American Jewish Committee, Catholic – Jewish Relations, Jim Rudin, Cardinal Cassidy, 1998–99, drafted 2006, R 1/20

In 1996, Bob Rifkind and Rabbi James Rudin invited me to serve as National Chair of the Interreligious Affairs Commission of the American Jewish Committee. Rifkind at that time was the President of the AJC and Rudin was National Director of Interreligious Affairs of the AJC, and former Chief Rabbi of the US military chaplain services.

Early that year the Vatican had released the statement on the Shoah which had been in process for many years and in which Rudin had played a continuing role with the Remi Hochman of the Vatican.

The Vatican statement on the Holocaust was released on March 16, 1998 entitled We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah, which she New York days after record heat so New York days after record heat received much praise as well as criticism. In order to defend the document, Edward Cardinal Cassidy, president of the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, spoke at the national convention of the AJC in Washington on May 6, 1998. Rudin asked me to be a respondent to the Cardinal along with himself. Since my comments were going to be both positive and negative regarding the statement, we met with Cardinal Cassidy at the residence of the Archbishop of Washington the prior afternoon, at which time he read my speech. Cassidy approved the speech and had no negative comments regarding it.

I should note that in the prior negotiations relating to the release of the Vatican statement, Rudin had frequently been in touch with Msgr. Remi Hochman, the deputy director of the Vatican commission. At one point, it became clear that there was conflict between the Vatican Commission for Relations with the Jews and the office of the Secretary of State of the Vatican, Cardinal Sodano, which was far more conservative and insisted on including in the statement a defense of Pope Pius XII and insistence on a distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism, casting all blame for the Holocaust on the Nazis, with no connection to Christianity. At one point Hochman said to Rudin “we sent them a racehorse, they sent back a camel.”

In preparing for the speech, I went through about eight or nine drafts, and came up with the penultimate paragraph in the midst of sleeping one night. I awoke and immediately wrote it down and used it in the speech, having been struggling with how to demonstratively connect the Shoah to the railroad trains that transported Jews to the death camps. I scribbled: “The freight train of twentieth century history has been sitting on a siding for 50 years, it’s empty box cars waiting to reach their moral destination. Many nations and institutions will help the box cars get there; we hope the Vatican will do so too.” Cassidy took no exception to that paragraph, and thought it was eminently fair. When I delivered it there were gasps from the audience. Eugene Fisher, the secretary of the Catholic Conference of Bishops in the United States took exception with me afterwards, stating that the Cardinal should have spoken after me so that he could answer my charges. I explained to him that I had cleared that language with the Cardinal the prior day, but he was still not happy about it.

One year later I spoke at St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore, in the presence of Cardinal William Keeler, the Archbishop of Baltimore. The subject of the conference was teaching about the Holocaust in Catholic schools and institutions. Cardinal Cassidy was not able to come to that event because of illness, and sent his speech, which was read by someone else. In his speech, he expressed dismay at the extent of criticism of the Vatican statement on the Shoah and criticism of the Church by various Jewish organizations and spokespersons.

Both Jim Rudin and I found that very threatening, and at the of that day I said to Jim: “Please get on the phone to Cardinal Cassidy tonight and tell him we’re on a plane over to see him to discuss his being so upset.” Rudin did that and was I believe pleasantly surprised. Cassidy said “well that will not be necessary, as I will be in Chicago for Holy Week in just a couple weeks, so let’s meet at Cardinal George’s residence sometime that week”.

Jim and I flew to Chicago that day and had a meeting of about one hour on the evening of April __ 1999. I made the points to Cardinal Cassidy that the Vatican should continue to speak as it has been doing on the subject of the Shoah, with apology and regret, as the church had already made clear its responsibility for planting the seeds of anti-Semitism in church doctrine, tradition and actions. However, I argued that the Vatican should never connect that clear statement of responsibility in any way to a defense of Pius XII, honoring his humanitarian ‘great works’ during the Second World War.

I also stated that the Church should never again make the distinction that the Church was responsible for anti-Judaism, but not for anti-Semitism, which the statement insisted was due to wrong scientific theories. Cardinal Cassidy listened very carefully, and I emphasized that I really did not care if Pope Pius XII was canonized, for whatever good reasons might be determined by the Church; BUT there would be cause for potential great anger among Jewish leaders, if Pius XII was canonized because of his supposed heroic efforts for humanity during World War II. I emphasized that if he was made a saint because of all his other good works, that was fine and certainly there should be no objection, and such action is an internal Roman Catholic matter.

However, claiming him to be a hero of World War II in connection with the Holocaust would lead to extreme anger and conflict. I also stated that no one accused the Roman Catholic Church of perpetrating the Holocaust, that was caused by Nazism and Germany and was not carried out by the church. Therefore, I said, there is no necessity to draw the distinction between anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism as if the church is only guilty of anti-Judaism, and anti-Semitism is different and solely science-based, which is simply not accurate as the church has already acknowledged the role of its teachings in anti-Semitism.

Cardinal Cassidy made no commitments but a year or two later it became clear that the Vatican had stopped connecting the issues of anti-Judaism had stopped drawing the distinction between anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism, and had stopped praising Pope Pius XII performance regarding Jews during World War II.

The height of the relationship with Cardinal Cassidy was reached when Jim Rudin accompanied Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Cassidy to Israel, at which the Pope made many comments about Judaism and Catholicism, and never praised Pius XII and never drew the distinction between anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism. The Pope was very favorably and enthusiastically received. To top it off, Jim Rudin received a call from Cardinal Cassidy the morning that the Pope and he were leaving for Rome. He said the Pope wished to stop again at the Western Wall before going to the plane, and he wishes to put a note in the wall, and Cardinal Cassidy asked Jim what he thought the note should say. Rudin indicated that they didn’t have time to draft a new note but what the Pope said yesterday was simply perfect and you should simply put that on the note and put it in the wall.

I should also note that at a later annual American Jewish committee annual meeting at which Cardinal Cassidy was honored, he said “I think Jim Rudin, Martin Kaplan and I made a little history here two years ago.” (I am not sure if it was one or two years later, but of course his reference was accurate, whatever year it was.”)