Benedict and Israel: the possibilities of friendship

Abstract

The article explores the possibilities of friendship between Israel and the Pope in the light of Pope Benedict's denial of a reduction of religions to cultural artefacts and his commitment to religious claims to truth. Any discussion of Benedict XVI and Israel must take into account this call for the respect of the human desire for truth, the confidence in the ability of reason, and the validity of religious statements. This article offers some reflections on Benedict XVI's contribution to the larger debate of interreligious dialogue between Christianity and the Jewish faith. After a brief look at Vatican II's Nostra Aetate and at John Paul II, the essay examines some sections of Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth and his first encyclical Deus Caritas est with a view of developing the category of friendship as it applies to his attitude to the faith of Israel.

Keywords:

• Benedict XVI
• ecumenism
• interreligious dialogue
• Jewish–Christian relations
• friendship

Notes

 1. Benedict XVI, ‘Meeting with the Representatives of Science’, Aula Magna of the University of Regensburg, September 12, 2006, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg_en.html (accessed May 14, 2010).

 2. A similar argument, against the dangers of some forms of cultural pluralism and the reduction of reason, was already present in Joseph Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions, trans. Henry Taylor (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003).

 3. Benedict XVI, ‘Meeting with the Representatives of Science’.

 4. An English translation can be found at the Boston College Center for Christian–Jewish Learning, http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/texts/cjrelations/resources/documents/catholic/johnpaulii/romesynagogue.htm. The Center provides a very useful resource.

 5. The letter can be found on the Vatican website at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/letters/2005/documents/hf_ben-xvi_let_20051026_nostra-aetate_en.html (accessed February 7, 2010).

 6. For Weiler's comments, see ‘I, a Jew, Explain the Pope's Outstretched hand’, Traces: Communion and Liberation International Magazine 12, no. 2 (2010): 18–20. Weiler also comments on the other two controversies or ‘potholes’ as he calls them. Benedict's comments are from the 2010 visit to the Synagogue in Rome in January of 2010, whose text can be found on the Vatican website at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2010/january/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20100117_sinagoga_en.html (accessed February 2, 2010).

 7. Joseph Ratzinger Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, trans. from the German by Adrian J. Walker (New York: Doubleday, 2007). Subsequent references to this book are in-text, preceded by JoN.

 8. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Many Religions – One Covenant: Israel, the Church, and the World, trans. Graham Harrison, foreword by Scott Hahn (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999), 103.

 9. Ibid., 103–4, 109.

10. See Jacob Neusner, A Rabbi Talks with Jesus, 2nd ed. (Montreal and Kingston: McGill University Press, 2000). Neusner originally submitted Ratzinger's name to his publisher with the hope of receiving a favourable reading of the book. Ratzinger complied, and then returned to the book for a deeper discussion in his own Jesus of Nazareth.

11. Jacob Neusner, ‘Renewing Religious Disputation in Quest of Theological Truth: In Dialogue with Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth’, Communio: International Catholic Review 34 (2007): 329.

12. Anthony C. Sciglitano Jr. distinguishes ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ supersessionism. Hard supersessionism would imply that the Jews are no longer God's people. Clearly this is not the case with Benedict. Yet, if one argues that Jesus fulfils the covenant, or ‘fulfils’ the Torah, how does one then avoid a sense of superiority? This is where Sciglitano introduces his comments: ‘Yet, there is another kind of “supersessionism” that does occur [in Benedict's Jesus of Nazareth]. We might call it “soft supersessionism”, and this may not be avoidable for faithful Christian. This kind of supersessionism holds to basic Christian beliefs, such as the triune nature of God, the universal salvific efficacy of Jesus’ cross and Resurrection, and the definitive and unsurpassable nature of Christ's revelation of divine Being as love. In this sense, Christians are supersessionists. They believe both that they are intimately related to Judaism and the Jewish people through Mary, Jesus, and the early church, and that Jesus brings the Old Covenant to fulfilment' (Anthony C. Sciglitano Jr., ‘Pope Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth: Agape and Logos’, Pro Ecclesia 17 (2008): 171).

13. See Roch Kereszty, ‘Deus Caritas est: A Potential to Renew Christian Life and Thought’, Communio: International Catholic Review 33 (2006): 487–8, where he discusses the implications of the encyclical for interreligious dialogue, but he does so in a general context of ‘cultural pluralism’ and ‘interculturality’.