L’Église catholique et l’enseignement de l’estime. Discours sur le judaïsme et relations avec les Juifs en Belgique et en France de 1965 à 2000

Abstract

Over the last few decades, the official teaching of the Catholic Church with respect to Judaism has evolved from a “teaching of contempt” towards what the French historian Jules Isaac termed as “enseignement de l’estime”. The point of departure for such a change came from the part of Rome, where the declaration Nostra Aetate 4 (1964) marked a turning point in the relationship between the Church and the Jewish world. Presenting Judaism in a new light, the Council officially opened up the ways for an exchange of perspectives in the new relationship between the members of the two religions. But a new relationship cannot be based on either forgetting or evading the past. It would after all take many decades for the Church to see face to face its past relationship with the Jews, to question its traditional teachings developed within the theology of the Substitution, and to ask for forgiveness. The presence of Pope John Paul II at the Western Wall in Jerusalem in March 2000 was a gesture of this request for forgiveness. The years 1965-2000 were an important turning point for the dialogue between the Church and the Jewish world. They were characterized by great progress, by highly symbolic gestures but also by difficult moments of which the Auschwitz case could be described as the most serious crisis since the Holocaust. In the present thesis, we have studied the key stages in the relationship between the Jews and the Catholics both within the French and the Belgian contexts. We tried to observe if the ecclesiastical discourse against the Jews evolved into a “teaching of esteem” in these two countries. We focused particularly on the works done by the specialized ecclesiastical committees created for the Judeo-Christian dialogue following the Council, namely the National Commission for Relations with Judaism in Belgium and the Episcopal Committee for Relations with Jews in France. We studied their publications and their initiatives to educate Christians towards a better appreciation of the Jews. Moreover, our study did not detach itself from the Roman reflections and the social evolution. The conclusion of our research has well highlighted the reality of the existence of a “teaching of esteem” within the Church with respect to the Jews in Belgium and in France. But it has also showed the difficulties for such discourses in penetrating the Christian mind in general.