The Locked Gates of Teshuvah: Doctrinal and Philosophical Difficulties Underlying the Official repentance of the Christian Churches for Their Role in the Holocaust: Stuttgart Declaration 1948 - Pope’s Day of Pardon 2000

Abstract

The thesis is a critical examination of the ecclesiological doctrines underpinning the official repentance for the Holocaust offered by the Christian Churches from the Stuttgart Declaration of 1948 until the Pope's Day of Pardon in 2000. Firstly, the repentance itself is examined - with a focus on We Remember - a statement issued by the Roman Catholic Church in March 1998. The thesis then explores the underlying understanding of repentance evidenced in this and other documents, and the way repentance connects with the ecclesiological doctrines of the Churches. By comparing Catholic and Orthodox/neo-Orthodox Protestant ecclesiologies with Jewish understandings of community and repentance, the thesis demonstrates that shortcomings in the official statements of repentance are rooted in the ecclesiologies of the Churches. In particular, doctrines of the Church as Body of Christ are problematic in that they prevent full expressions of collective repentance. The quasi-divinity of the Church - a doctrine present in both Roman Catholic and in Orthodox/neo-Orthodox Protestant formulations of the faith – has prevented the Churches from acknowledging collective guilt and has restricted repentance to an individual matter. The thesis concludes with suggestions about the way collective repentance should be understood and practised, and about the way the metaphor of Church as Body of Christ should be interpreted.