Pawlikowski's lecture gives new meaning to the Year of St. Paul

On October 22, the National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education (NCCHE) hosted an event in honor of the Year of St. Paul, which was designated by Pope Benedict XVI.

In a lecture titled, “Which Paul Are We Celebrating during the Jubilee?” Rev. John T. Pawlikowski OSM, Ph.D. spoke to the Seton Hill University (SHU) community. Frances Leap, a professor of theology at SHU introduced Pawlikowski by saying that “he was instrumental with the Catholic-Jewish studies program on writing reflections and missions.”

Pawlikowski, a professor of social ethics at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, the country’s largest graduate school of theology and ministry, director of the Catholic-Jewish Studies Program in the school’s Cardinal Joseph Bernarin Center, and former president of the International Council of Christian and Jews, stressed the importance of Paul in the Christian and Jewish communities, “Historically Paul has been represented as someone who really helped start Christianity, but he was also an instrumental person in Judaism as well,” said Pawlikowski.

The jubilee year of St. Paul is from Jun 28, 2008 to July 29, 2009 and happens to be the occasion of the bi-millennium of Paul’s birth. Through out his lecture, Pawlikowski praised Paul for his work, “Paul was viewed as the primary teacher of the idea of Christianity,” said Pawlikowski.

Though now we can see that there is a difference in Judaism and Christianity, Pawlikowski brought up the idea that Christ never wanted that difference to occur. “We cannot discuss a central break in Jewish-Christian relationships when we do not even have evidence that Jesus wanted separate religions for the two,” said Pawlikowski.

Megan Seigh, a sophomore at SHU, who attended Pawlikowski’s lecture, said that she wished she knew more about the subject, before attending the lecture. “I thought the lecture was very informative, but at times it was hard to follow because I did not know all the references he made to other works in this area,” she said.

Pawlikowski further mentioned the idea of which Paul we are celebrating by posing the question “...is it the Paul of Acts who disregarded the Jewish side of himself or is it the one that wanted to be in the Jewish light and have Gentiles participate in some Jewish traditions?”

Pawlikowski continually praised St. Paul for his good works and ended by saying, “Was he the founder of Christianity or a faithful Jew? To say it simply he was both.”

The lecture was sponsored by the NCCHE at SHU and was held in the Greensburg Room on campus. Many of the SHU community were in attendance including students, faculty and staff.