tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8849763606223597208.post9020532743205736834..comments2023-10-06T00:52:38.024-07:00Comments on Rabbi Debbie Young-Somers: White smokeDebbie Young-Somershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11181262373970594509noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8849763606223597208.post-60936674586671412282013-03-28T02:49:11.995-07:002013-03-28T02:49:11.995-07:00Thank you for your thoughts! Not at all sullying b...Thank you for your thoughts! Not at all sullying but hopeful and helpful!Debbie Young-Somershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11181262373970594509noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8849763606223597208.post-38191321920894738422013-03-25T12:15:58.714-07:002013-03-25T12:15:58.714-07:00Thank you both and all for this article. It seems ...Thank you both and all for this article. It seems rather frightening that I may be the first to step over it with my thoughts, and I do hope that my footprints don’t sully its freshness. Our many histories, both Jewish and Christian, have taught us many things, and among these is the certainty that we are offered no guarantees. Yet our stories are filled with beginnings, and few beginnings offer as much hope as good beginnings. Francis – named for the universal saint of Christian tradition – has presented us all with just that: a good beginning. He has ‘shaken off the dust’ of the ruby slippers, by taking a simple white chair among his sisters and brothers he has truly ‘cast the mighty from their thrones’ and he has shown his humility by riding on the donkey that was the bus from the Sistine Chapel. This is a man who we are willing to trust. These are, however, as a Jesuit friend reminded me today, only superficial details. The fullness of Francis’ story is yet to be told.<br /><br />Contributors to and readers of this weblog will be familiar with rabbinic and ecclesiastical quibbles over words. So I feel little need to apologise for advancing my own quibble. We understand that both John and Rabbi Debbie, in their use of ‘Catholic,’ refer to the Roman Catholic Church, and we can accept that a Roman Catholic has no need to clarify this point, but many of we Protestant Christians cherish and profess our own Catholicism. There is only one Church – albeit a fractured family. Indeed the fullness of the Church is present in the Roman Catholic Church, but this Catholic Church is not in itself the fullness of the Church. That our much loved (a complicated relationship) Sister Church has elected a new Bishop of Rome is a big deal. The vast importance of Rome to the totality of Christianity alone provides that it holds the keys to the kingdom of our unity. The catholicity of the Church is reduced to mere parochialism without her.<br /><br />As a man of words and actions Francis has shown himself consistently to be committed, not simply to the respect of Jews, people of other faiths and none, and other Christians, but to the action of love itself. If we are to speak meaningfully of the future of Jewish-Christian dialogue in the light of Rome’s new Bishop, then it must begin with the impact of his election on Christianity as a whole. As far as beginnings go, Francis has made a good start. In him there is a reasonable hope that a channel now exists for peace, for where for so long there has been a growing sense of despair he has brought hope. As we are learning who he is and coming to an understanding of him we are encountering a man who is seeking to understand us. We can be sure that this is not the end of the story, it is not even the beginning of the end – it is but the end of the beginning. Where in the past John Paul II acknowledged the injury inflicted upon the Jewish people by Christians, Francis, at least if we are to place stock in his choice of name, promises to be a man devoted to seeking pardon.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com