Fr. Norbert Hofmann, Ph.D., SDB

Norbert Hofmann is a Catholic Salesian priest and expert in the Old Testament. He is Secretary of the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews. He joined the Salesian order in 1979 in Jünkerath, Germany after completing secondary school. He began his studies in Theology and Social Pedagogy in Benediktbeuern in 1980 and continued in Lucerne, Zurich and Rome where he obtained his doctor’s degree in Biblical Theology. He became Professor of the Old Testament in Benediktbeuern, specialising in modern Judaism and early Hebrew writings.

Since 2002 he has been Secretary of the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, which operates as part of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. The Commission, presided over by Cardinal Kurt Koch, is tasked with promoting Jewish-Catholic relations in the world. Through his work, Professor Hofmann has contributed to the enhancement of this relationship for which the President of Germany Horst Köhler conferred the Federal Cross of Merit (Bundesverdienstkreuz) on him in 2009, a decoration awarded in Germany for service in the political, cultural, economic and spiritual field.

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Dear ladies and gentlemen, Chaverim Yehudim, Shalom!

First of all, I want to thank the organisers for inviting me. I am happy to be here in Zagreb and to speak to you. I am speaking about the current situation of the Jewish-Catholic dialogue. To understand the current situation, I have to start a little bit earlier. So, we should see the developments of the dialogue. Dear Ambassador of Israel, I admit you mentioned the example of Theodor Herzl and Pius X, that the Holy See was very sceptical at the beginning regarding the foundation of the State of Israel. Emet, that is true. But today we are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the formal diplomatic relations between the State of Israel and the Holy See. So, something happened in these 115 years. You mentioned also, as well as other speakers, that Nostra aetate was very decisive, for this teshuva, for this repentance. The Church, the Holy See, changed the attitude, became more pragmatic regarding the State of Israel. According to me, there are three points that led to Nostra aetate. First of all, the reflexion about the Shoah. How could it be possible, a human tragedy in a Christian Europe? In Catholic countries? So, there was a reflexion: How was it possible that the Shoah is one of the main motives for coming into being of this document Nostra aetate? The second fact for me is the foundation of the State of Israel. For the first time in history, a tiny Christian minority in the Holy Land, is together with the Jewish majority. How to deal with? So, dialogue is necessary, especially in the Holy Land, in the State of Israel. So, this was also a point of thinking about a new relationship to the Jewish people, to the State of Israel. And the third point, nobody mentioned that, is for me as a Biblical scholar the progress in Biblical sciences. Divino afflante Spiritu was the first encyclical and then the texts of the Second Vatican Council Verbum Dei. They discovered more and more the Jewish background of Jesus, the Jewishness of Jesus. As a Biblical scholar, I can tell you that the New Testament is also partly a Jewish writing, it is based on Jewish traditions. So, nobody can understand the New Testament without the framework of the Judaism of the time of Jesus.

So, these three points – the foundation of the State of Israel, the Shoah, and the Biblical sciences – they led to Nostra aetate. A lot of speakers spoke about Nostra aetate, yes. For me, Nostra aetate is a miracle. It is a miracle. Those who know the story about Nostra aetate they will agree to that. Because, during the Second Vatican Council there were a lot of moves. Sometimes, there was a lot of doubt whether a Declaration about the Jewish people could be promulgated. So, this miracle, for me, happened. With the promulgation of Nostra aetate, on the 28th October 1965. Nostra aetate is for me a great ‘yes’ to the Jewish roots of Christianity. Jesus was born as a Jew. He lived according to the Jewish traditions of his time. Jesus died as a Jew on the cross.

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Once I heard a story that somebody had also spoken about this statement and then one lady said: “No, no, Jesus was Christian, he was baptised by John the Baptist.” It is ridiculous. Jesus lived as a Jew, he was born as a Jew and he died as a Jew. So, it is a big ‘yes’ to the Jewish roots of Christianity. And Nostra aetate for me, regarding all the texts of the Church and Churches, is the first theological text regarding Judaism. And Nostra aetate, second point, is for me a decisive ‘no’ to all forms of anti-Semitism, not for racial reasons, but for reasons of the Gospel. We have to respect everybody. So, Nostra aetate, a great ‘no’ to all forms of anti-Semitism and a big ‘yes’ to the Jewish roots of Christianity. Nostra aetate was promulgated in 1965. And the first steps were very tiny steps. So, the Holy See wanted to get in contact with the Jewish world on a formal basis. So, we invited the Jewish people to form an umbrella organisation of different Jewish organisations because we could not organise a dialogue with thousands of Jewish organisations. So, we invited the Jewish world and they founded the so-called International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations. We call it IJCIC, an abbreviation. It was founded in 1970. And my Commission, our Commission, the Vatican Commission was formed formally by Pope Paul VI on 22 October 1974. But from the 1970s on, 1971, we organised common conferences, with the Jewish umbrella organisation and with the Commission of the Holy See. So, we organised the first conference in Paris, the following ones every year, now we are organising a conference every two years. The last conference took place in May in Rome, the next conference will take place next year in Sao Paolo in the end of October when the Jewish feasts will be concluded.

So, this dialogue is our formal dialogue with the Jewish world. And this dialogue works very well. I am grateful to Ha-Shem that this dialogue works really well. We spoke about different issues. Last time, we spoke about the migration crisis, we spoke about anti-Semitism, about persecution of Christians, then we spoke also about justice and charity, we spoke about a lot of themes. So, this is one of the formal dialogues we have been organising since 1970. A second interreligious dialogue is one that was mentioned by my friend Daniel Sperber. This dialogue was organised after the visit of Pope John Paul II to Israel in 2000. And in 2002, there was the first contact between the delegation of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and our Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and the first formal conference took place in February 2003. And meanwhile, we have been in dialogue for 17 years. And friendship grew. We spoke about the sanctity of life, we spoke about abortion, euthanasia, we spoke about anti-Semitism, we spoke also about justice and charity, last time we spoke about the rights of children, we spoke about the financial crisis, so a lot of things we can speak about. Why? Because in Nostra aetate, it is mentioned that we have a common spiritual heritage, a very great common spiritual heritage, because Christianity has Jewish roots.

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So, the dialogue for us Catholics, is not a leisure time matter, to know the Jewish people better or to have Jewish friends, no, no, no. It has to do with our own identity, with our own Christian identity, because we have common roots. We know only who we are if we know our Jewish roots: the Judaism of Jesus’ time is the root of Christianity and also of the Judaism of today developed from there. So, we have, first of all, theological reasons for dialogue with the Jewish people. The motivation of the Jewish people may be different. One of the first questions I hear is: What are you doing against anti-Semitism? Or: What is your opinion regarding the State of Israel? Our motivation is a theological motivation, it has to do with our own identity. And also, we are here at the Catholic University, I think it is important also to teach Judaism, to teach Nostra aetate, and the documents that stem from that. Our Commission published after 1965 four documents: the first was published in 1974, the Notes how to present Judaism to Christians; then, in 1985, how to organise the catechism and instruction at schools and universities regarding the Jewish people; then, in 1998, we published a document regarding the Shoah, We Remember – A Reflection on the Shoah, and the most recent document was published in 2015 The Gifts and the Calling of God are Irrevocable. This is the most extensive document, the most theological one. It was published on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Nostra aetate. So, the dialogue goes on, and the dialogue has produced documents on our side, and on the Jewish side. For the first time, the orthodox Jewish people also published documents. In 2015, Our Father in Heaven was published by orthodox rabbis. Daniel Sperber mentioned Dabru emet that was published in 2001. This was a document mainly from American rabbis, reformed rabbis. But orthodox rabbis published this document Our Father in Heaven in 2015, nearly at the same time when we published our document, The Gifts and the Calling of God are Irrevocable, that is a quotation from Romans 11:29. And in 2017, the orthodox Jewish world published another document, Between Jerusalem and Rome. So, for the first time, Jewish orthodox people are publishing documents speaking about the progress in Jewish-Catholic dialogue, eulogising the Pope and the Catholic Church for their steps towards the Jewish people. After Nostra aetate, I would say, a big step was done in 2002, in establishing the dialogue with the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. This opened up the Jewish orthodox world for the Catholic Church. Before 2002, mainly liberal Jewish people were ready for dialogue. After 2002, I felt that also the orthodox Jewish world was ready for dialogue with the Catholic Church. And another major step that I have mentioned is that they are publishing documents now. In 2015 and in 2017. It never happened. So, I can be very happy about this. Of course, in the Vatican, in the Holy See, the example, the model of the Popes is very important. I am working for the Pope, for the third pope now, I have been doing my job for 17 years now, and the Popes are different in character, but they are bound by Nostra aetate, and every pope, in my experience, has relations with the Jewish people on his heart.

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John Paul II was the icebreaker. He was the first pope who went to Auschwitz to pray for the victims of the Shoah in 1979. He was the first pope who went to the Roman Synagogue and embraced the Chief Rabbi Elio Toaff, this was 13 April 1986. And this was a major step. And John Paul II was the first Pope to visit the State of Israel. Before, Paul VI went to the Holy Land in 1964, never mentioning the State of Israel but John Paul II was the first Pope to visit the State of Israel in March 2000. He was the first Pope meeting the two Chief Rabbis, praying in front of the Wailing Wall, the Kotel. So, this is an example of the Popes. John Paul II was for me a Pope of great gestures. He was really able to set great gestures for the mass media. He was the Pope who was really acquainted with the mass media. Then, Pope Benedict XVI, he did the same steps only within the eight years of his pontificate, he also went to Auschwitz, he also went to the Roman Jewish Synagogue, he also went to Israel, but he had a different style. For me, Pope Benedict was the pope of deep theological word. If you read his speeches, his talks, they are deep theologically. John Paul II had a biographic access to Judaism. There is a story that when he was young in Wadowice he fell in love with a Jewish girl and he had a Jewish classmate. I met his Jewish classmate in Rome, Jerzy Kluger, it was true that he had Jewish classmates, so he had a biographic background. Ratzinger, he had an academic background, he is a German professor, he had access through the Holy Scripture, through the Old and the New Testament. But also he had the Jewish people on his heart.

And our current Pope is a child of Nostra aetate. He practiced Nostra aetate. When he was the Archbishop of Buenos Aires he organised a lot of events with the Jewish people, he gave a sermon in a Jewish synagogue, he had and still has Jewish friends and he is maintaining his friendship with his Jewish friends. And Pope Francis is for me the Pope of the embraces. He likes humanity, he likes the Jewish people, he is in favour of interreligious dialogue, so he is favouring and promoting very well and in a good manner Jewish-Catholic dialogue. So, for us, as Catholics, the models, the examples of the Popes are very important, and the Popes are my best collaborators and I work for them. So, they really have the Jewish-Catholic dialogue on their heart. Pope Francis formulated three goals for nowadays: first, to deepen the theological dialogue. Maybe Jewish people know about Rabbi Soloveitchic that theological, religious issues you should avoid, other issues you can discuss with other religions. On our heart is deepening of the theological dialogue and therefore we also published this document, a theological document. Our common friend, Rabbi David Rosen says always: “If religious men are in dialogue, even if they speak about the weather, it has religious connotations.” So, I think that is really true, when we meet rabbis, and priests and bishops, even if we do not have an expressive religious theme, everybody quotes Torah or the Scriptures, so we have religious dialogue, as Dany, you mentioned. So, this is the first goal Pope Francis mentioned. The second goal is to involve young people. I am very happy that students are here. To involve young people in the Jewish-Catholic dialogue. That is necessary. The first generation passed by. So, we need young people. Our Commission every

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two years is organising the so-called Emerging Leadership Conference. Twenty-five young Jewish people, twenty-five young Catholic people. The next Emerging Leadership Conference will be organised in Seville in the first week of July. The last one took place also the first week of July last year in Vilnius, in Lithuania. So, to involve young people, to teach young people. I am happy that the President of the University is here and can hear this – to teach young people. And the third goal Francis mentioned is to foster collaboration regarding charitable work. Jews and Christians have the same values, to help the poor, to help the sick, to help the people at the margins of society. We can do it together, really we can do it together, not on my level, on an international level, but on the level of bishops’ conferences, on dioceses, there can be organised a lot of social projects, social charitable projects. For example, in 2004, we organised a conference in Buenos Aires. There was an economic crisis, the Jews and we gathered ten million dollars and these ten million dollars were given to the Catholic Caritas. And they created soup kitchens for Jews and Catholics. And we visited a soup kitchen that was organised by a rabbi, and by a young priest. This is possible. Collaboration for charitable work. We have the same common values.

I want to conclude soon, then we will have a longer coffee-break. To sum up, I am very happy about the Jewish-Catholic dialogue, it is my inner conviction, I have been doing this for 17 years, and I will continue if the Pope is happy with me, I am committed to that and we have a lot of other projects. There is one project that I want to mention. Last 28 October, so only recently, in the Vatican, the Jewish people of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel’s representatives and Muslim people from an Ulema from Indonesia and also an Islamic teacher from the Emirates and the Vatican, we signed a document Against Assisted Suicide and Against Active Euthanasia. So, we have common values, to protect human life in the end. Then, we were received by Pope Francis and this was an idea by Rabbi Abraham Steinberg, he is a Professor of Bioethics in Israel and he had the idea to draft a common document that will be signed by Muslims, Jews and the Vatican against assisted suicide, against active euthanasia. So, this is the example that we have common values, we have more common values. Also, I think exegesis and professors for the Scriptures they work together, they have been collaborating for a long time. But we can work and correlate in many other fields. I want to conclude. I want to thank you for your attention. And for the Jewish people I want to say anachnu achim, avinu ha-Shem we are brothers and sisters and our common father is God in Heaven.

Thank you very much.