The Nimbleness of Belief… even among Roman Catholic bishops

Back in 2001, Walter Cardinal Kasper, the President of the Catholic Church’s “Pontifical Commission for the Religious Relations with the Jews” gave a very forward-looking speech in which he declared that while the Catholic Church in fact has no evangelization program aimed at converting Jews, it should not, because the Jews already dwell in a salvific covenant and the world is better off with their unique witness sitting alongside the Christian witness.

This sentiment was picked up by an interreligious consulting body sponsored by the US bishops’ Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs and placed in their 2002 document “Reflections on Covenant and Mission” which claimed that:

(The Church’s) evangelizing task no longer includes the wish to absorb the Jewish faith into Christianity and so end the distinctive witness of Jews to God in human history. … Thus, while the Catholic Church regards the saving act of Christ as central to the process of human salvation for all, it also acknowledges that Jews already dwell in a saving covenant with God.

This document was published on the bishop’s official website, giving the impression that it was the bishops’ own opinion.

Having stirred up some major contraversy, the bishops removed the document from their website and last summer the same committee that sponsored the original document issued a new document, “A Note on Ambiguities contained in Reflections on Covenant and Mission.” Their new position was a sharp rebuke of the old position (which itself was, admittedly, a change):

Reflections on Covenant and Mission proposes interreligious dialogue as a form of evangelization that is “a mutually enriching sharing of gifts devoid of any intention whatsoever to invite the dialogue partner to baptism.” Though Christian participation in interreligious dialogue would not normally include an explicit invitation to baptism and entrance into the Church, the Christian dialogue partner is always giving witness to the following of Christ, to which all are implicitly invited.

This assertion was not well received at all by Jewish dialogue partners of the Catholic Church, who (for some odd reason) read into it that this ostensibly free dialogue they had been having with Catholics seemed now to be seen by the bishops as a stealth-conversion effort.

Now, in the latest chapter of the saga, on October 2 the president of the bishops’ council and the chairman of the afformentioned (along with several other notables) have published yet another document, this one striking the lines from “Notes on Ambiguities” quoted above and affirming:

Pope John Paul II summed up the teaching of the Catholic Church when he said that “God chose Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and made with them a covenant of eternal love, which was never revoked.” Jewish covenantal life endures till the present day as a vital witness to God’s saving will for His people Israel and for all of humanity.

It looks like Jewish-Catholic dialogue is back in fashion.

One could draw many lessons from this recent history, but I have a feeling that this is not the end of this particular theological tug-of-war. It seems to me that this most recent document says what has to be said, in honesty, by the Catholic Church today; but I know that not all Catholics and not all US Catholic bishops believe it. The Church’s understanding is growing, deepening, and changing in this area right now, and these debates going on in official and quasi-official public documents are a sign of growing pains. That is not necessarily bad, though it can be confusing to people who think that the Church has one, unchanging position on this matter. It doesn’t.

What I really applaud is the bishop’s willingness to engage the issue seriously, taking a position, listening to feedback, and being willing to revise their thinking in light on it. It reminds me of a wonderful poem by Emily Dickinson: “We both believe and disbelieve a hundred times an hour, which keeps believing nimble.” Nimbleness is a highly under-valued attribute of healthy faith.