The need to step up the fight against anti-Semitism will be a key issue for the world's Roman Catholic bishops at a meeting at the Vatican next year. An entire section of a preparatory document released by the Vatican on Friday is devoted to the Church's relationship with Jews, noting the "close associations of the two in faith" and calling for efforts "to overcome every form of anti-Semitism." The 60-page document, which was approved by Pope Benedict XVI, outlines the suggested topics and includes a questionnaire to be answered by local bishops.There's even a section that emphasizes how literal interpretations of holy texts risk fundamentalism. That, you'll remember, was the central issue during last year's anti-Pope riots. It's also one of the central sensibilities that seperates Judaism and Catholicism on one side from the dominant interpretations of Islam on the other side. Not that this has anything to do with the Pope's stance on anti-Semitism - we assume that just comes from being a hell of a guy. Bonus preempt: on the Pope's stance on gay ordination.
After asking if priority is given to dialogue with the Jews, the questionnaire calls on bishops to investigate the use of biblical texts to "ferment attitudes of anti-Semitism." "Much has already been done, but everything must be done to dispel every shadow," the synod's general-secretary, Bishop Nikola Eterovic, said during a news conference to present the agenda for the October 2008 meeting.
[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]
3 comments:
i like this benedict, too - but he is not doing enough to save the church in europe, and thereby help save europe from postmodernism from within and dhimmitude/islamification.
he must be bolder and take more actions: allowing a married clergy would help.
as might allowing a latin mass - or even a greek mass.
pjpii went to poland and electrified the poles - and and helped launch the revolutiuon which brought down the ussr.
benedict must do this same against europe's current foes: the left and muslims-infiltrators.
here's hoe benedict could have a married clergy:
he just has to say church teachings have changed -- like he did with LIMBO.
he could say that the clergy needs to fulfill a basic commandment: be fruitful and multiply.
so... IF a priest wants to marry , he can. if he wants to stay celibate... then he needs special dispensation from being fruitful and multiplying.
Well, it's a difficult tension - the whole problem with European Catholicism is that it's become too diluted and modern. Rather than presenting followers with the hard choice: obey dogma because it's dogma or don't be part of the Church (i.e. the fundamentalist Islamic approach), it tries to be the "modern Church". Now of course, that's also the problem with Islamic fundamentalism - so there has to be a certain tension between tradition and, for want of a better word, modernity. Benedict's speech (the one that set off the anti-Papal riots) was all about that - the idea that Catholicism, in contrast to Islam, is built on an epistemological foundation that allows for wiggle room. The downstream political consequence of this wiggle room is that Catholicism is a poor fit for a theocracy - again, in contrast to Islam.
I'm not sure about the married clergy - there's talk about a worldwide crises in clergy numbers, but in Europe the problem is followers. And there's no reason to believe that they're staying away because of a lack of clergy (they're staying away because - very crudely - they're soft and decadent).
I think that Benedict recognizes the threat to Europe that's growing in the heart of Old Europe's capitals. But I think he's got the right idea: the solution is to insist upon dogma and give people something to believe in. More modernization would be a stop-gap measure at best, I think.
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