Cardinal Urges Jews, Catholics To Find Joint Causes
Jun 14, 2006
Some praise his lecture at an Orthodox synagogue as warm and friendly, while others say it lacked substance.
(The Jewish Week, 6/02/2006) Cardinal Egan told a Jewish Center audience Tuesday night, “We’re all aiming in the same direction. We all have the same destiny — the destiny that God gave us.” Richard Levine
Two days after the Pope visited Auschwitz, an occasion that drew criticism from some Jewish leaders for what could have been said but wasn’t, Cardinal Edward Egan, archbishop of New York, told a largely Orthodox synagogue audience Tuesday that local Jews and Catholics should work together on issues of common concern.
Cardinal Egan, the leader of New York’s Catholic Church, made his call at The Jewish Center on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, where he delivered the third annual May and Samuel Rudin Lecture.
In a speech of more than 30 minutes, the cardinal made a passing reference to Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Poland and recalled at another point that he, too, had been to Auschwitz and Dachau, a death camp in Germany. But he didn’t comment on the pope’s remarks at Auschwitz, either in his speech or when asked about them later by The Jewish Week.
Instead, Cardinal Egan seemed to adhere closely to prepared remarks about the past, present and future of Catholic-Jewish relations, especially in light of the recent 40th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, the church’s 1965 declaration on relations with non-Christian religions.
The declaration starts by saying that “we all come from the hand of one God,” Cardinal Egan said, and it makes clear that “we’re all aiming in the same direction. We all have the same destiny — the destiny that God gave us.” Therefore, he added, divisions between communities of faith simply don’t make sense.
The cardinal also told his audience that the bulk of Nostra Aetate, Latin for “In Our Time,” focuses on the church’s relations with Jews, saying, in effect, that the faith of Catholics “is the faith of Abraham.” It also addresses what he called the “crux” of the problem that has often existed between the two religions, the cardinal continued — the charge by some people that Jews are at fault for Christ’s death. Nostra Aetate, he said, quotes from the scriptures in saying that that isn’t so.
Cardinal Egan also spoke about his personal experience growing up in a family and a community, Oak Park, Ill., that he said were free of anti-Semitism. His family maintained friendly ties to Jewish neighbors, he indicated, adding that he “never knew” anything was amiss in Catholic-Jewish relations until he grew older.
The Catholic leader concluded his speech by recalling his work with rabbis in Chicago, where he held several positions within that city’s diocese and helped lead an interfaith effort on behalf of the civil-rights movement.
As a result of that experience, Cardinal Egan said, he believes that, in working together, different communities can achieve “what Nostra Aetate was aiming for — unity and love.” Local Jews and Catholics “have a golden opportunity to get together and do things together,” the cardinal said, suggesting that both communities look for the issue or cause today that, like the civil-rights movement, could draw them closer. “Let’s identify it, and let’s get together.”
The cardinal’s speech, part of a lecture series that brings religious leaders, scholars and other public figures to the synagogue, came as Jewish leaders both locally and throughout the world reacted to the pontiff’s latest visit to Auschwitz, which he also visited in 1979 and 1980.
While the German-born pope spoke about “forgiveness and reconciliation,” kissed the cheeks of a Jewish survivor and wrestled publicly with questions of faith, he did not decry anti-Semitism or ask pardon for the sins of Germans or Catholics during World War II. He also placed blame for the Holocaust on Hitler’s regime, avoiding what the New York Times called “the painful but now common acknowledgement among many Germans that ordinary citizens also shared responsibility.”
Asked about the response from Jewish leaders, some of whom said the pope missed a unique opportunity in Poland, Cardinal Egan gently deflected the question, asking rhetorically, “You don’t want me to say anything negative about it [the pontiff’s visit]?” Smiling, he then turned away to enter a reception following his lecture.
Meanwhile, members of the Jewish Center audience had a mixed reaction Tuesday night to the cardinal’s speech.
One middle-aged man, who declined to give his name, said he saw Cardinal Egan’s remarks as “a very warm introduction” to the Jewish and, particularly, the Orthodox community. But he also said earlier that he believed the cardinal said very little of substance.
Sara Teitler, another member of the audience, said Catholics and Jews “need a dialogue about anti-Semitism — about what’s going on in England, in France,” none of which she heard in the cardinal’s talk. The upsurge in anti-Semitism, she added, is the issue that Catholics and Jews should be addressing together.
But Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said Cardinal Egan “made a great effort to show how comfortable he was with a Jewish audience. … He was comfortable enough to suggest that we should be doing something together.”
Foxman also rejected suggestions that the cardinal should have addressed anti-Semitism abroad or Muslim extremism. “He doesn’t pretend to be global,” he said, nor does he try to be a foreign-policy expert. “His main responsibility is to shepherd — to provide for the needs of his flock — and he sees the Jewish community as a partner in that.”
Cardinal Urges Jews, Catholics To Find Joint Causes