Amici Israel
The Opus sacerdotale Amici Israel ( Priestly Association of Friends of Israel ) were a group of 3,000 priests , 328 bishops , archbishops and 19 cardinals , among them the Munich Archbishop Michael von Faulhaber . It was founded in Rome in 1926 . Among the main initiators were Sophie van Leer , a Dutch Jew who had converted to Catholicism and who was in close contact with Faulhaber , the Franciscan Laetus Himmelreich and the Lord of the Cross, Anton van Asseldonk .
Goal of the association
The aim of the association was to promote the reconciliation of Jews and Christians , especially Catholics . In a time of rising anti-Semitism across Europe , it was the intention of these high dignitaries, priests and religious to emphasize friendship with the people of the old covenant . Christians should learn to understand that the Old and New Testaments belong together and that the Jewish roots of Christianity must not be neglected. Until, in 2003, some holdings in the Vatican Secret Archives that were previously inaccessible were opened for research, namely files from the time of the pontificate of Pope Pius XI. (1922–1939), little was known of this priestly association. In the files of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith , the successor authority of the Roman Inquisitions and Index Congregation, Hubert Wolf found a fascicle about the "Amici Israel", especially about their demand to fundamentally reform the Good Friday intercession regarding the Jews . According to Wolf, this demand caused great excitement in Rome in 1928.
On January 2, 1928, the chairman of the Amici Israel, Benedikt Gariador (1859-1936), submitted a written submission to Pope Pius XI. in which he asked for the removal or replacement of the terms perfidis / perfidia and for permission to kneel in the intercession of the Jews. The memorandum, probably written by Anton van Asseldonk and Laetus Himmelreich, argued as follows:
- Historically, Christians would have prayed very early for the conversion of the Jews to Christ, not for their conversion to Christianity.
- The expression perfidus was originally only related to specific violations of the law by certain Jews, only later understood as “complete depravity” and thus reinterpreted as an unchangeable characteristic of all Jews.
- The alleged scornful Jewish kneeling before Jesus is unproven in the New Testament and a later added fiction.
- Prayer is being misused today as an argument for anti-Semitism, which the Catholic Church is also promoting, even in its worship services.
- Therefore, perfidiam Judaicam should be replaced by plebem Judaicam (the “Jewish people”), as was already the case in a manuscript of the Manuale Ambrosianum from the 11th century.
Pope Pius XI handed over the concern of the Amici Israel to the responsible Congregation for Rites. The competent liturgy commission of the Congregation for Rites appointed the Benedictine Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster as an expert. He was abbot of the Abbey of St. Paul Outside the Walls and a specialist in the liturgy of the ancient church . Schuster unreservedly recommended accepting the Amici Israel's proposals. He stated that the request was justified. The word “perfidus”, which theologically means a lack or an obscuration in faith, has lost this meaning in modern parlance; it would only be understood as “perfidious” in today's conventional sense. According to Schuster, this makes it necessary to delete the “perfidus”. The Congregation for Rites welcomed the vote and spoke out in favor of the reform.
The Congregation for Rites presented Schuster's vote to the Holy Office for decision. This first consulted the Dominican Marco Sales, who was considered a papal court theologian and representative of conservative Catholic interpretation of the Bible. Sales initially admitted that from the standpoint of belief and doctrine there was nothing to be said against the proposed omission. But from the standpoint of tradition, he spoke out against change:
- All parts of the Jewish intercession that were criticized, including the omission of the kneeling and the amen , had already arisen in the early church. As a "venerable sacred liturgy that goes back to antiquity" they defy any reformability.
- If one were to allow a private association to intervene in this tradition in this way, one would not come to an end and could just as easily allow the deletion of objectionable passages in the apostolic creed, the improperies and the curse psalms from the liturgy. For Jews, these contained much harsher formulations.
- Perfidus has always meant a breach of word and contract: This is exactly what God himself accuses the Jews of the Bible . Sales referred to Dtn 31,16.20.27; Ps 78.57; 2 Kings 17:15 and Acts 7.51.
- Just as God only made a covenant with the Jews, only these would have broken this covenant and continued it constantly: That is why the expression perfidus, in contrast to the Gentiles, was appropriate for them.
- Nobody could accuse Pius V, the author of the Missale Romanum, of anti-Semitism, since he had always stood up for the Jews.
- According to Mt 27.25 EU , the Jews took responsibility for the crucifixion of Christ.
That is why there is no plausible reason to accept the Amici Israel's proposal : Nihil esse innovandum (“Nothing can be renewed”).
Rafael Merry del Val , who had been appointed Secretary of the Office as a representative of anti-modernism , followed this opinion. In the previous year he himself had become a member of the Amici Israel , because he considered it a pious Catholic association that wanted to convert as many Jews as possible to Christ and the Catholic Church through the power of prayer. So he received her invitation to the annual meeting in Rome for February 1928. Through this he learned that the Amici Israel not only prayerfully go on mission to the Jews, but also want to publicly discuss and promote the reform of the Good Friday Prayer and Zionism . He immediately initiated an investigation into the Amici program Pax super Israel to have it banned. In order to shorten the indexing process, he himself filed the report, which was otherwise only admissible from outside, and demanded a papal decree to avoid the otherwise required expert opinion and its double examination by consultors and cardinals. With the help of the Pope, he wanted to deny the Amici their orthodoxy and block their reform goals.
In secret consultations, del Val and Pius XI. a decree published on March 14, 1928, which condemned racial anti-Semitism as unchristian, but at the same time distinguished it from Christian anti-Judaism, for which there are reasons. The Amici Israel group has been banned and its leaders have been summoned and interrogated to completely renounce their views.
literature
- Theo Salemink: Catholic Identity and the Image of the Jewish 'Others'. The Amici Israel movement and its repeal by the Holy Office in 1928. Full text
- Hubert Wolf : Pope and the devil. The Archives of the Vatican and the Third Reich. Munich 2008, pp. 95-143
- Hubert Wolf: "Pro perfidis Judaeis". The "Amici Israel" and their application for a reform of the Good Friday Prayer for the Jews (1928) or: Comments on the Catholic Church and anti-Semitism. In: Historische Zeitschrift , 279 (2004), pp. 611–658
- Elias H. Füllenbach: Papal repeal decree of the "Amici Israel" (March 25, 1928). In: Handbook of Antisemitism. Hostility to Jews in the past and present. Vol. 6: Publications. Edited by Wolfgang Benz . Saur, Berlin 2013, pp. 525-527