The Brazen Duplicity of George Weigel

Letter to Arlington Catholic Herald
by DCDave

His point may be debated, but at the very least his article describing the pope's trip as a traditional pilgrimage, the actions of a great evangelist and a witness visiting the site where the word was made flesh, is a stern and apt rebuke to the sort of opinion piece that appeared on the main editorial page of The Wall Street Journal the day before. That article, innocuously titled "A New Era in Jewish-Catholic Relations" doesn't just interpret the trip through a political filter, but the filter very much resembles the typical sly mainstream-media political spin to which we have become all too accustomed:

"The pope is in the Holy Land as a Jubilee-year pilgrim, and he insists that his pilgrimage is strictly religious. He should be taken at his word. But the pope now has come to a sovereign Jewish state. The Holy See enjoys full diplomatic exchange with that Jewish state; Israel has welcomed the bishop of Rome as an honored guest; and the relationship between Catholics and Jews can never be quite the same again. That is as true for Jews as it is for Catholics."

Take that, Christian and Muslim Palestinians, and note well your marching orders, all you Catholics around the world. The Roman Catholic Church, we are given to believe, is now thoroughly lined up with the state of Israel. One will find no mention here of the fact that the Vatican has denounced Israel's occupation of east Jerusalem as "illegal," and that the pope has publicly placed himself on the side of "the aspirations of the Palestinian people."

"Set against the background of centuries of Christian ignorance of, or contempt for, living Judaism," the article continues, "the claim that the Vatican did not recognize Israel became a continual sore point in an otherwise remarkable dialogue."

It's pretty clear where this author assigns the blame for the history of friction between Christians and Jews, isn't it? We are reading The Wall Street Journal, but the sentiment is familiar to any regular reader of The Washington Post, The New York Times, or many another U. S. news and opinion organ.

"Furthermore, this pope, with his profound insight into modern Jewish pain, understood the unique place Israel holds in the Jewish imagination after the Holocaust. The dialogue with Judaism and diplomatic relations with the Jewish state had to be pursued together."

Really? The pope might recognize the outsized importance that Israel and "the Holocaust" have taken on among contemporary Jews, but one might question whether he regards it as a good thing that should be pandered to. He might well agree with Rabbi Michael Goldberg and other serious religious Jews that with their "Holocaust cult" and devotion to the state of Israel, the greater part of their contemporary brethren have traded in their spiritual birthright for a secular mess of pottage (See Goldberg's book, "Why Should Jews Survive?: Looking Past the Holocaust toward a Jewish Future.").

But why should we concern ourselves so much with what someone wrote about the pope's trip in The Wall Street Journal? Well, you see, the writer is none other than George Weigel. He is identified there not as "a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.," as he is in your publication, but as the "author of 'Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II,'" but it's the same guy.

After observing this Janus-faced performance, I am inclined to view this newly-minted book, its author, and the organization with which he is affiliated, with great wariness. Readers of any future columns of his in the Arlington Catholic Herald should also be forewarned to read carefully.

Sincerely,

David Martin

See also "Roman Catholicism and Zionism are Irreconcilable."