‘Council Shelves Jewish Issue’
f.V.Z. Press Assn. —Copyright; LONDON, June 20. The co-ordinating commission of the Vatican Council has “shelved” the declaration freeing the Jews from responsibility for the death of Christ, the “Observer” reported today. It said the declaration had been dropped from the agenda for the final session of the Vatican Council which reassembles in September.
This unforeseen decision became known when the coordinating commission of seven cardinals under Cardinal Cicognani, the conservativeminded Secretary of State, adjourned its session in Rome last Thursday, the paper said. It said that when the commission assembled during the previous week it was confronted with an instruction that this declaration should not be considered. “This mandate was imposed, it is understood ... so that the traditional beliefs of the church might be upheld and good relations with the Arab States maintained,” the “Observer” said.
The declaration was passed by an overwhelming majority last November during the Third Session of the council.
Among other things it removed, once and for all, the charge of deicide, of responsibility for the death of Jesus which has been levelled at the Jews down the centuries. It condemned all forms of persecution and anti-Semitism and it called not for the conversion of Jews to Christianity’ but for mutual respect between the two religions. The “Observer” said the commission was also faced with a demarche on the declaration on religious liberty,
which it was told must not go before the council as it stands. It must be accompanied by a statement setting it within strict limits: so that it will be clearly understood that nothing in its terms trespass on the claim of the Roman Catholic Church to be the one and only true faith. The paper said the co-ordin-ating commission, which is in effect the council’s central steering committee, had no option but to accept both these instructions.
It said that they have come, as a bitter blow to progressive churchmen in many countries, who have sent petitions of protest
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Bibliographic details
Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30782, 21 June 1965, Page 13
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332‘Council Shelves Jewish Issue’ Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30782, 21 June 1965, Page 13
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