Church in the World

?Anti-Zionism not the same as anti-Semitism?, say Vatican officials

Rome

The Vatican is playing down a statement that emerged from a Catholic-Jewish meeting in Buenos Aires earlier this month which condemned ?anti-Zionism? as a form of anti-Semitism (The Tablet, 17 July). Sources in Rome told the National Catholic Reporter?s Vatican correspondent, John Allen, that the statement did not mark a shift in Vatican policy towards Israel or the Middle East.

The meeting in the Argentine capital was the eighteenth assembly of the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee, the most important vehicle for dialogue between the two faiths. Cardinal Walter Kasper, who heads the Vatican?s council for Christian Unity and Religious Relations with Jews, and Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, who heads the Vatican?s Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, were among 25 Catholic and 25 Jewish leaders attending the conference.

The meeting?s joint declaration said ?We draw encouragement from the fruits of our collective strivings, which include the recognition of the unique and unbroken covenantal relationship between God and the Jewish people and the total rejection of anti-Semitism in all its forms, including anti-Zionism as a more recent manifestation of anti-Semitism.? Christian leaders in the Middle East had been concerned about whether the declaration marked a shift in Vatican policy on Israel and Palestine, and about whether Muslims would see it as such.

Elan Steinberg, executive vice-president of the World Jewish Congress, however welcomed the statement, saying that ?with the imprimatur of the Vatican? the Church was recognising that ?anti-Zionism is an attack not only against Jews, but against the whole Jewish people?.

But the Buenos Aires declaration should be read in the light of ?The Church and Racism?, a 1988 document of the Vatican?s Council for Justice and Peace, officials told Allen. That document pointed out that anti-Zionism was ?not of the same order? as anti-Semitism, since it questioned the state of Israel and its policies. But it did sometimes serve as a ?screen for anti-Semitism, feeding on it and leading to it?. This text made it clear, according to the senior official, that one could question the policies of Israel without automatically being guilty of prejudice.

A less-noticed passage from the Buenos Aires declaration referred to the fact that the Jewish community had ?made strides in educational programming about Christian-ity? and had ?become aware of, and deplores, the phenomenon of anti-Catholicism in all its forms?.

This was an especially telling point in Israel, where the presentation of Christian-ity and the Catholic Church in schools and the media was often superficial, Catholic observers said.
See Michael Prior, p.9.