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Father Thomas Dowd on Catholics and Jews

In an over-the-top tribute to the "first Pope with the courage to stop hating us," Chakira suggests that "we should all learn Torah in the next thirty days in his memory."

Of more interest to me are comments to Chakira's post by a Father Thomas Dowd. Among other points he makes, Dowd calls for theological dialogue between Jews and Catholics because "for us Christians, the most frequently consulted source of information we have about Judaism was written over 1900 years ago in a time of conflict ... we need to discern what to keep as is and what to adapt -- and that is a process internal to Christianity with which a theological contribution from Jews can help. Even only minimal theological dialogue, the kind simply designed to help modern Christians understand modern Judaism, can at least help us avoid presenting a caricature of Judaism in our sermons."

Rabbi Soloveitchik, of course, opposed theological dialogue, and charedi rabbis wouldn't even consider the possibility of sanctioning such dialogue. In what is probably a futile response (at least to Orthodox Jews) to Rabbi Soloveitchik, Dowd acknowledges that there will "be Christians of the type Rabbi Soloveitchik warns, the type who want to use 'dialogue' as a deceptive tool of conversion" but calls for individual Jews and Christians to talk about theological matters.

What I find especially interesting is Dowd's statement that modern Christians need dialogue to understand modern Judaism. If it's really the case that Christians are so ignorant and so curious about us, it seems to be that simple Internet searches would achieve Dowd's goal, as would a visit to a book store.

Dowd's point about conversion seems to indicate that proselytization during dialogue would be off-limits, though if proselytization is central to Catholicism, his argument seems questionable. On a personal note, when I was a summer associate at a large law firm in 1996, there was a very frum Catholic junior associate who I was friendly with. He repeatedly made sure to tell me that he was praying for my soul. I was not really bothered either by his proselytization or by his apparent belief that I was headed for eternal damnation and in any event figured that hell had be better than life at a large law firm.
posted on 4/12/2005