L’Osservatore
Romano normally isn’t the place to seek Vatican criticism, in the same
way that no one watches Fox News for satires of the Tea Party, or reads
the New York Times for send-ups of snobbish secular liberalism.
Whatever their business model, media outlets usually aren’t in the
habit of biting the hand that feeds them.
Yet, mirabile dictu, the
July 29 edition of L’Osservatore offered one of the most pointed brief
critiques of a Vatican statement you’ll ever see. It came from Italian
Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, in reply to a July 7 essay by Swiss Cardinal
Kurt Koch, President of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting
Christian Unity, about the “Interreligious Meeting for Prayer for
Peace” convened by Pope Benedict XVI and set for Oct. 27, 2011, in
Assisi.
Di Segni, 62, is the Chief Rabbi of Rome. (He’s also a
medical doctor and head of the radiology department at Rome’s San
Giovanni hospital.) Di Segni is well known in the Vatican; in the past,
he’s contested the legacy of Pope Pius XII, refused to attend Vatican
events featuring Jewish converts for fear of sanctioning proselytism,
and rejected attempts to compare criticism of the church on sex abuse
to anti-Semitism.
Thus L’Osservatore knew perfectly well who it was publishing: A dialogue partner, yes, but hardly a lapdog.
Below,
I’ll summarize the exchange between Koch and Di Segni. Then I’ll offer
three observations about its implications — for L’Osservatore Romano ,
for Jewish/Catholic relations, and for the October interreligious
summit in Assisi.
Koch, 61, took over from German Cardinal Walter
Kasper as the Vatican’s top official for ecumenism and relations with
Judaism last year. He’s a less exuberant figure than Kasper, but very
much a uomo di fiducia, or man of trust, with Benedict XVI.
On
July 7, Koch published an essay laying out the theological and
spiritual basis for October’s interreligious summit. He argued that
that in a violent world, religions must be agents of peace, and that
migration and globalization make interreligious harmony more critical
than ever. Perhaps reflecting muscle memory of how Catholic
traditionalists blasted the ’86 version of Assisi for promoting
relativism, Koch also stressed that dialogue must not come at the
expense of truth.
“Naturally,” he wrote, Assisi “should not be
misunderstood as a syncretistic act.” Toward the end, Koch sketched a
brief Christian theology of prayer for peace. For Christians, he wrote,
the Cross of Jesus “cancels every desire for vendetta and calls all to
reconciliation.”
In an arresting image, Koch said the Cross rises
above us as “the permanent and universal Yom Kippur,” referring to the
Jewish Day of Atonement.
“The Cross of Jesus is not an obstacle to
interreligious dialogue,” Koch wrote. “Rather, it indicates the
decisive path which, above all, Jews and Christians, but also Muslims
and followers of other religions, should welcome, thereby becoming
ferment for peace and justice.”
It was that last bit which brought
an objection from Di Segni. Despite Koch’s “fraternity and good will,”
Di Segni wrote, his words “reveal the limits of a certain way of doing
dialogue on the part of Christians.” There’s nothing wrong,
Di
Segni said, with Koch affirming the significance of the Cross for
Christians: “One certainly cannot ask, in the context of dialogue, that
one of the two interlocutors renounce, or hide, or avoid giving witness
to his faith, on the basis of a misunderstood sense of respect for the
other. Dialogue presupposes difference.”
Di Segni also welcomed
Koch’s effort to convince Christians that dialogue is rooted in their
faith, because “there may be a minority of Catholics who do not share
these ideas.
” Yet, Di Segni wrote, it’s an entirely different
matter when Koch says that the Cross of Christ is “the decisive path”
for dialogue. Such a formula, he charged, suggests to Jews that
Christian symbolism is being presented as a “substitution” for their
own rites and symbols. “Christian believers certainly can think that
the Cross fulfills the day of Yom Kippur,” Di Segni wrote. “But if they
want to dialogue sincerely and respectfully with Jews, for whom Yom
Kippur remains equally valid in a permanent and universal sense,
Christian beliefs must not be proposed to Jews as tests of the
‘decisive path.’”
“At that point, the risk truly becomes returning
to the theology of substitution, and the Cross becomes an obstacle,” Di
Segni wrote. The notion of substitution is always a risk in
Jewish/Christian relations, Di Segni wrote, because Christians believe
God’s promises to the Jews were realized in Christ. But that
conviction, he said, “cannot be proposed as the model to follow,”
calling it a passage from a “both/and” approach to “either/or.”
“The
language of dialogue has to be common, and the project must be shared,”
he wrote. “If the terms of the conversation point Jews toward the path
of the Cross, they won’t understand the logic of the dialogue or the
logic of Assisi.”
In the same issue, L’Osservatore gave Koch a
chance to reply. It’s understandable, Koch wrote, that Di Segni reacted
with sensitivity to the notion of substitution, which “not only has
heavy connotations from a historical point of view, but which still
today constitutes a difficult question in Jewish-Catholic dialogue.”
Koch makes three key points. First, he said, his essay was directed at
Christians. The aim was to underscore the duty of Christians to seek
reconciliation, including with Judaism, “which derives from the very
essence of their faith.” He invoked the Cross, Koch wrote, because it’s
long been seen as an obstacle to dialogue, but in fact, for Christians,
it’s the basis for all reconciliation. If followers of other religions
don’t see the Cross that way, Koch said, it’s not up to him to pass
judgment; it falls within the “freedom of religious convictions” that
everyone enjoys. Second, Koch said, “I absolutely do not hold that Jews
must see the Cross as we Christians do in order to journey together
toward Assisi.” Anything that undercuts mutual respect, Koch wrote,
“would contradict the spirit in which Pope Benedict XVI has extended
his invitation to participate.” Third, Koch wrote that it was not his
intent “to substitute the Cross of Christ for the Jewish Yom Kippur.”
Given the importance of the point, it’s worth quoting Koch at length:
Here we touch the fundamental point, which is very delicate, of
Jewish-Catholic dialogue, or rather the question of how one can
reconcile the conviction — binding also for Christians — that God’s
covenant with the people of Israel has permanent validity, with
Christian faith in the universal redemption in Jesus Christ. On the one
hand, Jews should not have the impression that Christians see their
religion as obsolete; on the other, Christians must not renounce any
aspect of their faith. Without doubt, that fundamental question will
occupy Jewish-Christian dialogue for a long time. Here, it can be
mentioned only briefly. In any event, this is certainly not an obstacle
to the fact that Christians and Jews, with mutual respect for their
respective religious convictions, commit themselves to promote peace
and reconciliation and thus to journey together towards Assisi.
I’m
not in a position to evaluate the theological merits of either Di
Segni’s objection or Koch’s reply — that’s for the experts to hash out.
What I can do, however, is offer three journalistic observations about
the significance of the exchange.
1. For L’Osservatore Romano
I’ve
written before about the revolution at L’Osservatore under editor Gian
Maria Vian. The paper now offers a terrific synthesis of international
news, timely interviews, and provocative essays on theology and
history. Even its features have become, for lack of a better word, more
“hip.” The Pravda days are over: Under Vian, reading the paper’s lines
has become just as worthwhile as reading between them. The
back-and-forth between Di Segni and Koch forms part of this picture,
and it couldn’t come at a better time. The sexual abuse crisis has
ripped the lid off accumulated anti-Vatican resentments in various
parts of the world, prompting a natural, but basically unhelpful,
instinct to circle the wagons. The Di Segni and Koch exchange
illustrates that there’s a different way to engage critics — without
lending aid and comfort to enemies of the church (which Di Segni is
not), but also without coming off as defensive in the face of
legitimate concerns. In addition, there’s a therapeutic value to the
intervention by L’Osservatore . Without it, Jewish resentment over
Koch’s essay might have festered, with potentially damaging
consequences for the Assisi summit. In effect, that boil now has been
lanced. Perhaps the Di Segni/Koch feature will not be the beginning of
a regular element in L’Osservatore, which could have a positive effect
on Vatican psychology: Constructive engagement with serious criticism,
wherever it originates.
2. For Jewish/Catholic Relations
All
by itself, the fact that L’Osservatore published Di Segni’s essay is
testimony to how seriously the Vatican takes Jewish sensitivities.
After all, the Vatican is involved in dialogue with the traditionalist
Society of St. Pius X, whose leadership has voiced plenty of objections
to the Assisi gathering, but none of that has shown up in the Vatican
newspaper. Fundamentally, the exchange can be interpreted as a sign of
health in Jewish/Catholic relations, for this reason: The right people
are talking to each other.
Here’s why. Catholic/Jewish relations
have experienced a boom since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), as
have the church’s ties with other faiths. Yet with the very best of
intentions, these dialogues sometimes have been entrusted to experts in
the various traditions who, over the decades, have developed a shared
language, rituals and worldview. The net effect is that professional
dialoguers sometimes have more in common with one another than with the
mainstream of the faiths they purportedly represent.
To put that
point in crude political terms, formal interreligious dialogue is often
dominated by the liberal wings of the various faiths. In a time when
the momentum in Catholicism seems squarely with the “evangelicals,”
however, outsiders may fairly wonder if liberals can really commit the
institutional church. (A similar question could be asked about other
traditions, with the well-known skepticism surrounding “moderate Islam”
as the most obvious example.) The point about Koch and Di Segni is that
they are not part of an interreligious avant-garde. Instead, they
embody the thinking of the leadership of their faiths. For his part,
Koch is a convinced Ratzingerian who moves comfortably in the
intellectual circles around the pope. In that sense, they may struggle
a bit more to find common ground, but when they do, you can take it to
the bank.
3. For the Assisi Summit
Finally,
the L’Osservatore exchange illustrates just how much the Vatican wants
Assisi to go well. Movers and shakers in Rome are well aware that John
Paul II’s 1986 interreligious summit was among the iconic moments of
his papacy. It helped make the pope a global point of reference, it
enhanced the effectiveness of Vatican diplomacy, and it boosted the
moral authority of the church.
Today, the Vatican could use
another win like that in the court of public opinion. In the West, it
faces a hostile political and legal environment, with Ireland even
threatening to breach the sanctity of the confessional. In other parts
of the world, it needs the good will of governments and leaders of
other faiths to protect Christians under fire. Tuesday’s car bomb
attack against a Syro-Catholic church in Kirkuk, Iraq, offers tragic
proof of the point.
A high-profile public event such as Assisi,
which showcases the papacy’s unique capacity to bring religions
together, could be a real boon — provided, of course, it doesn’t turn
in to another PR debacle. Assisi is also important to Benedict XVI.
Although he’s made great strides in inter-faith relations, especially
with Islam, in some quarters he’s still dogged by the image of a
cultural warrior associated with a September 2006 speech in Regensburg,
in which he quoted a Byzantine emperor critical of Muhammad. (It’s
frightening that a nutcase can recognize what many pundits and alleged
experts can’t, or won’t. In his rambling manifesto for Europe,
Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik called Benedict XVI a
“cowardly, incompetent, corrupt and illegitimate pope” because his
outreach to Muslims supposedly fuels “the deliberate and systematical
annihilation of European Christendom.”) Given all that, one can expect
Vatican officials to act with alacrity to put out any potential fires
related to the Assisi summit. Naturally, the fact that then-Cardinal
Joseph Ratzinger was among those seen as ambivalent about Assisi back
in ’86 also lends subtext to the October edition. In light of that
history, Vatican officials will bend over backwards to insist that this
is not, as Koch put it, a “syncretistic act.” [...]
John L Allen
Jr, The National Catholic Reporter, 5 agosto 2011
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| Il significato del
passato
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 Il 7 luglio del 2008, uno
“Stolperstein”, pietra di inciampo, è stato incastonato nel selciato di
Poschingerstrasse 14, a Berlino, in memoria di Frida Rebhun, deportata
dai nazisti il 2 ottobre 1942 e poi uccisa nel campo di Theresienstadt.
I suoi due figli gemelli, Heinz e Gughy, avevano lasciato la Germania
per la Palestina nel 1936. La madre, andata una volta a trovarli, non
aveva potuto unirsi a loro, in quanto impegnata nell’assistenza al
marito malato Leopold, deceduto, di morte naturale, nel 1940. Venuto in
Italia con la Brigata Ebraica, nelle file nell’esercito britannico,
Heinz conobbe a Napoli Luciana Gallichi, che sposò e da cui ebbe una
figlia, Myriam, nata a Napoli nel 1946. Tornato in Palestina con moglie
e figlia, apprende, col fratello, della tragica morte della madre solo
dopo la fine della guerra. Poco dopo, il 17 gennaio 1948, viene ucciso
da un cecchino arabo mentre, su un autobus di linea, si recava al
lavoro ad Haifa. E, alcuni mesi dopo, cade, combattendo nella guerra
d’indipendenza, anche suo fratello gemello. La giovane Luciana,
impossibilitata a crescere da sola la piccola Myriam, fa ritorno a
Napoli.
Myriam, cresciuta, si innamora e si sposa, felicemente, con un ragazzo
gentile, da cui ha due figlie, che vengono battezzate. Ma il tragico
passato della sua famiglia la scuote, anno dopo anno, in modo sempre
più stringente, inducendola ad un appassionato, febbrile lavoro di
riscoperta delle proprie radici, delle figure di quella nonna e di quel
padre che le hanno dato la vita, ma la cui esistenze sono state
drammaticamente recise, in circostanze diverse ma collegate.
A questo lavoro di ricerca Myriam ha dedicato un toccante, umanissimo
libro: Ho inciampato e
non mi sono fatta male. Haifa, Napoli, Berlino. Una storia familiare
(L’Áncora del Mediterraneo), che rappresenta insieme un
accorato omaggio alle nobili vite di sua nonna, di suo padre e di suo
zio, ma anche, e soprattutto, una dolorosa interrogazione sulla propria
identità, sul senso di un’esistenza trascorsa nel benessere e nel
calore degli affetti familiari, eppure segnata, alla sua origine, dal
crudele sacrificio di vite crudelmente stroncate anzitempo. Rispetto
agli altri libri di memorie di testimoni di seconda generazione, il
racconto della Rebhun si fa apprezzare principalmente per il grande
coraggio di un’autoanalisi che, se può avere avuto un valore
liberatorio, certamente non deve essere stata agevole, né indolore. Si
può vivere nell’agio di una tranquilla vita borghese, nonostante un
tragico bagaglio di memoria? Fino a che punto la fedeltà alle proprie
radici deve diventare un obbligo di prosecuzione lungo una determinata
strada? Si ha il diritto di cambiare, di diventare diversi da quello
che sono stati i propri genitori, e tutti i propri antenati?
“Le mie figlie – scrive Myriam – non sono ebree. Probabilmente oggi non
rifarei la scelta che a cuor leggero ho fatto tanti anni fa. Oggi sono
profondamente convinta che l’ebraismo sia un’eredità troppo importante
per essere dispersa. Mi consolo, però, accorgendomi in mille occasioni
che Giorgia e Sara sono veramente miste. Per quanto facciano parte di
una maggioranza, la minoranza l’hanno sempre avuta accanto… Per me
‘misto’ è un valore aggiunto, una chance in più, uno stimolo a porsi
domande…Ma… il senso di colpa riaffiora e mi chiedo: se tutti la
pensassero così che fine farebbero tradizioni millenarie? Con il mio
atteggiamento ho contribuito alla comprensione e al dialogo o a un
facile e deleterio sincretismo?”.
La coraggiosa sincerità di Myriam non merita, credo, risposte
‘consolatorie’ e rassicuranti riguardo all’utilità e al senso della sua
esistenza. Certamente, ammesso che ella abbia sottratto qualcosa
all’ebraismo (a cui pure ha dato tanto), ha certamente dato tantissimo
al mondo dei ‘gojim’: anzi, al mondo degli uomini, di tutti. Ma il
passato, col suo carico di dolore, continua, e continuerà sempre a
bussare ala porta, a chiedere delle risposte. Che, a volte, per
arrivare, hanno bisogno di tempo. Perché, come recita il bel titolo di
uno dei capitoli del libro, “il passato deve attendere”.
Francesco
Lucrezi, storico
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torna su ˄
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rassegna
stampa |
Archeologia - Trovata in israele
una statua di Ercole
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Leggi la rassegna |
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Durante scavi condotti nella valle di Jezreel, vicino alla città di
Afula, nel centro-nord di Israele archeologi israeliani hanno portato
alla luce una rara statua di Ercole, risalente al secondo secolo d.
E.V. Ad annunciarlo il Dipartimento per le Antichità di Israele,
precisando che si tratta di una statua di marmo bianco, alta mezzo
metro.
Secondo
Walid Atrash, che ha diretto gli scavi, si tratta di una statua di
«straordinaria qualità artistica» che apparteneva ad antiche terme
romane, in un sito denominato Horvat Tabernet, divenuto nel terzo
secolo d.E.V. un insediamento ebraico menzionato nel Talmud.
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Ritengo importante iniziare la
rassegna odierna con una notizia che nessun quotidiano ha riportato,
nonostante, o forse proprio a causa della attenzione spasmodica verso
quanto ruota attorno alle vicende israeliane. Si è spenta, nei giorni
scorsi, Bernardine Healy, la donna che, dopo avere assunto la
presidenza della Croce Rossa Americana nel settembre del 1999, attese
non più di due mesi per volare a Ginevra e gridare forte contro
l’ingiustizia di escludere il Magen David Adom ...»
Emanuel Segre Amar
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Profumo
di grande Europa per il Maccabi Haifa che stasera, opposto ai belgi del
Genk sul proprio terreno, si gioca l’accesso alla Champions League
nell’ultimo turno preliminare ad eliminazione diretta. Reduci dalla
vittoria (non senza affanni) nella doppia sfida contro l’NK Maribor tra
fine luglio e inizio agosto, gli israeliani puntano alla terza
qualificazione alla massima competizione continentale dopo le
apparizioni, entrambe conclusesi nella fase a gironi, delle stagioni
2002-2003 e 2009-2010. L’atmosfera in casa Maccabi è di grande
tensione. Ma c’è anche convinzione nei propri mezzi e la sensazione di
un avversario comunque non irresistibile. Elisha Levy, allenatore degli
Yarok (“verdi”, dal colore della maglia) d’Israele dal 2008, predica
calma e sangue freddo. “Sarà importante restare concentrati per tutti i
novanta minuti di gioco, solo così riusciremo a portare a casa un buon
risultato”. L’ideale sarebbe non subire goal visto che nelle sfide
andata e ritorno le reti segnate in trasferta valgono doppio. Occhio
quindi al gioco d’attacco ma anche alle dinamiche difensive con i
titolari del reparto arretrato che andranno continuamente supportati
vista la loro giovane età e inesperienza ad alti livelli. Da segnalare
l’assenza di Yaniv Katan (nella foto), attaccante e capitano degli
Yarok, che a causa di un infortunio sarà a disposizione solamente per
la partita di ritorno in programma tra una settimana in Belgio. Infine
alcune curiosità: le due squadre si incontrano per la prima volta nelle
competizioni UEFA. Il Maccabi non ha mai affrontato un club belga e il
Genk non ha mai giocato contro una squadra israeliana. Il tecnico del
Genk Frank Vercauteren guidava l'RSC Anderlecht che nella fase a gironi
della Coppa Uefa 2007/2008 sconfisse 2 a 0 l’Hapoel Tel Aviv.
