Benedict and the Jews

by Dennis Coday on Jan. 26, 2010

Pope Benedict's visit Jan. 17 to the Great Synagogue of Rome caused quite a stir in some quarters. NCR senior correspondent John L Allen Jr. wrote about visit, , and later tried to eplain it, Making Sense of Benedict’s Jewish Policy, and later to put it into context, A theologian-pope sidelines theology.

Over on Belief.net, Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, comments on Allen's analysis, Making Sense of Benedict XVI. Read the full column, but here's the money quote:

... it's remarkable hubris on our part to assume that the leader of more than 1 billion Catholics is primarily concerned with us! We need to get over ourselves, don't you think? I will say this though about Allen's analysis of the Pope's thinking: anyone who thinks that they can be whoever they want to be internally, without that effecting who they are in the "outside world", is seriously kidding themselves. So while I have no concerns for example, about Catholics returning to a mass which occasionally includes a prayer for the conversion of the Jews, perhaps they should - not for our sake, but for their own.

He is right,that Rabbi Brad

Submitted by dennism (not verified) on Jan. 26, 2010.

He is right,that Rabbi Brad Hirshfield. A closed system, no matter how sophisticated suffers the inevitability of miscalculation, of collision, of "crashing" when it is "tested", when it must, by its own logic, operate equally in a (or "the") larger or coexistant "universe". This is but one small but not insignificant instance.

This reality in science, or indeed in any field of endeavour, leads to the absolute need for a new "paradigm" (oh how I hate that word). The scholastic paradigm, and its domination, hierarchical system, over and over, since the age of enlightenment, has held to its ever diminishing integrity. It has in fact emploded,damaging terribly the message of Christ, the evolving
"incarnation" of the Holy Spirit, Roman Catholics ourselves and that dimension of Christ's will that his message, not be imposed, but germinated in all men. It has and is continually failing the tests of reality of Christ's mission in the world as it is, rather than fabricated, questioned, condemned and assailed by the institution, so vividly embodied in Benedict XVI and his cadre.

The preservation (remnant) and re-stablishment (crusade) of the institution is internal, circular, downwardly spiraling. The salvation and utility of our rich tradition depend upon a three-phased reform: a)acknowledgement; b) open and candid discernment and openness; c)reconstitution. That, I think, was what John XXII tried and his successors "tried not".

Rabbi Brad is very polite,

Submitted by cashelguy2 (not verified) on Jan. 26, 2010.

Rabbi Brad is very polite, but he is right on target. A church with a long history of anti-semitic policies should not have a prayer for the conversion of the Jews in its liturgy.

Steve

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