Judeo-Christian relations.

From John Muggeridge re conversion of Jews

"Go ye into the whole world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be condemned."

To read in October's Catholic Insight the above commission, given by Christ to His disciples on the eve of His ascension, dismissed as mere "conversionism" (Zenit interview with Eugene Fisher on the Vatican II document 'Nostra aetate, 40 years later', pp.36-38) made me wonder whether Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre might have had a point after all.

Forty years ago, I myself succumbed to a conversionist. No doubt Catholic Insight would wish me to have resisted his blandishments and stayed with the glutinously anti-Catholic Anglicanism of my ancestors.

Sincerely in Christ, Luther, Calvin, Henry VIII, Moses, Muhammed, Buddha, etc.

Toronto, ON

From Lise Anglin "Beyond Judas"

Deliberately to deny Jews the knowledge of Jesus Christ, Saviour of all mankind, is an act of such abject personal cowardice as to be beneath contempt and beyond the treachery of Judas. When Eugene Fisher refers to the only-begotten Son of God as a "wise Jewish teacher" (C.I., October, p.38), he might as well describe the New Testament as a pleasant little book. What would St. Edith Stein think of Catholics who congratulate themselves on setting aside one group of people--the Jews--as being unworthy of evangelization?

Toronto, ON

From Philip Belgrave

The 1964 text of the Vatican Council document concerning relations with non-Christian religions "deplored and condemned hatred and maltreatment of Jews". The text, according to one commentator (Leon de Poncins, 1967), "practically absolved the Jews of all responsibility for the death of Christ." The final approved text of 1965 did not absolve "the Jewish authorities and their followers" who urged the death of Christ.

The 1965 text deplored but did not condemn "anti-Semitism". Why so? De Poncins explains: "(The 1964 document) put the Church in the position of the accused ... It questioned the good faith and truthfulness of the Evangelists, it discredited the teaching of the Fathers of the Church ... ." It seems (to me) that aggressiveness and unscrupulous accusations concerning the Church, coming from contemporary Jewish and partisan gentile sources, tend to provoke anti-Semitism, which can reasonably be deplored, but not rightly condemned.

But even more significant is the carefully unrecognized fact that "anti-Semitism" is never given a precise meaning. Cardinal Bea, himself the probable author of the 1964 text, on several occasions commented that his commission from the Pope was strictly limited to the RELIGIOUS aspects of relations with Jews and Judaism; and that anti-Semitism was caused less by religious bigotry than by a complex of political, economic, national and psychological impulses (related to culture and temperament).

The "deicide" controversy is probably the least significant; maybe that is why it is being given more prominence that any other cause of "anti-Semitism". No candour is permitted in this area of human relations. No candour means no dialogue, but lots of talk about dialogue, repentance, and so forth. In this context, "repentance" is a mixture of evasion and masochism on the part of authors such as Mr. Eugene Fisher (C.I., October).

Ottawa, ON

Dr. Eugene Fisher responds:

The Church's proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ is universal, addressed to all humanity, Jews included, because of the universal salvific significance of the Christ event. Or, to put it another way, all people who were or will be saved, whether baptized or non-baptized, are saved only through the infinite grace of Jesus' death and resurrection. All Christians have the privilege and the duty to proclaim this good news to one and all.

Nothing I said in the interview, pace all three letter writers, was intended to diminish in any way the universal character of the Church's mission of evangelization. But this said, what do my three interlocutors have to say about what I actually said? The questions that I referred to, after all, were not raised by me but are present in official teaching documents of the Church, beginning with the Second Vatican Council. The text of the Good Friday prayer was changed after the Council by Pope Paul VI, specifically to be in conformity not only with Nostra aetate but also the dogmatic constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium 16.

Pope John Paul II has in numerous addresses carried forward the Church's ongoing reflection on the sacred mysteries set forth so well by the Council. Simply ignoring the statements of the Holy See and of the Holy Father, to which I referred in my interview, will not make those questions go away. All of us in the Church need to ponder these mysteries deeply and, it is to be hoped, together in a spirit of Christian charity toward one another.

Finally, two small corrections to Philip Belgrave's letter. First, he mistranslates Nostra aetate by adding "the" before the Council's "Jewish authorities." Latin does not have definite articles.

Second, while Nostra aetate does use "deplore" instead of "condemn" (the usual reason given being the Pope's wish that it not be a Council of "anathemas"), the official Vatican "Guidelines and suggestions for implementing Nostra aetate no. 4," issued on December 1, 1974, stated: "While referring the reader back to (Nostra aetate), we may simply restate here that the spiritual bonds and historical links binding the Church to Judaism condemn (as opposed to the very spirit of Christianity) all forms of anti-Semitism and discrimination, which in any case the dignity of the human person alone would suffice to condemn."

Another letter re Nostra aetate, this one from Gary S. Sokolyk

I am a frequent reader of Catholic Insight, and am writing to express my reaction to the October 2003 issue. I found the juxtaposition of the articles on "Gay Marriage" (which fill about 80% of the issue) with those on Mel Gibson's "Passion" and Nostra aetate somewhat ironic. Indeed, it came as no surprise to me that you found it necessary to insert a comment at the end of the latter article asserting that Nostra aetate did indeed maintain "the necessity of Christ's Church for salvation."

The politically correct among us like to crow that they have risen above the "triumphalism" of the past. They have, in fact, embraced a new triumphalism--one which might be expressed as follows: "We are proud that we have risen above the ignorance, prejudices and short-sightedness of those who have gone before us. Unlike them, we know that a person's religion is irrelevant to the question of his salvation, and we would not presume to assert that one religion is better or more true than any other. We seek only dialogue....."

Nostra aerate may well be free of actual doctrinal error, but it may be argued that it, and other similarly ambiguous Vatican ll documents, made no small contribution to the relativistic climate in which anomalies like "Gay Marriage" begin to seem enlightened.

Ottawa, ON

From Paul Morgan re Church and State

With the possible dawning of a new Conservative Parry in Canada, maybe it is time to clarify the meaning of the phrase "separation of Church and State". Thanks to an extremely influential and manipulative secular media in this country (in all its guises), we have had 35 years of a total misrepresentation of the truth.

The initial concept of Church/State separation meant two things. The first was a stricture that prohibited the State from either forming or sanctioning one specific religion over another. Freedom of religion, a basic human right, allowed people to support the denomination of their choosing. (Of course, those who chose the One, True, Catholic, and Apostolic Church founded by Jesus Christ made the only right choice. But that's another letter!)

Our liberal media have expended an inordinate amount of ink and air-time to contradict the second point, even more important than the first. And that is that the State has no mandate to interfere in Church matters. But the Church has every right, indeed an obligation, to involve itself in State affairs, particularly when these are to the detriment of the population. These include moral issues especially, but also encompass any State-initiated programmes and laws which infringe on basic human rights and liberties.

One of the primary reasons our country is in such a catastrophic condition today is because Church leaders (of all stripes) have swallowed the media lie hook, line and sinker. They have allowed themselves to be intimidated into believing that the secular realm is outside their responsibilities. When the State sanctions activities and passes laws which run counter to God's commandments (abortion, sodomy, divorce, premarital sex, etc.) Christian leaders have a duty to publicly oppose them and to lead the faithful in organized opposition. State must be separate from Church, not the other way around.

Lakefield, ON

From Paul Kokoski re letter "Crisis at St. Michael's College"

I wish to express my solidarity with the students of St. Michael's College. As a former student of St. Mike's I am well aware of the modernist agenda at the school. Unfortunately, in answer to the students' query, Cardinal Ambrozic is already fully aware of the situation but chooses to do nothing.

When I arrived at St. Michael's in 1996 as a "mature" student, I early on experienced a certain unease about irregular liturgical practices and teachings which appeared to be a grave departure from the Catholicism I had already known. The widespread disregard for clerical dress among the clergy was, in itself, a clear indicator of a certain level of unorthodoxy at the school. Homosexuality was a popular topic.

One of my professors, Margaret O'Gara, who opposed the encyclical "Ordinatio Sacerdotalis" against women's ordination at the 1996 convention of the Catholic Theological Society of America, introduced into her class discussions about the viability of ordaining homosexuals to the priesthood. Another "church history" professor of mine tried convincing his class that the scripture reading regarding Sodom and Gomorrah contained no reference to sin. I therefore consulted a number of reputable persons within the Church hierarchy known for their unwavering orthodoxy about these irregularities. Gradually, it became clear to me that there was in fact widespread dissent among the faculty at St. Michael's College.

I therefore felt it prudent to bypass the ordinary chain of command at the school and write directly to Cardinal Ambrozic regarding my concerns. I wrote him in 1998. He suggested that I first bring the matter to the attention of Professor Margaret O'Gara, Dean Brian Hogan, and President Richard Alway, in that order. I was to subsequently contact the Cardinal if I found their replies in any way insufficient or unsatisfactory.

As expected, Prof. O'Gara refused to even acknowledge my letters, and Dean Fr. Brian Hogan sought to reduce my complaints, without discussing any of them, to what he called my "intellectual apprehension". He even censored me for bringing the matter to his attention in the first place, claiming that it was in fact "my" duty to "shape various dimensions of the community's identity and expression" at St. Mike's. Finally, when I wrote to President Richard Alway he ignored me at first and then simply referred me back to Dean Hogan. Ironically, while these people all pride themselves on their ability to dialogue they didn't want to hear what I had to say.

The issues I raised at the time included liturgical violations at the weekly Mass, the promotion of homosexuality, radical feminism, and other false teaching in regard to the Church's hierarchical structure, ecumenism, apostolic succession, papal infallibility, etc. I was also concerned with the faculty's obsession with keeping alive closed issues such as women's ordination.

My greatest revelation at St. Mike's was to experience first hand the subtle ways in which the faculty worked to advance modernism, primarily by sowing seeds of doubt about Catholic truths in the minds of the students through methods such as "values clarification". In his book 'In The Beginning.... ' A Catholic Understanding Of The Story Of Creation And The Fall, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger relates how Satan engineered the "Fall" of Adam and Eve in exactly the same way.

As directed, I then wrote once more to Cardinal Ambrozic. Though he was kind enough to review my concerns, I was astonished to learn from him, after faithfully following his instructions, that it was his expressed wish not to acknowledge the "correctness and incorrectness" of my complaints. Instead, he censured me as someone having a bad "tone" for having placed him in a position of having to choose "between a theological squabble and an act of contrition". He called all my letters "challenges," adding "consequently I cannot claim to be surprised at your failing to receive proper replies [from the faculty]."

I am just mentioning this to make the students aware of what they are up against in trying to revitalize the Catholicism at St. Michael's College.

Onward Catholic soldiers!

Hamilton, ON

From Benoit Foulon

Very good articles. At least you have the guts to say things as they are.

Montreal, PQ

From Joe Campbell re Martin Cauchon

I was shocked and scandalized to read an AP report which said that Justice Minister Martin Cauchon was in Rome for the installation of our new Canadian Cardinal, Msgr. Marc Ouellet, Archbishop of Quebec City.

In promoting same-sex "marriage," Mr. Cauchon, a Catholic, committed what the Vatican, including the Pope, have ruled is a gravely immoral act and a scandal to the faithful.

This raises extremely troubling questions:

1) Did Mr. Cauchon go on his own, or was he invited by Cardinal Ouellet?

2) If the latter, how could the Cardinal have done such a thing, which sends a clear message that the public commission of scandalously immoral acts is not grave after all?

3) Did Mr. Cauchon attend Mass in Rome and attempt to receive communion?

4) If so, was he refused?

5) If not, why not?

We are used to Canadian bishops not disciplining Catholic politicians when their words and actions publicly contradict Church teachings. Does Mr. Cauchon's presence in Rome indicate that the Vatican is also reluctant to discipline Catholics who give scandal?

I hope you can throw some light on this bizarre development in Church-State relations.

Saskatoon, SK

Editor: C.I. forwarded this letter to the Archdiocesan Chancery in Quebec City on October 23 but at the time of publication had not received a response.