http://www.ccjr.us/dialogika-resources/docuмents-and-statements/roman-catholic/kurt-cardinal-koch/1177-koch2012oct29
6. Theological aspects of Jєωιѕн–Catholic dialogue(
by Cardinal Koch- From his opening address at the conference of the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jєωs with its consultors and the delegates of individual Episcopal Conferences for the dialogue with the Jєωs held in Rome on 29 October 2012.)
The Declaration of the Second Vatican Council on Judaism, that is the fourth article of Nostra Aetate, is located within a decidedly theological framework. That is not meant to claim that all theological questions which arise in the relationship of Christianity and Judaism were solved there. They did receive a promising stimulus there, but require further theological reflection. That is also indicated by the fact that this Council docuмent, unlike all other texts of the Second Vatican Council, could not in its notes refer back to preceding doctrinal docuмents and decisions of previous councils. Of course there had been earlier magisterial texts which focussed on Judaism, but Nostra Aetate provides the first theological overview of the relationship of the Catholic Church to the Jєωs.
Perhaps because it was such a breakthrough, the Council text is not infrequently over–interpreted, and things are read into it which it does not in fact contain. To name a particularly important example: That the covenant that God made with his people Israel persists and is never invalidated – although this confession is true – cannot be read into Nostra Aetate. This statement was instead first made with full clarity by Pope John Paul II when he said during a meeting with Jєωιѕн representatives in Mainz on 17 November 1980 that the Old Covenant had never been revoked by God: “The first dimension of this dialogue, namely the encounter between God’s people of the Old Covenant which has never been revoked by God and that of the New Covenant is at the same time a dialogue within our church, as it were between the first and second part of her bible.”9
This statement too has given rise to misunderstandings, for example the implication that if the Jєωs remain in a valid covenant relationship with God, there must be two different ways of salvation, namely the Jєωιѕн path of salvation without Christ and the path of salvation for all other people, which leads through Jesus Christ. As obvious as this answer seems to be at first glance, it is not able to solve satisfactorily at least the highly complex theological question of how the Christian belief in the universal salvific significance of Jesus Christ can coherently be conceptually combined with the equally clear conviction of faith in the never–revoked covenant of God with Israel.10 That the church and Judaism cannot be represented as “two parallel ways to salvation”, but that the church must “witness to Christ as the Redeemer for all” was established already in the second docuмent published by the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jєωs in 1985, “Notes on the correct way to present the Jєωs and Judaism in preaching and catechesis in the Roman Catholic Church”.11 The Christian faith stands or falls by the confession that God wants to lead all people to salvation, that He follows this path in Jesus Christ as the universal mediator of salvation, and that there is no “other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved” (Acts 4:12).
According to the Christian faith understanding there can be only one path to salvation. However, on the other hand, it does not necessarily follow from this fundamental confession that the Jєωs are excluded from God’s salvation because they do not believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah of Israel and the Son of God. Such a claim would find no support in the soteriological understanding of St Paul, who in the Letter to the Romans definitively negates the question he himself has posed, whether God has repudiated his own people: “For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” (Rom 11:29). That the Jєωs are participants in God’s salvation is theologically unquestionable, but how that can be possible without confessing Christ explicitly, is and remains an unfathomable divine mystery. It is therefore no accident that Paul’s soteriological reflections in Romans 9–11 on the irrevocable redemption of Israel against the background of the Christ–mystery culminate in a mysterious doxology: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways” (Rom 11:33). It is likewise no accident that Pope Benedict XVI in the second part of his book on Jesus of Nazareth allows Bernard of Clairvaux to say in reference to the problem confronting us, that for the Jєωs “a determined point in time has been fixed, which cannot be anticipated”.12
This extremely complex theological issue also forms the background to the re–formulation of the Good Friday Prayer for the Jєωs in the extraordinary form of the Roman rite which was published in February 2008. Although the new Good Friday prayer in the theologically correct form of a plea to God confesses the universality of salvation in Jesus Christ within an eschatological horizon (“as the fullness of the peoples enters your church”),13 it has been vigorously criticised on the part of Jєωs – and of course also of Christians – and frequently misunderstood as a call to explicit mission to the Jєωs.14 It is easy to understand that the term ‘mission to the Jєωs’ is a very delicate and sensitive matter for the Jєωs because in their eyes it involves the very existence of Israel itself. On the other hand, however, this question also proves to be awkward for us Christians too, because for us the universal salvific significance of Jesus Christ and consequently the universal mission of the church are of fundamental significance. The Christian church is naturally obligated to perceive its evangelisation task in respect of the Jєωs, who believe in the one God, in a different manner from that to the nations. In concrete terms this means that as Cardinal Karl Lehmann has meticulously demonstrated, the Catholic Church – in contrast to several fundamentalist and evangelical movements – neither conducts nor supports any specific institutional mission work directed towards Jєωs.15 The in–principle rejection of an institutional mission to the Jєωs does not on the other hand exclude that Christians bear witness to their faith in Jesus Christ also to Jєωs, but they should do so in an unassuming and humble manner, particularly in view of the great tragedy of the Shoah.
[9] John Paul II, La ricchezza della comune eredità ci apre al dialogo e alla collaborazione. Incontro con gli esponenti della Comunità Ebraica a Magonza il 17 novembre 1980, in: Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II III, 2 1980 (Città del Vaticano 1980) 1272–1276, cit.1274.
[10] Cf. the differentiated study by T. Söding, Erwählung – Verstockung – Errettung. Zur Dialektik der paulinischen Israeltheologie in Röm 9–11, in: Communio. Internationale katholische Zeitschrift 39 (2010) 382–417.
[11] Information Service 57 (1985/I) 16–21; originally published in French: La Docuмentation Catholique 76 (1985) 733–738.
[12] J. Ratzinger – Jesus of Nazareth. Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection (San Francisco 2011) 44.
[13] Pope Benedict XVI has explained that he altered the Good Friday prayer in such a way “to express our faith that Christ is the Savior for all, that there are not two channels of salvation, so that Christ is also the redeemer of the Jєωs, and not just of the Gentiles. But the new formulation also shifts the focus from a direct petition for the conversion of the Jєωs in a missionary sense to a plea that the Lord might bring about the hour of history when we may all be united.” Benedict XVI, Light of the World. The Pope, the Church, and the Signs of the Times. A Conversation with Peter Seewald (San Francisco 2010), 107.
[14] Cf. W. Homolka / E. Zenger (Hrsg.), „… damit sie Jesus Christus erkennen“. Die neue Karfreitagsfürbitte für die Juden (Freiburg i. Br. 2008).
[15] K. Cardinal Lehmann, „Judenmission“. Hermeneutische und theologische Überlegungen zu einer Problemanzeige im jüdisch–christlichen Gespräch, in: H. Frankemölle / J. Wohlmuth (Eds.), Das Heil der Anderen. Problemfeld „Judenmission“ (Freiburg i. Br. 2010) 142–167, cit. 165.