The Catholic Church and the Jewish People: Recent Reflections from Rome

12. The Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee

12. The Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee Pier Francesco Fumagalli When, on October 22, 1974, Pope Paul VI established the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews (CRRJ), a so-called International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee (ILC)1 had already been in place for four years, having been instituted in Rome on December 23, 1970. This committee, which initially included five delegates from each side, would continue its activity without interruption over the following years, holding to date nineteen ordinary plenary sessions and two extraordinary ones. These initiatives have normally been coordinated by a joint executive committee, and the number of ILC members has progressively grown, so that now it includes about twenty-five Catholic experts and delegates and an equal number of Jewish ones. The five initial Jewish delegates were selected by the five bodies that had established the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultation (IJCIC), whose institution also goes back to 1970;2 the Catholic members had been appointed with the approval of Pope Paul VI. The work of the ILC follows the principles and the norms established in a memorandum, or agreement, signed in Rome at the time of its institution, at the end of a defining four-day meeting that saw the participation of representatives of the then Secretariat (the present 160 / Pier Francesco Fumagalli Pontifical Council) for Christian Unity; of the Vatican Office for Catholic -Jewish Relations; of the Congregations for the Doctrine of the Faith, for the Oriental Churches, and for Catholic Education; of the Commission (the present Pontifical Council) for Justice and Peace; and of the Secretary of State. The memorandum that was agreed upon at the time begins by acknowledging: In the relationship between Catholics and Jews, the concerns of both groups are religiously based but they extend over the whole complex of what men do wherever they live. A model of the practical development of this relationship must therefore be based on a structure which has religious faith as its premise.3 According to an evaluation given in 1985 by Cardinal Johannes Willebrands , who was one of its chief supporters and animators for two decades , the Committee is the only official linking body we have between the Holy See and the Jewish community.4 Whatever its limitations, it is a symbol and an effective instrument of our relationship. I believe we have still to ponder very carefully how we can make use of it to deepen, foster, apply in many walks of life, such relationship within the ‘‘terms of reference’’ agreed upon in December 1970, in the ‘‘Memorandum of Understanding.’’ . . . [This Committee] is, in fact, the only place where we are able to meet officially appointed Catholic and Jewish representatives (with the asymmetry that is so typical of our relationship), face to face, . . . well conscious of the responsibility the present state of our relationship places on our shoulders, on each side and on both together.5 The work of the ILC up to the present day can be summarized by distinguishing three different stages, the first of which, from 1971 to 1973, was merely experimental and was effectively over as soon as the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews (CRRJ) was established in the following year. During these three years, at meetings held in Paris, Marseilles, and Antwerp, the main topic under discussion was ‘‘people, land, and state,’’ so important in the biblical tradition and with so many concrete implications for the way in which we consider the question of the Middle East and the reestablishment of the State of Israel. Commission for Relations with Jews and the Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee / 161 After the creation of the CRRJ, there were about twenty years of intense and fruitful dialogue, from 1974 to 1993. During this period, thirteen sessions were held, among which were two extraordinary ones at the Vatican. The focus of all these sessions was the theme of education, as well as human rights, mission and witness, antisemitism, and the Shoah.6 The two extraordinary sessions took place on August 31 and September 1, 1987, and on December 5 and 6, 1990; the latter marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the promulgation of the Conciliar Declaration Nostra Aetate. The third stage, whose beginning coincides with the establishment of regular diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the State of...