Firma di "Accordo sulla personalità giuridica delle istituzioni cattoliche"    fra la Santa Sede e lo Stato di Israele.

 
 

Lunedì 10 novembre 1997, è stato firmato a Gerusalemme un Accordo tra la Santa Sede e lo Stato di Israele. L'atto ha avuto luogo nella sede del Ministero per gli Affari Esteri israeliano. Per la Santa Sede ha firmato, come Plenipotenziario, S.E.R. Mons. Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo, Arcivescovo tit. di Tuscania, Nunzio Apostolico in Israele. Per lo Stato di Israele, ha firmato S.E. David Levi, Ministro degli Affari Esteri.  Tra le varie personalità, che hanno assistito alla cerimonia, erano presenti:  - per la parte ecclesiastica, S.E. Mons. Giacinto-Boulos Marcuzzo, Vescovo tit. di Gerico, Vicario Patriarcale Latino di Israele; P. Pierre Grech, SCJ, Segretario Generale della Assemblea degli Ordinari Cattolici di Terra Santa; Mons. Giovanni D'Aniello, della Seconda Sezione della Segreteria di Stato; Mons. Eugene M. Nugent, Segretario della Nunziatura Apostolica, il Rev. P. David Jaeger, OFM, giurista; il Rev. Jacques Amateis, SBD e il prof. Florent Arnaud, collaboratori della Rappresentanza Pontificia;  - per la parte statale, il Sig. Eitan Bentzur, Direttore Generale del Ministero degli Affari Esteri; il Sig. Yaacov Levi, Vice Direttore Generale; gli Ambasciatori Moshe Gilboa, Shmuel Hadas e Gabriel Padon, che avevano contribuito ai negoziati; vari alti funzionari ed esperti dei Ministeri degli Affari Esteri, della Giustizia, degli Affari Religiosi, delle Finanze, nonché del Municipio di Gerusalemme; l'Avv. Tzvi Terlo e il Rabbino David Rosen.  In merito all'Accordo firmato oggi a Gerusalemme, il Direttore della Sala Stampa della Santa Sede, Dr. Joaquín Navarro-Valls ha tenuto un briefing per i giornalisti accreditati. Ne riportiamo di seguito il testo:  Oggi, nella sede del Ministero degli Affari Esteri dello Stato di Israele, S.E.R. Mons. Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo, Nunzio Apostolico, e il Ministro degli Esteri, Sig. David Levy, hanno proceduto alla firma di un "Accordo sulla personalità giuridica" delle istituzioni cattoliche. Si tratta di un "Accordo conseguente all'art. 3 § 3 dell' "Accordo Fondamentale" tra la Santa Sede e lo Stato di Israele", firmato il 30 dicembre 1993 e entrato in vigore il 10 marzo 1994.  Due articoli di quell'Accordo, il menzionato art. 3 § 3 e l'art. 10 § 2, rimandavano altrettante questioni a ulteriori negoziati, stabilendone tempi e modalità:   - come assicurare nel foro civile israeliano il pieno riconoscimento alla personalità giuridica pubblica degli enti ecclesiastici, che di essa sono rivestiti nel diritto canonico;   - tutto quanto concerne i rapporti di carattere economico tra la Chiesa e lo Stato.   Dopo l'entrata in vigore dell' "Accordo Fondamentale", la Commissione Bilaterale Permanente di Lavoro, esistente dal 29 luglio 1992, proseguendo nel suo mandato, ha dato inizio ai lavori e ha creato due sotto-commissioni "ad hoc".  Per quanto riguarda l'argomento "giuridico" i lavori si sono svolti con intensità, in modo che, nel maggio 1996, un progetto di accordo, in lingua inglese ed ebraica, poteva essere siglato, in attesa della decisione delle competenti Autorità di procedere alla firma. Nel settembre scorso, il Governo di Israele decideva di procedere alla firma. Dal termine dei lavori fino ad oggi, non sono mancate occasioni nelle quali, da parte di rappresentanti della Santa Sede, sono state pubblicamente espresse perplessità e crescente preoccupazione a motivo del tempo di attesa della firma e dell'interruzione di fatto dei negoziati su altre questioni, che avrebbero dovuto proseguire.  Oggi, si prende atto con soddisfazione della firma di questa nuova intesa, che costituisce in sé un prezioso presidio giuridico per la Chiesa Cattolica in Israele e che crea condizioni favorevoli per la ripresa dei lavori della Commissione Bilaterale al fine di completare lo stesso "Accordo Fondamentale", per quanto riguarda la seconda questione enunciata prima.  L'Accordo firmato oggi è composto da 13 articoli, dagli elenchi degli enti ecclesiastici esistenti al momento della firma e da alcune semplici e chiare norme circa le modalità con le quali saranno comunicate allo Stato future erezioni, fusioni o soppressioni decise dalle competenti autorità ecclesiastiche.  In sostanza, esso consolida, riconferma e rende più chiare le acquisizioni tradizionali riguardanti il riconoscimento da parte dello Stato delle istituzioni cattoliche in esso esistenti: i Patriarcati, le Diocesi, le altre Circoscrizioni Ecclesiastiche, la Custodia di Terra Santa, gli Istituti Religiosi e simili e altre persone giuridiche ecclesiastiche pubbliche. Con esso, lo Stato si impegna a riconoscere nella propria legislazione gli enti ecclesiastici così come sono, cioè persone giuridiche nate e rette dall'ordinamento canonico. In tal modo, i medesimi enti possono liberamente espletare le funzioni proprie della Chiesa nel territorio di Israele, in condizioni non inferiori a quelle delle persone giuridiche nate nell'ambito dello Stato.  Da parte sua, la Santa Sede nutre una forte speranza che questa tappa rafforzi la convergenza di propositi e il clima di cordialità e reciproca stima che hanno permesso la preparazione di questo Accordo e che dovrebbero ispirare i negoziati alla ricerca del menzionato accordo globale in materia economica e fiscale. Così saranno veramente completate le "fondamenta" dei rapporti tra Chiesa e Stato in Israele, sulle quali costruire, in serenità, buona volontà e collaborazione, un'adeguata normativa pattizia, così come richiesto nell'Art. 12 dell' "Accordo Fondamentale" del 1993, su problemi già previsti in un programma concordato fin dal 29 luglio 1992.   Dopo la firma e trascorsi i tempi previsti dai rispettivi ordinamenti, l'Accordo dovrà essere ratificato dalle due Parti contraenti. La Santa Sede provvederà quindi a pubblicarne il testo autentico, in inglese ed ebraico, negli "Acta Apostolicae Sedis".  La Santa Sede auspica e nutre la viva speranza che questi lenti ma significativi progressi nei rapporti bilaterali con lo Stato di Israele costituiscano uno stimolo e un incoraggiamento per la ricerca della pace, della giustizia e della sicurezza tra Israele e il Popolo Palestinese e tra Israele e gli altri Stati della regione.   The Holy See

 
 
 

Atene, divelta statua di san Francesco.

 

ATENE - A tre anni e mezzo di distanza da un fatto analogo (luglio '94), la grande statua di san Francesco d'Assisi, eretta sull'omonima piazza del popoloso quartiere ateniese di Aghii Anarghyri Attikis dai Frati Cappuccini, è stata divelta e trafugata nella notte dello scorso 18 gennaio. Mentre le autorità e la stampa locali hanno già espresso la loro indignazione, gli autori di questo nuovo atto vandalico rimangono ignoti. Purtroppo, secondo alcuni esponenti della comunità cattolica greca, la coincidenza con l'apertura della settimana di preghiera per l'unità dei cristiani non sarebbe occasionale. Una circostanza, questa, che se provata confermerebbe la contraddizioni a cui sono sottoposti il dialogo ecumenico e la stessa convivenza delle diverse confessioni religiose in Grecia.

 
 
 
 
 

Vatican: We regret errors of Holocaust

 
 

By LISA PALMIERI-BILLIG and news agencies   VATICAN CITY (March 17) -- The Vatican yesterday expressed deep regret for the "errors and failures" of Roman Catholics during the Holocaust.  However, it strongly defended wartime Pope Pius XII in a statement promised a decade ago to Jewish groups.  The document disappointed many Jewish leaders, however, because it stopped short of apologizing for any failures by church leaders, as bishops in several European countries have done in recent years.  "We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah" is the title of the 14- page document issued by the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with Jews. The long-awaited document had taken over 10 years to produce.  Cardinal Edward I. Cassidy, president of the commission, said the document was "addressed to the Catholic faithful throughout the world" and hoped that all Christians will meditate "on the catastrophe which befell the Jewish people, on its causes, and on the moral imperative to ensure that never again such a tragedy will happen. At the same time it asks our Jewish friends to hear us with an open heart."  He said it was "more than a request for pardon." It was "an act of repentance, of teshuva - a word used in the text."  He said the document was not "a conclusion" but rather "another step" for further development.  In a preface to the document, Pope John Paul II expresses his hopes that it will "enable memory to play its part in the process of shaping a future in which the unspeakable iniquity of the Shoah will never again be possible."  The text concludes: "We pray that our sorrow for the tragedy which the Jewish people has suffered in our century will lead to a new relationship with the Jewish people...  "The victims from their graves, and the survivors through the vivid testimony of what they have suffered, have become a loud voice calling the attention of all humanity... the spoiled seeds of anti-Judaism and antisemitism must never again be allowed to take root in any human heart."  The document includes a statement on Pius XII.  "During and after the war, Jewish communities and Jewish leaders expressed their thanks for all that had been done for them, including what Pope Pius XII did personally or through his representatives to save hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives."  A footnote lists statements made in his favor by prominent Jews of the time.  The document did not move the pope's position beyond what he expressed last fall to a seminar on anti-Jewish relations:  "In the Christian world - I do not say on the part of the Church as such - erroneous and unjust interpretations of the New Testament regarding the Jewish people"engendered "feelings of hostility toward this people...  "We cannot know how many Christians in countries occupied or ruled by the Nazi powers or their allies were horrified at the disappearance of their Jewish neighbors and yet were not strong enough to raise their voices in protest," the document said.  "We deeply regret the errors and failures of those sons and daughters of the Church."  The document did take to task "governments of some Western countries of Christian tradition, including some in North and South America" for being "more than hesitant to open their borders to the persecuted Jews."  Many Jewish leaders were not impressed.  Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, a Holocaust survivor, demanded an "explicit apology for the shameful attitude of the pope [Pius XII] at the time."  Instead, the document defended Pius XII for using his first encyclical, in 1939, at the start of his papacy, to warn "against theories which denied the unity of the human race and against the deification of the state," and which could all lead to a real "hour of darkness."  "The document rings hollow," said Abraham Foxman, US national director of the Anti-Defamation League. "It is an apologia full of rationalization for Pope Pius XII and the Church. It takes very little moral and historical responsibility for the Church's historic teaching for the contempt of Jews. It talks about the past in question marks rather than providing answers.  "We are perplexed how the Vatican, under the leadership of Pope John Paul II, could have finalized a document that lags behind the unequivocal statements of the German and French bishops."  Last fall, French bishops apologized for their silence during the deportation of Jews, and German bishops have said that the Church did not do enough to fight Nazism and condemn the Holocaust.  Rabbi David Rosen, director of the ADL's Israel office welcomed the Vatican's reflection on the Shoah as "part of a historic process of self-criticism on the part of the Church of its past teaching and conduct."  But he expressed "regret that the document has not gone as far as the pope himself," noting that the document was a step backwards from the pope's apostolic letter, "Tertio Millennio Adveniente"  Paragraph 36 of the letter speaks of the "acquiescence shown by many Christians concerning the violation of fundamental human rights by totalitarian regimes."  The Shoah document asks only, "Did anti-Jewish sentiment among Christians make them less sensitive, or even indifferent, to the persecutions launched against the Jews by National Socialism when it reached power?"  Rabbi Mark Wiener, chief rabbi of the West London Synagogue, said, "There are positive aspects, but the Shoah document is weak in a number of areas. It obviously had to be filtered through the more conservative elements of the Curia, which are far behind the pope himself."  "Now there must be a massive thrust for opening the archives on World War II," Weiner said.  But Tullia Zevi, president of the Federation of Italian Jewish Communities, called the document "an important step forward in the right direction."  "The Church is slow moving," she said. "One must know its language, and if it speaks of teshuva this means it recognizes its past errors."  Regarding the Jewish testimonies in support of Pius XII, she said, "These were given in 1945, before people could get a view of the general picture. But I don't know why people expect the Church to speak against Pius XII. If the Church is calling for teshuva, this itself means that not everything was right under Pius XII's papacy."  The Australian Cardinal Cassidy defended his commission's work.  "It's more than an apology. We feel we need to repent... for those members of our church who failed" to do enough, he said at a news conference.

 
 
 

Lau calls Vatican apology 'too little too late'

 
 

By HAIM SHAPIRO   JERUSALEM (March 17) -- Israeli leaders yesterday reacted with disappointment to the Vatican statement on the Holocaust, with Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yisrael Lau, an Auschwitz survivor, saying it was "too little and too late."  Lau praised the establishment of the commission which drew up the document, entitled "We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah," but he added that the Church should have repeated the prayer traditionally recited by Jews on Yom Kippur: "For the sins which we have committed before You, we are guilty."  Lau revealed that in a meeting in the Chief Rabbinate in Jerusalem with Cardinal Edward Cassidy, head of the Vatican's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, under whose direction the document had been formulated, he had called for a clear statement on the silence of Christianity on the eve of the Holocaust and during the war. Lau said that a large part of the population which carried out the killing and mass destruction had been believing Catholics.  "There is no doubt that a clear condemnation by the Vatican at that time would have had the force to stop the terrible things done during the Holocaust," Lau said.  He said he recalled from his childhood the anti-Jewish teachings of the Church. Jews had been afraid to walk by churches on Sunday, for fear of encountering those who emerged from anti-Jewish sermons, he said.  Lau also criticized the failure to mention the silence of Pope Pius XII. Lau noted that the document had only praised him and made no mention of his "papering over" the sins of the Church or of his refusal to meet with the late chief rabbi of Palestine, Yitzhak Herzog.  "You can't speak of rectifying the past without identifying the actions of individuals," Lau said.  Rabbi David Rosen, director of the Anti-Defamation League's Israel office and the ADL's co-liaison to the Vatican, welcomed the document as "part of a historic process of self-criticism on the part of the Church of its past teaching and conduct."  However, he also expressed regret that the document failed to categorically identify the direct link between the Church's historic "teaching of contempt" toward the Jews and the cultural climate that facilitated the Holocaust.  "On the positive side, it is the first official Vatican document to acknowledge Christian guilt, but on the other hand, the document certainly could have gone further," Rosen said.  He added that the pope himself had gone further in his apostolic letter, "Tertio Millennio Adveniente," when he spoke of Christian acquiescence, while yesterday's document only asks whether anti-Jewish sentiment among Christians made them less sensitive or even indifferent.  Of course, Rosen said, the Church cannot say that all Catholics were guilty, but it has to say that the teachings of the Church had a significant role in creating the climate in which the Holocaust took place.  Itzhak Minerbi, an expert on the Vatican, said that instead of examining the role of the Church and especially of Pope Pius XII, the document chose to place all the responsibility on the faithful sons and daughters of the Church. Minerbi said that the document is far from the last word to be heard on the subject, and it was only the exaggerated hopes of some Jewish organizations that had led people to believe otherwise.  "This is not the document which will end all disputes about the Shoah," Minerbi said.  MK Shevah Weiss (Labor), a Holocaust survivor, said that the document is important, but did not erase the papal silence in the dark period of Nazism and Fascism.  He added that he is full of appreciation for the righteous gentiles, with whom, he said, "we will build a different future." However, he also expressed the Jewish disillusionment with all of European civilization and Christianity.  "Europe was a lake of frozen Jewish blood. On this continent of Beethoven, Goethe, and the French Revolution, the ideas of humanism, Christianity, and rationalism and the fruits of the French Revolution were terribly broken. Many Christians turned their crosses into swastikas," Weiss said.  Liat Collins contributed to this report.

 
 
 

Vatican document falls short

 
 

ANALYSIS by SERGIO ITZHAK MINERBI   (March 17) -- "We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah" is the title of the document published yesterday by the Vatican's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews.  This is not a document which will close the debate between Jews and the Catholic Church about the deeds or lack of deeds by the Church to save Jews during World War II.  In his cover letter Pope John Paul II places this document in the frame of preparations for the third millenium, hopes that it "will indeed help to heal the wounds of past misunderstandings and healings" and that "the Shoah will never again be possible."  But the document itself is rather disappointing because it does not deal at all with the responsibility of the Church as an institution or of Pius XII, the pope who kept silent about the persecutions of the Jews during World war II.  The document duly states that the Shoah took place in Europe "in countries of long-standing Christian civilization" and deep sorrow is expressed "for the failure of her [the Church's] sons and daughters in every age," but the Church as such is above any criticism. So is Pius XII, who appears together with his predecessor Pius XI, and who warned "against theories which denied the unity of the human race and against the deification of the state." Pius XII is also recalled for receiving the thanks of Jewish communities for what he "did personally or through his representatives to save hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives."  Nazism is depicted as a neo-pagan regime and its antisemitism "had its roots outside of Christianity." The Church, it is stated, "condemns all forms of genocide," like the massacre of the Armenians, the victims in Ukraine, the genocide of the Gypsies. So in a document totally dedicated to the Shoah, its uniqueness is questioned.

 
 
 

New Catholic line on the Holocaust

 
 

BACKGROUND by HAIM SHAPIRO   (March 17) -- In the Catholic dialogue with the Jewish people, the Vatican has dealt with theology in Nostra Aetate; it has dealt with the the State of Israel by reaching an agreement and establishing diplomatic relations; and it hopes to resolve the issue of the Holocaust with yesterday's document, "We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah."  This is the view of Dr. Geoffrey Wigodor, one of the two Israeli representatives on the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations with Christians (IJCIC). Although Wigoder was quick to note that the document said many important things, he said it also has some obvious shortcomings.  He noted that he was present as the Israeli representative when Paul John Paul II received a Jewish delegation in 1987. It was just after the pope had received Kurt Waldheim, he recalled, and there was a tremendous Jewish reaction, especially in the US. Since the pope was about to visit America, there were fears in the Vatican that the issue would overshadow the visit.  It was a private meeting at the pope's summer residence at Castel Gondolfo and it was the first such meeting, Wigoder recalled, at which there was an actual conversation and not set speeches. It was the Jewish representatives who suggested that the Vatican issue a statement on the Holocaust and a condemnation of antisemitism.  Although the pope endorsed the idea, there followed a three- or four-year delay because of the dispute over the convent at Auschwitz, during which IJCIC cut off its dialogue with the Vatican. Then, Wigoder added, there were six or seven years during which the Vatican dragged its feet. In the meantime, there was at least one major leak of a draft of what Jewish groups hoped might be the final statement.  That draft eventually emerged as a statement by German Catholic bishops, which acknowledged the guilt of German Catholics whose acquiescence allowed Hitler to perpetrate the Holocaust. The statement said that anti-Jewish attitudes in their church prompted "Christians in the years of the Third Reich not to put up the necessary resistance to racist antisemitism. Catholics have much denial and guilt."  A similar statement was issued by the Polish Council of Bishops. In the following years there came statements, albeit not as far-reaching, by the American bishops, the Hungarians, and the Dutch. The most recent such statement came from the French Council of Bishops, expressing repentance for its silence during the Holocaust.  Wigoder said he is convinced that the statement released yesterday had been drafted a year or two ago, but had no doubt been circulated throughout the curia and modified as a result of what he called "internal considerations."  He recalled that when the pope had issued a statement last year on the Hebrew Scriptures, there had immediately been reactions. In addition, he said, what could be described as "conservative Catholic theological attitudes" probably led to sensitivity to every word and line.  As for the text, Wigoder noted that some Jewish observers had expected a condemnation of Pius XII, something which he said will never happen. Others, he said, had expected an apology to the Jewish people, which might have been expected, considering the statement of the French bishops and the fact that the pope himself in 1990 said that the Church has to do teshuva. In yesterday's document, he said, Christians are called to repentance for the deeds of their "brothers and sisters," but not the Church.  What has appeared from the document, he said, is a new Catholic line which first came to light at the conference on antisemitism organized by the Vatican. The pope said that in the Christian world, but not on the part of the Church itself, there were erroneous interpretations of the New Testament regarding the Jewish people. In the document, Wigoder said, the line is that it is not the Church that was to blame, but individuals who fell short of the Christian ideal.  "This flies in the face of history," Wigoder said, noting it was the Church fathers themselves who interpreted the New Testament in an anti-Jewish manner; it was the Church councils which ruled against the Jews; and it was the popes themselves who drove the Jews out of civilized life, locking them up in ghettos.  In contrast, Wigoder noted the French bishops, who said that "the Church which we proclaim as holy and we honor as a mystery is also a sinful Church and in need of conversion." Such a view seems to be rejected by the document, he said.

 
 

Not good enough

 
 

By DAVID ROSEN  Rabbi Rosen is director of the Israel office of the Anti-Defamation League and the ADL co-liaison to the Vatican. He is a member of IJCIC - the committee that represents world Jewry to the Vatican's Commission for Relations with Jews and of the Permanent Bilateral Commission of the State of Israel and the Holy See that negotiated their full diplomatic relations. (March 20) - The history of the document released by the Vatican this week, entitled "We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah," goes back some 11 years, to the crisis in Catholic Jewish relations following the audience Pope John Paul II gave to Kurt Waldheim. At a meeting with Jewish leaders at his summer residence in Castel Gondolfo, the pontiff affirmed his commitment to reconciliation and cooperation with the Jewish people in keeping with the constructive course that had been pioneered by Pope John XXIII and indicated that a Vatican document would be produced that would address the role of the Church regarding the Shoah. He reiterated this promise at a meeting with US Jewish leaders in Miami later that year. It had been hoped that after an 11-year gestation period, we would see a significant document that would reflect the profound soul-searching and self-criticism that has indeed taken place within many quarters of the Church and on the part of Pope John Paul II himself. However, what was revealed this week proved to be a disappointment. Undoubtedly it does contain some very important and notable points. It acknowledges the "heavy burden of conscience" that Christians must bear regarding the Jewish victims of the Shoah, expresses "regret [for] errors and failures of sons and daughters of the Church," and issues "a call for repentance" for those sins on the part of Catholics. Yet surely Christians were involved in more than simply "errors and failures." There is no shortage of examples of Catholic leaders who actively collaborated with the Nazis (Msgr. Josef Tiso in Slovakia is just one notorious example). Moreover, Christian theological attitudes were used by major Catholic prelates to generate a climate of collaboration. Take Cardinal Hlond of Poland as an example. In his Pastoral Letter of February 29, 1936, he declared that "a Jewish problem exists, and will continue to exist as long as Jews remain Jews... Jewish influence upon morals is fatal and their publishers spread pornographic literature. It is true that Jews are committing frauds, practicing usury, and dealing in white slavery. It is true that in schools, the influence of the Jewish youth upon the Catholic youth is generally evil from a religious and ethical point of view." But, continued Hlond, "let us be just - not all Jews are like that..." He declared that the only solution "is to invite Jews to convert," then "Divine mercy [will] enlighten the Jew." What those of us involved in relations with the Church had expected to appear in this text was no less than the same candor of language used by the French bishops in their statement last October that "Christians were guilty of both an indirect and a direct role in the process which led to the Shoah." Indeed, the pope himself has used stronger language than this document to describe Christian misconduct (Tertio Millennio Adveniente, Sect. 35). The German bishops went even further in their statement in January 1995 and declared that the Church bears guilt and co-responsibility for the Shoah. Of course, no fair-minded person could claim that Nazism and its atrocities were the work of Christianity. This document fairly points out that Nazism was, in its own way, an assault on the Church. However, as indicated above, a direct line connects anti-Judaism and "the teaching of contempt," with the antisemitic social and cultural climate that facilitated the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis and their collaborators. This document does not clearly acknowledge that connection, and that is the main reason for our disappointment. Nevertheless, the phrase "Rome wasn't built in a day" is not inappropriate in this context. This pope has developed the revolution in Catholic attitudes and teaching toward Jews and Judaism that commenced with the Second Vatican Council and the document Nostra Aetate (1965). He has made the process of reconciliation with the Jewish people one of his major priorities. He has expanded upon the Church's past condemnations of antisemitism, describing it as "a sin against God and man"; and he lent his own personal weight to the establishment of full relations between the Vatican and the State of Israel. We may hope that he will build upon the important acknowledgment of guilt and quest for forgiveness and repentance that this document does contain, to go further, in keeping with the statements of the German, French, and other national Catholic bishops' conferences that are unequivocal in their acknowledgment of Christian responsibility for the context in which the Shoah took place. As far as Pope Pius XII is concerned, the document's notes quote Golda Meir, who on his death sent a message of condolence in which she said, "When fearful martyrdom came to our people, the voice of the pope was raised for its victims." Many, if not most, Jews have grave doubts on that question. However, the issue will not be laid to rest until there is some objective examination of the archival material of those years. The fact that this has been done by Jesuit scholars does not satisfy that demand - not because, as certain Vatican officials have suggested, there is bad faith and lack of trust on the part of the Jewish partners to the dialogue, but simply because we recognize that one's commitments inevitably influence one's analysis and interpretation. If the Vatican really wants to resolve this matter, it should open its archives forthwith to independent scholarly analysis.

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