The Crisis in the Reception of Vatican II in the Catholic Church and the Return of Antisemitism

• Published in: Antisemitism studies 2022-10, Vol.6 (2), p.354-372
• Main Author: Faggioli, Massimo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antisemitism; Benedict XVI (Pope); Catholic churches; Catholicism; Catholics; Christianity; Christianity and antisemitism; Crises; Exegesis & hermeneutics; Holocaust; Morality; Political identity; Preachers; Religion & politics; Teachers; Teaching; Theology
• ISSN: 2474-1809; 2474-1817; 2474-1817
• DOI: 10.2979/antistud.6.2.08

INTRODUCTION In his article "Has Antisemitism been Uprooted from Christianity? A Catholic Response," John Pawlikowski raises an issue that is central to our understanding of the Catholic Church today. The first issue is the problem of looking at the past teachings and behavior of the Church and of Christianity in light of the new moral structure provided by the contemporary public conversation about religion and politics of which Catholicism is part; the second is the issue of the Land as paradigmatic of the difficulty of interpreting, in the current crisis of the international order, Nostra Aetate and its silences; and third is the transition from a European matrix of Catholic theology and magisterium to a "global Catholic" Church that is much more diverse and pluralistic in terms of its historical background compared to the Church at the time of Vatican II and the early stages of its interpretation. LOOKING AT ITS PAST THROUGH A CONTEMPORARY LENS John Pawlikowski makes a strong case for the need to update and correct the historical record, silences, and false statements found in the 1998 Vatican document We Remember: "Despite the strong indictment of the antisemitic mindset in We Remember, the 1998 Vatican statement on the Holocaust, Catholicism has tended to argue that antisemitisim came only from fringe elements in the Church who were bullied by wayward preachers and teachers.1 Such a view is patently false and needs to be totally removed from Catholic teaching if antisemitism is to be eliminated once and for all from the heart of Catholic identity." Dealing with the most painful chapters of the past in the Catholic Church has always been a very delicate issue, but it has become even more complicated lately, and not just from an institutional point of view, concerned with the reputation of Catholic authorities, but also from the point of view of religion as a marker of political identity in the present stage of the "culture wars."