Opus sacerdotale Amici Israel

The Opus sacerdotale Amici Israel ( Priestly Society of Friends of Israel ) were a group of 3,000 priests, 328 bishops, archbishops and cardinals 19, among them the Archbishop of Munich Michael von Faulhaber. It was founded in 1926 in Rome. One of the main initiators of the Dutch Catholics was Sophie Franziska van Leer, a converted to Christianity and standing with Faulhaber in close contact Dutch Jewess, the Franciscan Laetus kingdom of heaven and the cross Mr. Anton van Asseldonk.

The aim of the association

The aim of the association was to promote reconciliation of Jews and Christians, and in particular the Catholics. In a time when anti-Semitism in Europe has become a serious problem, it was the intent of these high dignitaries, priests and religious, to emphasize the friendship with the people of the Old Covenant. Christians should learn to understand that the Old and New Testaments belong together and can not be ignored the Jewish roots of Christianity. Until the early opening of the Vatican archives in 2003, little was known of this priest Association. Wolf found in the files of the CDF, the successor authority of the Roman Inquisition and Congregation of the Index, a fascicle of the " Amici Israel ," especially on their demand to fundamentally reform the Good Friday prayer regarding the Jews. This requirement caused said Wolf, 1928 in Rome for great excitement. Pope Pius XI. handed the concerns of the " Amici Israel " the competent Congregation of Rites. One of the reviewers, abbot of the Abbey of St. Paul Outside the Walls and later Archbishop and Cardinal of Milan, Blessed Ildefonso Schuster, noted that the request was justified. The word " perfidus " which means theologically a deficiency or eclipse in faith, had lost this meaning in modern usage for Schuster; it would only be understood " perfidious " in the conventional sense today. This made ​​it necessary for the future Blessed deleting the " perfidus ". The Congregation of Rites welcomed the vote and called for reform.

On January 2, 1928, the chairman Benedict Gariador handed ( 1859-1936 ) a written submission to Pope Pius XI. one who asked for the removal or replacement of expressions perfidis / perfidia and approval of the knee if the Jewish intercession. Probably written by Anton van Asseldonk and Laetus Himmelreich document was rediscovered in the 2003 shared Vatican archives and argued as follows:

• Historically, Christians have prayed very early for the reversal of the Jews to Christ, not for their conversion to Christianity.
• The term was originally perfidus related only to specific violations of the law of certain Jews understood only later as " total depravity " and was thus reinterpreted as immutable trait of all Jews.
• The alleged taunting Jewish subservience to Jesus in the New Testament is unassigned and added later fiction.
• Going to the prayer today misused as an argument for anti-Semitism, the Catholic Church propagating itself even in their services.
• Therefore, one should replace perfidiam Judaicam by plebem Judaicam (the " Jewish people " ), as it is in a manuscript of the manuals Ambrosianum from the 11th century have been the case once already.

The competent Liturgical Commission of the Congregation of Rites in the Vatican under Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster unreservedly recommended the adoption of the proposals and submitted it to the Holy Office for a decision. This initially consulted the Dominican Marco Sales, who was regarded as papal court theologian and representatives of conservative Catholic interpretation of the Bible. This conceded, first, that from the standpoint of faith and doctrine from nothing had objected to the proposed omission. From the tradition but it was useless:

• All criticized parts of the Jewish prayers, also omitting the knee Falls and the Amen were, emerged already in the early church. As a " time-honored, to antiquity reaching back Sacred Liturgy " she evading everyone reformed.
• If you were a private club grant such interventions in this tradition, it would never end, and could just as well the removal of offensive passages in the apostolic creed, the Improperia and the cursing psalms of the liturgy allow. These contained much harder formulations for Jews.
• Perfidious always mean just a word and breach of contract: This is exactly what God himself throw the Jews in the Bible. These sales referred to Deut 31,16.20.27; Ps 78,57; 2 Kings 17:15 and Acts 7:51.
• Just as God had entered into only with the Jews a covenant, even this would have broken this covenant and went ahead all the time: why the term perfidus was appropriate in contrast to the Gentiles for them.
• No one could Pius V., the author of the Roman Missal, accused of anti-Semitism, as he had always stood up for the Jews.
• This would have taken over, according to Mt 27,25 himself the responsibility for the crucifixion of Christ.

Therefore, there is no plausible reason to accept the proposal of the Amici Israel: Nihil esse innovandum ( "Nothing is to be renewed ").

Rafael Merry del Val, who had been appointed as a representative of anti-modernism to the Secretary of the Office, to that opinion joined. He was in the previous year itself has become a member of the Amici Israel, because he thought she was a devout Catholic club which wished to convert as many Jews through the power of prayer to Christ and the Catholic Church. He received their invitation to the annual meeting to Rome for February 1928. Thereby he learned that the Amici Israel not only praying drive Jewish mission, but discuss the reform of the Good Friday and Zionism public and advertise it wanted. He then initiated an immediate investigation of the Amici program Pax super Israel in order to ban it. In order to shorten the indexing process, he put himself to the display that was allowed outside only otherwise, and called for a papal decree in order to circumvent the otherwise necessary expertise and its double-check by Konsultatoren and cardinals. He wanted to Amici but know the orthodoxy and block its reform goals help of the Pope.

In secret discussions del Val and Pius XI formulated. a published on March 14, 1928 decree, which condemned the racial anti-Semitism as un-Christian, but at the same time distinguished by a Christian anti-Judaism in order to legitimize it. The group Amici Israel was banned and its leaders compelled by subpoena and interrogation to completely withdraw their views. These backgrounds of Decree 2004 were known by insight into hitherto closed Vatican archives.