Posted on 04/20/2005 11:42:38 PM PDT by nickcarraway
We Jews have every reason to be pleased with the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI. John Paul II was the best pope in history as far as Catholic-Jewish relations are concerned; Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger played an important role in building that legacy, and as pope can be expected to carry it on.
Rabbi Israel Singer, chairman of the World Jewish Congress, said Tuesday that the new pontiff is "our most serious partner in the Catholic Church, and he has been for the last 26 years," crediting him as a key force behind the Vatican's recognition of Israel in 1993 and John Paul II's atonement at the Western Wall in Jerusalem in 2000 -- an act that affirmed the validity of a uniquely Jewish method of communication with God, placing a written prayer in a crack of the wall. "I believe that he is the man who created the theological underpinnings for the good relations between Catholics and Jews during the last papacy," said Singer of Ratzinger. "He writes what's kosher and what's not kosher for Catholics. He said, 'Not only is it kosher to like Jews, but it's kosher to like the state of Israel.'"
But some people can't be satisfied. Michael Lerner, the San Francisco Rabbi who edits the lefty Jewish bimonthly Tikkun, greeted the "Habemus Papam" announcement with an unhinged rant on the tikkun.org website, declaring that "The New Pope is a Disaster for the World and for the Jews."
Throughout, Lerner pretends to speak for all Jews. He writes that "Jews have a powerful stake and commitment in ending global poverty and oppression," as if we all agreed that his prescriptions could accomplish that, and that "it was with great distress that we watched as Cardinal Ratzinger led the Vatican in the past twenty-five years on a path that opposed providing birth control information to the poor of the world, thereby ensuring that AIDS would spread and kill millions in Africa," as if we all ascribed to Rome such mystical powers over a continent filled not only with Catholics but with Protestants, Muslims, and animists. If Lerner means "leftists," he oughtn't write "Jews."
This pope has been a menace to the world since "the days in which he served in the Nazi army," according to Lerner, who is mangling the facts. Ratzinger wasn't an SS officer, he was a conscript in the regular German Army -- and he deserted. Yes, he was a member of the Hitler Youth, as was compulsory at the time, and like most Germans he did little to resist Nazism. But no less vigilant (some would say alarmist) an observer of gentiles' attitudes toward Jews as Anti-Defamation League national director Abraham Foxman has noted that Ratzinger has "never denied the past, never hid it. His whole life has been atonement for those few years. His whole life is an open book of sensitivity against bigotry and anti-Semitism." On the Church's behavior during the Holocaust, Lerner claims that "Ratzinger has sought to whitewash this disgraceful moment in Church history." Not true. Ratzinger strongly condemned Christian complicity in the Holocaust head on in a 2000 column for L'Osservatore Romano: "It cannot be denied that a certain insufficient resistance to this atrocity on the part of Christians can be explained by an inherited anti-Judaism present in the hearts of not a few Christians," he wrote.
It's easy to see why a liberal Catholic would object to Benedict XVI for "his role as the leader of the forces that suppressed the liberatory aspects of Vatican II," as Lerner puts it. But why on Earth is a rabbi inserting himself into doctrinal disputes among Catholics? No rearrangement of the details changes the fundamentals, after all. As Jews, we believe that Christians worship a false Messiah. We usually don't put it like that, just as Christians don't normally make a habit of instructing us on what sort of postmortem nastiness they believe we have in store. But we all know the score, don't we?
Perhaps not. Lerner seems to think Jews should be deeply worried that the Pope believes exclusively in Christianity -- that he "publicly critiques all those inside the Church who are tolerant enough to think that other religions may have equal validity as a path to God." This, in Lerner's mind, is "a slippery slope toward anti-Semitism and a return to the chauvinistic and triumphalist views that led the Church, when it had the power to do so, to develop its infamous crusades and inquisitions." Lerner goes on to denounce Ratzinger's views on Hinduism and Buddhism (i.e., that Catholicism is better than either of them).
One might be tempted to ask who's on the slippery slope toward anti-Semitism here. The fear that attempting to convert gentiles to Judaism would provoke an anti-Semitic backlash, after all, is a primary reason for Jews' traditional reluctance to proselytize. And yet here's Rabbi Lerner, proselytizing not merely for Judaism but for everything and nothing. Indeed, the ecumenical leftism he seems to be advocating has little to do with Judaism per se at all.
Lerner rightly blasted his own comrades when they banned him from speaking at an antiwar rally two years ago for the crime of believing that Israel has a right to exist. There, on the fringe of the Left, is the place to watch out for the ugly head of Jew-hatred to be reared. From the philo-Semitic Pope Benedict XVI, we have no such thing to fear.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Lerner is a lying Commie and a friend of Hillary. Heck, he even wrote an unreadable book with Cornell West. The guy is a joke, plain and simple. Even the local Bay Area leftie rags have run stories about what a jerk this guy is. He should be ignored.
amusing how the libs are trying to get mileage from Ratzinger "not standing up to evil", at age 11, for his brief HitlerJugend stint....I guess I should have walked out of "48 Hours" when I was seven, too.
It's the return of paganism, which the left promotes, that we ALL must watch, Jew and Christians together.
Benedict XVI, as would any Pope in this age, has to take heed to prophacy, which says Combining both Houses of righteous Israel (Christians and Jews) into one, God will raise them together as one nation into the Messiah's new kingdom above. And then the end will come.
"Son of man, take stick and write on it, 'Judah and those Israelites loyal to him'. Take another stick and write on it, 'Joseph, the wood of Ephraim, and all the House of Israel loyal to him'. Join one to the other to make a single peice of wood, a single stick in your hand. And when the people ask why...tell them I shall make one stick out of the two, and I shall hold them as one." (Ez.37:16-19).
"I shall make them into one nation in my own land and on the mountains of Israel, and one king is to be king of them all; they will no longer form two nations, nor be two separate kingdoms. They will no longer defile themselves with their idols and their filthy practices and all their sins. I shall rescue them from all the betrayals they have been gulty of; I shall cleanse them ; they shall be my people and I will be their God. My servant David will reign over them, one shepherd for all; they will follow my observances, respect my laaws and practise them." (Ez.37:22-24).
"David my servant is to be their prince forever. I shall make a covenant of peace with them, an eternal covenant with them. I shall resettle them and increase them; I shall settle my sanctuary among them forever. I shall make my home above them; I will be their God, they shall be my people. And the nations will learn that I am the Lord the sanctifier of Israel, when my sanctuary is with them forever." (Ez.37:26-28).
Birth control has nothing to do with the spread of AIDS. Promiscuous sex (mostly homosexual sex) and the improper use of needle drugs are what spreads it. Michael Lerner is an idiot. An articulate, well-educatd idiot.
Dennis Prager has urged Jews to get out there in the market of religious belief and proselytize. It would teach people about Judaism and take away the perception that it's some kind of closed club. Christianity isn't in the Middle Ages any more, so a fear of 'anti-semitic backlash' on these grounds is far-fetched.
Michael Lerner is an ass.
Sadly, and I have no idea of why this is, but most of the American Jews are on the left.
Michael Lerner is a Disaster for the World and for the Jews
One would presume that anyone following the Catholic Church on birth control would follow it on sexual relations as well, which would lead to quite a reduction in AIDS cases, at least among Catholics.
Yes, but let it never be said that he ever littered.
(I doubt he'll ever get much power- Hillary & Bill tapped him to be their intellectual mascot in '93, but it didn't go over well and they soon dumped him.)
Ping!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.