A Polish Reaction
to the Vatican Document on the Shoah

From the Warsaw Voice: March 29, 1998 No.13 (492)

The Vatican Holocaust document We Remember: Reflections on the Shoah, although seven years late in coming, the Catholic Church"s exercise in self-criticism has been welcomed as an incentive for dialogue.

Another milestone in Christian-Jewish relations has passed as the Vatican published its documents on the Holocaust entitled, "We Remember: Reflections on the Shoah." Yet Christians and Jews seem to differ as to the purpose of the text: whether it should denounce past mistakes on the part of the Church, facilitate dialogue between the two faiths or serve as material for sermons.

The document says the Church regrets mistakes made by some of its "sons and daughters" throughout the history of the Church. The Church"s attitude served as the ideological basis for the creation of anti-Judaism through mistaken interpretations of the New Testament. It concludes by expressing the hope that the Shoah tragedy will never be repeated and that Christians will remember their Jewish origins.

Pope John Paul II promised such a document seven years ago. The Vatican"s Committee for Religious Contacts with Judaism, headed by Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy, published the document on March 16. "Apparently this type of reflection takes a long time," says Stanislaw Krajewski, co-chairman of the Polish Council of Christians and Jews. But, for Poles, the fact that it has been delayed for so long has been eclipsed by the document"s content. "It is an extremely important document; its preparations took a long time, but what really matters is that it has finally arrived," Prof. Jan Kracik, a clergyman and a scholar with the Papal Theological Academy (PAT) in Cracow, told the Voice. Some observers also pointed out that, despite its length, the document looks unfinished because the considerations on genocide are not directly linked to the Holocaust.

The general attitude of the Jewish community is that not everything can be covered in detail by a single document. "Several difficult issues have been left out," Krajewski notes. "But this is not all-encompassing-it is an invitation for everybody to take part in a discussion," he adds. This view is shared by some Jewish intellectuals from abroad. "I think it is a very broad statement. I do not think it has to cover all bases, that one statement has to describe everything that has happened that is not right," Rabbi Joseph H. Ehrenkranz from the U.S.-based Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, told the Voice. "I think it is a good statement and I am not critical of what it did not say-I am very happy for what it did say."

What was perceived as good about the document is that it confirms the importance of the Holocaust in the history of the Church as an event which was allowed to happen in a nominally Christian society. The core issue here is that the Church states it has to repent . "And when you repent it means you did something wrong. What are you repenting for? So it acknowledges that the Church made mistakes," Ehrenkranz explains.

One of the most controversial issues that failed to be covered in the document is the proposed condemnation of Pope Pious XII for his alleged passiveness in the face of growing anti-Semitism before the war. But Cassidy"s document points out the Pope managed to save the lives of numerous people. Ehrenkranz says the issue is far too complex to be tackled right away. "It is not important to me to condemn a person from the past; I think it is important that the Church is repenting," he stresses.

"This is an important example for Christians in their attitude toward Jews. It is a long-needed act of repentance, since throughout the history of the Church its attitude toward Jews has been one of its darkest issues," editor-in-chief of the liberal-Christian Znak monthly Jaroslaw Gowin told the Voice.

The text is directed toward members of the Roman Catholic Church who lack information and awareness on Christian-Jewish relations and aims to fulfill a pedagogical function. "From the point of view of a parish priest it is a vast, new resource," says Jzefa Hennelowa, deputy editor-in-chief of Tygodnik Powszechny, an influential liberal-Catholic weekly.

"It is important to call a spade a spade, to take a position on the matter and then move on, leaving history behind," Kracik says." This form of "auto-vetting" is unavoidable, and is better carried out by ourselves than by others," he adds.

Tomasz Oljasz

We Remember: Reflections on the Shoah