The Tragic Couple: Encounters Between Jews and Jesuits
July 9-13, 2012 - Boston College
Center for Christian-Jewish Learning - www.bc.edu/cjl
Monday, July 9 - 5:00-7:00 p.m.
Introduction to Conference: James Bernauer, S.J. and Robert A. Maryks
Welcome: Prof. David Quigley, Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences
Tuesday, July 10
10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Panel I: Jesuits and Jews in the Shadow of Twentieth-Century Catastrophe.
Chair: Marian St. Onge, Independent Scholar
Thérèse Andrevon (Institute Catholique, Paris), “Joseph Bonsirven: A Prototype Among the Theologians of Judaism in the Period Preceding Vatican II”
Peter J. Bernardi, S.J. (Loyola University, Chicago), “French Jesuits and Action Française”
James Bernauer, S.J. (Boston College), “A Jesuit Spiritual Insurrection: Resistance to Vichy”
Beth Griech-Polelle (Bowling Green University, Ohio), “Jesuits, Jews and Communists: Portrayals of Jesuits and Other Catholic Orders in Nazi Newspapers, 1935-1938”
1:30-3:30 p.m.
Panel II: Racial Persecution in Fascist Italy.
Chair: Thomas Worcester, S.J., College of the Holy Cross
David I. Kertzer (Brown University), “Tacchi Venturi, Pius XI, Mussolini, and the Jews”
Robert A. Maryks (The City University of New York), “Tacchi Venturi and the Rescue of Italian Jews”
Raffaela Perin (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa), “Vatican Radio and Anti-Semitism during World War II”
4:30-6:30 p.m.
Panel III: “Religious Voices”: Enmity and Repair
Chair: Luis David, S.J., Ateneo de Manila
Paul Begheyn S.J. (Netherlands Institute of Jesuit Studies, Amsterdam), “Twentieth-Century Dutch Jesuits with Jewish Roots”
Michael Feldberg (The George Washington Institute for Religious Freedom, New York City), “Father Feeney and the Jews”
Charles Gallagher S.J. (Boston College), “‘Father Coughlin’s Program May Be Slightly Fascist’: American Jesuit Ambivalence in the Case of Fr. Charles Coughlin, 1935-1940”
Elena Mazzini (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa), “Transforming Anti-Semitism: the Civiltà Cattolica after the Shoah (1945-1965)”
Wednesday, July 11
10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Panel IV: Hateful Visions, Hopeful Encounters.
Chair: Serena Parekh, Northeastern University
Lou Charnon-Deutsch (Stony Brook University), “Visions of Hate: Jews and Jesuits in the European Feuilleton”
Audrey Doetzel (independent scholar), “Father Alphonse Ratisbonne and the Founding of the Congregation of Sion”
David Meyer and Jean-Pierre Sonnet, S.J. (Gregorian University, Rome), “The Messiah is Waiting Among the Beggars at the Gate of Rome”
1:30-3:30 p.m.
Panel V: Exclusion and Emancipation.
Chair: Edward McGushin, Stonehill College
Paolo Luca Bernardini (Università dell’Insubria, Como), “The Rabbi and the Jesuit: The Pinamonti-Briel Controversy and Early Modern Christian Hebraism”
Cristiana Facchini (Università di Bologna), “Encounters and Conflicts in the Italian Baroque Age”
Diego Lucci (American University in Bulgaria), “The Suppression of the Jesuits and the Enlightenment Discourse of Jewish Emancipation”
Gianfranco Miletto (Martin-Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg), “Jesuit Influence on Italian Jewish Culture in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries”
Thursday, July 12
10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Panel VI: Myths and Polemics.
Chair: Ruth Langer, Boston College
Dean P. Bell (Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies, Chicago), “Polemics of Confessionalization: Depictions of Jews and Jesuits in Early Modern Germany”
Pawel Maciejko (Hebrew University, Jerusalem), “Rabbi Eibenschuetz and the Jesuits”
Natalya Kireeva (St. Thomas Institute of Philosophy, Theology and History, Moscow), “Jesuits and Jews of Lvov: Patterns of Interaction in 17th and 18th Centuries”
Joshua Z. Teplitsky (New York University), “Princes of Israel and Protectors of the Faith: Politics and Polemics between Jesuits and Jews in Early Modern Prague”
1:30-3:30 p.m.
Panel VII: Jewishness and Conversion.
Chair: Jeremy Clarke, S.J., Boston College
Emanuele Colombo (DePaul University), “Antonio Possevino, New Christians, and Jews. Recent Literature and New Remarks”
Thomas Cohen (Catholic University of America), “António Vieira on Paul and the Jews”
Claude Stuczynski (Bar Ilan University, Ramat-Gan), “Negotiating Relationships: Jesuits and Portuguese Conversos: A Reassessment”
4:30-6:30 p.m.
Panel VIII: Anxiety: Ethnic and National.
Chair: Charles Gallagher, S.J., Boston College
Jeremy Clarke, S.J. (Boston College), “Chinese Judaism’s Jesuit Bulwark”
J. David Lebovitch Dahl (Københavns Universitet, Copenhagen), “Did the Jesuits at La Civiltà Cattolica Develop an Anti-Semitic Culture in the Nineteenth century?”
Marc Rastoin, S.J. (Centre Sèvres, Paris), “Antijudaism and European Nationalism: the Case of the Society of Jesus under Acquaviva”
Friday, July 13
10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Roundtable Panel I: How the Historical Affects the Contemporary
Roundtable Panel II: The Future of Jesuit-Jewish Relations
Conference Ends.
6/20/12
The Society of Jesus has been a leader in the Church's efforts at dialogue with Jews, including the role the Jesuit Cardinal Augustin Bea played in hammering out the groundbreaking declaration Nostra Aetate during Vatican II.
Yet, the history of the relationship of this "tragic couple" has been often filled with bias and animosity, even though the Jesuit founder, Ignatius of Loyola, declared that he would consider it God's special grace to be of the same Jewish lineage of Christ and even though Jesuits of Jewish ancestry had played a crucial role in the foundation and development of the Jesuit Order.
Driven by a desire for deepening the understanding and friendship between the Jewish people and the Society of Jesus, the Center for Christian-Jewish Learning at Boston College is hosting this international conference on the history, nature, dynamics, and current status of the relation between Jews and Jesuits.
This conference brings together scholars of different backgrounds to converse on this topic from an interdisciplinary perspective: biblical exegesis, history, literature, philosophy, theology, and spirituality.