Women represent Albany Diocese at Vatican's lay conference

The Vatican's first lay conference on Catholic-Jewish relations was enlightening for two representatives from the Albany Diocese in a different way than they expected:

* Traveling to the Oct. 21-25 conference in Rome was "the journey of a lifetime," remarked Kathleen Duff, a member of the Diocese's Catholic-Jewish Dialogue Committee for the past four years. However, she found that the Diocese was far ahead of many other U.S. dioceses in its interfaith efforts.

* Joan Dunham, who chairs the dialogue committee and also attended the conference, told The Evangelist that after she gave a presentation on the history of Jewish-Catholic relations in the Diocese, many conference participants came up to her and said, "You people are doing great things there."

On-going effort

"No one has had the continuous Jewish-Catholic dialogue we've had," Mrs. Dunham explained.

Last year, for example, marked the 20th anniversary of "From Fear to Friendship," the 1986 gathering at which Bishop Howard J. Hubbard formally apologized to Jews on behalf of the Catholic Church for its history of anti-Semitism and asked for reconciliation between the two faiths.

The Vatican conference covered similar historical events in Catholic-Jewish relations, as well as Vatican relations with the State of Israel, the relationship of both Catholics and Jews with Islam, and current issues of concern.

Discussions

About 75 participants from 24 U.S. cities met with both Vatican and American officials, including Cardinal Walter Kasper, chair of the Vatican's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, and Cardinal William Keeler, retired head of the Baltimore Archdiocese.

"I was impressed with Cardinal Keeler's genuine warmth," Ms. Duff told The Evangelist.

Mrs. Dunham was surprised to hear Cardinal Kasper complain about today's priests not being well-informed about documents like "Nostra Aetate," a declaration on interreligious understanding that came out of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. She said Cardinal Kasper told conference participants that "the worst effect of original sin is stupidity."

Bringing news

On the other hand, Ms. Duff was perturbed that not all the Vatican officials she met knew about such documents, either.

Having brought along copies of "Dabru Emet" ("Speaking Truth") and "A Sacred Obligation," two notable documents on the subject, she decided to give them to an undersecretary from the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith who had never heard of them.

"I did it nicely," she pointed out.

Tensions

One revelation for the Albany representatives was the fact that many Jews still distrust Catholics because of past anti-Semitism.

Ms. Duff met a Jewish conference participant whose father had told him to "watch his back" among Catholics at the gathering. The man had grown up being beaten and called "Christ-killer" by Catholic children.

"It made it so very real," Ms. Duff said of past problems. She discovered that "it's a lot for Roman Catholics even to ask that [trust from Jews] to enter into dialogue. That history is always on the table."

She gave a copy of documents describing "From Fear to Friendship" to her peer to take home to his father.

Meeting goals

Ms. Duff said that three goals for the Albany Diocese came out of the conference:

* fostering relationships with people from other U.S. dioceses doing similar interfaith work;

* increasing youth involvement in diocesan interfaith efforts; and

* remembering "the need to pray together and work together to foster peace and justice to heal the world."

"We have moved far beyond some of the other dioceses," she said with pride, but there is still a need to "maintain the very positive relationships we already have here."

(The conference was organized by the Interreligious Information Center of Port Washington, N.Y., in cooperation with the U.S. bishops' conference, the National Council of Synagogues and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. Both participants credited the Albany Diocese's excellent reputation for interfaith efforts to Bishop Howard J. Hubbard and to Rev. James Kane, head of the diocesan Commission for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs. That office can be reached at 453-6660.)

(11/08/07) [[In-content Ad]]