Parenthetically, it is worth mentioning that Heschel sent a copy of his memo to another correspondent, Thomas Merton, who wrote in his journal of Sept 10, 1964:

Abraham Heschel has sent a memo on the new Jewish chapter. It is incredibly bad. All the sense has been taken out of it, all the originality, all the light, and it has become a stuffy and pointless piece of formalism, with the incredibly stupid addition that the Church is looking forward with hope to the union of the Jews to herself. As a humble theological and eschatological desire, yes, maybe; but that was not what was meant. It is this lack of eschatological and spiritual sense, this unawareness of the real need for profound change that makes such statements pitiable. Total lack of prophetic insight and even elementary compunction.[18]

Heschel’s and Merton’s reading of the new draft has been contested by John M. Oesterreicher, who wrote decades later that the statement did “not recommend a ‘mission to the Jews,’ but expresses simply and solely the belief that at the end of time God will gather into union with Himself all who profess His name.”[19] Oesterreicher actually suggested[20] what became the final wording in the finished, promulgated version of Nostra Aetate, 4: “In the company of the prophets and the same Apostle [Paul], the Church awaits the day, known to God alone, when all people will call upon the Lord with one voice and ‘serve him with shoulder to shoulder’ (Zeph. 3:9; see Is 66:23; Ps 65:4; Rom 11:11-32).” But this eventual clarity was absent in the summer of 1964 and concern about the draft’s wording persisted.

In a recent article,[21] our colleague at Brandeis University, Reuven Kimelman tells of an audience to discuss the issue that Rabbi Heschel had with Pope Paul VI on Sept. 14, 1964. In a subsequent television interview, Heschel recounted that he had “succeeded in persuading even the Pope ... [H]e personally crossed out a paragraph in which there was reference to conversion or mission to the Jews. The Pope himself ... This great, old wise Church in Rome realizes that the existence of Jews as Jews is so holy and so precious that the Church would collapse if the Jewish people would cease to exist.”[22]

Indeed, Heschel thought the final text of Nostra Aetate was “the first statement of the Church in history – the First Christian discourse dealing with Judaism – which is devoid of any expression of hope for conversion.”[23]

But, of course, the final text had not yet been achieved when the Council fathers debated the new draft on Sept. 28 and 29, 1964.  Speaker after speaker found the draft of the Coordinating Commission inferior to the previous version that had been prepared by Cardinal Bea’s Secretariat.

For instance, Cardinal Joseph Ritter of St. Louis rose to declare:

The Declaration should speak more fully and explicitly of the religious heritage which in our own day still binds Jews and Christians closely together. The promises which God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived, made to Abraham and his descendents are still theirs. Both Jews and Christians are, in a special way, vessels of Divine Love, and a powerful unity of love and respect should therefore prevail between them. The spirit of love, which was alive in the original draft, should radiate more strongly from this Declaration, too.[24]

Similarly, Cardinal Richard Cushing of Boston wondered aloud:

I ask myself, Venerable Brothers, whether we should not humbly acknowledge before the whole world that, toward their Jewish brethren, Christians have all too often not shown themselves as true Christians, as faithful followers of Christ. How many [Jews] have suffered in our own time? How many died because Christians were indifferent and kept silent? … If in recent years, not many Christian voices were raised against those injustices, at least let ours now be heard in humility.”[25]

 Many perceived inadequacies of the draft were discussed, and several speakers specifically took up the controversial addition that spoke of the union of the Jewish People with the Church.

Archbishop John Heenan of Westminster stated that special tact was required when speaking of these matters because of the persecutions that Jews had suffered down through the centuries. He argued that it was a mistaken interpretation to regard the draft as urging Jewish conversion today, but if the wording was unclear enough to permit that construal, it had to be removed.[26] He went on to say, “The text contains these words: ‘[The Catholic Church] has a sincere respect for those ways of acting and living, those moral and doctrinal teachings which differ in many respects for what she holds and teaches, but which nonetheless are often rays of that Truth which is the light of all men.’ If those [other religions] are rays of Truth, how much more luminous is the Jewish religion which is, as the same time, the root of our faith? As Pius XI said many years ago, ‘[Spiritually,] we are Semites!’”[27]

In different ways, those cardinals and bishops who addressed the topic urged that the question of Jewish conversion to Christianity be understood as an eschatological matter; in other words, that it was not the task of Catholics in historical time to try to baptize all Jews. Drawing inspiration from Paul’s Letter to the Romans, these speakers stressed that an eventual union of Jews and the Church would occur only through the mysterious action of God at the end of human history. Archbishop Patrick O’Boyle of Washington, D.C offered many substantial thoughts:

The love of Christ impels us to formulate our thoughts in such a way that they do not give needless offense; equally that they be expressed in a manner clear to Jews, and that they be in harmony with the hopes and aspirations of the Jewish soul. … The word “conversion” awakens in the hearts of Jews memories of persecutions, sufferings, and the forced denials of all truths that a Jew loves with sincerity and good faith. So a Jew, when he hears that Catholics are seeking to further his “conversion,” thinks of the reintroduction of that type of proselytism that for centuries assaulted his rights and personal dignity. … The destiny of the Jewish people depends totally on the ways of Divine Providence and the grace of God. If we express our [eschatological] hope in words [suggesting] we are guided by the definite and conscious intention of working for their conversion, we set up a new and high wall of division, which makes any fruitful dialogue impossible. … [We should instead] remain within the limits of our knowledge and respect the hidden ways of Divine Providence. It would be better if we were to express our hope for the turning of the Jews [to Christ] in such a way that they, too, can perceive with respect its honesty and our humble recognition that the mystery of salvation does not depend on us, but upon God’s transcendent act.”[28] 

Cardinal Giacomo Lercaro of Bologna put his own stamp on this eschatological approach by asserting that Jews and the Church are in a sense already united because there is a “even now a certain union between the liturgical assembly, the Church, at the moment of her supreme action on earth [the Eucharist], and the holy Kahal, the assembly of the children of Israel.” He went on to observe that:

The “union of the Jewish people with the Church,” of which our Declaration speaks, could easily appear suspect, if understood in a crude and superficial sense. Our desire, however, is simply to profess the faith and hope of Paul, namely that God “has not rejected His people whom He foreknew” (Rom 11:29), that [the Jews] are “beloved” of God (Rom 11:28), and that “their full inclusion” is not yet revealed (Rom. 11:12). But in what ways will their fullness be revealed? Certainly, in ways that are religious and mysterious, whose mysteriousness we must respect. Those ways are hidden in the wisdom and knowledge of God. Therefore, they should not be confused with human ways, that is, with methods of propaganda and external arts of persuasion. Only an eschatological turn of events will bring [Jews and Christians] to the common messianic meal of the eternal Pasch.[29]

Coadjutor-Archbishop Arthur Elchinger of Strasbourg echoed this when he said, “We believe with steadfast faith that God through all eternity does not recall his decrees. …  Did not the Lord Himself say of the Law and the Prophets: ‘I have come not to abolish but to fulfill them’ (Mt 5:17)? We Christians therefore are not permitted to look upon the Jews as the rejected members of God’s people.”[30] Joining the other speakers in drawing upon the Letter to the Romans, he concluded that “Our Declaration must … avoid any kind of invitation to the Jewish people to convert. … We do not, and cannot yet, know that hour appointed by God of which St. Paul speaks in his letter to the Romans, that is, the hour of the ultimate union of the Chosen People in its entirety.”[31]

Finally, Bishop Jules Daem of Antwerp, also cited Romans in stating that “Christ did not exclude the Jews from eternal salvation.” Therefore, he said, “[t]he Christian must bear in mind that, in accordance with the divine decree, Jews and Christians are moving toward the same fulfillment – the revelation of God’s mercy in a common bond. We must follow this divine decree, not by means of unseemly proselytism, but in plain dealing and complete humility.”[32]

As a result of this two-day exchange in the fall of 1964, the Coordinating Commission’s deficient draft was strengthened and enlarged in 1965 by the Secretariat for Christian Unity. The clause referring to “the union of the Jewish People with the Church” was replaced, as noted above, with the much more eschatologically humble statement, “… the Church awaits the day, known to God alone, when all people will call upon the Lord with a single voice and ‘serve him with one accord’ (Zeph 3:9).”

What can we conclude from this review of the conciliar debates during the composition of Nostra Aetate? When the Council voted on Nostra Aetate on October 14-15, 1965, there were 1937 votes in favor of the section that included the eschatological reference to awaiting the day known to God alone, and only 153 votes against it.[33]  Given the discussions that had occurred in the Council, it is reasonable to conclude that the Council Fathers knew that the phrase, “the Church awaits the day, known to God alone …” to all intents and purposes postponed any interest in converting Jews into the indefinite eschatological future. This conclusion is confirmed by the fact that three days before the vote a self-designated “International Association of Bishops” sent the Council members a letter urging rejection of Nostra Aetate. Signed by Bishop Luigi Carli, Archbishop Maurice Mathieu Louis Rigaud and the later excommunicated Archbishop Marcel Lefèbvre, the letter among other things protested that it was “unworthy of the Council” to have framed “the future conversion of Israel” so as to preclude proselytizing.[34] Incidentally, this perception from opponents of Nostra Aetate agrees with the eventual estimation of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel mentioned above that the declaration was “devoid of any expression of hope for conversion.”[35] This understanding shared both by foes of the Declaration and by an informed Jewish commentator shows that the meaning of the relevant words was not ambiguous to those involved. Given the debates the previous year and the last minute opposition by Marcel Lefèbvre and others, it is clear that the Council Fathers as a whole were aware of the implications of the phrase “the Church awaits the day …” when they overwhelmingly voted their approval of it.

This is clearly also the understanding of John Paul II as reflected in his Crossing the Threshold of Hope (1995):

I am pleased that my ministry in the See of Saint Peter has taken place during the period following the Second Vatican Council, when the insights which inspired the Declaration Nostra Aetate are finding concrete expression in various ways. Thus the way two great moments of divine election-the Old and the New Covenants-are drawing closer together.

The New Covenant has its roots in the Old. The time when the people of the Old Covenant will be able to see themselves as part of the New is, naturally, a question to be left to the Holy Spirit. We, as human beings, try only not to put obstacles in the way. The form this "not putting obstacles" takes is certainly dialogue between Christians and Jews, which, on the Church's part, is being carried forward by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.[36]

Seen in this light, the Catholic section of Reflections on Covenant and Mission is nothing more than a “concrete expression” of one aspect of Nostra Aetate, comparable in terms of process, if not in authority, to John Paul II making explicit the implication in Nostra Aetate that Jews remain in covenant with God or the series of instructions from the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews that over the years have expanded upon or further detailed other repercussions of the Declaration. Although Reflections argues more from the recognition of the permanence of Israel’s covenanting with God than from the postponement of the ultimate reconciliation of Jews and the Church until the eschaton, its Catholic portion culminates with Nostra Aetate’s teaching that “the Church awaits the day ...” The Reflections and Nostra Aetate both deny theological validity to Christian pre-eschatological praxis intended to convert Jews.

.

V. Relativizing Nostra Aetate?

Unfortunately, this grounding of the Reflections in the authority of the Second Vatican Council will not satisfy some of its critics. For example, recently the Zenit News Service, which had previously referred to the Reflections as “betraying the New Testament,”[37] disseminated an “interview” of an Italian theologian, Ilaria Morelli, who propounded the incredible opinion that those conciliar documents that have pastoral orientations have no doctrinal authority and are, in fact, subordinate to the doctrinal declarations of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Hence, a curial office would be more authoritative than a council of all the world’s bishops! Morelli contended that “to attribute a doctrinal value to the Nostra Aetate declaration falls, in my understanding, into great ingenuousness and historical error.”[38] Besides the difficulty of Morelli’s dichotomous understanding of “doctrinal” and “pastoral” matters, very roughly analogous to the language of “orthodoxy” and “orthopraxy” I’ve been using, our colleague Fr. Francis Sullivan has pointed out to me that in one of the speeches she cites to buttress her theory, Cardinal Bea clearly expressed that the Council’s deliberations over Nostra Aetate had doctrinal significance: “Allow me to point out more specifically the importance of the Declaration insofar as it treats of the non-Christian religions. If I am not mistaken, this is the first time in the history of the Church that a Council has so solemnly expounded principles regarding these religions. It is therefore of great importance that the significance of this matter be fully appreciated.”[39]

It thus appears that some Catholic criticisms of the Reflections on Covenant and Mission resonate with certain efforts to relativize the importance of key aspects of the Second Vatican Council, in this case concerning our reformed teachings on Jews and Judaism. Timidity in the face of such reactionary ideas does not serve the Church well. Nor does it honor John Paul II’s solemn commitment “to genuine fellowship with the People of the Covenant.”[40] The orthopraxis conclusions of the Catholic section of Reflections on Covenant and Mission ought to be taken up into a future ecclesial document since (1) they do not require the resolution of all the enormous soteriological questions of orthodoxy to be held valid, as Nostra Aetate itself demonstrates; and (2) clarity on this point of Catholic praxis is imperative if our professed commitments to interreligious dialogue and genuine fellowship are to be credible.