c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin is the National Interreligious Affairs Director of the American Jewish Committee.)

UNDATED _ The recently published Vatican document,”We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah”_ Shoah is the Hebrew term for Holocaust _ is the Roman Catholic Church’s attempt to confront the terrible years of 1933-1945 when the persecution and mass murder of Jews was the policy of Nazi Germany.

The document’s introductory letter from Pope John Paul II reveals his personal pain regarding”… the sufferings of the Jewish people during the Second World War. The crime which has become known as the Shoah remains an indelible stain on the history of the century that is coming to a close.” John Paul’s words are a permanent refutation of those who deny the reality of the Holocaust and its 6 million Jewish victims.

The pope calls for”a future in which the unspeakable iniquity of the Shoah will never again be possible.”His aching cry is more powerful than the overly cautious and often disappointing document that follows for, unlike the pope’s letter,”We Remember”appears to be the work of many authors and it lacks a single compelling voice of conscience and contrition.

However, the document does speak of the uniqueness of the Holocaust:”Women and men, old and young, children and infants, [were murdered]…It is a major fact of the history of this century …. All this was done to them for the sole reason that they were Jews.” The document expresses the Church’s”deep sorrow for the failures of her sons and daughters in every age. This is an act of repentance (teshuva), since … we are linked to the sins as well as the merits of all her [the Church’s] children.”The Vatican Reflection calls for”a firm resolve to build a new future”between Christians and Jews based upon”shared mutual respect.” Important questions are raised when the statement declares that”the Shoah took place in Europe … in countries of long standing Christian civilization”and asks what influences”the attitudes down the centuries of Christians towards the Jews”had for providing religious justification for Nazi persecutions.

Was the Holocaust”made easier by anti-Jewish prejudices embedded in Christian minds and hearts?”Did the centuries of Christian teaching of contempt towards Jews and Judaism make Catholics”less sensitive or even indifferent”to the Shoah?

Unfortunately,”We Remember”provides no clear answers to these haunting questions because the document fails to acknowledge the connection between the tragic Christian record of anti-Judaism throughout the centuries and the political and cultural climate that made the Holocaust possible.

In one of the document’s most disappointing sections, the Vatican authors place the responsibility for the evils of the Holocaust outside Church history and teaching.”The Shoah was the work of a thoroughly modern neo-pagan regime. Its anti-Semitism had its roots outside of ChristianityâÂ?¦”This assertion flies in the face of nearly 20 centuries of virulent teaching and preaching by many Catholic leaders and the huge number of Christian anti-Jewish texts, laws, and acts of persecution. It took one scholar, Heinz Schreckenberg, three volumes and 2,300 pages to list them all.

These Christian acts of hatred aimed at Jews, some of which were copied by the Nazis, included the wearing of the yellow Star of David, the establishment of ghettos, and the teaching that God condemned the Jews because of their alleged faithlessness in not accepting Jesus as the Messiah. Happily, the Catholic Church, beginning in 1965 at the Second Vatican Council, repudiated these teachings of contempt. But the reforms came 20 years after the end of the Holocaust.

Not surprisingly, the document’s ardent defense of the wartime activities of Pope Pius XII has drawn sharp criticism. The assertion that the pope and”his representatives”saved”hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives”during the Holocaust is certain to evoke vigorous negative responses.

Because the Vatican document relies so heavily upon history, those holding contrary views will dispute the claims about Pius XII. However, a full judgment is not possible until all the relevant documents of the World War II period are made available to competent Christian and Jewish scholars. Nor is it clear how the teachings of”We Remember”will be implemented to the world’s 1 billion Catholics.

Finally, the publication of”We Remember,”with its strengths and weaknesses and John Paul II’s eloquent letter, is not the Church’s last word on the Shoah. Bishops in Germany, France, Poland, and the United States as well as the pope have issued powerful statements not included in the document.

But one thing is sure: we have just begun to probe the Shoah in all its aspects.

DEA END RUDIN