‘Nostra Aetate’ discussed as way to link faiths
40 years ago, papal document denounced persecution of Jews
BY KAREN E. BOWES
Staff Writer

MIGUEL JUAREZ staff Dan Napolitano, an educator from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., talks about the “Nostra Aetate,” a Catholic doctrine, during a lecture at St. Leo the Great Roman Catholic Church, Lincroft, Nov. 17.

MIDDLETOWN — Teaching the history of the Jewish Holocaust to Catholics may be a way to bridge the gap between the two religions, according to one educator.

Dan Napolitano, of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., spoke about interfaith relations at St. Leo the Great’s Roman Catholic Church in Lincroft on Thursday.

A Catholic, Napolitano said he was miseducated about the Jewish faith as a child.

“I didn’t know history,” he said. “I knew anti-Semitic history. The ‘wealthy Jew’ had been mythologized.”

Napolitano’s lecture relied heavily on “Nostra Aetate,” a Catholic document roughly translated as “our time,” which denounces the persecution of Jews. Viewed by many scholars as a response to the horrors of the Holocaust, the document was written by Pope Paul VI in 1965, 20 years after the liberation of Europe from the Nazis.

“The Nostra Aetate said that what happened to the Jews, pardon the expression, was wrong,” Napolitano said.

The actual document does not mention the Holocaust but “decries hatred, persecutions [and] displays of anti-Semitism directed against Jews at any time and by anyone.” Prior to Vatican II and the release of the Nostra Aetate, Catholics largely blamed Jews for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Napolitano noted that while some Catholics acted as bystanders during the Holocaust, others took part in its atrocities.

Pope Pius XII, who reigned during the years of the Holocaust, has been widely criticized by Jewish leaders for taking an inactive role during the Holocaust years.

“It’s really hard to study the Holocaust if you’re a Catholic,” said Napolitano. “We like to view ourselves as positive.”

But it is necessary that Catholics get the real facts, he said, because although the Holocaust is a gateway to understanding the Jewish culture, it is a culture that differs from Catholicism. And it’s those cultural differences, according to Napolitano, that separate the two faiths from truly understanding one another.

The speaker pointed to several Catholic undertakings in the past 50 years that have been viewed as insensitive by Jewish leaders.

“John Paul II goes to Auschwitz with the best intentions, and if you don’t mind, made some mistakes. ... He’s deeply remorseful; he’s seeking penance, forgiveness,” he said.

Pope John Paul II, a native of Poland, while visiting the historic death camp in 1998, issued an official apology to members of the Jewish faith on behalf of the Catholic Church.

“He brings the greatest symbol of Catholic religion, the crucifix, which relates to the suffering of Jesus,” said Napolitano. “Unfortunately, the crucifix is not seen that way by Jews. To Jews, it relates to the Inquisition and the settling of the New World. And he didn’t bring a small one either, he brought one 250 feet tall.”

Napolitano said that from a Catholic perspective, a crucifix makes sense in that setting. But for others, it does not.

“Auschwitz doesn’t belong to Poland,” said Napolitano. “It belongs to the Jews.”

The canonization of two Catholic saints who were imprisoned at Auschwitz was also cause for Jewish criticism.

St. Maximilian Kolbe, known as the “Saint of Auschwitz,” was a Franciscan monk who died after offering to take the place of another prisoner who was about to be put to death.

“For those of us in the Catholic milieu,” the speaker said, “we know that laying down one’s life is everything.”

But according to the BBC, reports that Kolbe had edited an anti-Semitic magazine prior to the war was too much for Jews to ignore.

Edith Stein also died in Auschwitz. A Jewish convert, Stein became a nun. She was canonized as a martyr, but Jewish leaders believed she was killed because of her Jewish origins and was therefore not a martyr.

Napolitano hopes that by speaking about the “Nostra Aetate,” people of both faiths will focus less on their differences and realize how much they have in common.

“It’s funny that when two people are trying to become friends, they immediately talk about what separates them,” said Napolitano.

Jews and Catholics in New Jersey are living parallel lives, and that need not be the case, he said.

“In reality, we have a lot in common. We work, we shop, our kids play sports,” he said. “And this is New Jersey — there’s a synagogue in every neighborhood. ... There are more Jews living in the United States than in the entire state of Israel.”

Even though the majority of Jews and Catholics immigrated to America during roughly the same time period in the early 20th century, “to some degree, [the two religions] never bridged that gap, primarily because there was no foundation to build a bridge.”

The educator encouraged the crowd, which included priests, rabbis and Protestant ministers, to get involved with interfaith activities and to visit the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

“Catholics need to know our own history,” said Napolitano. “And Jews should know that there are many [things] in Catholicism outside the oppression of Jews.”