On the Contrary: The John Paul II Theology of Pope Benedict XVI

On the Contrary: The John Paul II Theology of Pope Benedict XVI

Benedict Met His Favorite Rabbi in Washington D.C.

The following is an email reportedly written by Rabbi Nuesner on the topic of his meeting with Benedict XVI on April 17th in Washington D.C. (the anniversary of the Last Supper according to the Hebrew Calendar) which was also reported in L'Osservatore Romano April 30th edition:

Thursday the train was an hour and a half late and we nearly missed the event. But we walked to the hotel where we were to meet for transportation and the US Council of Bishops staff was terrific. We were on the last bus to the ceremony. When we got there, at 4 pm, we were put in a large auditorium. The Muslims were sent off in one direction and the Jews in another for minhah and the Islamic equivalent.

The pope came about an hour and a half later and spoke to the 150 religious leaders who were there and exchanged gifts with representatives of Judaism, Islam, Jainism, Hinduism and Buddhism. There were no other Christianities that were invited.

After the ceremony the Jews were led into another room and the Pope read a greeting for Passover. Then the presiding bishop asked Rabbi Neusner to step forward.

I attach the picture taken by a rabbi and emailed to me. The pope thanked me for my work, his English is excellent but was an effort, and when I told him he could talk to me in Italian, he had a big smile and looked relieved and relaxed. I proposed to him that we write a book together on the convergences of Judaism and Christianity in antiquity. A cardinal told me they would like to invite me to the Vatican, and I said that would be terrific.

The editor of 'L'osservatore romano' the Vatican newspaper introduced himself. I told him his assistant had given me an assignment and I would have it in his hands by the time he got home. That ended the session with the Jewish representatives.

source:

http://tzvee.blogspot.com/2008/04/professor-neusner-meets-pope.html

What a triumph it would be for the rabbis if Benedict accepted Neusner's offer to co-write a book on "the convergences of Judaism and Christianity in antiquity," and what a smack in the face of Jesus Christ, the Apostles and saints who gave their lives to prevent such a thing.

More on Benedict XVI and his favorite rabbi, Jacob Neusner here:

The Pope and the Rabbi "Debate" Charade Continues to Play Out

Benedict XVI Lauded by John Hagee

Words of praise from one crypto-rabbi to another.

Thank you, Pope Benedict

By Pastor John Hagee

Washington Times Editorial

April 28, 2008

During his recent visit to the United States, Pope Benedict XVI not only conducted mass and met with the Catholic faithful, but he made a series of public statements about the role that our Judeo-Christian faith can play during these challenging times. As an evangelical Protestant I happen to disagree with Pope Benedict on many issues of Christian doctrine and ritual. But when it comes to his moral vision for America and the world I have one thing to say in response to the Pope's visit: Amen.

I and many other evangelical leaders believe that our faith must not be confined to our churches on Sunday mornings. We maintain that our Christian values and compassion can be powerful tools for helping build a more just and humane nation. Pope Benedict thus spoke for all of us when he said that "Any tendency to treat religion as a private matter must be resisted" and called for Christian participation "in the exchange of ideas in the public square."

The pope was recalling the history we all cherish when he cited George Washington's Farewell Address to note that, "religion and morality represent 'indispensable supports' of political prosperity." The pope likewise voiced all of our concerns when he recognized the threats posed by secularism and materialism not only to our morality but to our happiness.

As people of faith, our concerns go well beyond the borders of our country. After the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust, we joined our Jewish brothers in saying "Never Again!" For me, this commitment means never again allowing the Jewish people to be massacred or persecuted and thus helps to motivate my strong support for the State of Israel. But we also take from the Holocaust a universal "Never Again," which means that we must never again allow genocide to be perpetrated against any of God's children anywhere in the world.

Thus all of our hearts cheered when Pope Benedict stood before the United Nations and stated so forcefully that when states fail to protect the basic human rights of their citizens, "the international community must intervene." Likewise, all people of faith applauded his comment in the same speech that it is religion's "recognition of the transcendent value of every man and woman" which provides the powerful source of our commitment to resist genocide and terrorism.

My reaction to Pope Benedict"s visit may surprise some who have come to accept certain caricatures of my views of the Catholic Church. But as I have noted from the start, my critics have ignored the real point and strong emphasis of my words. I have indeed been quite zealous about condemning the past anti-Semitism of the Catholic Church. But I have been equally zealous in condemning Protestant anti-Semitism. Furthermore, as I noted in my 2006 book "Jerusalem Countdown," I have long viewed Pope John Paul II and now Pope Benedict XVI as partners in this "righteous work" of overcoming our shared legacy of Christian anti-Semitism.

For decades I have taught that we Christians need to recognize that our roots are Jewish. As Christians we can only understand ourselves if we understand the Judaism from which we sprang. Pope Benedict made this very important point when he visited the Park East Synagogue in New York and shared that: "I find it moving to recall that Jesus, as a young boy, heard the words of Scripture and prayed in a place such as this." With visits and words such as these, Pope Benedict is continuing the important work of recognizing our enormous Christian debt of gratitude to the Jewish people.

The world in which we live faces many difficult challenges. In recent days, we read in our paper of increased starvation due to higher food prices; of alienated youth planning to bomb their fellow students; of Islamic militants actually bombing innocents in Iraq and Israel; and about people so devoid of hope that they end their own lives.

I believe that the message of the Bible and of Judeo-Christian faith offers us timely answers to these problems. We were all inspired by Pope Benedict's visit. It is my prayer that we will now follow his example and look beyond our differences to see that when it comes to the great challenges of our times, people of faith have much in common.

Pastor John Hagee is founder and senior pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas.

http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080428/EDITORIAL/855698663/1013

Benedict on St. Gregory of Nyssa

The latest installment in Benedict XVI's series of talks on the Church Fathers focuses on St. Gregory of Nyssa:

In the last few catecheses I spoke about two great doctors of the Church of the fourth century, Basil and Gregory Nazianzen, bishop of Cappadocia, in present-day Turkey. Today we add a third, Basil's brother, St. Gregory of Nyssa, who showed himself to be a man of meditative character, with a great capacity for reflection, and a vivacious intellect, open to the culture of his time. He showed himself in this way to be an original and deep thinker in Christian history ...

Especially after Basil's death, almost garnering his spiritual legacy, Gregory cooperated in the triumph of orthodoxy. He participated in various synods; he tried to settle divisions between the Churches; he took an active part in the Church's reorganization; and, as "a pillar of orthodoxy," he was a protagonist at the Council of Constantinople in 381, which defined the divinity of the Holy Spirit. (Benedict XVI, "On St. Gregory of Nyssa: A Pillar of Orthodoxy," August 29, 2007)

Full lecture:
http://www.zenit.org/article-20361?l=english

It is true, St. Gregory of Nyssa was indeed a pillar of orthodoxy, and given that Benedict says as much himself, it's worth examining what this pillar of orthodoxy, St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote of the people who Benedict calls his "elder brothers in the faith" with whom Christians "have a common mission."

The Lawgiver of our life has enjoined upon us one single hatred. I mean, that of the Serpent: for no other purpose has He bidden us exercise this faculty of hatred, but as a resource against wickedness. "I will put enmity," He says, "between you and him." Since wickedness is a complicated and multifarious thing, the Word allegorizes it by the Serpent, the dense array of whose scales is symbolic of this multiformity of evil. And we by working the will of our Adversary make an alliance with this serpent, and so turn this hatred against one another, and perhaps not against ourselves alone, but against Him Who gave the commandment; for He says, "You shall love your neighbour and hate thine enemy," commanding us to hold the foe to our humanity as our only enemy, and declaring that all who share that humanity are the neighbours of each one of us. But this gross-hearted age has disunited us from our neighbour, and has made us welcome the serpent, and revel in his spotted scales.

I affirm, then, that it is a lawful thing to hate God's enemies, and that this kind of hatred is pleasing to our Lord: and by God's enemies I mean those who deny the glory of our Lord, be they Jews, or downright idolaters, or those who through Arius' teaching idolize the creature, and so adopt the error of the Jews. (St. Gregory of Nyssa, Letter 17)

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/291117.htm

Now, I do not seize upon this statement by St. Gregory, which is typical to all of the Church Fathers, in an effort to stir up temporal animosity any more than St. Gregory intended to do so, but to demonstrate how double-minded it is of Benedict to on the one hand laud the orthodoxy of the Church Fathers who singularly identified Judaic practices, beliefs and those who uphold them as antithetical and inimical to Christianity, and on the other hand laud the "Jews" who today uphold these same beliefs and practices so opposed by the Church Fathers as our "elder brothers in the faith;" people with whom Christians "have a common mission."

Are they our enemies or our allies? They cannot be both. So, either Benedict or the Church Doctor Gregory of Nyssa and all of the Church Fathers are wrong here. I side with the Church Fathers.

Judaic beliefs have only become more hostile towards Christianity and Christians since St. Gregory's time. For the Vatican to make such a 180 degree turnaround from the position of the Church Fathers on this matter reflects a change on their part only and a most suspicious change at that.

Lustiger's NY Yeshiva Tour, Endorsement of Chabad Lubavitch as Religious Model

The cardinal [Jean-Marie Lustiger] cited three New York Jewish communities he visited last year "homogeneous in their spiritual and practical choices" as models for how religion can successfully integrate modernity ...

Asked later by The Jewish Week to which communities he was referring, Cardinal Lustiger said "Yeshiva University, the Jewish Theological Seminary and Lubavitch." (Eric J. Greenberg, The Jewish Week, Feb. 14, 2003)

Jean-Marie Lustiger and Rabbi Israel Singer

Rabbi Zevulun Charlop and Jean-Marie Lustiger in the library of Yeshiva University

Rabbi Zevulun Charlop and Walter Kasper with Talmud

Jean-Pierre Ricard of the Ecclesia Dei Commission which oversees all things related to the traditional Latin Mass with his elder brothers

Cardinals and rabbis hold hands

Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, the Archbishop of Paris, recently organized an expedition that brought twelve Catholic scholars who were well versed in Hebrew and Judaic subjects to New York City. Hoping to gain an appreciation for Jewish institutes of advanced learning, Lustiger and his delegation visited several schools around the city, including the Jewish Theological Seminary, Hebrew Union College, and Yeshiva University.

The Commentator


Also see:

http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=7406&print=yes

http://www.lefigaro.fr/reportage/20060406.FIG000000009_calotte_et_kippa_ensemble_a_manhattan.html

International Council of Christians and Jews Expands It's Reach to Australia

EDITOR'S NOTE: Edward Idris Cassidy, President Emeritus of Promoting Christian Unity, Roman Curia, will give the closing address at this event.

Rabbi Apple to headline inter-faith conference


NICOLE BRESKIN

THE Great Synagogue’s emeritus Rabbi Raymond Apple has been confirmed as the keynote speaker for the International Council of Christians and Jews’ (ICCJ’s) 2007 conference in Sydney later this month.

ICCJ president Dr John Pawlikowski visited Sydney last year and said that he chose the conference spot to extend the ground the organisation has covered.

“I look forward to a refreshing approach to the framework of the international conference, when we hold it in a region which is becoming more and more important,” he said.

Rabbi Apple is a founding member of the council and now resides in Israel.

He will travel to Sydney to present his address at the conference, which will be on “the leading of rifts between religions in a multicultural society”.

The four-day conference will also feature local speakers, Progressive leader Rabbi Dr John Levi, University of Sydney Associate Professor Suzanne Rutland and NSW Uniting Church moderator Jim Mein.

Prominent overseas academics and communal leaders participating include Kerem Institute in Jerusalem including director Dr Deborah Weissman, London’s Leo Baeck College Rabbi Jonathan Magonet and executive director of the Institute for Interreligious Intercultural Dialogue at Temple University in Philadelphia Dr Racelle Weiman.

The conference will be opened by NSW Governor Professor Marie Bashir on July 8 at the University of New South Wales’ Law School Theatre. It will close with a gala dinner and an address by Cardinal Edward Idriss Cassidy of the Vatican.

Rabbi Apple was a religious leader at the Great Synagogue for over 30 years and has served as judge of the Sydney Beth Din.

The ICCJ serves as the umbrella organisation of 38 Jewish-Christian dialogue organisations worldwide.

http://www.ajn.com.au/news/news.asp?pgID=3440

From the ICCJ mission statement:

The ICCJ member organisations world-wide over the past five decades have been successfully engaged in the historic renewal of Jewish-Christian relations. Founded as a reaction to the Holocaust, the Shoah, in the awareness that ways must be found to examine the deeply engrained roots of mistrust, hatred and fear that culminated in one of the worst evils in human history, theologians, historians and educators included the still fragile structure of enlightenment and the human rights movements of the inter-war period.

http://www.iccj.org/en/index.php

The most evil act in human history by a cosmic margin is the crucifixion of God incarnate at Calvary by the spiritual forebears of the rabbis of the ICCJ who presume to teach "the nations" how to prevent future "holocausts" even as their fellow rabbis provide scriptural exegetical rationalizations for indiscriminate killing of Palestinians.

Only a rabbi/pharisee would have the audacity to peddle a Kabbalistic tale of 6 million "Jews" killed in gas chambers as a replacement for the crucifixion of God incarnate as the most evil act in history and as the central ontological event of history. And only in an insane world would they get away with it.

What a farce.

Schönborn Upstages Falwell

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article is from 2005. Christoph Schönborn is editor of the most recently issued Catechism of the Catholic Church and member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Roman Catholic Cardinal Endorses Zionism

A Roman Catholic cardinal says European Christians' support for Israel is not based on Holocaust guilt and Christians should affirm Zionism as biblical.

(Washington Post, Mar. 31 2005) Jerusalem, Israel -- Archbishop of Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, part of a visiting Austrian delegation, made the remarks in an address Wednesday at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Jerusalem Post reported Thursday.

Schoenborn said it was doctrinally important for Christians to recognize Jews' connection to the "Holy Land" and Christians should rejoice in Jews' return to Palestine as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy.

He also said Pope John Paul II had himself declared the biblical commandment for Jews to live in Israel an everlasting covenant that remained valid today.

When a Palestinian priest asked Schoenborn if the creation of the modern state of Israel was not an expression of Europe's guilt over the Holocaust, the cardinal said it was not.

A cardinal considered a candidate to succeed Pope John Paul II delivered a strong message in favor of Jewish settlement in the Holy Land on Wednesday night, rejecting the claim that European Christians' support for the State of Israel is based on Holocaust guilt and saying that all Christians should affirm Zionism as a biblical imperative for the Jewish people.

Archbishop of Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, part of a visiting Austrian delegation, made the remarks in an address at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on the topic of "God's chosen land."

After asking, "What does Eretz Yisrael [the Land of Israel] mean to us," Schoenborn answered by stressing the doctrinal importance to Christians of not only recognizing Jews' connection to the land, but also ensuring that Christian identification with the Jewish Bible not lead to a "usurpation" of Jewish uniqueness.

"Only once in human history did God take a country as an inheritance and give it to His chosen people," Schoenborn said, adding that Pope John Paul II had himself declared the biblical commandment for Jews to live in Israel an everlasting covenant that remained valid today. Christians, Schoenborn said, should rejoice in the return of Jews to the Holy Land as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy.

A Palestinian priest challenged the cardinal on that point, asking how he could preach to his Palestinian congregation that the establishment of the modern Jewish state was not a "catastrophe," as they called it, or the result of European powers' guilty conscience following World War II.

Schoenborn responded by saying that "I am myself a refugee" – at the end of World War II, when he was an infant, Schoenborn's parents fled to Austria from Czechoslovakia – and that he felt pained at the unrecognized injustice that thousands of Czechs had suffered. However, he said, both that case and the Arab-Israeli conflict were matters of international law, whereas the chosenness of the Jewish people and their inheritance in the Holy Land were matters of faith that date back to the Bible itself.

Schoenborn also said he hoped the conflict here would be resolved in accordance with international law, and with respect to justice for the Palestinian people. "We are all longing for that solution," he said. "Yet I am not naive. Conflicts are part of [both sides'] love of the land, and always have been... There is no simple solution."

See Photos of Schoenborn speaking at Hebrew University of Jerusalem:


http://www.sassontiram.com/absoluteig/gallery.asp?categoryid=173

.

Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard of Ecclesia Dei Commission Studying Talmud at NY Yeshiva

EDITOR'S NOTE: Ricard was raised to Cardinal only one day before this Jean-Marie Lustiger/World Jewish Congress organized event took place during Holy Week last year. Ricard stated, "I should have been in Rome ... The pope is to receive the new cardinals, but I wrote... him about this meeting in New York City, [and] he said, 'Of course you can go.'" Ricard is a leading member of the Ecclesia Dei Commission which oversees all things related to the traditional Latin Mass. He is also president of the French Catholic Bishops Committee for Relationship with the Jews.



Cardinal Ricard (top right) learns Tractate Berakoth with Cardinal Erdo (bottom left) and rabbinical student Sorin Rosen.

Babylonian Talmud tractate Berakoth, which Ricard and Erdo are shown studying, contains the Judaic racial supremacist teaching that non-Judaics have the status of asses (folio 58a). The prelates were said to be studying tractate Berakoth to learn why Judaics pray their benedictions ("Berakoth" means benedictions) three times daily. It should be noted that the benedictions which Orthodox Judaics are bound to pray three times daily contain a curse on Christians, Birkat ha-Minim HERE. Tractate Berakoth is where the "preparation of the gifts" of the Novus Ordo Mass originates (HERE and HERE) The news article which covered this event stated that the prelates and Judaics studied and prayed together as "brothers."




Cardinals, bishops, rabbinical students and others hold hands and sway while singing at the conclusion of (the day's) dialogue

The efffects of [Nostra Aetate] have been impressive for the Jewish and Catholic worlds. “Things have radically changed,” said the Archbishop of Lyon Philippe Barbarin ... “When I was a student I never imagined I would pray and study a page of the Talmud with Jewish students in a yeshiva in Brooklyn. Yet World Jewish Congress chairman Israel Singer invited me to do so and I accepted his invitation.”

http://www.eurojewcong.org/ejc/news.php?id_article=459

Also See:

Rabbis and "Catholic" Crypto-Rabbis Hold "Brotherhood" Fest and Study Talmud Together

Tridentine Judaism

For more on Israel Singer, co-organizer of the event, see:

There's no Racket Like the Shoah Racket

.

Vatican: "Christians Can Learn Much From 'Jewish' Exegesis of Past 2000 Years"

The Vatican sez:

... Christians can and ought to admit that the Jewish reading of the Bible is a possible one ...

... Christians can, nonetheless, learn much from Jewish exegesis practised for more than two thousand years ...

(The Jewish People and their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible, Pontifical Biblical Commission, Vatican, May 24th, 2001)

... Jewish biblical scholarship in all its richness, from its origins in antiquity down to the present day, is an asset of the highest value for the exegesis of both Testaments ...

(The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, Pontifical Biblical Commission, Vatican, March 18, 1994)

Both of these documents were signed by Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.

Here is a representative example of Judaic exegesis of Old Testament scripture from the past 2000 years. I leave it to the readers to draw their own conclusions as to the Vatican's statements in reference to it:

Rabbi Eleazar further stated: What is meant by the Scriptural text, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh? (Genesis 2;23) This teaches that Adam had intercourse with every beast and animal but found no satisfaction until he cohabited with Eve. (Babylonian Talmud, Yebamoth, 63a, London, The Soncino Press, 1961)