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PROGRESSIVIST DOCUMENTS
Twenty-one years before John Paul II’s landmark visit to the Synagogue of Rome on April 13, 1986, Bishop Fulton Sheen visited the Jewish Synagogue in his Diocese of Rochester.
If John Paul II was the first Pope in History to visit a synagogue, it seems that Sheen was the first Bishop in the United States to do so. It was his goal, he often stated, to to be the model bishop of Vatican II.
The February 3, 1967, edition of The Catholic Courier Journal (photocopy below; original here) proudly displays on its front page Bishop Sheen standing at a podium before a crowded room of Jews. Ironically, in the caption beneath the picture it highlights the fact that “Bishop Sheen was the only one to wear a yarmulke, the traditional Jewish skull cap, as he spoke to close to 2,500 persons in Temple B’rth Kodesh Monday evening. The yarmulke custom is not generally observed in liberal Jewish synagogues.”
Before the Council, it would have been impossible for a Catholic Prelate to visit a synagogue and wear the Jewish skull cap (yarmulke or kippah). All Catholics knew that the Jewish religion rejected Our Lord Jesus Christ as the Messiah and was replaced by the Catholic Church, it would have been unthinkable before Vatican II for a Catholic Prelate to imitate that practice.
Bishop Sheen entered the synagogue “for the first time in his life,” as the paper reports, “to praise the Jewish people for their works of mercy for the poor” and to assure them that “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was also the God of the Christians” who is willing to be a Father to every man “no matter how weak he is.” That is, he essentially equates the God of the Hebrews with the Holy Trinity, which is a blatant error and a public offense against Catholic doctrine.
Those who understand the meaning of things were quick to realize the significance of Bishop Sheen’s visit to that synagogue as a conciliatory gesture of acceptance of the Jewish religion, even though the Jews have never ceased to plot against the Catholic Faith and persecute its members (see here).
The New Jersey Jewish News also reported the meeting in its March 3, 1967 issue, (see below). The article called the two groups “revolutionists, uneasy upstarts and restive catalysts who disturb the molds and philosophies of this world.”
Indeed, the Bishop was making a revolutionary gesture, denying 2,000 years of Catholic teaching regarding the errors of the Jewish religion.
Below is a copy of the article reprinted from the Catholic Courier Journal (for a larger print, click here); followed by the shorter piece in the New Jersey Jewish News.
The last photo below shows the Temple B'rith Kodesh on Elmwood Ave. in downtown Rochester.
If John Paul II was the first Pope in History to visit a synagogue, it seems that Sheen was the first Bishop in the United States to do so. It was his goal, he often stated, to to be the model bishop of Vatican II.
The February 3, 1967, edition of The Catholic Courier Journal (photocopy below; original here) proudly displays on its front page Bishop Sheen standing at a podium before a crowded room of Jews. Ironically, in the caption beneath the picture it highlights the fact that “Bishop Sheen was the only one to wear a yarmulke, the traditional Jewish skull cap, as he spoke to close to 2,500 persons in Temple B’rth Kodesh Monday evening. The yarmulke custom is not generally observed in liberal Jewish synagogues.”
Before the Council, it would have been impossible for a Catholic Prelate to visit a synagogue and wear the Jewish skull cap (yarmulke or kippah). All Catholics knew that the Jewish religion rejected Our Lord Jesus Christ as the Messiah and was replaced by the Catholic Church, it would have been unthinkable before Vatican II for a Catholic Prelate to imitate that practice.
Bishop Sheen entered the synagogue “for the first time in his life,” as the paper reports, “to praise the Jewish people for their works of mercy for the poor” and to assure them that “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was also the God of the Christians” who is willing to be a Father to every man “no matter how weak he is.” That is, he essentially equates the God of the Hebrews with the Holy Trinity, which is a blatant error and a public offense against Catholic doctrine.
Those who understand the meaning of things were quick to realize the significance of Bishop Sheen’s visit to that synagogue as a conciliatory gesture of acceptance of the Jewish religion, even though the Jews have never ceased to plot against the Catholic Faith and persecute its members (see here).
The New Jersey Jewish News also reported the meeting in its March 3, 1967 issue, (see below). The article called the two groups “revolutionists, uneasy upstarts and restive catalysts who disturb the molds and philosophies of this world.”
Indeed, the Bishop was making a revolutionary gesture, denying 2,000 years of Catholic teaching regarding the errors of the Jewish religion.
Below is a copy of the article reprinted from the Catholic Courier Journal (for a larger print, click here); followed by the shorter piece in the New Jersey Jewish News.
The last photo below shows the Temple B'rith Kodesh on Elmwood Ave. in downtown Rochester.
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