Friday, December 18, 2015

New Vatican document on Judaism provokes controversy

Under the signatures of Cardinal Kurt Koch, Rev. Brial Farrell, and Rev. Norbert Hofmann, SDB, respectively the President, Vice-President and Secretary of the Vatican's Commission for Religious Relations With the Jews, the new document has been just released on December 10, 2015), entitled: "The Gifts and the Calling of God are Irrevocable" (Rom 11:29) - A Reflection on the Theological Questions Pertaining to Catholic-Jewish Relations on the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of "Nostra Aetate" (NO.4)

The New York Times immediately ran a headline: "Vatican Says Catholics Should Not Try to Convert Jews" (December 10, 2015), reporting: "Catholics should not try to convert Jews, but should work together with them to fight anti-Semitism, the Vatican said on Thursday in a far-reaching document meant to solidify its increasingly positive relations with Jews. John L. Allen Jr. posted an article on Crux the same day, entitled: "Vatican document on Jews proves that revolution is the new routine." Catholic News Service, like most other mainstream Catholic outlets, tiptoed around the issues without shedding much light (See New Vatican document reflects on relations between Catholics, Jews") -- um, yawn .... Not much help.

If you want to see what things look like in the klieg lights, turn from the "Everything is Awesome" cheerleaders to the "Everything is Damned to Hell" doomsayers, and you just might get a clear fix: According to John Vennari, "Blind Guides: Conciliar Vatican Announces 'No Mission' to Convert Jews" (Catholic Family News, December 12, 2015), the document claims:
  • The New Covenant does not supersede the Old Covenant;[2]
  • The Catholic Church, in principle, should have no mission to convert Jews;[3]
  • The Word of God is present to todays Jews by means of the Torah (and equates this to the Word of God being present to Christians through Jesus Christ);[4]
  • Modern Jews are in an acceptable position before God regarding salvation;[5]
  • “The term covenant, therefore, means a relationship with God that takes effect in different ways for Jews and Christians”;[6]
  • “It does not follow that Jews are excluded from God’s salvation because they do not believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah and the Son of God.”[7]
... and that's just the beginning of his long, long article.

No less interesting is conservative Protestant Peter Helland, on his talk show "Israel," interviewing E. Michael Jones on the recent document:


Why do I think here of the Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times"??? Seems to me that pretty soon those most guilty of being Messias-deniers may not be the Jews, but certain spokesmen for the contemporary Catholic Church.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Half my mind wonders what Yves Congar and DeLubac would have said... The other half says, "Really? Who cares!" At this point everyone involved in vatican II seems wonderfully well-intentioned and woefully wrong-headed, all at once. The proof is in this inedible puddin'. "Theological Commissions"? No thank you.

Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosque said...

ABS thinks all of this is just in keeping with the year of Mirthy declared by Franciscus for these many novelties include such things as appeals to our elder brothers except our elder brothers are younger than we are for the Messias-Deniers of today are the descendants of the Talmudists, a new false religious movement ruptured from the Judaism of the Old Testament and launched by Johanna ben Zakkai 70 AD after the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem for the crime of deicide.

How can they who have no Temple, Priesthood, or Sacrifices be considered our elder brothers? Well, they can't, if one is serious, but during the year of Mirthy? Well, why not?

Our elder brothers are the Jews who accepted the Messias but the Jews do not count them as Jews (See the Law of return in Israel for instance) and, back in the day, the Jews who accepted the Messias were kicked-out of the Synagogue (which is now the synagogue of Satan according to the Apocalypse) but the Catholic Hierarchy seems only to reference as our elder brothers they who are younger than us and they who are Messias-Deniers which makes one wonder what it is they, the Hierarchy, really believes.

Another bit of wry and sly mirth is the reality, by dint of an ineffable irony, that it is the Messias-Deniers who are also the Holocaust-Deniers for they deny that Jesus is the Messias and they deny His Pluperfect Sacrifice on Calvary where His burning love, His fiery charity, replaced the material fire of the old Testament holocausts which were types preparing HIs chosen people to accept His perfect Salvific Act.

So, if a catholic challenges even one putative fact of the horrific crimes committed against the Jews by the nazis, he is not acceptable as a Catholic bishop even if he is one (Williamson) but he is called a Holocaust-Denier and driven out of the sheep gate as a political scapegoat while the real Holocaust-Deniers have sleep overs with Franciscus in Sanctae Marthae and are feted endlessly in grinning gatherings.

Sure, it is a sort of black mirth, but it definitely has the odor of something mirthy.

There are sure to be other ironies and inanities capable of being enjoyed during this year of Mirthy if we but keep both the Faith once delivered and a sense of light-heartedness alive in our souls.

Anonymous said...

antisemitism rules, OK? the church's antidote to it is stil sorely needed.

Catholic Mission said...


No statement from cardinals and bishops criticizing the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's approval of the political document on the Jews.
http://eucharistandmission.blogspot.it/2015/12/no-statement-from-cardinals-and-bishops.html