Vatican Accuses Israel and ADL of
""Anti-Catholicism""
By SARI BASHI, 21st July 1999
TEL AVIV, Israel - Miffed at Israel's cool response to the Vatican's
efforts to rid the church of anti-Semitism, a papal representative said
Monday that Israel was to blame for tensions between Jews and the Catholic
Church.
The Rev. David Yager shocked a conference on anti-Semitism by saying that
Israel's anti-Catholic attitude - not the Catholic Church's anti-Israel
attitude - was preventing relations from warming as Israel prepares to greet
millions of Catholic pilgrims in the millennium.
``The Catholic Church and the Jewish people are now allies, friends and
lovers,'' said the brown-robed priest, who represents the Holy See on a
bilateral committee to improved relations with Israel.
However, Israel has angered the Vatican by refusing to acknowledge Catholic
overtures of friendship, including recent official declarations against
anti-Semitism, Yager said.
He said Israel aimed to keep the Vatican on the defensive, pointing to
Israeli reminders of Pope Pius XII's alleged failure to speak out against
Nazi atrocities during World War II, which he called a ``blood libel.''
Israel has sharply criticized a proposal in the Vatican to beatify Pius, the
last step before making him a saint, saying his public silence on the
genocide of 6 million Jews facilitated collaboration with the Nazis.
The Vatican says Pius acted for Jews behind the scenes, and that public
activism would have endangered Catholic lives.
Jewish participants said Yager was glossing over 2,000 years of Catholic
anti-Semitism.
``Our questions, our desires to search the truth are not blood libelous,''
said an angry Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League.
Foxman praised efforts by the current pope, John Paul II, to remove
anti-Semitism from Catholic liturgy but said the message was not filtering
down to churches at the grassroots level.
``We both have responsibilities that we haven't fulfilled,'' he said,
suggesting that levels of anti-Semitism were still higher-than-average among
Catholics.
The Vatican and Israel established full diplomatic relations in 1993,
reaching a peak in efforts to reconcile the Jewish people and the Roman
Catholic church.
But relations remain strained.
Rabbi David Rosen, an ADL representative to the Israel-Holy See committee,
said that after 2,000 years of church-sanctioned anti-Semitism, it would take
time for Jews to regain trust in the Vatican.
``The major educational onus is on the Catholic side,'' he said, noting, for
example, that many priests still believe that suffering was brought upon the
Jewish people because they rejected Jesus - although that doctrine was
officially renounced in the 1960s, with the Vatican II council.
Yager said that Jewish mistrust of Catholics was unjustified and that Israel
was creating antagonism. He claimed, for example, that the commonly used
Hebrew word for Jesus, Yeshu, is actually an acronym for ``May his name and
memory be erased.''
Jewish researchers suggest that Yeshu is merely the Hebrew corruption of the
Greek version of ``Joshua,'' believed to be Jesus' birth name; or that it is
the shortened version of the Hebrew word ``Yeshua,'' which means savior.
The mutual recriminations are hampering preparations for the millions of
Catholics expected to visit Israel next year, particularly if the Pope
fulfills his announced desire to visit the Holy Land in March of 2000.
Arrangements for meetings between Catholic pilgrims and Israelis have not
materialized, and the lack of coordination between Christian tour groups and
the Jewish state have left many predicting a logistical nightmare.
Rosen said the tourists represented an opportunity for education on both
sides - and that he and Yager would try to put history aside to take
advantage of it.
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