Oberman Tells of Pressure Politics In Ecumenical Council Proceedings

"The weakening of the resolution on anti-semitism by the Ecumenical Council was a political move, there's no doubt about it," Heiko A. Oberman. Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History, declared yesterday after returning from the Council's recent session at the Vatican.

Oberman, the delegate of the international Council of Congregational Churches, said the resolution to dissoclate the Jewish people from any collective responsibility for the death of Christ had been subjected to determined lobbying Lobbvists nearly succeeded in persuading the Vatican's near-dictatorial executive branch to reject the reforms, Oberman said. The Vatican has a political structure as high-powered as any national government, according to Oberman.

Throughout the four years the Council considered the decree, Arab diplomats pressured the Vatican's state department to drop the proposals. Bisheps from these countries also pleaded for the status quo before the Pope.

"These representatives claimed their interests were anti-Israel rather than anti semitic." Oberman explained. "and maintained that any doctrinal change by the Ecumenical Council would look like a support of Zionism."

Arabs submitted amendments curbing the liberal reforms of the decree, and the Pone approved many of them. Pope Paul VI exhibited such a negative attitude toward the doctrinal revision that as late as last May, he was ready to withdraw the resolution completely, Oberman said.

"It is an amazing tribute: to the progressive members of the Council that such a positive statement emerged."