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Rock the Pope

The rabbi is upset with the public protest from Jewish leaders over the Vatican\'s beatification of Pius IX this coming week.
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August 31, 2000

“I’m telling you, we’re doing something very foolish right now,” Rabbi Harold Schulweis tells me, in a voice that doesn’t leave much room for doubt.

By we, he means we Jews. The rabbi is upset with the public protest from Jewish leaders over the Vatican’s beatification of Pius IX this coming week.

In the long saga of Catholics and Jews, Pius IX was not one of the good guys. A late 19th-century pope (1846-1878), he played a key part in what was essentially a medieval crime: the kidnapping of a 6-year-old Jewish boy, Edgardo Mortara, from his home in Bologna on the specious grounds that the boy had been baptized. Edgardo was held under lock and key in the Vatican. Despite inter-national protest – not to mention the anguished pleas of his parents – Pius IX refused to free Edgardo, who eventually became his surrogate son, then a priest.

So there’s been an outcry against John Paul II setting Pius IX on the path toward sainthood: in Time and Newsweek, in major newspapers, on NPR and the network news.

Schulweis’ objection to such objections is nuanced. On the one hand, he says, it’s none of our business. Jews don’t recognize saints or sainthood, so why intervene in what is essentially an internal church matter? On the other hand, if Jews wish to protest, why not do so diplomatically, privately, without beating up on the Church in the pages of Time?

It’s a good point. From his statements on the Holocaust and anti-Semitism to his historic visit to Jerusalem (and Yad Vashem) to his siding with Jewish leaders against a nunnery at Auschwitz, the current pope has made huge strides in Vatican-Jewish relations. Just this week, leaders of the Polish Roman Catholic Church have asked for forgiveness for the church’s tolerating anti-Semitism and for other religious discrimination by Polish Catholics. “We want to express the value of the presence of Judaism in Polish history and of the coexistence between Christians and Jews,” said Bishop Jozef Zyczynski of Lublin.

Last month, 12 rabbis and priests gathered at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., for a two-day seminar on interreligious relations. “They could be conning me,” says Schulweis, a participant, “but I’ve never seen such intense contrition.” The rabbis were especially surprised when the bishop picked to lead the invocation stood up, recited the motzi in flawless Hebrew, then sat down.

The major complaint among Catholics at the seminar was that Jewish leaders offer tepid applause for major progress but complain vigorously against every slight. Schulweis attributes this to the fact that the “Jewish leaders” who speak out are often bureaucrats, not rabbis. Rabbis, he believes, could offer a more balanced, faith-based response. Also, Jews, in Abba Eban’s words, cannot take yes for an answer.

Schulweis is right. We should be enormously pleased with the progress Pope John Paul II and the Church have made. But the Vatican’s critics, which in this case include preeminent Catholics like Garry Wills, are right too: beatifying Pope Pius IX is wrong, and the world should know.

The Honeymoon’s Over

Jews, outside of the most mystical sorts, don’t have saints, and the recent history of Joe Lieberman explains why.

Two weeks ago, when “Hadassah” and “Lieberman” placards covered the floor of the Democratic National Convention like so much wall-to-wall carpeting, you couldn’t find a Jew from Dizengoff to Olympic Boulevard who had a bad word to say about the first Jewish candidate on a major party ticket.

What a difference a week makes. On Monday, screenwriter Joe Eszterhas took out a full-page ad in Variety urging Democrats to withhold their contributions to Lieberman until he makes clear his stand against media sex and violence. On Tuesday, the Anti-Defamation League – the ADL! – attacked Lieberman for “appealing to voters along religious lines” in a speech before a Black church group. “We believe there is a point at which the emphasis on religion in a political campaign becomes inappropriate and even unsettling,” wrote National Chairman Howard Berkowitz and National Director Abraham Foxman.

Meanwhile, Jews from left to right have been squirming about Lieberman’s outspoken religiosity. “He talks about Judaism the way fundamentalist Christians talk about Christianity,” said one prominent L.A. rabbi who didn’t want to be named yet. “I wish he’d give it a rest,” harrumphed a local businessman, an active and committed Jew.

But if Lieberman’s no saint, Abe Foxman is no Tom Paine. Why denounce a candidate for expressing faith-based beliefs, as if the First Amendment doesn’t apply to the devout? Lieberman has proposed no policies threatening the separation of church and state. If people are uncomfortable with his pronouncements, they can vote against him. Would Foxman rather only nonobservant people run for office? Or would he just prefer religious politicians hide their true beliefs on the stump, so unoffended voters can make uninformed choices?

The ADL’s mildly defamatory statements against Lieberman brought rabbis from across the political spectrum together to defend the senator. Both Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and Lawrence Goldmark, former president of the Southern California Board of Rabbis, told the Los Angeles Times the ADL overreacted.

In any case, Lieberman probably will tone it down. If America really wanted someone holier-than-thou, people would never have voted for Bill Clinton twice. The most exalted figure in the Democratic Jewish pantheon is JFK, whose personal morality was near-despicable. This fact shouldn’t be lost on Lieberman or Foxman: We Jews grant sainthood for getting the job done, not for getting the Word out.

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