Relations between the Vatican and Israel—and the state of Jewish-Catholic dialogue in general—are at a historical low point. The Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, and Israel’s response have repercussions beyond the geopolitical realm, given the respective religious character (in different ways) of the Holy See and the Jewish state. We appear to have arrived at a defining moment in the relationship, and the situation becomes more pressing with everything we learn about Israel’s actions against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and the impact on Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran.
The article by my friend and Villanova colleague Ethan Schwartz posted by Commonweal on December 29, 2024, helps us understand what’s at stake. His piece also reveals profound differences in our views about the significance of this moment, about what is expected of the speaking partner in the Jewish-Catholic relationship (which is unique, but not exclusive of other relationships between the Church and non-Christian traditions), and about what we mean by “liberal Catholicism” today. It’s even more important to ponder these questions given increasingly polemical critiques of Pope Francis from some Jewish voices.
It should be noted that Schwartz is right to be frustrated and disappointed with those Catholics he sees as essential partners but whose blind spots can pose problems. Further, the rise of neo-traditionalist and neo-conservative Catholic voices raises concerns about the future of Nostra aetate. There’s also the fact that in an increasingly global and post-European Church, Gaudium et spes—and its emphasis on social justice and the common good—has been received more deeply than Nostra aetate, paragraph 4, on the Jewish people. Global Catholicism relativizes the centrality of Jewish-Christian dialogue, and Pope Francis’s pontificate exemplifies this.
Importantly, Schwartz talks about “the leadership of prominent liberal Catholic publications or organizations.” It is true that the de-emphasis of theology has weakened the intellectual life of Catholic institutions, even as other areas of Catholic activity (poverty and humanitarian assistance, anti-abuse and transparency, diversity and inclusion) have developed without connection to a theological understanding of Church affairs. My colleague Ethan understands that within mainstream Catholic institutions, the inadequacy of theology in responding to the new signs of the times is a real problem.
He also makes the necessary point that Pope Francis resorts to unhelpful language in characterizing biblical Judaism. “There have also been characterizations of Israel as hypocritical Pharisees, claims that Israel represents the oppressive ‘law’ versus Christ’s compassion, and celebrations of anti-Zionist Jews as witnesses to the Gospel—just to name a few,” Schwartz writes. But especially on this last point, I wish he had provided some examples or evidence. Francis’s use of John 8:44 in his October 7, 2024, “Letter to the Catholics of the Middle East” was certainly unfortunate, and it has dangerous import for Jewish readers. But it’s not true that Catholic scholars have remained silent on this; there are those who’ve noted that Francis and his speechwriters quote from the Bible in a less than careful way. Schwartz mentions Philip Cunningham’s October op-ed in America, but not the December article in the same publication by David Neuhaus, SJ, who asked: “Why…do remarks that are tainted with anti-Judaism still make their appearance? To what extent do these remarks originate in the pontiff himself, or are they attributable to those assisting him in preparing his discourses and published texts?”
Around the same time, I wrote in La Croix International that Francis’s approach to the Catholic-Jewish relationship requires more solid scholarship and more disciplined language; he needs to be mindful of using biblical texts that have historically been used to justify the persecution of Jews. If this problem resides with his writers, then he has a responsibility to correct his writers. But less-than-careful use of language on even the most delicate issues has been a problem throughout Francis’s papacy, and it’s part of a broader question about papal pronouncements and their relationship to the living tradition as it is developed by Scripture specialists in the Catholic Church. The biblical scholarship coming from the Pontifical Biblical Institute (run by the Jesuits in Rome) always had a minor impact on papal teaching. The work of the Pontifical Biblical Commission (attached to Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith) was more relevant for Jewish-Catholic dialogue during the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI than under Francis.
Not helping matters was a December article in Vatican News by Pino Di Luccio, SJ, president of the Collegium Maximum, Pontifical Gregorian University, and Bishop Étienne Vetö ICN, auxiliary bishop of Reims and bishop in charge of Jewish relations for the French bishops’ conference. While it showed how the verse should be interpreted according to Catholic hermeneutical standards, with a long quotation from Nostra aetate, it didn’t explain why Francis cited it. And it underscored the mysterious public silence of the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews (CRRJ, part of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Christian Unity) on this issue. Perhaps the commission is overly deferential to the Holy See’s Secretariat of State. Or maybe it’s further indication of confusion within the Vatican these days. (And since the November 25 death of Cardinal Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot after a long illness, there is no prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue who is competent for dialogue with Islam.)
Schwartz makes other points that merit response. “The gravity of a papal letter merited a response from the leadership of prominent liberal Catholic publications or organizations,” he writes. “What I really wanted was an institutional acknowledgment that using this language was unacceptable. It never came.” As mentioned before, there actually were some responses to Francis. Schwartz seems unsatisfied with the kind of response. “Given the long, bloody history of Catholic antisemitism, why should Jews give the benefit of the doubt to Catholics who say such things and then also won’t say that it’s wrong to call us the devil?” he asks. The difference is that these articles by Catholic scholars gave Pope Francis the benefit of the doubt; for many of us, it was clear that Francis was alluding to the satanic nature of violence and war as such, without specifically blaming it on the Israelis and even less on the Jews. This is where the horizons of expectations differ profoundly; there is an evident crisis of mutual trust. But there are also very different cultures of discourse within Judaism and Catholicism, and they affect what Jews and Catholics expect from each other.
What was absent in what Schwartz identifies as “prominent liberal Catholic publications or organizations” was an acknowledgment that Francis uses antisemitic language, which Schwartz sees as evidence that “liberal Catholicism” is trafficking again in antisemitism. But there is no official list of prominent voices in liberal Catholicism—a theological and intellectual movement within the Catholic Church that has gone through different phases in the last two centuries, and which differs profoundly from country to country. Schwartz sees Catholics as liberals or as traditionalists. This leaves out many centrists (if we want to use these political labels). As polarized as U.S. Catholicism is, it is not formally divided (at least not yet) between traditionalists, neo-conservatives, and liberals, which would be a very American way of sizing up religion anyway. An independent, lay-run magazine like Commonweal, for example, has been a prominent voice of liberal Catholicism for one hundred years, but it has never become its house organ.
I think that Schwartz’s expectations of what he calls “liberal Catholicism” have to do with the United States. The size of the U.S. Jewish population and the close connections between American Catholics and American Jews are incomparable to Europe. But there is something else. As an Italian Catholic who came of age paying attention to Jewish-Catholic dialogue in Italy (the years of John Paul II and the Jesuit cardinal and biblical scholar Carlo Maria Martini, archbishop of Milan), it was interesting to discover just how absolute pro-Israel sentiment in the United States is—not only in the political realm, but across American Catholicism as well. It’s also interesting to wonder what, say, the Berrigan brothers, Thomas Merton, or Dorothy Day would make of Francis’s remarks today. Though not really “liberal” Catholics—even if closer to liberals than to traditionalists—they probably would approve of Francis’s effort to speak out on what’s happening in Gaza and the Middle East. But it’s secular Jews and secularized Christians who are the most prophetic voices at the moment—a rather low moment indeed in the post–Vatican II period for Jewish-Catholic dialogue, as it also reflects the emergence of a shallow “cultural Christianity” that might be more damaging than any neo-atheistic movement.
Schwartz also refers to “liberal Catholics who champion Nostra aetate.” There is within the Church a resilient theological hostility toward and contempt for Vatican II. At the same time, “Vatican II Catholicism” and “liberal Catholicism” overlap but are not consubstantial; Pope Francis and his predecessors are clear demonstrations of this. What would “championing” Nostra aetate even look like? Unfortunately, I don’t see much of it, not even on Catholic university campuses, at least in terms of serious engagement with it as part of the whole of Vatican II. Our academic theological language isn’t influenced by the Holy Office or the bishops; rather, it now largely consists of slogans and branding—a slow erosion of language that will have consequences for theology and for mutual- and self-understanding.
Schwartz correctly reminds liberal Catholics that Nostra aetate “holds them accountable as well, not just their opponents.” I understand Ethan’s intent, but this view is part of a twentieth-century framework built on Western triumphs. The defeat of Nazism and Fascism was paralleled by the Catholic Church’s “defeat” of its own antisemitism and followed by the adoption of a new liberal-progressive theological paradigm; Nostra aetate and Jewish-Catholic dialogue were part of and functional to the continuation of those triumphs. That paradigm no longer works, since Catholicism no longer operates within the “short twentieth-century” historical continuum, but rather in a longer, global one—post-colonial and post-European.
How is Vatican II seen today? There is a tendency, even among liberal Catholic theologians, to view it as a failed revolution, and Nostra aetate as a “cheap” effort that did not do justice to the complexity and richness of non-Christian religions. The fact is that contemporary Catholic theology is either increasingly unable or increasingly uninterested in engaging Vatican II, including Nostra aetate. This is the consequence of a disastrous lack of historical hermeneutics in reading magisterial texts. Jewish-Catholic dialogue has not been spared from the tendency to view Church history as a series of wrongdoings committed by a pantheon of criminals (in this case, of antisemites). This view has also helped weaken Catholics’ understanding of Vatican II and their tradition as a whole, and thus has consequences for the continued prospects of Jewish-Catholic dialogue. That’s not to deny the pernicious reality of antisemitism that results from opposition to Nostra aetate, which demands constant vigilance and vocal opposition. But it’s difficult to talk either about it or about Jewish-Catholic dialogue as long we focus on the history of Catholic antisemitism while we avert our eyes from Gaza, on which the eyes of the “Global South”—much more than those of Catholics in the Global North—are focused.
Schwartz also uses the phrase “religiously miraculous” in his description of Israel’s history. One of the foundational documents for the Catholic Church’s relations with the Jews, the 1985 Notes on the Correct Way to Present Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesis in the Roman Catholic Church, stated that “the existence of the State of Israel and its political options should be envisaged not in a perspective which is in itself religious, but in their reference to the common principles of international law. The permanence of Israel (while so many ancient peoples have disappeared without trace) is a historic fact and a sign to be interpreted within God's design.... Catechesis should on the other hand help in understanding the meaning for the Jews of the extermination during the years 1939-1945, and its consequences.” The pope and the Vatican also speak of Israel in terms of “the common principles of international law.” The massacres carried out by Hamas on October 7 were, without a doubt, atrocious crimes against humanity. However, the extent of Israel’s response has essentially caused the rest of the world to forget about Hamas’s actions. With the help of American weapons and political and financial support, Israel has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. Because of its unique nature, the Holy See uses language that has to do with both morality and international law. This combination can present complications (and is potentially explosive) when the pope talks about Israel, and when the language he uses may be improvised.
Schwartz writes that “most frustrating was the suggestion that because I didn’t unequivocally condemn Israel myself, my perspective was disqualified from the start—as if to say, ‘If you don’t want to be called the devil, stop acting like the devil.’” Vatican II Catholicism is also about reading the signs of the times. Not talking about what is happening in Gaza risks denying the reality of what October 7 and its aftermath mean—even if talking about it has become so fraught, and even dangerous, for academics like Ethan and myself. But Catholics, liberal and otherwise, must talk about Gaza—not to oppose Israel as a whole or its right to exist and defend itself, but to make political, cultural, and religious distinctions regarding Israel and its government at this moment. This is the time to do it. The return of Donald Trump and the consequences for Jewish-Christian and interreligious relations heighten that need.
To return to Ethan’s concern over liberal Catholics’ reaction (or lack thereof) to Francis’s use of language that could be considered antisemitic, I think “liberal Catholicism” is actually in a different bind. Liberal Catholicism represents not just a stance on development of doctrine and of the Church, but also on the support of fundamental rights of all human beings, the constitutional rule of law, and respect for international law. Yet liberal Catholicism has not been nearly vocal enough in supporting the rights of the Palestinian people and Christians in the Middle East, or in criticizing the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government (with some exceptions). This will weigh hard in the eyes of international public opinion and of future historians, especially outside of the Anglo-American sphere; it will also likely damage the legacy of Joe Biden, America’s second Catholic president.
Schwartz also writes: “I do think that good-faith Catholic-Jewish dialogue requires intellectual honesty and self-awareness. If liberal Catholics are going to traffic in antisemitism as they criticize Israel, then they at least need to acknowledge that that’s what they’re doing.” This misses the point of what is happening within Catholicism. Liberal Catholicism is at a crossroads, theologically and politically—but not about antisemitism. Liberal Catholic theology today relies less on Scripture and those sources of biblical prophecy that Schwartz sees as voices of social justice constructed in an anti-Jewish framework. Yes, those sources can sometimes be heard in the language of Pope Francis. They are not, however, typical of what we call liberal or mainstream Vatican II Catholicism in the United States. But antisemitism is on the rise among some American Catholics. This should be read in parallel with the apparent reluctance of the USCCB to appreciate the potential risk to interreligious dialogue from Donald Trump and J. D. Vance (and Elon Musk). The bishops could stand to do more on this front.
It is also true, as Schwartz writes, that some Catholics “only care about antisemitism when it’s politically useful for their own agenda—ironically, itself an accusation that they often level at their traditionalist opponents.” It is indeed, as he says, “difficult to see how meaningful dialogue is possible under such circumstances.” But not for the reasons he thinks. As one of my Italian mentors, Piero Stefani, wrote recently, October 7 and its aftermath are evidence of the “unresolved fractures that we have tried to manage by relying on a perennial status quo.” It’s a theological and historical status quo in which everyone has locked into their own way of understanding Jewish and Catholic identities, often conceived in antithesis to other ways of expressing these understandings. The tragedy of the Hamas attack on October 7 and its aftermath shows how essential it is today for us to look in the mirror to find a new synthesis, within the deep divisions afflicting Israeli, Jewish, and Catholic communities.