Pope Benedict's Yom Kippur Mass: Colossal Faux Pas or Wonderful Opportunity?

I really don't want to write this but I have been thinking of it for a long time, so here goes.

What if, in the Pope's holiness and wisdom, he had talked Hitler into embracing the Jews of Europe? It shouldn't have been too hard to do. Yes, Pius XII could have pointed out to Adolf, "Look, the greatest percentage of your scientific and legal minds happen to be Jewish. Your best advances in physics, medicine, philosophy -- even in the Seven Arts, are coming from people of the Jewish persuasion. You'll quickly get nuclear power; you'll be able to market the best health drugs, medicines and surgical procedures -- even the best movies, theatrical theatre, and the best literature."

And what if Hitler liked the idea?

In the Old Testament traditions, it looks to me like G-d had a different plan. Yes, it looks to me like G-d decided to get a guy to "bring His people" away from this possibility. Yes, that looks bad, unconscionable, in fact. However, no different from some of G-d's other decisions in the Old Testament.

Yes, I said I didn't want to write this. It leads me to thinking that Judeo-Christian thinking about G-D is very strange indeed. Accordingly, I thought it, and I am of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Any rabbi or priest or reverand care to comment?

I was deeply impacted by Rabbi Hirschfield's comments....and while responses have been heart-felt and honest, I believe they perpetuate the opposite feelings about what Yom Kippur signifies. We are all mortal, yet paradoxically immortal, having been created in God's image. We certainly have the inherent potential, as well as the ability for forgiveness and self-improvement. The past is just that......the past.....we exist now, and our focus might well be about absorbing what we have learned and how to implement these lessons going forward.

May we all be inscribed in the Book of Life for this year and many to come.

Better for the Pope to attend a Yom Kippur service than to substitute a Christian mass for one. Certainly acknowledgment of this Holy Day by Christianity is welcomed. And certainly it is good for Christians to deepen their knowledge of their religion's Judaic ground. But given a long tradition of supercession, of taking over Jewish traditions as if they only found their fulfillment in Christianity, Christian rituals that seek to replace or modify Jewish ones continue to be the most profound of dangers to Judaism. The Pope is ethically bound in my mind to avoid extending any further the Christian appropriation of Jewish tradition. Sometimes simple silence in acknowledgment of another tradition's truths is the most attentive response one can give.

don't kow enough about Pius to comment altho he certainly has an awful rep on so many things

Rightly or wrongly whenever they complain about Benedict I think of Pius. That is just the thing that pops into my head.

Only a real live saint could have successfully filled the shoes of the last Pope.

Benedict has tried to make his mark in his own way. It has to be hard on a person similar to an athlete who goes into the same type of athletic job his dad had who was a great hero and now has to try and not be compared. That is as nice as I can be about Benedict.

There are things he has done like go to a shul in the US>another Pope might have been applauded. Benedict was looked upon by many as using this strictl for PR.

I could be mistaken since I pay little attention to the day to day Catholic Church-but it seems to me that there have been statements by the Pope that he was bringing back into the church prayers and ideas that were set aside as being anti-semitic by previous Popes and clerics.

I believe that RC missionaries often try to convert Prtotestants to save their souls and visa versa. Therefore maybe the Pope's bringing back prayers that Jews should save their souls in the same way should not be that surprising, but I think I heard there was more. What it was I do not know. I could absoulutley be wrong. Maybe people do not like a German Pope and are making up these stories or embellishing them. I do not know.

It seems tho that this Pope may be arragont or misunderstood but he certainly has done thing to upset non Catholics like Muslims and Jews.

Lately I have read blogs, as I believe they are called or articles as I think of them, here where Rabbi Brad thinks it is wrong to stand up and speak out against those we see as our enemies or potential trouble makers or actual trouble makers as, to quote his term, "wrong-headed". I could be misunderstanding his stance but it seems a lot like, altho the circumstances may have been different from now hopefully, where Jewish leaders thought somewhat the same ways of those who were Nazis and had yet to show their true colors. Again I could just be misunderstanding him because in the length of the aritcles he seems to have to keep things to a certain length and does not or maybe even can not explain his stance properly.

I do want to remind the readers here and the Rabbi-the idea of turning the other cheeck is against Jewish policy if not Jewish law.

Hugs
Laura

Jim said it very well in his blog of Oct. 9, 2008
It seems as if one invades sacred territory to attempt to take over the tradition of another faith as if it " found fulfillment in Christianity."
Also, I agree with him that "Sometimes simple silence in acknowledgment of another tradition's truth is the most attentive response one can give."
Thank you, Jim - Let us not trample on the holy by trying to change it or adapt it to another way of thinking.

This was a quote by the late Pope John Paul II.

"I remember...the Wadowice elementary school, where at least a fourth of the pupils in my class were Jewish.

I can vividly remember the Jews who gathered every Saturday at the synagogue behind our school. Both religious groups, Catholics and Jews, were united, I presume, by the awareness that they prayed to the same God.

Despite their different languages, prayers in the church and in the synagogue were based to a considerable degree on the same texts."
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"Crossing the Theshhold of Hope"
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He apologized for the "wrong-doings" that the Church did, however there were several Catholics that did good deeds toward the Jews.

When Anne Frank went into hiding, she lived with a Catholic Family, Oskar Schindler helped rescue Jews from the concentration camps, and many others like them participated in rescuing them from death.

These Catholics risked their lives as well doing what we(Catholics) believe was an injustice towards the Jews.

I too come from a Jewish background, but because my mother is not Jewish, I am not considered a Jew.

We should try to accept and respect our differences, so that our children don't ever live through what our parents or grandparents lived through.

Religions and beliefs should not create barriers of hatred, it should create bridges of trust and respect towards each other, afterall...we all share the same world.

Regardless of what language we speak, the color of our skin, and how we communicate, we are all human.

AMEN

let us all remember JESUS was in fact a jew....