Hebreos Católicos: Jews and the Church: Two Approaches (article) - Mark Drogin (Remnant of Israel)

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Jews and the Church: Two Approaches

Posted By Mark Drogin On May 1, 2005 @ 4:45 am In Editorials & Speeches | 1 Comment

Jews and the Church: Two Approaches

by George A. Morton

The unique gathering of Jewish Catholics in Washington DC last month proclaimed aprofound message: all the Jewish Catholics including the five speakers proudly professthat they maintain their Jewish identity after entering the Catholic Church. The event wasthe first in a series; the next conference is scheduled for New York City March 19-20.

The title of the Washington DC conference was Jews In the Church: More Jewish ThanEver! It was held at the Catholic Information Center, near the White House, on SaturdayDecember 11, and hosted by Remnant of Israel. Mark Drogin, President of Remnant of Israeland organizer of the conference, gave the days first talk. Drogin announced that JewishCatholics speak with one voice in proclaiming:

We believe Jesus is the Jew ish Messiah. We find the fullness of Judaism in the CatholicChurch. We are proud to profess our fidelity to the Magisterium. And we are proud toproclaim that we are even more Jewish now than we were before we were Catholics.

This is the Jewish-Catholic Dialogue the Church must pursue at this time, Drogin explained.The Vatican has been calling for a genuine dialogue of faith with Jews. We are Jews whoknow, with the certainty of Faith, that Jesus is Israels Messiah. Should we be excluded fromthis genuine dialogue of faith? On the contrary, fruitful Jewish-Catholic dialogue must beginwith the Apostles and with Jews today who see , with the eyes of Faith, that Jesus came tosave the Jew ish People. Edith Stein is a canonized Saint: should we exclude her witness?

Robert Moynihan, editor of Inside the Vatican, served as Master of Ceremonies for the event.Moynihan and Drogin have closely followed the progress, in recent years, of Jewish-Catholicdialogue and, specifically, the role of the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with

Jews. Drogin, however, admitted that when he began planning this Remnant of Israelconference, he was not aware that the President of the Vatican Commission for ReligiousRelations with Jews, Cardinal Walter Kasper, would present a keynote address on Jewish-Catholic dialogue during the same week of Advent. The similarities and differences ofthemes for these two events are noteworthy.

In his address on December 6, Cardinal Kasper referred to a new theology after Auschwitzas a fundamental theological reevaluation. [1] The horror of the Second World War and

the feeling of shame over Christian anti-Judaism, according to Cardinal Kasper, have ledto a revision of the Christian relationship to Judaism a change of perspective which can onlybe described as an epoch-making break with the past. [2] Kasper presented this thesis tothe Centre for the Study of Jewish-Christian Relations, at Boston College in Cambridge,Massachusetts.

Nostra Aetate was a necessary and a good new beginning, the Cardinal explained, but itwas of course only the beginning of a new beginning. We are only at the start of a newstart of a Christian Theology of Judaism. Many decisive questions still remain open. [3]

What is this new Christian Theology of Judaism that can only be described as an epoch-making break with the past? And what are the many decisive questions still remain[ing]open? This effort, Cardinal Kasper proposed, allows us to take up Romans 11 anew so thatwe can approach an answer to the question which occupies us here. [4]

The group of Jew ish Catholics gathered in Washington DC also examined a ChristianTheology of Judaism. Even though the group in Washington had a different starting pointand a different approach, it also recognized that any Christian Theology of Judaism must gothrough Romans 11.
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Cardinal Kasper, in his address in Boston, posed the decisive questions still remainingopen at leas t three different times. Kaspers third articulation referred to two theoriesdeveloped during the past decades: the One Covenant Theory and the Two CovenantTheory. [5] The Cardinal quickly pointed out that these theories are inadequate: Therelationship of Judaism to Christianity is thus so complex both historically and theologicallythat it cannot be reduced to one of the two theories or to a formula which is valid for alltime. [6]

When asked about these theories, Mark Drogin said, these theories are confusing anddistracting at best. Discussion of these theories often implies that Jews may be savedwithout Christ. To imply that anyone may be saved without Christ is an occasion of gravescandal to the Faithful because it is a direct contradiction of our Faith.

Drogin quickly added that Cardinal Kasper identified the approach needed for our properunderstanding of the Churchs identity in the third millennium: it must be based on Romans11. The Cardinal explained that the answer which Romans 11 gives us is not a theory, butrather an image. In Romans 11, Paul uses the image of the root of the olive tree into whichthe wild branches have been grafted.

With this image Paul resists any Christian triumphalism, [7] Kasper emphas ized. Thisshould be clear, Drogin claims, to anyone sincerely seeking to know Jesus of Nazareth andPaul of Tarsus, but there remain in the Church even today many who fail to grasp thisfundamental truth of our Faith, and Kasper rightly sees the need to emphasize it. Paulresists any triumphalism and we must a lso reject even a hint of Christian triumphalism,Drogin added.

Images have the advantage of being open to interpretation, Cardinal Kasper explained.Images can legitimately be applied interpretatively to different situations. [8] Jews andChristians are different but dependent on one another for the sake of their individualidentity, the Cardinal said. They are like two brothers who have the same father. [9]

Drogins opening talk at the conference in Washington DC, titled Israels True Identity andVocation, explored this image of two brothers. Drogin suggested the Parable of the ProdigalSon as an image for the relationship of Jews and Gentiles w ithin the People of God. Usingthe Hebrew Prophets, Drogin showed that the younger brother the Prodigal Son may beseen as an image of the Lost Tribes of Israel who have become as Gentiles. The assimilationamong the Gentiles of the lost northern tribes was so complete that they were identifiedwith the Gentiles and thus fit Pauls image of the wild olive branches grafted onto the root.

The older son who stayed home, according to Drogins reading of the Parable, may be seenas the natural olive branches who naturally belong to the good olive tree. The Parable of theProdigal Son in the Gospel of Luke is actually open-ended, without a conclusion, Droginnoted. It ends with the Father inviting the older brother to come in and join in thecelebration because a ll that the Father has be longs to the older brother. We dont know if hecomes in or not. This image agrees w ith the image in Romans 11 of the natural brancheswaiting to be grafted back onto the trunk.

In addition to theological questions, the relation of the Church to Judaism in the thirdmillennium raises important pastoral concerns. Cardinal Kasper pointed out what is neededhere: a similar process of rediscovery and reunion is in its initial stages in Jew ish-Christiandialogue. This is not poss ible without repentance and rethinking. In the end the relationshipof Israel and the Church is a mystery of election and judgement, of guilt and even greater

grace. [10]

The Cardinal asked his audience to think about the Churchs identity in our time. A mysteryis not an irrational entity which we are forbidden to think about, instead it is true that: Fidesquaerens intellectum. [11] The continuing existence of Israel, Cardinal Kasper concluded,

confronts us inevitably with Gods unconditional faithfulness to His People. The existence ofthe Church is also a mystery. [12]

The Washington DC conference also addressed this mystery. The conferences approach tothe mystery of the Church was profound simply because more than half a dozen Jewsgathered and w ith one voice proclaimed their fidelity to the Magisterium of the RomanCatholic Church, And we are proud to proclaim that we are even more Jewish now than wewere before we were Catholics. The continuing and, according to some, rapidly increas ing existence of Jews who proclaim they have found the Messiah in the Roman Catholic Church


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confronts us powerfully with Gods unconditional faithfulness to His People.

Remnant of Israel, the host of the Washington DC conference, was founded in 1976 by threeJewish Catholics to proclaim the Jewish roots of the Church. One of the founders, FatherArthur Klyber, C.Ss.R., wrote many articles and books on this subject, and labored tireless lyfor more than seven decades to combat anti-Judaism in the Church. Klyber was born ofJewish parents in New York City in 1900, became a Catholic 20 years later, and a priest in1932.

In February 1945, the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Eugenio Zolli, was secretly baptized in a privateceremony in the Vatican. The news leaked to the press and soon became an international

incident. Father Klyber was a Redemptorist missionary preaching in the midwestern U.S. atthe time. Klyber pieced together various w ire service reports of the Chief Rabbis baptismand reported that, when asked if he still considered himself a Jew, Zolli answered, DidPeter, James, John, Matthew, Paul and hundreds of Hebrews like them cease to be Jewswhen they followed the Messiah? Emphatically, no. [13]

The conference in Washington DC took its theme from Father Klybers 1945 a rticle on theBaptism of the Chief Rabbi of Rome:

It should be pointed out that a Jew who accepts the Messiah today remains just as much aJew as he expects to remain if and when he shall accept a Messiah at some distant futurecoming. In other words, a Jew who accepts Jesus as his Messiah accepts a Jew, and himselfremains a Jew. This may sound strange and even heterodox to Catholics who have only asurface knowledge of Jewish Prophetic history and Catholic teaching concerning it. When adevout Jew becomes a follower of Jesus he changes neither his nationality, which is Hebrew,nor his religion, which is Judaism. He merely brings his religion to completion, as Zolli pointedout. This is why the former Rabbi was able to say that he had not given up the Synagoguefor the Church, and that one could not exist without the other. [14]

Another article by Fr. Klyber, published in The Liguorian in March 1956, quoted a Dominicanpriest from Ireland, Fr. Vincent McNabb, O.P.: We Catholics are the true Jews grown up. Iam a true Jew. I want a ll Jews to come to the fulfillment of their religion in the CatholicChurch: they have really a greater right to it than we Gentiles have. [15]

Father Klyber, in retrospect, seemed ahead of his time. Years before Vatican Two, helamented the lack of awareness among Catholics that the Apostles and the other followersof Jesus considered themselves always as Jews both Peter and Paul informed pagans thatthey were Jews. It is notoriously true, though a bitter pill for the Jews to swallow, thatthose Jews who rejected Jesus as Messiah actually rejected the Jewish religion. [16]

Other Jewish Catholics who spoke at the gathering on December 11 were Roy Schoeman,author of Salvation Is From the Jews (Ignatius, 2003); Ronda Chervin, philosophy professorand author of several books; David Moss, President of the Association of Hebrew Catholics;and Fr. Peter Sabbath, a Roman Catholic priest in the Diocese of Montreal, Canada. Fr.Sabbath was the main celebrant and homilist for the Mass during the conference. He beganhis homily by saying that he, like Fr. Klyber, was proud to be a Jewish priest.

Roy H. Schoeman, who spoke after Drogin, agrees that Romans 11 is central tounderstanding the mysterious relationship o f the Church and Judaism in the third millennium.On the first page of his book, Salvation Is From the Jews, Schoeman begins his approach tothis great mystery with a different question than Cardinal Kasper proposed.

A Jew who has become a Catholic is the best person to explore the true meaning of Judaism.To understand salvation history, one must be a Christian, since the Incarnation, death, andResurrection of Christ are at the center of salvation history, and the fullness of the relevantdoctrine is contained in the teaching of the Catholic Church. A Catholic who is not from aJewish background would necessarily have a more abstract and incomplete understanding ofJudaism than someone who grew up within Judaism. [17]

In thoughts very similar to the words of Cardinal Kasper, attendees at the Washington DCconference sensed that the continuing and increasing presence of Jews in the Churchconfronts us inevitably with Gods unconditional faithfulness to His People. There is truly aprocess of rediscovery and reunion in its initial stages and it is not possible withoutrepentance and rethinking.

We are not as far removed as Cardinal Kasper implied in his address on December 6 from


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the thousands of Jews who followed Jesus in the first century. Many Jews in every centurysince then have s incerely and proudly professed the Catholic Faith. Roy Schoeman, in hisbook, documents many significant testimonies in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 20thcentury we see a rapidly growing number of Jews in the Church including the former ChiefRabbi of Rome, Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger, Archbishop of Paris, and recently canonized St.Edith Stein. Will we see much larger numbers of Jews entering the Church in the days andyears ahead? In his book, Schoeman cites considerable evidence for an affirmative answer tothis question.

Jews and Catholics who sincerely seek truth agree on the urgency to understand ourrelationship in the divine Plan. Paul himself in Romans 11, concluded Cardinal Kasper,

indicates the direction of such an understanding; not a theory but a docta spes, an accountof the hope (cf. 1 Pet 3:15f) which is certain that in the end Israel and the Church will bereunited (cf. Rom 11:26.32). [18]

For anyone open to the joyous surprises of divine providence, Drogin noted, andespecially to any professional theologian who professes the Catholic Faith, we must payattention to the continuing presence among us of Jews who profess the Catholic Faith. RoySchoeman wrote on the last page of his book,

It is most important to be aware of the experiences and perceptions of Jews who havereceived the grace of conversion. For with one voice they all attest to the same thing thatin their perception they were far more Jewish after their conversion than before it, and thattheir deepest, archetypically Jewish thirst for God could never have been met outsideChristianity. [19]

For more information about the next gathering of Jewish Catholics in New York, March 19-20,and other conferences in this continuing series, visit the Remnant of Israel website:http://remnantofisrael.net/ Other sites of related interest are Roy Schoemanswww.salvationisfromthejews.com and the Association of Hebrew Catholicshttp://hebrewcatholic.org/ Tapes of the Washington DC conference are available on theRemnant of Israel website.

Endnotes1. The Relationship of the Old and the New Covenant as One of the Central Issues inJewish-Christian Dialogue; delivered by Walter Cardinal Kasper to the Centre for Jewish-Christian Relations, at Boston College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, December 6, 2004.http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/texts/articles/Kasper_

Cambridge_6Dec04.htm. #4.2. Ibid. Kaspers citation here is: J.B. Metz, Article Auschwitz II, in: LThK Bd. 1 (1993) 1260f.3. Ibid, #5.4. Ibid.5. Ibid. In his footnote, Cardinal Kasper cites several sources for these theories.6. Ibid. In another footnote, Kasper cites another source for this statement.7. Ibid.8. Ibid.9. Ibid.10. Ibid.11. Ibid.12. Ibid.13. A Rabbi Follows Jesus; article (pages 292-299) in The One Who Is to Come: A

Collection of Writings of Father Arthur B. Klyber, Hebrew Catholic Priest (Remnant of Israel,New Hope, KY; 2000); edited by Matthew J. McDonald; 298. Article originally published in TheLiguorian, August 1945 (Liguori, Missouri).14. Ibid.15. Crucify the Jew (pages 324-331); The One Who Is to Come; 325.16. Ibid, 326.17. Roy H. Schoeman, Salvation Is From the Jews (Ignatius, San Francisco, 2003); 9.18. Kasper, The Relationship of the Old and the New Covenant as One of the Central Issuesin Jewish-Christian Dialogue; #6.19. Schoeman, Salvation Is From the Jews; 355.

Copyright ; George A. Morton 2005This version: 23rd May 2005


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Hebreos Católicos: Jews and the Church: Two Approaches (article) - Mark Drogin (Remnant of Israel)

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