PopeWatch: No

Sandro Magister at his blog Chiesa notes that the Chief Rabbi of Rome said no to the Pope:

ROME, January 23, 2016 – In the Catholic camp almost no one made note of it. But in the Jewish camp they did. And it is that curt “no” which the chief rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni, said to Pope Francis during his visit to the synagogue on Sunday, January 17:

“We do not receive the pope in order to discuss theology. Every system is autonomous, faith is not the object of bartering and political negotiation.”

A preventive “no.” Because immediately afterward Francis spoke. And in his speech the pope in vain proposed to the Jews once again a shared theological exploration of the relationship between Judaism and the Church. That proposal which Rabbi Di Segni had already rejected.

Francis justified his offer of theological dialogue by citing two documents.

The first was the declaration “Nostra Aetate” of Vatican Council II, which – he said – “for the first time gave an explicit theological definition of the Catholic Church’s relationship with Judaism,” naturally without resolving all of the questions but “providing a very important encouragement for the necessary further reflections.”

The second was the document published on December 15, 2015 by the Vatican commission for religious relations with the Jews, which – the pope said – “addresses the theological questions that have emerged in the decades since the promulgation of ‘Nostra Aetate.’”

And Francis continued:

“The theological dimension of Jewish-Catholic dialogue deserves to be explored more and more, and I would like to encourage all those who are involved in this dialogue to continue in that direction, with discernment and perseverance. In fact, precisely from a theological point of view there appears clearly the indissoluble bond that unites Christians and Jews. Christians, in order to understand themselves, cannot help but make reference to their Jewish roots, and the Church, while still professing salvation through faith in Christ, recognizes the irrevocability of the Old Covenant and God’s constant and faithful love for Israel.”

In saying this, pope Jorge Mario Bergoglio was speaking in full continuity with his predecessors, above all with Benedict XVI, who refused to make faith an object of dialogue between Christianity and Judaism, but always acknowledged a unique, absolutely special relationship between Christianity and Judaism, which makes not only possible but obligatory a shared dialogue that is also theological.

Joseph Ratzinger had reached the pinnacle of his theological reflection on the relationship between the Jewish and Christian faiths in the preface to the May 24, 2001 document of the pontifical biblical commission on “The Jewish people and its Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible,” and above all in the three volumes of his “Jesus of Nazareth,” in pages recognized once again in recent days as “unsurpassable” by the top-tier exponent of Judaism Sergio Yitzhak Minerbi, among the leading scholars of relations between Jews and Catholics.

So then, the Vatican document of December 15 not only attests to these levels, but it pushes even further, partly due to the fact that it presents itself not as “a magisterial document or doctrinal teaching of the Catholic Church” but simply as “a starting point for further theological thought with a view to enriching and intensifying the theological dimension of Jewish–Catholic dialogue.”

Go here to read the rest. The rabbi is absolutely correct:   “faith is not the object of bartering and political negotiation.”  Too many people at the Vatican, under the banner of ecumenicalism, have long forgotten this basic spiritual truth.  Christ established His Church not in order that His followers could barter it away in “feel good” empty gestures with those who do not follow the True Faith.  Christ would have approved the insight of the Rabbi of Rome if it had been said to Him 2000 years ago.  Time, past time, for His Vicar to do the same.