Two Calls For Vatican III

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Catholic Author, James Carroll, Wants True Repentance, Action

The Author of "Constantine's Sword, The Church and The Jews" by James Carroll, a publication of 756 pages, recently gave a presentation at the Interfaith institution, St. John Divine Church in New York. A Catholic from birth, debates the crisis of faith the Roman Catholic Church has created by not repenting of its past in reference to the Jews.

He mapped the 2000 year history of the Catholic Church which includes the dark history of the Holocaust. Carroll's work has a sense of urgency and calls for a new reformation. The first item of the agenda should be a Vatican III which must take up - the anti-Jewish consequences of the New Testament - but to the recognition that such a council's agenda has, in fact, already been indicated by the history of Church hatred of Jews.

We have indicated signposts of the roads not taken, those times and places when other choices might have been made, leading to consequences of love instead of hate. The purpose of retracing a way to such forks in the road is not to deny the givenness of history, but to suggest that history is not finished. The possibility of human recovery from the tragedies of the past adheres, permanently in the future.

Thus in addition to anti Jewish texts [IS HE IMPLYING THAT THE BIBLE NEEDS TO BE CHANGED?], a Vatican Council III would take up the unfinished questions, perhaps even in the order of the chronology we followed, of power (Constantine, Ambrose, Augustine), of Christology (Crusades, Anselm, Abelard), of Church intolerance (Inquisition, Nicolaus of Cusa, the ghetto), of democracy (Enlightenment, Spinoza, modernism), and only then of repentance (Holocaust, silence, Edith Stein).

As this book has demonstrated, the church's attitude toward Jews is at the dead center of each of these problems, and a fundamental revision of that attitude is the key to the solution of each problem too. "Salvation is from the Jews," Jesus is said in John, a problematic formulation, perhaps, if it means Jews are blamed for conditions short of salvation. But it seems clear that authentic Church reform, defined as shaping something according to its own essential being. is tied to the Jews, if only because the perversion of that essential being, the perversion, that is, of the message of love preached and lived by Jesus - has so clearly been tied to the Jews from the beginning - (Pages 559.560)

 

Cardinal Martini Wants More Collegiality

 

In a long and provocative interview with the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini has called for "more concrete forms of collegiality" within the Church. The Milan prelate stopped just short of calling for a Third Vatican Council. Responding to the Pope's apostolic letter Novo Millenio Ineunte, Cardinal Martini stressed John Paul's call for greater "communion" within the Church. This, the cardinal said, would require a greater sharing of power among the bishops of the Church. In October 1999, during the Synod of Bishops for Europe, Cardinal Martini had spoken of "a more universal instrument" to express collegiality within the Church.

Many observers had seen his remarks as a call for a Third Vatican Council. While he said there had been some "confusion" about those remarks, the cardinal told Corriere della Sera, "I have never excluded the possibility of a new council." The Milan prelate went on to say that the "emerging problems" that face the Church might be reason for a new worldwide council. Because of the practical problems involved in convening an ecumenical council, Cardinal Martini suggested that it might be easier to bring together "regional convocations" prior to the "plenary convocation" of the world's bishops. And he said that Orthodox and Protestant representatives should participate in such a council "in one way or another."

Cardinal Martini, who is frequently identified as the most identifiable "liberal" leader within the College of Cardinals, said nothing during his interview with Corriere della Sera to combat that reputation. He said that all forms of "triumphalism" should be excluded from the Jubilee. He expressed regret that the publication of the Vatican document Dominus Jesus had "not been well received, and created some distress." And he argued that the Church must engage in "dialogue" with scientists involved in genetic manipulation, using "rational and convincing arguments" rather than issuing condemnations which "are not sufficient, and even produce the opposite effect." (Catholic World News)

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