The Jewish community and Archbishop Burke
Over the weekend, I have been reflecting on the news of Archbishop Burke’s transfer to Rome. As an active participant in interfaith activities in St. Louis, I have encountered Archbishop Burke in a number of community settings. The first time was at a small dinner of welcome arranged by the Jewish Federation of St. Louis and the Jewish Community Relations Council. He carried himself as a warm and somewhat shy person, but comfortable in the midst of the Jewish community. He reflected on his interactions with the Jewish community of La Cross, Wisconsin his former diocese, and looked forward to working with the St. Louis Jewish community on matters of mutual concern.
For the media in St. Louis, Archbishop Burke was a blessing. His denial of communion to supporters of “choice” in the national debate on abortion, made the national news. It was an election year. As a rabbi, I was more focused on his interaction with the local interfaith community. During that first year, he eagerly joined a panel of the Interfaith Partnership discussing the proper role of religion in the public square. This would be a respectful audience for the Archbishop to make his case. In that discussion he forthrightly stated the official Catholic Church positions and then attempted to make a case for those positions being the only logical ones that one could hold, if one understood the concept of the Natural Law. He implied that even Judaism accepted the concept of Natural Law. It was a very revealing insight into how Archbishop Burke would deal with ethical and moral dilemmas. There would be very little room for shades of gray. It also demonstrated a willingness to overlook the reality of Jewish life. There is more than one thoughtful Jewish approach to most ethical and moral problems. Many of these approaches conflict with one another and there is no supreme pontiff to declare which is the official teaching of Judaism. Natural Law arguments were not going to impress many in the interfaith community.
Last December Archbishop Burke suddenly, and without prior warning, removed Father Vincent Heier from his post as the Chief Ecumenical and Interfaith Officer of the St. Louis Archdiocese. Father Heier requested some time off to deal with some personal issues. Burke used the request as an opportunity to replace Father Heier altogether. Heier had become a nationally recognized player in the interfaith arena. He and our own beloved Rabbi Robert P. Jacobs, (may his memory be for a blessing) co-hosted a national interfaith meeting here in St. Louis, during the time of Archbishop John May (may his memory be for a blessing). The Jewish community was stunned at the shabby treatment of our dear friend. The interfaith community could not make any sense of this action, in light of the fact that Father Heier had served with distinction under two previous Archbishops.
In recent weeks, Archbishop Burke’s personal support for the newly created religious community to be headquartered here in St. Louis, known as the Daughters of Mary, Mother of Israel’s Hope, gave me reason to wonder at the Archbishop’s current intentions with regard to the Jewish community. The new religious community was founded by Rosalind Moss, a host on the Eternal Word Television Network. Moss was born and raised in a Jewish home and for a time was an Evangelical Protestant, before her conversion to Catholicism. Her husband brother, David Moss is also a convert to Catholicism from a Jewish home. The new community appears to be a proseltyzing effort directed especially towards Jews. I view this, at best, as a misguided effort at saving the Jews from damnation and at worst, as yet another attempt to water down or disregard altogether the last forty years of dialogue and cooperation between The Catholic Church and the Jews, under the Vatican II document known as Nostra Aetate. Simply put, Jews understand the Church’s need to gain converts, but find programs which target Jews as Jews, to be offensive and contrary to recent Church statements. Now, this will be an item on the agenda for the next Archbishop.
Mark Shook, 62, of Creve Coeur, is the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Temple Israel of Creve Coeur. In addition, he teaches Jewish Philosophy/Theology at St. Louis University and offers a once monthly commentary on radio station KWMU. Mark is married and has two children and three grandsons. He plays golf only on days ending in "Y." 
“Simply put, Jews understand the Church’s need to gain converts, but find programs which target Jews as Jews, to be offensive and contrary to recent Church statements.” It is not because this new order of daughters (not nuns) is being founded by a brother and sister who were former Jews. Rabbi Shook’s statement was that “The new community appears to be a proselytizing effort directed especially at Jews.”, and in that I find no fault. Look at the name of the new order: “Daughters of Mary, Mother of Israel’s Hope”. I can see his problem with it. Catholics, understandable, take exception to organizations that claim to be “Rome’s Hope.” He states, in fairly clear English, that Jews find programs that target Jews as Jews for conversion to be harassment based on religion. This is directly contrary to letter, as well as the spirit, of the last paragraph of “Nostra Aetate” which states that: “The Church reproves, as foreign to the mind of Christ, any discrimination against men or harassment of them because of their race, color, condition of life, or religion.” Since this document was published over 40 years ago, he is justified in his critique that it drives dialogue back at least that long.
But this new community was not the focus of this piece. In his article, Rabbi Shook only documented a deterioration of the relationship between the Archdiocese and the diverse Jewish community in St. Louis, providing examples from his own interaction with Archbishop Burke. As he is one of the leading voices in this relationship, the Archdiocese would do well to listen (a necessary component of the dialogue referred to in “Nostra Aetate”) to what he says about that relationship. “Nostra Aetate” calls for a spirit of brotherhood of equals, between Catholics and those people of faith outside of Christianity. When the Church becomes so inflexible as to state that what we as Catholics believe is the only truth in our dealings with people of other faiths, she has stopped listening to what view of Truth the other can be bring. Such interaction then, from that point on, is not dialogue but monologue. It need not be spoken that a person of a particular faith believes that system to hold all Truth. It should be an a priori assumption. Stating it shows little regard for the “other” in the interchange as being equal and implies a second class status.
As Catholics, we would do well to head the warning of writer of Proverbs: “Pride goes before disaster, and a haughty spirit before a fall. It is better to be humble with the meek than to share plunder with the proud.” (Prov. 16:18-19, NAB) The author bids us to look for Truth everywhere and not to be overly proud of our own knowledge. We are but finite beings trying to touch the infinite. We see Truth from a particular perspective that may not necessarily be shared by others. Because of our own limitedness, we are called, by the Fathers of the Vatican II to cooperate and dialogue with people of all faiths. When this is done openly, we have a great deal to learn from our brothers and sisters who hold themselves to these other systems. When we go in like a bull in a china shop, we only end up with discord, suspicion and broken relationships.
Mr. Moss, I truly appreciate your poistion, but, at the same time, I have to ask whether we can we say, in our dealings with other faiths, that just because we see a particular truth from a specific perspective that all others must see it that way to? As a logical argument, that falls flat and, in essence, shuts down dialogue. You state as a priori, that Jesus was the Messiah, expected by the Jews. Yet, Rabbi Shook, because of his own, different, faith in the same God (though, he may disagree with that assertion) does not accept your premise. Therefore, his conclusion is different than yours and mine.
In deed, the statement that Jesus is the Messiah, has a great of argumentation, found in the uniquely Christian Scriptures, what is known as the New Testament, behind that conclusion. It cannot be stated a priori at all, and, therefore, should not form a premise of any discussion with Jewish faithful.
But, we do need to be cognizant of the fact that at least this one voice from the Jewish community sees your sister’s new order as harassment based on his knowledge of it. Harassment is a strange beast because there really is no objective definition of it. It is based on the reaction of its target. The victim is the one defining the term. Rabbi Shook, in his blog, stated clearly that he sees the goals of Rosalind’s new community as being harassment, even if you, her and the Pope state that the intention is otherwise. The reality is, if the Jewish community sees it as harassment, it is harassment, until that community can be set at ease in the matter.
Why is Tim Townsend editing out views herein that folks, especially some parishioners and Catholics that I know have posted, that seemingly and truthfully vocally dilutes the anti-Catholic poisonous propellant and stance represented here, and projected by the Post-Dispatch. Isn’t something wrong here? Sheer hypocrisy!!! Many folks I have known have posted their reactions which are not visible herein. If you are giving voices to multiple opinion why delete opinions in favor of the Catholic Church and Archbishop Burke. Wonders shall never end! This ongoing ‘idolatry of the media’ making itself the object of worship and attention reflects the hypocrisy of the Post-Dispatch and its devil advocates’ especially Tim Townsend. I will see, if this posts.