From the rise of Zionism to the Six Day War
Relations between the Vatican and modern-day Zionism date to the turn of the 19th Century, when Theodore Herzl - the founder of the political movement which would ultimately bring about the rebirth of a sovereign Israel - sought Rome's blessing on Jewish aspirations to reclaim their ancient land.
Central to these relations down the years has been the Vatican's concern for the preservation of Christianity's "holy sites" in Jerusalem, and the upholding of unrestricted access to them. *
On January 25, 1904, Herzl was received in audience by Pope Pius X. Nine years before, as he penned The Jew State, Herzl had shown his sympathetic awareness of Roman Catholic concerns, and formulated Zionist policy regarding them: "The sanctuaries of Christendom would be safeguarded by assigning to them extra-territorial status such as is well known in the law of nations. We should form a Guard of Honour about these sanctuaries, answering to the fulfilment of this duty with our existence."
Despite this sensitivity to Christian sensibilities, and the subsequent inclusion into central Zionist thinking of this sense of responsibility towards Christendom's shrines, Herzl failed to secure a papal blessing on his great venture.
"The Jews have not recognised our Lord, therefore we cannot recognise the Jewish people," Pope Pius X told him bluntly.
The papal rebuff did not take Herzl completely by surprise. Three days early Pius' secretary of state had warned him that "as long as the Jews deny the divinity of Christ we certainly cannot side with them … How then can we agree to their regaining possession of the Holy Land?"
States the Encyclopædia Judaica: "Thus ended the first political encounter of modern Zionism with the Vatican on a wholly negative note, in a mixture of theological prejudice, lack of comprehension, and a general attitude of aloofness."
This attitude was to change during World War I when the Zionist leadership, working to secure allied support for the transfer of Palestine to British administration in the event of Turkey's defeat, demonstrated its consideration for the Vatican's concerns, and sent a senior representative to meet with Pope Benedict XV.
In an audience on May 10, 1917, therefore, Nahum Sokolov sought for and received Benedict's enthusiastic endorsement of the principle of a Jewish national home in Palestine under a British administration.
"The revival of Israel through the people of Israel …" exclaimed the pontiff. "Nineteen hundred years ago Rome destroyed your homeland, and today, when you seek to rebuild it, you have chosen a path which leads via Rome… Yes this is the will of Divine Providence, this is what the Almighty desires."
It was, he said, "a great idea".
Notwithstanding this ebullient response Catholic fears persisted, and the Zionists took pains to address them regularly in the years between the issuance of the Balfour Declaration and the passing of the United Nations partition vote on Palestine. Despite the failure of the Vatican to forthrightly condemn and denounce the Holocaust, Rome's general attitude towards Zionism per se remained cautiously positive, and 1947 found the Vatican a firm backer of the UN plan. Rome's primary motivation was, naturally, the fact that Jerusalem and its environs would be excluded from Arab or Jewish rule and remain a separate, international entity.
When two-thirds of the UN General Assembly voted the partition resolution into international law, both Roman Catholics and Zionists were happy.
Six months later, the Jews included in their Declaration of Independence the solemn undertaking to "safeguard the sanctity and inviolability of the shrines and Holy Places of all religions".
Arab armies poured into the new country in an effort to squash it at birth. Instead, the War of Independence saw the Jewish state extend its borders, under the terms of the 1949 armistice agreement, to include western Jerusalem. The eastern part - containing virtually all the city's sites sacred to the Roman Catholic Church (as well as most sites holy to Jews) - came under the military occupation of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
While the war raged Rome twice called on both sides to stop the bloodshed and restore peace to the Holy Land. Beyond urging an end to the fighting, the Vatican's second appeal - made after Jews and Arabs had taken control of separate parts of Jerusalem - stressed the Church's position on Jerusalem, and called for "an international regime for the city … the safeguarding of all Holy Places in Palestine, and free access for all pilgrims to them…"
Israel officially responded to Rome on April 23, 1949, when President Weizmann reiterated the Jewish pledge "to ensure full security for religious institutions … to grant the supervision of the Holy Places by those who hold them sacred … and to accept the fullest international safeguards and controls for their immunity and protection".
Still, when reports began circulating of plans to relocate the government of Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a Vatican representative bluntly warned Weizmann not to do so. Weizmann's advice to Prime Minister David Ben Gurion to heed the warning elicited a furious response: "Nobody will deny our right to Jerusalem; I will do it sooner than I had planned. The government will relocate at once." It did so in December 1969.
Despite this diplomatic row, and even though Rome would not extend official recognition to the Jewish state, assurances by Israeli officials concerning the holy sites - reaffirmed repeatedly in the ensuing 18 years - formed the basis of a generally mutual atmosphere of understanding between the two parties until 1967.
Then, for Rome, the unthinkable happened. For the first time since AD 70, the entire city of Jerusalem returned to Jewish rule during the Six Day War.
(In the June Digest: Israel and Rome since 1967)
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