EDITORIALS:
O'Gara, James
CHURCH AND SYNAGOGUE Some of the dust has settled from initial negative reaction to the Vatican document intended as the practical implementation of Vatican Council II's directives on...
...Ford's long-range plan to reduce income taxes favors low- and middle-income people...
...It is a consolation that critics of the Vatican document are not as turned-off to the document as a whole as early press accounts made them seem, and that more typical is Rabbi Tanenbaum, who articulated some deep reservations as a spokesman for the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations...
...The proposed tax on each barrel of imported oil has advantages, but it will sharply raise the price of utilities and home heating, thus giving inflation another unneeded boost, and it will work severe hardship in the industrial states of the Northeast...
...The very first section of the guidelines deals with dialogue and urges joint study of the fundamental convictions of Judaism and Christianity...
...This does not mean, however, that the Vatican document may be discounted here...
...As for the President's suggestions for dealing with the petroleum crisis, we would ourselves have favored a different approach...
...It can be argued that the only purpose of the immediate tax cut is to give the economy a quick shot in the arm...
...Now he has had sense enough to change his mind, executing at least a 179-degree switch, and he should therefore get credit for having the courage to eat his own words...
...On the other hand, this is a setback that can be redeemed...
...On the latter issue, we prefer to believe, along with Father Edward Flannery of the U.S...
...Ford has until now insisted that inflation was the real enemy, that there was no recession, and that no pump-priming was called for—indeed, that a surtax was in order to drain off inflation-causing spending power...
...Ford has always had two problems...
...that God's covenant with Israel is enduring and complete of itself...
...True, the money involved for the average low-income family is not very much right now, but the point is that enactment would establish a highly desirable principle, and we welcome it...
...American Catholics have had a set of guidelines for relations with Jews since 1967, and the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith cited these the other day as being in some respects more specific and advanced than those of the Vatican document...
...A starting point here might well be the topic of Israel—indeed, must be...
...and the creation of commissions or secretariats to implement conciliar directives and the guidelines of the document itself...
...aged, and it is our hope that Congress will follow this line of reasoning rather than that suggested by Mr...
...For this reason we would have preferred a direct attempt to reduce the amount of gasoline consumed, either by a rationing system or by a tax on gasoline only, with provision for hardship cases and with a large part of the revenue channeled to the poor and the...
...Nonetheless, the President's proposal represents for the first time a serious attempt to deal with the energy crisis, and for this as well as for his economic switch he deserves credit...
...CHURCH AND SYNAGOGUE Some of the dust has settled from initial negative reaction to the Vatican document intended as the practical implementation of Vatican Council II's directives on Catholic-Jewish relations, and it is hoped that now the guidelines can be seen for what in fact they are: a substantive contribution towards furtherance of mutual understanding and renewed mutual esteem between the two communities of faith...
...This must be the first business of the new dialogue...
...One is forced then to the conclusion that "diplomacy" intruded—or, more brutally, "politics"—in the form of concern about Arab reaction, the safety of the Holy Places, etc...
...Experts will argue the details of each for months to come, but in our view the general thrust of both is at least correct...
...The problem is that Mr...
...On economic matters Mr...
...No one wants to make inflation worse, but outside of the White House more and more economists agree that pump-priming is essential to get the economy going again...
...The President has proposed...
...The President's proposals fall into two categories, although they are admittedly related...
...For Rabbi Marc Tanen-baum's proposition is inescapable: it is a distortion to attempt a definition and understanding of contemporary Jewish religious experience without due comprehension and acceptance of the inextricable bonds of God, People, Torah and Promised Land...
...Ford...
...From this rock-bound position the President repeatedly pledged that he would never do a 180-degree turn...
...On the matter of Israel, it is less easy to intellectualize...
...an exploration of the common elements of the liturgical life in which the Bible has an essential role...
...The real villain in the present petroleum picture is the private automobile, and it is vital that the mileage Americans drive be reduced, thus directly cutting back our dependence on imported fuel...
...a joint social-action effort that will see Jews and Christians working together in search of justice and peace at every level—local, national and international...
...Overall, it is an effort that must be pursued, the document specifies, "even in areas where no Jewish communities exist...
...Congress should therefore amend this Ford proposal...
...Reservations notwithstanding, he still credits the document as being "constructive and timely...
...It remains a vital and extensive blueprint that will benefit Catholic-Jewish understandings only to the extent that it is taken seriously by all...
...FORD'S PROPOSALS If you pay attention, you will be able to hear a couple of cheers for President Ford from this corner...
...his quick tax cut does not...
...now let Congress dispose, but speedily...
...It is all of that...
...Applause, then, for Mr...
...With others—including Father John T. Pawlikowski, who writes elsewhere in this issue—we share disappointment that the document did not address itself to Israel, and that it is open to misunderstanding on the sensitive question of conversion from Judaism to Christianity...
...For both these reasons Mr...
...But one of the things we particularly like about the President's economic proposals is the feature providing for negative income tax payments for the poor...
...In the context then of spiritual bonds and historical links, the document envisions common prayer...
...however, no chance should be missed to undo some of the inequities in the tax laws...
...First of all, he is himself by instinct and training a true-blue economic conservative, as he demonstrated in vote after vote during his service in the House...
...that Israel is a fact of life...
...an earlier draft of the document did handle them...
...The document reiterates, and builds, on the Vatican II teaching that the trial and death of Jesus cannot be blamed on all Jews then living, without distinction, nor upon the Jews of today...
...Secondly, since he entered the White House he has been surrounded by an inherited cabal of economic advisers committed to what one of them called "that old-time religion"—the notion that all will be well if only we cut federal spending and balance the budget, not a bad prescription in some circumstances but all wrong for the problems the country faces at this moment...
...Ford's change of direction...
...research and collaboration between Christian and Jewish scholars in the fields of exegesis, theology, history and sociology...
...Failure to approach these topics was no oversight...
...Much as we appreciate that theologizing and ecumenics cannot take place in political vacuums, we still wince when these areas of the mind and spirit are ignobly tailored by politics...
...The Vatican document had much to make plain: that non-Christians are not de facto spiritually incomplete...
...Disagreement, however, on particulars...
...Bishops' Secretariat for Catholic-Jewish Relations, that the document's one-sentence reference to a "universal mission" does not imply a particular mission to the Jews, much less that it is to be applied to the Christian-Jewish dialogue encouraged by the document...
Vol. 101 • January 1975 • No. 13
