Abstrakt: | After the last Vatican Council some authors and documents on the Catholic-Jewish
relations emphasize that The Roman Catechism of the Council of Trent issued in 1556
teaches that not all the Jews, Jesus’ contemporaries, are responsible for the Crucifixion. In
the first part of the presented article the author explains why the Secretariat for Promoting
Christian Unity, which had prepared the Declaration on the Relationship of the Church
to Non-Christian Religions Nostra Aetate (accepted by the Council in October 28, 1965,
clause nr 4 of which deals with the Jews), did not quote The Roman Catechism, which
teaches that no single person but all men are guilty of Jesus’ death: „This guilt seems
heavier on our part than on the Jews’, since according to the testimony of the apostle »had
they known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory« (1 Cor. 2, 8); while we,
on the contrary, professing to know him, yet denying him by our actions, seem in some sort
to lay violent hands in him”. The passage was cited by some Fathers of the Second Council
and by the some post-Conciliar documents. The author of the article is convinced that in
the matter of the death of Jesus Christ it is necessary to distinguish between the theological guilt and the historical responsibility. From the point of view Christian theology all
human beings are guilty of Jesus’ death. The Christ voluntarily underwent the Passion because
of the sins of all men. The last Council wanted to emphasize that the Jewish people,
as a whole, was not responsible for the Crucifixion, from the historical point of view.
The main motive of the decision of the Council was the fact that Jesus’ cruel death and
especially the accusation of the Jewish people of the Crucifixion have been the cause of
the lamentable deterioration of the relations between the Church and Judaism. As the passage
quoted from The Roman Catechism dealt with the theological aspect of the guilt of
the Crucifixion, it could not be a useful document for the last Council. Moreover, the sixteenth
century catechism, from the historical perspective, stresses clearly that the pagans
and the Jews were responsible for the Passion.
The last part of the article discusses the post-Conciliar documents, which quote The Roman
Catechism. The discussion shows that those documents, recalling the 16th century catechism,
emphasize the theological mining of Christ’s death. |