Why Rabbi Skorka’s visit to Naples and his 25-year friendship with Pope Francis resonate with historic significance

By Richard Price

Papal Bulls are official statements by the head of the Roman Catholic Church, sometimes applied to imperial documents. Bulls bearing the seal of the reigning Pope’s dealing with Jewish matters were numerous.

A Bull, issued by Calixtus II around 1120, was a general Bull of Protection for the Jews, who had suffered in the First Crusade and were maltreated by Christian neighbors. It forbade killing them, using force to convert them and otherwise molesting them.

Innocent IV, in 1247, urged an end to murder and persecution for the baseless blood libel.

Sixtus V, in 1586, relieved the Jews of many oppressive social and economic restrictions that had been imposed upon them by Paul IV and Pius V.

These examples and others have one redeeming attribute — they were humanitarian in intent. Murder, maltreatment, forced conversion and other forms of molestation were forbidden. Nevertheless, these all too few constructive papal and ecclesiastical pronouncements, overturned and overshadowed by a plethora of blatantly antisemitic and abhorrent decrees, failed in four fundamental respects.

First, they ignored the peoplehood of the Jewish community as legitimate, with common concerns and aspirations mirroring other communities of that time.

Second, they failed to recognize and/or respect the ethical and moral values of the Jewish community, cherished by the Jewish people as well as developed through a Jewish commitment to scholarship.

Third, they did not respect nor appreciate the divine nature of Judaic teachings to the Jewish people and Judaic philosophy as an inspiration and contribution to the establishment and moral underpinning of Christianity.

Finally, they never internalized the intensity of Jewish faith and collective opposition to conversion. By these measures, Christians shared common antisemitic prejudices, with a wide historical trail of catastrophic results.

On June 5, 1960, Pope John XXIII created the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. At that meeting, the secretariat’s members and consultors were surprised to receive a second mandate, an interreligious one dealing with Catholic-Jewish relations. Pope John had a conversation with Jules Isaac Amitié, an 81-year-old French Jew who was leader of a Paris-based study group of about 60 Jews and Christians. Amitié had proposed a program of action that could radically change Christian-Jewish relations by first correcting those “theologically inexact concepts and presentations of the Gospel of Love” that place Jews in spiritual and physical ghettos. Amitié had prepared a memorandum that sketched the history of Catholic teachings, legislation and actions toward the Jews.

Ultimately, Pope John XXIII mandated that the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity should also facilitate reflection on “the Jewish question” during its preparation for council. A few knowledgeable Jesuit colleagues suggested consulting the so-called “Jewish pope,” Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Jewish Congress and co-chairman of the World Conference of Jewish Organizations. Goldmann produced a memorandum that stressed Catholic-Jewish “cooperation in opposing all forms of racial prejudice and religious intolerance.”

The result of all this was the promulgation of Nostra Aetate’s six-year journey. The final vote by the Bishops on October 28, 1965, the day of solemn proclamation, saw only 88 of 2,312 Bishops registering dissent.

Nostra Aetate helped open the church to living dialogues with other communities of faith. This dialogue begins with “what human beings have in common and what promotes fellowship” in a shared history.

For us, the Jewish community of Naples, Rabbi Skorka’s presence and a 25-year history with Pope Francis is living proof of “what promotes fellowship in a shared history.” The nature of the dialogue between Rabbi Skorka and Pope Francis is truly historic by its depth, intensity and durability.

To quote Rabbi Skorka, “Nostra Aetate enabled Jorge Bergoglio (Pope Francis) and I to become brothers. We were given the opportunity, and the duty, to advance the journey that Nostra Aetate began by being living examples of its possibilities for the members of our respective communities and for the world. Perhaps it was all meant to be.”

To quote Pope Francis, “So I thank [the Holy Spirit] for allowing this to happen for being with us on this journey, brother and friend, these are my feelings for him.”

IF YOU GO

Where: Ballroom of St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church

625 111th Ave. N., Naples When: April 3, 2022, at 3 p.m. All are invited. For tickets, log into jewishnaples.org.

This program is brought to you by the Catholic-Jewish Dialogue of the Jewish Federation of Greater Naples.