment and to reject the unbearable ease of the descent into fear, hatred, and calls for revenge.

In spite of everything we still believe in the humanity of the other side, that we have a partner for peace and that a negotiated solution to the conflict between our peoples is possible. Mistakes have been made on all sides, the trading of accusations and pointing of fingers is not a policy and is no substitute for serious engagement.

The impression that exists in both communities that 'time is on our side' is illusory. The passage of time benefits only those who do not believe in peace. The longer we wait, the more innocent blood will be spilt, the greater will be the suffering and hope will be further eroded. We must move urgently to re-build our partnership, to end the de-humanization of the other, and to revive the option of a just peace that holds out promise for our respective futures.

The way forward lies in international legitimacy and the implementation of UNSCR 242 and 338 leading to a 2-State solution based on the 1967 borders, Israel and Palestine living side-by-side, with their respective capitals in Jerusalem. Solutions can be found to all outstanding issues that should be
fair and just to both sides and should not undermine the sovereignty of the Palestinian and Israeli states as determined by their respective citizens, and embodying the aspirations to statehood of both peoples, Jewish and Palestinian. This solution should build on the progress made between November 1999 and January 2001.

The immediate need is for the full and accurate implementation of the Recommendations of the Mitchell Committee, including: the cessation of violence, a total freeze on settlement activity, the implementation of outstanding agreements and a return to negotiations. This process needs to
be monitored by an objective third party. 

We see it as our duty to work together and each of us in their own communities, to put a halt to the deterioration in our relations, to rebuild trust, belief and the hope for peace.

Palestinian signatories: 

Israeli signatories:

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