Roman Catholic Archbishop, Rabbi Share Journey of Mutual Discovery

Editor’s Note: The following article is excerpted from a chapter in the “Twenty Years of Jewish-Catholic Relations,” published in 1986 by Paulist Press and edited by Eugene J. Fisher, A. James Rudin and Marc H. Tanenbaum. The co-authors also have written “A Journey of Discovery, A Resource Manual for Jewish-Catholic Dialogue,” soon to be published by Tabor Publishing Co., Valencia.

There has been a rich and extensive history of contacts between the Catholic and Jewish communities.

As early as the 1920s friendships developed between Archbishop John J. Cantwell and Rabbi Edgar F. Magnin and they established contacts between their flocks to the extent then possible. The involvement of Jewish leaders in such Roman Catholic social welfare institutions as St. Anne’s Maternity Hospital and Holy Family Adoption Service gave early promise of things to come.

In the ‘50s and ‘60s, Loyola University--now Loyola-Marymount--became an effective point of contact. Its president, (Father) Charles Casassa, introduced a course on Judaism taught by a rabbi and, together with Neil Sandberg of the American Jewish Committee, developed a rich program on intercultural education. These efforts prepared a number of key persons for leadership in the post-Vatican II era.

While, during this period, Catholic-Jewish relations were largely limited to especially motivated individuals, the (Second Vatican Council’s 1965) proclamation of Nostra Aetate (urging cordial relations with non-Christian religions) opened the door to official institutional contacts. With the accession of Cardinal Timothy Manning as Los Angeles archbishop, the Archdiocesan Commission on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs established a working relationship with the Interreligious Activities Committee of the Southern California Board of Rabbis.

The great expectations stimulated by Vatican II were not fulfilled by these cordial but still superficial encounters. Difficulties of which we had been unaware now needed to be addressed.

A Call to Dialogue

The first tentative steps in the early seventies included the inception of the Interreligious Council of Southern California as a tri-faith body incorporating the archdiocese, the board of rabbis and two area-wide church councils representing the mainline Protestant judicatories. This umbrella organization was later to expand, embracing most of the major world religions. In the same time frame, a priest-rabbi dialogue was initiated by Archbishop Manning.

Planning the tenth anniversary observance of Nostra Aetate , an interreligious leadership group from the American Jewish Committee, the archdiocese and the board of rabbis evaluated what had taken place and what would be needed to sustain the exchange. Two clear requirements were structure--an organization able to assume responsibility--and continuity--not “one-night-stands” for the exchange of shallow pleasantries.

The remaining question was the group’s agenda. Four agenda items (were proposed): Israel, Church-State Relations, Anti-Semitism, and Respect for Life.

While each prompted lively discussion, Respect for Life provoked the most intense response. We hesitated. Concentrating on this controversial and emotion-charged issue might endanger our entire relationship. We came to realize, however, that little would be gained by tackling topics of easy consensus. Wrestling with gut issues, confronting our differences and hammering out our difficulties would help us to grow.

Thus, the three organizations jointly announced the formation of a Los Angeles Catholic-Jewish Respect Life Committee. No specific directives or limits were given to the committee, other than to venture and create, respecting the basic principles of interreligious dialogue and the dignity of human life.

Balance Sought

We intended our committee to be as representative as possible and therefore attempted to balance its membership between Catholics and Jews--the latter to include Conservative, Orthodox and Reform--between clergy and lay people, men and women. We looked for members of relevant professions, such as medicine and law. We wanted people who were recognized in the community for their dedication to life values. Subsequent experience showed that our care in selecting committee members was well worth the effort.

Now we had to select one of the many topics under the umbrella, “Respect Life,” such as care for the young, the aged, the single parent, the incurably ill, and the dying. In the climate of 1976, abortion was clearly the life issue of most intent concern. We took the risk of starting with it.

Inasmuch as there was a clear divergence (on abortion) between the two faith traditions, we knew that there was no possibility for our committee to reach a consensus statement. We could agree, however, that our conclusions should reflect both pluralism and harmony.

All participants shared a dawning sense of mutual discovery: Roman Catholics discovered an ancient and continuing Jewish body of legal reflections on pre- and post-natal life and, at the same time, the allowance for differences of opinion in both Talmudic and modern Judaism. Jewish participants discovered the very rich, ancient, highly structured and all-inclusive Catholic ethic, along with its vital interest in contemporary legal and scientific studies.

The committee’s final product, “Jewish and Roman Catholic Reflections on Abortion and Related Issues,” published in September 1977, began with a joint preface and an opening section entitled “Respect Life Reflections.”

There followed two major and totally distinct statements: “Jewish View on Abortion” and “Catholic view on Abortion.” Neither claimed to be the Jewish or the Catholic view, but a Jewish and a Catholic view. Each community felt comfortable in articulating its position with clear perspective and without compromise.

Commitment to Life Issues

With the success of a completed statement behind us, we agreed to move from pre-birth to near-death by selecting as our topic, “Caring for the Dying Person.” We replaced committee members whose interest was limited to one issue with people possessing expertise in the new area. The director of a major hospice and the physician in charge of a major burn center were most helpful in our exploration.

This selection process was repeated as we turned to our next topic, “The Single Parent Family.” Our “experts” included three single parents, one Jewish, one Hispanic Catholic and one black Catholic.

While we had developed helpful techniques, we never allowed the committee process to become routine. Intensive argument arose over the next topic, “The Nuclear Reality,” which focused primarily on the peaceful use of nuclear power. We found that individual differences of opinion were far more pronounced than the differences between the two faith traditions.

In our dialogue process, we learned a few things:

First, that quantitative information alone does not pave the way out of moral dilemmas. Regardless of the massive input we had from highly respected experts--as in the nuclear area--ultimately we had to voice opinions based on our respective ethical commitments.

Second, that we were challenged to speak on behalf of our religious communities and to do so in clear, intelligible terms. More than writing skill was required of us, namely clear vision of the moral challenges offered by our religious traditions and precision in applying them to present-day realities.

Third, that the interreligious dialogue demands commitment as well as flexibility, determination as well as patience. It may be necessary to discuss the same subject again and again to gain the necessary insight where agreement can be reached, where compromise is possible and where firm but friendly disagreement must be recorded.

The Ripple Effect

The tremendous size of Los Angeles notwithstanding, we can demonstrate that our efforts at dialogue have produced a substantial ripple effect. While the Respect Life Committee was motivated, at least in part, by earlier interfaith successes, it inspired other programs and projects in turn.

The Interreligious Council of Southern California, an ongoing forum for the major religions, has sponsored numerous events for the metropolitan area, including religious services to the 1984 Olympics, and has fostered friendships between individual religious leaders.

Leadership Day

Other activities include:

--The annual Catholic-Jewish Women’s Leadership Day, planned and executed by a growing core group of women actively involved in their respective religious communities.

--Lectures by Jewish scholars at the annual Religious Education Conferences sponsored by the Dioceses of Los Angeles and Orange and attended by more than 18,000 professional and lay religious educators. Speakers have included Marc Tanenbaum, Samuel Sandmel and Elie Wiesel.

--Catholic dialogues with Episcopalians, Lutherans, Muslims and Buddhists as well as Jewish dialogues with Muslims and Protestants, and with black and Korean churches.

--INTERSEM, an annual two-day conference for students and faculty of Catholic, Jewish and Protestant seminaries in Southern California and the San Francisco Bay area, enabling future ministers, priests and rabbis to meet their counterparts and to understand their neighbors’ religions.

--The Seminary Exchange, an intensive sharing of faculty between St. John’s Roman Catholic Seminary and the Los Angeles campus of Hebrew Union College.

--The annual Model Passover Seder, hosted by the Wilshire Boulevard Temple. With a minimum of pulpit rearrangement and a maximum of imagination, the synagogue’s spacious sanctuary becomes the Passover dining room for a “Jewish family” consisting of 800 to 1000 Catholic High School students with faculty members and priests.

Project Discovery

The growing complexity of our Catholic-Jewish program led us to search for a method of more effective coordination for all our projects. In 1982, a grant from the Wilshire Boulevard Temple Interreligious Fund enabled us to establish Project Discovery, with the authors serving as co-directors.

In addition to serving as an umbrella for existing exchanges, Project Discovery opened the door for an exciting new venture: the authentic and personalized teaching of Judaism in Catholic high schools. While the annual model seder provides a one-time encounter with Judaism for approximately 1,000 students a year, we felt that a more intensive experience was needed. In cooperation with the Hebrew Union College, we developed an intern program beginning with two Catholic high schools.

The intern is on campus for an entire morning during each week of the school year, is readily available to answer questions about Jews and Judaism, and becomes a familiar figure to faculty and students. More important, the school now has a ready resource for a variety of situations: instructing a religion class that deals intensively with Judaism in the intertestamental period or briefly explaining the roots of Easter in the Jewish liturgical year; responding to a social studies teacher’s request for information on Nazi concentration camps or a literature instructor’s need for information on Jews in the American novel. Students in this type of experience not only get to know facts about Judaism but encounter a person modeling Judaism as a living faith.

The interns themselves are getting an education about the Catholic Church, its institutions, its leaders and its people which is bound to enrich their personal and professional lives.

Summary of Observations

We know that it takes far more than cosmetic treatments and public relations programs to achieve our goal, which is nothing less than changing perceptions and attitudes.

This goal can not be reached by merely correcting mutual misinformation. It requires thinking and feeling with “the other.” The wisdom of the Plain Indians advises walking in “the other fellow’s moccasins.” The Jewish Ethics of the Fathers urges not to judge the other person “until you have stood in his place.”

Meeting , therefore, is what the varied aspects of our “Los Angeles Story” have in common: representatives of the major world religions meeting monthly in each other’s places of worship as the Interreligious Council; members of the Priest-Rabbi Dialogue and of the Respect Life Committee meeting year after year; Catholic, Jewish and Protestant seminarians, Catholic and Jewish women, meeting for solid blocks of time.

What is destroyed is more than misinformation--it is stereotypes. What is conveyed is more than facts--it is understanding.