Close enough to step on toes:
Mallon, Leon Klenicki, Elias
CLOSE ENOUGH TO STEP ON TOES TENSIONS BETWEEN JEWS & CATHOLICS LEON KLENICKI ELIAS MALLON Leon Klenicki and the Reverend Elias B Mai Ion are veterans of the Jewish-Catholic dialogue. Their...
...But I cannot believe that it won't be well thought out...
...Memory you have been obliged by God to remember, ressentiment is unhealthy...
...There is a difference between memory and that ressentiment...
...LK It's not 1492 either...
...And here you find a perplexity on the part of Catholics...
...You know: "here we go again...
...LK Yes, I understand that...
...Sharing pain is better than comparing pain...
...EN But then it becomes a matter of perceptions, of bringing up pain and saying, "I suffered more than you...
...They met on Monday, September 11...
...That is crucial...
...LK Yes, I can imagine that...
...We recognize that and we also want to make it clear that entering the cloistered convent doesn't help either...
...EM In all honesty in terms of normalization, it is a disservice, especially on the part of an American, to say that it's just amatter of time, that it will just work its way out...
...That is why John Paul II stopped at the inscription in Hebrew and Yiddish, and pointed out that millions of Jews died as martyrs in Auschwitz- because the inscription doesn't make any reference to Jewish people...
...But there is now an exchange of ambassadors between Poland and the Vatican...
...This is what Bishop William Keeler [moderator of Catholic-Jewish relations for the U.S...
...EM The Vatican hasn't normalized relations with Jordan either...
...I feel personally that we continue that way, that we have been slowed down, but that the process continues...
...Someone is not going to be happy with it...
...Obviously they are important, but they probably have less practical importance in the running of the local church than might be thought...
...EM But even then, the local bishops are more immediately involved than the pope...
...We appeased Hitler, and lost Czechoslovakia and then we lost Austria, and then Poland...
...They also see it in terms of the Muslim-Catholic dialogue...
...LK Dialogue is a process that might go through a temporary crisis, crisis in the Greek meaning, between two moments of glory...
...I don't think it will, to be honest...
...One of the statements I heard at the Vatican is that there cannot be an exchange of ambassadors because Israel doesn't have declared borders...
...But to go out of his way to call Mr...
...Vis a vis our relation with Poland, we suffer the triumphalism of pain, the pain of the past and of the present...
...LK No, they don't see it that way...
...In the long run it changes things...
...Everyone wants to appease and appease...
...EM Then we both as people of faith would have to believe that if God is in this dialogue, no human being could ever put it back to point zero...
...their taped conversation was cut and edited by Commonweal...
...That does open the way to the possibility of greater learning too, on both sides...
...Whatever the Roman Catholic hierarchy in the U.S...
...LK That is not the reality...
...In our case, for example, I know that I disagree in certain political matters with you...
...But young people born in America have as their best friends the Catholic boy or girl across the street, and have never had the problems I did with my Argentinean Catholic professors in high school...
...In the case of O'Connor, there were mistakes especially by one or two persons who wrote articles on matters that didn't correspond to the trip...
...LK I would agree...
...Then there was the problem of the pope visiting Waldheim and Waldheim visiting the pope...
...This is a very slow operation...
...it's seen within a very broad and sensitive field...
...I think that if you are back at point zero, then some of that would have to be your fault too...
...EM But again in terms of the dialogue: I do know that in speaking about the state of Israel, until we get to the point where we can talk openly about the Palestinians, it's going to be only on the level of pleasantries...
...EN Leon, it is precisely on this matter of the triumphalism of suffering and pain that there is an imbalance in the Jewish-Catholic dialogue in the U.S...
...The Dialogue in America LK Despite the problems we have had in the last year with the Auschwitz convent and the declarations of Cardinal Glemp, I am very optimistic about our future...
...The booklet that Eugene Fisher and I wrote on rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity has been translated and will be published...
...In other countries, there has been a certain development, but it is not the same...
...To what extent do the bishops have to adhere to one view in order not to seem "unbalanced...
...EM The U.S...
...Offensive actions by leaders of both sides have so much power of destruction compared to years and years of dialogue between people of understanding, openness, and goodwill...
...We are not only in the U.S., but we are in other countries...
...We have to be aware of ourselves as world communities, but still the U.S...
...The Archdiocese of Chicago is now publishing a new edition of the service that Eugene Fisher and I prepared to commemorate the Holocaust...
...That was not my experience...
...LK It is of great concern for me that the Primate of Poland speaks in a sort of 1938 version of anti-Semitism...
...Personally I have the feeling that the bishops' document is not taking a pastoral tone but a political one...
...Here there is immediate sympathy toward Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, whereas in Poland and Eastern Europe both sides may have the self-righteousness of suffering...
...Yet we never say it...
...But I feel you as my brother...
...It is painful...
...LK I would be respectful of that...
...is all that I can really talk of in terms of Roman Catholicism...
...American Roman Catholics did not suffer from the Nazis, except insofar as family members died during the war...
...LK I would say that our main concern is that the document should take account of the delicate situation of Israel in the Middle East...
...The land was seized by Egypt-Gaza, Jordan took other parts, and the northern parts were taken by Syria...
...When I see what the Primate of Poland says and then I see [Rabbi Weiss and his group] entering the convent grounds, all I think is, this is a no-win situation...
...Now there's the pope's sermon and the Auschwitz convent...
...In no way is this document without a context...
...The reaction of our American cardinals, O'Connor and Law and Bernardin, has been very, very clear...
...LEON KLENICKI Perhaps the U.S...
...Where is the security of their borders...
...That's all I am saying...
...But I come from Argentina...
...EM I am not sure that they see it that way...
...Recent Events LK The latest developments in Poland are an area of great concern for the Jewish-Catholic relationship...
...I don't think we're mature enough yet...
...EM For the future we need a continued and increasingly frank dialogue...
...If one man and one national church can put the whole thing back to point zero then nothing has really happened in the dialogue...
...If you say that recent events have put the Catholic-Jewish dialogue ten steps back on the Jewish side, what I am saying is that it has on the Catholic side too...
...Poles were killed by accident or for the purposes of the local Nazi commander, but there was not a national ideology leading to the destruction of the total Polish population...
...EM Not if we believe in the God who judges...
...When I come as a Roman Catholic to the Jewish-Catholic dialogue, I don't bring up the Palestinians and when Jewish people come to the dialogue, they do bring up the Poles...
...To be so near...
...There's all kinds of pussyfooting, perhaps on both sides, certainly on the Catholic side...
...When Archbishop Roger Mahony returned from the Middle East he met with the leadership of the Los Angeles Jewish community...
...EM Oh, it has in the Roman Catholic community too...
...LK Our uneasiness lies in the fact that Polish suffering is regarded as a counterpart to Jewish suffering...
...And that is going to be a long painful dialogue...
...The Jewish-Catholic dialogue tends to move on a fairly rarefied level: higher clergy, professors, academicians...
...EN It is unfortunate that stuff like that gets so much coverage...
...REVEREND ELIAS MALLON is associate director of the Gray-moor Ecumenical Institute...
...EM Not if we believe in the God who judges.annot stop anymore the process of dialogue...
...But the pope went out of his way to talk about Waldheim...
...while at the same time we have never faced so many dangers...
...LK In the U.S., a pluralistic society with the separation of church and state, this is possible...
...It is a sign of God's peace and God's will...
...Interpretation by certain characters is another matter...
...There is a good deal of anger in the Roman Catholic community...
...EM But that may be a mixed blessing...
...Still, I think this allows the Jewish community an opportunity to understand the Roman Catholic community better...
...But I am not sure...
...If they're going to go international then that can open up all kinds of new things...
...This is horrible...
...Poland is a difficult and sad place for us...
...LK But we are two international bodies, the Catholic church and the Jewish people...
...All I am saying is that it is not 1948 now...
...It's only when you get close that really offending their sacred symbols becomes possible...
...Their concern over the Auschwitz convent controversy brought them together to discuss the present state of Jewish-Catholic relations in the United States and abroad...
...That doesn't mean we should ignore them...
...Israel is not Ohio and Indiana...
...EN No, no...
...I am looking forward to seeing the document...
...EM That's why it's so important for us to export our successes, rather than import the poisons that come from cultures that have been traditionally, may still be, anti-Semitic...
...Also Cardinal Bernardin organized a whole program in Chicago for Catholic priests and professors from Poland...
...I can guarantee that...
...In the U.S., I cannot say to Jews, "Well, I suffered too, and I expect you to understand my suffering...
...And nothing will happen...
...If I am not mistaken, I don't remember any gesture from the Vatican...
...That's a massive problem that will have to be discussed...
...It has never been precipitous in anything...
...we would continue with our work especially in the area of education...
...It was ironic that Kolbe who published the most anti-Semitic magazine in pre-1939 Poland ended up in Auschwitz...
...LK What would the state of Jewish-Catholic relations be, if it weren't for the Auschwitz convent, if the convent had been moved...
...I may not agree with all of it...
...In Eastern Europe and Poland they can...
...Otherwise it is an ideological view...
...That frightens me...
...Whereas if you start at the top, and it doesn't work there, there's not much hope left...
...Despite the problems, we are advancing in the knowledge of each other and in the hopeful realization of our mission...
...I would say that in the U.S...
...Things are very much united in that way...
...EM There is no excuse for that...
...It is on a more academic level because there is no Jewish presence...
...And it is already in manuscript form in German...
...LK The use and abuse by certain people doesn't justify it...
...LK Let me emphasize the solid goodness of the dialogue in the U.S...
...The confrontation at Auschwitz and everything, good and bad, on both sides, becomes a major topic on the agenda of the Jewish-Catholic dialogue in the U.S...
...Although, on the other hand, if you are the Primate of Poland what you say is, by nature, very public...
...Our conversation is a sign of peace projecting peace to our communities...
...EM The document is not out yet and I have not read it...
...LK You don't need to declare...
...You could probably come up in the dialogue with a whole string of four-letter words and get away with it easier than using the "P" word, Palestinian...
...Even today there is no specific reference to Jewish victims-the plaque says, "people that died...
...Usually what you do is to start at the bottom and work to the top...
...And that's the point...
...EM In the Jewish community there is a variety of views on Israel, on the borders, and on the defense question...
...For example, I suspect that the Jewish community would have had more success in the convent matter dealing with the major superior of the Carmelite sisters than with the cardinals...
...O'Connor was very, very honest when he spoke to the Jewish leadership about what he was going to do in Israel...
...The fact that we are speaking to each other, and building together is not an accident of history...
...But there was no Palestinian state...
...But let me bring up another element: the fact is the Polish government marks Auschwitz in a way that also diminishes the Jewish aspect of the Auschwitz martyrdom...
...EM There has to be a continued growth to openness in dialogue and an awareness on both sides: on the Christian side to get a deep awareness of exactly how painful Glemp's statements can be, but then on the Jewish side to realize that there is a thing called ressentiment [the deliberate re-experiencing of an unpleasant experience in order to re-enforce it...
...To go back to Poland is like walking on our graves because you do not know where Jews were buried by the Nazis...
...EM But see the point is...
...EM But this is 1989...
...The official religion of the state according to the constitution is the Roman Catholic church...
...LK I understand that...
...is the only country where Vatican II has been deeply developed in relationship to Judaism and the Jewish people...
...LK In 1948-9 the UN wanted to create two states...
...There were the difficulties with Cardinal O'Connor in visiting Israel two years ago...
...During the Nazi period we Jews were condemned to death by our birth...
...We should look at the map...
...This is to go back to point zero...
...Instead of looking at the other as an object, sometimes as an object of contempt, we have to see the other as a subject of faith...
...But it just doesn't go anywhere...
...EN You may find ranks a lot tighter afterwards...
...But if you are in the midst of hell and you can give your place for a fellow prisoner to save them that makes a difference...
...They had the impression that the archbishop's comments on the trip of the episcopal delegation to Israel and the Middle East would be reflected in the bishops' statement...
...EM It must not be...
...is, it certainly is cautious...
...The Jews accepted the Hebrew state...
...That is the sense that I want for the dialogue, to feel that we are together in God despite our different commitments...
...In the Jewish community we feel that history is repeating itself...
...The Middle East LK The other aspect that is a great problem in the Catholic-Jewish relationship is the normalization of relations between the Vatican and the state of Israel...
...These diminish the meaning and centrality of Auschwitz as a center of the Jewish Holocaust...
...That reminds me a little bit of Munich...
...LK Let me express our feelings about the recent developments in Poland...
...EM But you have to understand that that's a difference the subtlety of which might be lost on a great number of people...
...I would say that at the present state in my own community, the Catholic-Jewish dialogue has taken ten steps backwards...
...And every time, it's a "here we go again," said with less patience...
...LK I do recognize that...
...EM That's a whole area where the dialogue has to become more open and mature...
...That is a can of worms, Leon...
...Until we can sit down and talk openly about the Palestinians, the Roman Catholic church is not going to normalize at all...
...EM You have to be careful...
...What also concerns me is that we have never had a better relationship rabbi leon klenicki is director of the department of interfaith affairs of the Anti-Defamation League and liaison representative to the Vatican...
...In a situation like that it is easy for both sides to focus in on what is wrong with the other side...
...Take the meeting of Waldheim with the pope...
...and Canada...
...During the council, cardinals were in conflict over dogmatic and theological aspects, but I don't remember anything like this...
...In a way Israel is pushed to give up and give up, and to give up to a group that really wants the destruction of the state of Israel...
...But incidents like these really hit people at an emotional level that can take a long time to overcome...
...In addition the American bishops' document, "In God's Mercy," on how to preach in Holy Week and the presentation of Jews and Judaism, is being translated and will be published by a Catholic publishing company...
...This is the first time that I remember the cardinals publicly discussing a matter like this...
...As the relationship between the Jewish and Catholic communities develops, we each learn more about our structures, which can help avoid problems of unreal expectations...
...For one thing, if it doesn't work at the bottom, you always have hope of moving up the ladder...
...You can't step on a person's toes if you're far away from them...
...it is seen in the context of Catholic-Jewish, Catholic-Muslim, Catholic-Palestinian, Maronite...
...What I have heard is that Israel has not declared where its borders are...
...That process would continue without our attention being taken by the Auschwitz event...
...Would you say that the frontiers of Poland are the same as September 1, 1939...
...Those are good signs...
...EM It doesn 't justify anything...
...That is not the main consideration...
...ELIAS NALLON One of the things that is happening, both inevitable and good-in the long run-is that the closer our two groups work, the closer they get to their own sacred symbols...
...EM I spoke to a man from Gush Emunim in Jerusalem who saw the Euphrates as the border...
...That is a concern of the Israelis...
...What my parents suffered in Poland in their relationship with the local church, with priests, is different from my own experience today...
...He said that he took a helicopter from Jerusalem and in fifteen minutes he was in the.West Bank...
...they will return and bring a lot of information about the history of Judaism, Jewish philosophy, Jewish religious thought...
...And then there was no other way but total war...
...The interfaith work I do with Jews, Muslims, and people of other religions shows me that there is a tendency to overstress the importance of popes and cardinals...
...As religious people we have things to say and we have things to say together...
...But it does have an effect on the Catholic populace...
...LK Yes, we still have to overcome certain images of the other...
...But I don't think I have heard anyone in Roman Catholic circles try to justify what Cardinal Glemp said...
...Now if the pope had received Waldheim and said, welcome to the Holy See and started talking about the beauty of Austria without any reference to Waldheim, then everybody would have understood what the pope was saying...
...I use the word normalization because that's the word that I heard all the time in the Vatican...
...bishops' conference] recently commented...
...And I think that we might as well be honest about that...
...And I still think a modest success is better than a spectacular failure...
...EN You have to realize though that those are advantages that not many people would be anxious to have...
...Everyone on the Catholic side knows that until the Palestinians are discussed and some kind of just solution is reached, nothing is going to happen at the Vatican...
...By solid goodness I refer to matters like, for example, the document of the bishops on how to preach in Holy Week and the presentation of Jews and Judaism...
...If you do that often enough, sensitivity is lowered...
...That is tragic and it is wrong...
...is not the world, neither from the Roman Catholic side nor from the Jewish side...
...EM I think the issue is declared borders...
...Their main consideration is to be fair, and to provide some kind of leadership for Americans in a very complex situation...
...That's what makes the difference...
...That is why the situation in Poland is so different from that in the U.S...
...LK Yes, but what happened in 1948-49.1 want to remind you that there was an idea of creating a Palestinian state which was swallowed by Jordan and Egypt and still the Vatican did not have...
...What it shows is that the triumphalism of pain is coming to the next generation without any experience of pain...
...What Cardinal Glemp said is unforgivable, it too is a sort of triumphalism: our pain limits our consideration of certain aspects of the dialogue...
...But there were no Nuremberg Laws for Slavs...
...LK No, no...
...But no matter what they come out with somebody is going to attack them...
...This upsets me quite a bit...
...Waldheim a man of peace, when we know his history, projects a special message to the world...
...Those are good signs of an ongoing process...
...Once you start arguing over who suffered more, there is a tremendous problem...
...He could give his place for a fellow prisoner...
...LK The American bishops' forthcoming statement on the Middle East is an issue of concern in our community...
...That is not a choice for him and I respect that...
...We Catholics and Jews have, despite history, the need to examine our history and project our testimony of God in a world that desperately needs that presence of God...
...But when they become number one on the agenda, then that becomes counterproductive...
...But of course the words of Cardinal Glemp do not help...
...LK I remember Paul VI once said that the beginnings of peace are the signs of peace...
...But the anger in the Catholic community is over the confrontation of the Jewish community with the cardinals or with the pope...
...I talk to young Jewish people and they may say the same things that my parents said, except that my parents had a direct experience in Poland...
...LK There has been a tendency to go to extremes...
...EN I understand that...
...I am editing a book on Jewish understandings of Christianity in order to examine Christianity beyond historical problems, in order to comprehend the theological meaning of Christianity...
...LK Yes, but our duty is to emphasize these differences, it is important to express our feelings in the case of Kolbe, of the Auschwitz convent, of the big cross set up before the convent...
...It is sacrilege on both sides...
...LK There is another thing, Elias, that comes to my mind...
...The borders are there...
...That is one of the things we have to learn, how our communities operate...
...Why didn't it ask the Arab nations to allow a Palestinian state...
...You can go from Jerusalem to the West Bank in a few minutes by jet...
...It takes a long time even when things are going well for that to filter down to the level of the synagogue and the parish...
...We, at the ADL, for example, are preparing a short history of Christianity for the Jewish community, especially for those Jews involved in dialogue to know exactly what Christianity is...
...But we cannot stop anymore the process of dialogue...
...So this opens another vista of the relationship...
...When Maximillian Kolbe was canonized by John Paul II, there was a tremendous reaction in the Jewish community...
...I have the feeling that we are together in God...
...The problem is that I can also understand how Polish people could take the exact same tack and say that this is a monument to Polish suffering...
...But these recent events in Poland bring back all of that history...
...I may not agree with most of it...
...I would also like to see increasing cooperation in giving witness to the values that we share as religious people in American culture and American society in dealing with questions of racism, poverty, AIDS, war, and justice...
...This is not only important for this country, but, can you imagine, that will be published in Poland...
...But then there are certain good developments in Poland: the publication of all of the Vatican II documents on Jews and Judaism that have not been previously published...
...It seems to become a litany of complaints against Roman Catholics...
...But even in the hell of Auschwitz, Kolbe had a right that we Jews did not have...
...The conversation of Archbishop Mahony reflected a constant criticism of Israel without any consideration for the delicate situation of Israel...
...LK But, Elias, you have a collection of strange examples...
...Being aware of the problems in other parts of the world, I don't think it helps to make them our problem...
...EM I don't know...
...When we met with Cardinal Casaroli and John Paul II in Rome, I said that the pope as a spiritual leader has to meet with the sinner and the saint...
...But if the Vatican is now so interested in the Palestinian question, why wasn 't it interested in 1948...
Vol. 116 • October 1989 • No. 17
