c. 2000 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Rabbi Mark Loeb is devoting one of his High Holy Day sermons to repentance, or teshuva. It’s hardly an unusual topic for the period of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, when Jews are supposed to both seek and grant forgiveness.

But there is something different about Loeb’s sermon this year. The Conservative Baltimore rabbi will talk about soul-searching among Christians, not Jews. On the face of it, it seems an unlikely subject for a rabbi, but in these times of intense interfaith dialogue, forgiveness is a hot topic.

Churches are increasingly expressing remorse for the past sins of anti-Semitism, in particular the Roman Catholic Church. Pope John Paul II has frequently made unprecedented and highly visible gestures of friendship toward the Jews, including establishing diplomatic relations with Israel and praying at Auschwitz.

But time after time, the response by Jewish leaders to such overtures has been decidedly guarded, or even downright negative. Loeb disapproves of this attitude on the part of Jews, and he will make this the subject of his sermon.

“The Christian world has been reaching out to us. They are asking us to grant pardon. And they are entitled to a response,” he said. “And when we do respond, it’s usually to complain that it’s not enough.”

Jews, he said, “need to get their act together. We have to give up the role of righteous victim.”

Many rabbis agree with Loeb. He is one of 170 Jewish leaders who signed “Dabru Emet,” a carefully worded document issued in September. It calls on Jews to acknowledge the recent outpourings of mea culpas by both Catholics and Protestants for their mistreatment of Jews.

“It is time for Jews to learn about the efforts of Christians to honor Judaism,” reads the second paragraph of the statement. In one of its most controversial points, it also states that “Nazism was not an inevitable outcome of Christianity.”

But for both Jews and Catholics, moving forward is a complicated matter. Theological differences leave lots of room for misunderstanding. For example, when some Jewish leaders criticized the canonization of the controversial World War II Pope Pius XII, Baltimore Cardinal William Keeler _ a leading proponent of Catholic-Jewish dialogue _ warned Jews of a possible “anti-Semitic backlash” earlier this year. Keeler’s words raised a red flag in the Jewish community, and some leaders reacted with dismay.

“These kinds of statements cause Jews to shake their heads and ask, `Is Catholic atonement real?”’ said Rabbi Joel Meyers, executive vice president of the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly. “We didn’t expect this of such leaders as Keeler. Jewish leaders talk with him about these issues all the time.”

Some rabbis refused to sign Dabru Emet. Among them was Rabbi James Rudin, senior adviser to the American Jewish Committee and a columnist with Religion News Service, who took issue with the language about the Holocaust.

Moreover, the same week that Dabru Emet appeared, the Vatican issued a document, “Dominus Iesus,” which offended many Jews as well as Protestants. The Vatican document states that salvation can be attained only in the Catholic church. As a result, two rabbis, including Elio Toaff, chief rabbi of Rome, pulled out of a Jewish-Christian symposium that had been scheduled for Tuesday (Oct. 3) at the Vatican. The Vatican then canceled the event.

Many rabbis said that “Dominus Iesus” was a setback for Jewish-Catholic relations. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Reform movement’s Union of American Hebrew Congregations, said that the document seemed to take away the legitimacy of the pope’s previous statements that God had a covenant with the Jews.

The Rev. James Loughran, the director of ecumenical and interreligious affairs for the Archdiocese of New York, said that while the timing of “Dominus Iesus” was unfortunate, he believed that it was misunderstood.

“It’s addressed to Roman Catholics. But I think it’s being read in the context of a pluralist culture, not `that’s what the Catholic religion teaches,”’ he said.

All of which serves to illustrate that despite the best intentions of interfaith dialogue, sometimes common ground simply does not exist. For Rabbi Avi Shafran, director of public relations for Agudath Israel, which represents the most traditional element within Orthodox Judaism, “Dominus Iesus” served as a helpful reminder.

“Between Jews and Catholics,” he said, “there is a fence that is absolutely unbridgeable. And there’s no point trying to tear it down.” Agudath Israel, he said, does not take part in interfaith dialogue.

“We’re all for good relations,” said Shafran, acknowledging the recent overtures of the Catholic Church. “But sometimes interfaith dialogue gets out of hand. When they start talking theology, and lead people to feel that the distinction is not an important one, that is a dangerous thing.”

But the question still remains of whether Catholics and Jews can have a meeting of the minds on the subject of forgiveness, which means something very different for Jews than it does for Christians.

“For Jews, seeking forgiveness is more work,” said Ari Goldman, a professor of journalism at Columbia University and author of the recently published “Being Jewish: The Spiritual and Cultural Practice of Judaism Today.”

“We don’t have the grace of God to wash away our sins,” Goldman said. “And we hold other people to the same standards.”

So must Jews forgive Catholics when they seek pardon for past sins? Except for Rabbi Shafran, who said that Jews did not have the authority to grant such pardon, most rabbis generally answered yes _ but with some qualifications.

“We are now in an era of particularly warm relations and increased dialogue,” said Yoffie, who earlier this year chided Jewish leaders for saying the papal apology was too little, too late. “As Jews you are obligated to forgive people who sincerely ask you for forgiveness and who indicate by their conduct that their sins will not be repeated.”

Many Catholic leaders, he said, have indicated their repentance. But the devil, as the saying goes, is in the details.

“The difficulty,” Meyers said, “lies in the theological differences.” From the Catholic point of view, he said, the church is infallible and therefore cannot, per se, sin. “So when Jews say, `The church must apologize,’ it’s impossible,” he said.

For Jews, Meyers said, forgiving Catholics for two millenniums of horrendous persecution is emotionally very difficult. Many Jews, he said, feel the Vatican has arrived at an apology only reluctantly, and only after several hundred years of pressure. But times have changed, Meyers said.

“We as Jews ought to look at Catholics differently now,” he said. “It is not the church of the 15th century. I want to find ways to increase forgiveness and cooperation, even if it makes us uncomfortable.”

DEA END ALEXIOU