Winston Churchill Waves to Crowd After V-E Day, End of War in Europe. Public Domain.

On May 7, 1945 Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allies. The “Act of Military Surrender” was signed in Rheims, France in the headquarters of General Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied commander. It went into effect on May 8^th, ending the terrible conflict that began with the Nazi attack on Poland on September 1, 1939.

The report by military historian Rick Atkinson in The Wall Street Journal ends with Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s words on the challenge of rebuilding devastated Europe: “Forward, unflinching, unswerving, indomitable, till the whole task is done and the whole world safe and clean.” I presume that he meant safe from military attack and from polluting and polemical rhetoric.

The Wall Street Journal also published Benjamin Balint’s review of the biography of historian Lucy S. Dawidowicz (1915-1990) by Nancy Sinkoff, From Left to Right (Detroit: Wayne State Press). Dawidowicz’s book, The War Against the Jews, 1933-1945 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975) was very important. Balint remarks “where others had interpreted the genocide of the Jews more as a byproduct of the impersonal machinery of Germany’s war aims than a result of any special anti-Jewish animus, Dawidowicz understood what the Germans euphemistically call the ‘Final Solution’ as an intentional part of Nazi racial ideology, and end in itself.”

The tragedy of the entire Nazi period began in 1933 with official acts of bigotry against the Jews in Germany, as well as promotion of every kind of violence that culminated in the horrendous atrocities against Jews under the cover of war, blaming them for the world’s woes.

We have hoped that concerted efforts on the part of many people of good will to eliminate such hatred have been successful. However, Rabbi David Sandmel of the Anti-Defamation League has given a somber message recently: see “On Social Media, Haredi and Orthodox Jewish Communities are Scapegoated and Blamed for Covid-19.” The work of education and alert reactions to signs of stereotyping in local communities continue to be necessary everywhere!

The “Great Minds Dialogues” is a series of lectures that complements Seton Hall University’s celebration of students who have shown great initiative in their studies and other activities, laying a foundation for a stellar future.  The School of Diplomacy and International Relations relates the call for excellence to be completed by seeing leadership as service.

Within this series, Sister Norma Pimental addressed the “Crisis at the Border” on February 6^th in Bethany Hall.  Her qualifications and a video of her lecture can be found here. As Executive Director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, Sister Norma has led in the organization of this service of the Diocese of Brownsville, Texas.

Sister Norma could have presented data to show the accomplishments of her team in terms of efficiency and cost-effective use of resources. That would impress people celebrating “Great Minds.”

However, Sister Norma’s approach was anecdotal, describing the great effectiveness achieved when the heart is touched. Then the attitude of people “just doing their job” may be lifted to recognize the innate humanity of those depicted from afar as invasive hordes. Could Sister Norma be permitted to visit the children herded into prison cells?  She asked to go into a cell to pray with the children. This simple act had the potential for the guards to see these children from a different angle. Did they recall the parable of the “least of my brothers and sisters” (Matthew 25:31-46)?

The opening prayer by Msgr. Anthony Ziccardi, Vice President for Mission and Ministry, places the challenge of our time in the proper prospective:

Almighty God,
long ago you commanded Abraham, our father in faith, to leave his homeland
and promised him and his descendants a new country.
You accompanied your elected people’s patriarchs in their migrations
and protected them in their wanderings.

You provided for them on their journeys
and in their long sojourn in a foreign land.
But suffering bitter oppression, they called out to you,
and you led them out of slavery with mighty hand and outstretched arm.
You settled them in the land of your promise
and commanded them both to fidelity and to welcome:
they were to remain true to their unity and identity as your people,
but they were are also to welcome the immigrant and the sojourner among them,
for thereby they would become a reflection of you in the world,
as Moses explained: “The Lord your God loves the alien,
giving him food and clothing. Love the alien, therefore;
for you yourselves were once aliens in the land of Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 10:18-19)

Having received from you the whole wide earth as its temporal habitation,
humankind remains through time both settled and on the move.
Whenever and wherever conflicts arise between residents and sojourners,
turn the minds of both to thoughts of peace
and move their arms to open wide in mutual embrace
in the assurance
that peace, not enmity, is your will for us
and in the conviction
that none of us has here an enduring homeland or fixed abode,
but that such is to be found only in heaven,
the place of our true citizenship,
that home of countless mansions prepared by Christ your Son
where we have all been invited,
as your children and as brothers and sisters of one another,
to sit with all patriarchs at your one abundant table in the eternal kingdom.
We pray through same Christ our Lord.

At Christmas each year the Pope leads the faithful in prayer and proclaims a message “Urbi et Orbi” (to the City and the World).

Now that we have entered the year 2020 with hope, the grim realities of the past year were placed by Pope Francis in a context of prayer and an earnest search for peace.

I wish to share this message in case some have not read it. Among the “trouble spots” in various continents, we think of the Middle East and pray for peace among all nations so that ordinary people will find tranquility and order as a sign of hope, pointing to the angelic prayer for peace among all beneficiaries of God’s good will (Luke 2:14).

The paragraph on African nations is especially poignant with reference to Christians who have been kidnapped by extremist groups.  May those who have been snatched from schools over several years and recently from the seminary of Kaduna diocese be returned safely!

On December 27, 2019 columnist Bret Stephens offered a reflection on “The Secrets of Jewish Genius” that received considerable attention. The Times published a short comment with a correction but The Jewish Week of December 31, 2019 provided a report that put the matter in a wider perspective: “Times Amends, Apologizes For Stephens Column.”

On December 22, 2019 The Wall Street Journal published Dominic Green’s review of Norman Lebrecht’s book, Genius and Anxiety: How Jews Changed the World, 1847-1947 (Scribner, 2019). Getting away from the dangerous theories of eugenics that contributed to Nazi ideology, Mr. Green has a point that is pertinent to the current discussion:

There is no Jewish gene, Mr. Lebrecht argues, only Jewish genius; no “Jewish exceptionalism,” only an exceptional situation. Jews’ minds were sharpened by the hermeneutical whetstone of the Talmud, their lives perpetually threatened.  They were conditional insiders and eternal outsiders, “driven by a need to justify their existence in a hostile environment and to do it quickly.”

Probing the questions posed by Mr. Stephens requires more than a brief essay or even a book or two. May these efforts to ponder the mystery of one community’s contributions to society be made with a humble and generous spirit!

“Peace Studies” was the title of an initiative of professors at Seton Hall from 1977 to 1983. A group of 35 faculty members across all of the Colleges of the University wished to build on the University’s Masters programs and related academic work with a focus on the contribution that the major religious and philosophical traditions of East and West can make to peace. This was within the context of the United States Catholic Bishops Conference’s preparation of a “Peace Pastoral Letter” during this period. Bishop John J. Dougherty, former President of Seton Hall, was in residence here at the time. He was an early supporter of the World Conference on Religion and Peace, but we had to wait more than two decades for another President to guide the University in creation of the School of Diplomacy and International Relations, beginning with the undergraduate curriculum, soon followed by a Master’s program. This school developed several facets of our dream.

For many decades the Holy See has promoted the search for peace on every level. The elderly among us recall Pope John XXIII’s encyclical “Pacem in Terris” to all people of good will and the dramatic words of Pope Paul VI at the United Nations in 1964: “War never again!”

Seton Hall has plans to review the work of the three more recent popes who continue this sacred tradition. The lecture by Peter Cardinal Turkson of the Holy See’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development on September 30^th will inaugurate a conference that presents a review of Pope Francis’ initiatives. In coming years the focus will be on the teachings of Popes Benedict XVI and Saint John Paul II.

The announcement of the 2019 conference brings an invitation to all our friends: https://www.shu.edu/diplomacy/peacemaking-conference.cfm. If possible, join with us for these events and keep the promotion of peace as a special intention in your prayers.

Father Gerard Sloyan delivering the 2008 Gerety Lecture in the Chapel of the Good Shepherd at Seton Hall University.

Father Sloyan recently celebrated a major anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood for the Diocese of Trenton, N.J. Its paper, The Monitor, reviewed many highlights in his ministry, which focused on higher education, with an impact on the study of Sacred Scripture, liturgy, catechetics and Catholic-Jewish relations. The contribution of Father Sloyan to these interrelated areas was the subject of Sister Alice Swartz’s doctoral dissertation, “Gerard Stephen Sloyan: A Career in Bible and Liturgy and a Ministry to all People of God, 1950-1995” for Drew University, building on her Master’s degree in Jewish-Christian Studies.

The Monitor story by Lynnea Mumola, “A Lifetime of Love of the Gospel,” offers a delightful review of Father Sloyan’s life, but this should be supplemented to include his work for the Institute of Judaeo-Christian Studies. He is the only surviving member of the original editorial board that assisted Father John M. Oesterreicher in producing the five volumes of The Bridge from 1955-1970.

In the Spring semester 1983 Father Sloyan was visiting professor in Seton Hall’s Department of Religion; during this time he taught a course on The Acts of the Apostles in the Jewish-Christian Studies Graduate Program. A loyal alumnus of the Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology and a good friend of the Institute of Judaeo-Christian Studies, Father Sloyan will celebrate his hundredth birthday on December 13, 2019. We wish him well, ad mea vesrim (to 120)!