Things Happen Too Fast!

I’m still swamped with work, so I’ve missed out on all the fast-paced Jewish/Catholic hubbub surrounding the SSPX business. No sooner had I heard the Israeli Rabbinate was majorly ticked with Rome because of Williamson than I get this from a reader:

Well, since every other Catholic blogger in the Northern hemisphere, besides yourself, is reporting this, allow me to pass along the bigger story. Every other Catholic blogger in the Northern hemisphere, besides yourself, is reporting that the Chief Rabbinate of Israel has severed ties with the Vatican. What no one seems to be reporting is that by mid-morning my time (PST), the Chief Rabbi of Israel had already reacted favorably to Benedict’s declarations of today:

Pope Benedict XVI’s strong stand against denying the Holocaust was welcomed Wednesday by the highest Jewish authority in Israeli, which had threatened to sever ties indefinitely with the Vatican. ,,,

The director general of the Chief Rabbinate, Oded Wiener, later told ANSA that the pope’s words were ”a great step forwards in resolving this question”. ”His statements were very important for us and for the whole world,” he added.

Wiener said that no decision had yet been made on whether the Rabbinate would send a representative to a March 2-4 meeting in Rome with the Catholic Church’s Commission for Religious Relations with Jews.

Initially it had been decided to cancel the meeting, but this was before the pope’s words on the Shoah, he added.

The work of the commission, created eight years ago by the late Pope John Paul II, ”is extremely important for the dialogue and exceptional personal relationships it has created,” Wiener said. …

Mordechay Lewy said the pope’s reiteration during his Wednesday general audience that the Holocaust cannot be denied was ”very clear…and useful for clearing up the misunderstanding that arose in the last few days”.

”Anyone who heard the pope’s words now knows perfectly well what side the Church is on,” Lewy said. He said it would be ”mistaken” to give the anti-modernist Williamson the power to affect relations between Israel and the Holy See. As for the pope’s visit, which is rumoured to have been set up for May, the ambassador said: ”We are working all the time and what happened in the last few days has not affected preparations”. ”The pope is welcome in Israel at any time”.

What has struck me about all this is that it doesn’t seem to occur to anybody that, if trying to open the door to reconciliation with the SSPX means “Benedict is endorsing the wack views of Williamson” then it follows that Benedict must hate not only Jews, but himself, since Williamson has said lotsa vicious and stupid things about both Benedict and his predecessor. Since I strongly doubt that Benedict *does* in fact hate himself and his predecessor, it has always been obvious to me that he doesn’t endorse Williamson’s anti-Jewish crapola either.

That said, the Vatican could really use some remedial lessons in how to think outside the ecclesial bubble and defuse unnecessary crises before they happen, just as ever-so-many people outside the Catholic communion could stand to learn how to think and not immediately leap to the conclusion “Benedict wants to shred his life’s work and repudiate all Catholic/Jewish relations as a waste of time”. A little perspective would really help here. I’m glad the Israeli rabbis are cooling off. It would have helped if they’d tried to understand a little Catholic inside baseball. But I suppose we can’t have everything.