Augustin Cardinal Bea Defends Jews Against Deicide

Just eight days after promulgation of the Second Vatican Council’s document on the non-Christian religions, the cardinal who heads the secretariat that drafted it has again defended the Jews against the charge of deicide. Augustin Cardinal Bea SJ (1881–1968), president of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, published the defense in the Jesuit review Civilta Cattolica November 6. His article was entitled “The Jewish People in the Divine Plan of Salvation.” Cardinal Bea specifically rebutted the contention of Italian Bishop Luigi Carli of Segni, that it is “legitimate to speak objectively . . . of the sin of deicide, leaving the question of a possible ignorance to God’s judgment.” The cardinal cited Christ’s dying words: “They know not what they do.” He asserted that Bishop Carli’s writings “have collected and restated the usual arguments in support of the thesis of the collective responsibility of the Jewish people for Christ’s crucifixion with all the attendant con. sequences.”’ According to Cardinal Bea, “the question here is whether as ‘persons’ the Jews can or cannot be accused of deicide. In such a question the problem of whether or not there is subjective knowledge is as essential as the problem of the definition of the crime.” Bishop Carli based his thesis of the collective responsibility of the Jewish people for Christ’s passion upon the principle of *collective responsibility in good as in evil.” Cardinal Bea replied that social and collective solidarity must be distinguished from collective responsibility. “Social and collective solidarity in good or evil arises when a collectivity is simply subjected to the good or evil consequences of acts of its own leaders,” he said, “Collective responsibility in good or evil arises, on the other hand, when an entire collectivity, through the effect of the acts of its own leaders, either acquires merits and is rewarded or acquires demerits, becomes guilty and is punished.” After speaking of the respect and veneration Christians owe the people “‘from whom Christ was born and through which the Church has received such riches in doctrine and example,”” Cardinal Bea said: “Yet it is a fact that very often Christians do not profess this veneration, nor do they realize the relations which as members of the Church they really have with this people, and to say the least are indifferent or alien to them, if not worse, If we consider history we find, without trying to incriminate anyone, that many Christians allowed themselves to be blinded to the extent of setting themselves up arbitrarily as avengers of Christ’s condemnation by discrimination and persecution, classifying that people as wicked and cursed by God.” He denied that such religious reasons “have always been the sole or principal motives of anti-Semitism,” but he asserted that it is necessary to examine such arguments, He concluded that the charge of deicide “can be leveled only against those who committed with a clear knowledge of the human and divine nature of Christ.” The council’s declaration on non-Christian religions, in its section on the Jewish religion, omitted any mention of the term deicide, although it rejected the concept.