Posted on 03/19/2013 12:24:46 PM PDT by Kaslin
One of the first official acts of the newly installed Pope Francis was to reach out to the Jewish community of Rome, as his predecessor Pope Benedict had done, and he is being greeted warmly by many Jewish leaders worldwide. For most of the last 1,500 years, though, Catholic-Jewish relations have not been so warm. In fact, there was a time when the Catholic Church was rocked with a scandal: It was alleged that the Pope himself was Jewish.
But that was almost 1,000 years ago, and the first order of business is to note how well received Pope Francis has been by Jews around the world.
The Religions News Services reported on March 14th that “Jews worldwide see an ally in Pope Francis,” pointing “in particular to his sympathetic and strong reaction to the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in his native Argentina -- the deadliest bombing in the country’s history.”
Riccardo Di Segni, the chief rabbi of Rome, said, “As far as I have heard and read in the few minutes since he was elected pope, he has shown deep signs of respect and friendship towards the Jews. It’s a good starting point.”
According to Rabbi David Rosen, international director of interreligious affairs at the American Jewish Committee, as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires, Francis “has had a warm relationship with the Jewish community of Argentina, and enjoyed close friendships with many prominent rabbis.”
And David Novak, a professor of Jewish Studies and philosophy at the University of Toronto, expressed his hopes that Francis would improve “on his predecessor’s prioritization of Jewish-Catholic relations,” pointing back to the papacy of John Paul II as the highest point achieved in these relations. It was John Paul who recognized the State of Israel in 1997 and was the first pope “to visit Auschwitz, to bless Israel, and to apologize for Christian acts against Jews.”
“If the Catholics don’t canonize him,” Novak said, “the Jews should.”
Sentiments like this, of course, were not always the norm for the Catholic Church and the Synagogue (to put it mildly), as Matt, a listener to my radio show, reminded me last week via email. With evident passion, he told me that, “You Jews are Christ-killers on the road to eternal condemnation,” referring to me as a “blasphemer and murder[er] of the Lord God Jesus Christ.” (This is because I am both Jewish and a follower of Jesus, but in Matt’s mind, the former must cancel out the latter.)
He also noted that, “There is Absolutely No Salvation Outside of the Catholic Church you killer of God Lord Jesus Christ.” To back up his vitriol, he supplied a series of apparently anti-Semitic quotes from previous popes, including Pope Clement VIII, Pope Innocent IV, Pope Gregory IX, and Pope Saint Pius V.
I honored his hard work and thoughtfulness (sarcasm intended) by reading excerpts of his letter on the air, which, I imagine, gave him further assurance of my alleged perfidy. Perhaps I should have offered to send him a free copy of my book Our Hands Are Stained with Blood, written in 1992 but continuously in print since then, outlining the horrible history of “Christian” anti-Semitism. (But wait. I have a sneaking suspicion that he might not be looking for dialogue. And it turns out the website he links in his email warns against Pope Francis too!)
Putting Matt’s email aside, there really have been many tragic episodes in Catholic-Jewish history, some of them deadly (think of the Crusades and the Inquisitions; Catholics, of course, do not have a monopoly on persecuting Jews in Jesus’ name, just to be fair). But there is one episode that might be the most telling of them all.
In the 1130’s, there were two rival popes, Anacletus II and Innocent II, and it seems that the most serious charge brought against Anacletus was that he was Jewish. How could this be? A Jewish pope? The Jewish Encyclopedia noted that Bernard of Clairvaux, a zealous supporter of Innocent, “poured forth his indignation in a vehement epistle to Lothaire, to the effect that ‘to the shame of Christ a man of Jewish origin was come to occupy the chair of St. Peter.’”
What? Did Bernard forget that Peter himself was a Jew, as were Paul and all the other apostles? (This is not the place to debate whether Peter was the first pope; for the record, I reject that he was.) Did Bernard forget that Christ himself was a Jew (“Christ” is simply the Greek way of saying “Messiah”) and that his mother’s name was actually Miriam, not Mary?
Catholics around the world are embracing the fact that, for the first time, a Jesuit has been installed as pope, something far less dramatic than having a Jewish pope. But from a Catholic perspective, that has already happened, not once, but twice, first with Peter and then with Anacletus.
I wonder how the Jewish world would react if the next pope turned out to be a Jew as well? For that matter, I wonder how the Catholic world would react. Talk about a story worthy of the news!
Whether he was born a Jew, or was the Grandchild of a Jew makes no difference, nor would it make any difference if he was born a Muslim, a Mormon, a Scientologist or a Unitarian. Provided that he was a baptized Catholic male and in agreement with the teachings of the Church he can be elected to the Papacy.
The point this guy is trying to make is..... what exactly?
Maybe that Pope was not only Jewish, but also a woman! /sarc
No war worse than a family quarrel. once the bonds of charity are dissolved, then those of common humanity soon dissolve as well.
A certain class of FReepers will be the first to know! Pope John Paul II? Jewish! Sarah Palin? Jewish. Some unheard of writer has a last name that starts with ‘K’? Jewish! Jew-haters, what DON’T they know!?
Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger of Paris was a Jewish convert to Catholicism.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/world/europe/06lustiger.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
At mass today, a reading about Abraham as the Father of nations, not just the Jewish nation. As Pius XII? put it: we are all spiritual semites.
FR Keyword: Pope Joan
Most catholics presume Peter was the first Pope.. that was Jewish and also married..
Wonder what would happen in WWII if that figment had crossed Hitlers beady noggin..
Sorry, but you can't be serious
Peter was the first Pope,he was Jewish and he was married.
Catechism of the Catholic Church
839 “Those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways.”325
The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People. When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People,326 “the first to hear the Word of God.”327 The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God’s revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews “belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ”,328 “for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.”329
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph would be proud...
Hey, so was Jesus and his parents!
I am serious and don't call me sorry
For a person to be papabile, which in this case means "one who meets the requirements to be elected to the papacy of the Catholic Church," the person must satisfy the following:
must be male
must be baptized
must be a Catholic, ie. a faithful member of the Church
St. Peter was a Jew, so what’s the problem?
Scandal of all Scandals! The Founder of the Catholic Church was a circumcised Jew! And He put a bunch of Jews in charge of it! One of the key players in the whole mess had a confirmed anti-Christian history and even wrote about in his many letters! Oh, where did the Church go so wrong in its founding and let all those Jews in? -— All kidding aside, it was either Benedict or JP II who said it best on entering one of the Synagogues in New York:(paraphrased) “I take great delight in knowing that my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ prayed in a place such as this.”
Prayed and taught.
Oy vey.
Although not likely to be a non-cardinal, the only requirement to be pope is to be a baptized Catholic male. Upon being elected to the papacy (and accepting the election), if one is not a bishop, one must be immediately consecrated a bishop.
But that’s after having been elected.
I’d cleared all the decks, myself, starting last Tuesday, on the off chance that my phone might ring from the Sistine Chapel.
sitetest, not a cardinal, a bishop, a priest, or a deacon
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