When Pope Paul came to New York last October and said Mass in Yankee Stadium, before a congregation of 40,000 and a hidden audience of untold million television-viewers, he made a special point, no doubt because he was in the world’s most Jewish city, of extending his blessing to ‘the sons of Abraham’. The Mass he said was the Votive Mass for Peace, which has a Gospel beginning: ‘Late in the evening that same day, the first day of the week, although the doors of the place where the disciples had gathered were bolted for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood before them and said: “Peace be to you!” (John 20.19-20). For days afterwards one could meet Jews saying: ‘So that’s what we mean, that’s exactly what we mean’. Quite a few Catholics were bothered about it too (e.g. an angry Jesuit letter to The National Catholic Reporter: ‘unthinking acceptance of scriptural readings chosen long ago by unskilled hands’). The incident with all its sensitiveness and misunderstandings on both sides, was typical enough of the atmosphere in which the ‘Schema on the Jews’ was received in the U.S.A.

Ever since the close of the second session the American Jewish press had given prominent space to articles and news reports echoing widely current rumours about the strength of the forces in or near the Vatican opposing a definitive statement on anti-Semitism.