Cardinal O'Connor's grandmother was Jewish, his grandfather a rabbi

Rabbi James Prosnit of B’nai Israel at the grave of the cardinal’s grandfather Gustave Gumpel.
Alison L. Cowan, "The Rabbi Cardinal O'Connor Never Knew: His Grandfather" (New York Times, June 10, 2014):

"... Cardinal John Joseph O’Connor was a staunch friend and defender of the Jewish people.... Yet there was something Cardinal O’Connor apparently never knew: His mother was born a Jew, the daughter of a rabbi."

See also: "Cardinal O'Connor Jewish?" (A Catholic Jew Pontificates, June 11, 2014) -- an essay with photos:

Recently the sister of Cardinal O'Connor discovered that their mother Dorothy was Jewish. Dorothy who was born as Deborah Gumple or D'vora Gumpel was the daughter of an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi and Shokhet (Kosher butcher). She left her family and became a Catholic in 1908 when she was 19 and she married the Catholic Thomas O'Connor in 1909. She never spoke of her Jewish background to her children, they had assumed she had been of Lutheran heritage. The New York times has a great article about it here. The Jewish Week also gives an account.

[Hat tip to CB]

Why the Jews Are Not the Enemies of the Church

John Lamont, "Why the Jews Are Not the Enemies of the Church" (Homiletic & Pastoral Review, March 6, 2014):

It is not true, in any sense, that the Jews are the enemies of the Church, and the characterization of them as enemies ... (is) unjust. It is worthwhile explaining why this is so, because (it was) once widely held, and is still found in some circles....


In a recent talk in Canada, Bishop Bernard Fellay, a member of The Society of Saint Pius X (FSSPX), stirred controversy by remarking that the Second Vatican Council was looked on favorably by the Jews, Freemasons, and Modernists, who are all enemies of the Church, and that this was a reason for objecting to the council itself. One should not read too much into Bishop Fellay’s remark itself, since it was a brief aside, and since he has never in the past expressed anything more than the basic Christian claims about Jews. The remark should, nonetheless, not have been made, and should now be corrected. It is not true, in any sense, that the Jews are the enemies of the Church, and the characterization of them as enemies is thus unjust. It is worthwhile explaining why this is so, because the belief that the Jews are enemies of Catholics was once widely held, and is still found in some circles. Priests will thus find it helpful to have a fairly comprehensive account of why the belief is wrong.

To show that the Jews are not the enemies of the Church requires an examination that addresses all the principal attacks on Jews that arise in discussion of this question.

One such attack maintains that the Jews are enemies of the Church in virtue of their religious beliefs. The religious beliefs in question are those of Rabbinic Judaism, which has been the dominant form of Jewish religious belief for the past two millennia. Rabbinic Judaism developed as a result of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in A.D. 70, which removed the center of Jewish religious life. Some replacement for the Temple was required if Jewish religious existence was to continue. In the century or so after the destruction of the Temple, the study and observance of the Jewish Law was developed as this replacement.

The fundamental idea of the new structure of Jewish religion was that, in addition to the written law in the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament or the Torah: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), Moses received an unwritten law from God on Mt. Sinai, which was passed down by word of mouth through a succession of rabbis. This unwritten law was then supposed to have been committed to writing in the Mishnah—the collection of rabbinic traditions which supplements and systematizes the commandments of the Torah—which was completed around 200 A.D. The Mishnah contains laws on agriculture, festivals, marriage, civil and criminal law, ritual laws, and purifications. It is essentially an attempt to record and perpetuate the religious and legal views held by the scribes and Pharisees prior to the destruction of the Temple, together with inevitable covert extensions of these views. The difficulties of the Mishnah led to the composition of an authoritative commentary on it, the Gemara, completed in the 5th century, which exists in both Palestinian and Babylonian versions. The Mishnah and Gemara together make up the Talmud; the Babylonian version is the one generally used.

The reason why Rabbinic Jews are not enemies of the Church can be put briefly. Such Jews do not seek to convert Christians to Judaism, or to prevent non-Jewish Christians from exercising their faith. They only refuse to become Christians themselves, which does not suffice to make them “enemies” of the Church.

This can be seen by contrasting Rabbinic Jews with Muslims. It is a tenet of Islam that Christianity has been replaced by the message of Mohammed, and that Christians should convert to Islam. It is a duty for Muslims to impose sharia law on the whole of humanity, by force if necessary. (Sharia law, according to Muslims, is a moral code and religious law.) This law systematically discriminates against Christians in a way that is designed to induce them to convert to Islam. This Muslim position does constitute Muslims as “enemies” of the Church, because it commits them to actively working for the destruction of Christianity. This purpose of destruction is what constitutes being an enemy, and it is not present among Rabbinic Jews.

Although this brief explanation suffices to prove its conclusion, it is helpful to expand on it by addressing in detail the various arguments that have been offered for the Jews being the enemies of the Church. The principal arguments are the following.

Lamont takes up the following arguments:

1. The Scriptures state that the Jews are enemies of the Church.
2. “The denial of the divinity, and the Messianic status, of Christ is the central idea of Rabbinic Judaism. Since Rabbinic Jews work to deny the divinity of Christ, they work to destroy the Catholic Church, which manifests his divinity.”
3. “Rabbinic Judaism is not the religion of the Jews of the Old Testament, but is, instead, a new religion that is based on hostility to Christ.”
4. “The Talmud permits Jews to behave immorally towards Gentiles.”
5. “Because Rabbinic Jews deny the doctrine of the Trinity, they do not believe in the same God as the Christians.”
6. “The Talmud is an evil, anti-Christian work.”

Lamont also consideres the different contemporary Jewish groups that are significant for the Church, including:

1. Believing and practising Rabbinic Jews.
2. Secular Jews.
3. Conservative Jews.
4. The state of Israel.
5. Jewish organizations involved in relations with the Holy See.

After a detailed discussion of these, Lamont concludes:

Accurate knowledge of the main contemporary Jewish groups ... reveals that it is wrong to describe the Jews as enemies of the Church. That does not mean that there are no Jewish enemies of the Church; to deny that this is the case would be absurd—it would mean that Trotsky or Freud, for example, were not hostile to the Catholic faith. But it does mean that it is false and unjust to describe the Jewish people, or Jewish religious believers, as enemies of the Catholic Church.

Read more >>

Trotskyite Republicans? Where are we headed?

The apparent balkanization of the Republican party got me thinking about just how diverse are the views held under the political umbrella of that party. Using the familiar jargon of the popular media, there are the social conservatives, the fiscal conservatives, the evangelicals, the moderate conservatives, big government conservatives, libertarian conservatives, and about a dozen or two more variations and combinations among the rest of prospective voting blocks, ranging from Tea Party conservatives to moderate swing voters. There seem to be very few individuals any more capable of capturing the imagination and enthusiasm of the entire GOP voting block and really uniting it the way Ronald Reagan did, just as there seems to be nearly nobody anymore who can unite this deeply divided country of these "United" States.

Just how deeply this balkanization runs was driven home for me by a video clip by Sen. Ron Paul I recently discovered from May of last year in which he endeavors to expose the neocon agenda in American government by showing us what nocons really believe. The term "neocon," of course, is about as hard to pin down as "liberal" or "fundamentalist" these days; but what Sen. Paul means by it is the political movement whose descendants stem historically from left-wing Ashkenazi Jewish Trotskyites who now identify themselves explicitly as "neo-conservatives" and include the spiritual stepchildren of Leo Strauss and Irving Kristol, like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Pearl, Elliot Abrams, Robert Kegan, William Kristol, Michael Ledeen, James Woolsey,Frank Gaffney, and others like Dick Cheney, William Bennett, Ronald Rumsfeld, and Rupert Murdoch (owner of Fox New, The Wall Street Journal, and, I believe, the New York Post and Weekly Standard).

He mentions as key beliefs and assumptions of such neoconservatives: (1) Trotsky's historical tenet of permanent revolution, (2) redrawing the map of the Middle East, (3) pre-emptive war to achieve desired ends, (4) that the ends justify the means, (5) support for the welfare state, (6) American Empire-building, (7) the necessity of deceiving the public in the interest of the state's survival, (8) the necessity of a strong, centralized federal government, (9) the government by an 'elite', (10) opposition to American neutrality in foreign affairs, (11) reject libertarianism and constitutionalism, (12) the necessity of compromising civil liberties for security, as in the Patriot Act, (13) unconditional support for Israel and the Likud Party.

He mentions also the promotion of these ideas via the agenda of the American Enterprise Institute and the Project for a New American Century, as well as its parent organization, the Bradley Foundation. He mentions the (unwitting?) support for this neoconservative agenda, as well as for Israeli Zionism (usually for fundamentalist biblical-theological reasons) by various Christian Evangelicals and Fundamentalists.

You get the picture. None of this is really new, though it may be news to some. It has all been said by others before in various places, including Dale Vree, the former editor of New Oxford Review, in a December, 2005, editorial, "What is a Neoconservative? -- & Does It Matter?," who talked at some length about the ultra-Left Communist (Trotskyite) origins of modern American political neoconservatism. It has been said before by the likes of Jack Bernstein in "The Life of an American Jew in Racist Marxist Israel" (1985), who, among other things, pointed out the radical racial discrimination between the Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews in Israel, the former of European descent, usually Zionists and often of Marxist orientation; the latter of Middle Eastern descent, religiously conservative, poor and persecuted. The agenda of American neoconservativism would be perceived as "friendly" by the Jewish Zionist movement, while there are other Jewish groups decidedly opposed to such an agenda, such as the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network.

None of this is surprising as such. What surprised me, however, is that it came from Sen. Ron Paul. But then, what did I know about Ron Paul? Next-to-nothing, except for what I've read and seen in the mainstream media and the public debates, where he hasn't been very impressive.

Like most everyone else, I see things I like and dislike in all of the Republican candidates. I like the fact that Sen. Santorum has a clear Catholic vision and can articulare an intelligent rationale for some of the Church's positions on social issues. I like some of the zingers launched by Speaker Newt Gingrich in his debates. I like the flat tax idea floated by Gov. Perry. I like the usual poise under pressure of Mr. Romney. I even like the occasional statement by Sen. Paul. But I'm not confident that any of these can unite the party, let alone the country, although I would just love to be pleasantly surprised. I am more-and-more confident, however, that the real winner in this election, like the last, will be the mainstream media; and while I hope it makes some difference which party occupies the presidential office, I'm no longer convinced that any candidate, once elected, can likely turn this country around, now that it's hit the greased skids to what looks like spiritual as well as socio-economic suicide.

Antisemite blog trolls

"A Dialogue with a Troll" (Fringe Watch, January 26, 2011) recounts a combox incident attendant to our post, "Our brilliant dismal education results" (January 2, 2011), and begins by observing:

There's nothing like a blog-post about Israel to bring the loons out of the woodwork. So when Dr. Philip Blosser (aka. Pertinacious Papist) circulated a video demonstrating UCLA college students' appalling ignorance about Israel, it came as no suprise that his comments box would be infested by a troll.

All-too-often certain anti-semitic rad-trads, animated by the discovery that bad things are said about Jesus in the Talmud (a loose conglomeration of commentary on everything under the sun), assume that this gives them warrant for tarring all Jews as Christ-killers and sworn enemies of the Church -- which makes about as much sense as holding all white Americans responsible for the slave trade or holding all Germans responsible for Naziism, or holding all Italians responsible for Nero's execution of the Apostles Peter and Paul in ancient Rome. What they don't seem to know is that even these passages of the Talmud are strongly contested within the Jewish community.

Perhaps most appalling is the whole attitude that says 'let's dredge up the worst possible thing this or that Jew might have said about Christianity' and toss it into an internet conversation to stir the pot, as though it were a real argument. The poster's intent speaks for itself.

Another claim of the combox interloper calling for clarification is the 'Christians had it better under Saddam' statement. While we have called attention to the present plight of Chaldean Catholics in Iraq (see our post, "In Memoriam: Massacre of Chaldean Catholics in Iraq," Musings, November 21, 2010), we are also well-aware that those Catholics Iraqis who have lived or still live in Iraq are well-aware of the sufferings -- the torture, the rapes, the murders, the assassinations, the secret police under the previous administration -- on which the relative safety and security they enjoyed were sadly predicated. For an observer to smugly suggest that 'Christians had it better under Saddam' is akin to suggesting that the Germans might have "had it good" during the early days of the Third Reich. Such "observations" ultimately get us nowhere, but perhaps distract us from the real question: who are the oppressors and persecutors now?

The aforementioned Fringe Watch post does a thorough job of analyzing and debunking these common sorts of misconceptions. Topical headings of the post include: 1) Jesus in the Talmud; 2) Muslims or Jews - which are more hospitable to Christians? 3) What does it mean that Christians "had it better under Saddam Hussein?" Well worth the read.

Divine grace & the conversion of Hadley Arkes

I first encountered the writings of the pro-life Jewish author in the pages of Crisis Magazine, back in its heyday. Now, blessed be God, he has converted to the Catholic Faith and has been received into the Church. Robert George captures beautifully the spirit of the occasion, in "The operation of divine grace on Hadley Arkes . . . and friends" (Mirror of Justice, April 26, 2010):

Evelyn Waugh described his masterpiece Brideshead Revisited as a story about "the operation of divine grace on a diverse but closely connected group of characters." Yesterday, I had the profoundly moving experience of witnessing the operation of grace on a particular person and a diverse group of people who were connected to each other through him. That person, Hadley Arkes, the Edward Ney Professor of Jurisprudence and American Institutions at Amherst College, was received into the Catholic Church in a beautiful ceremony in the chapel of the Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C. Enveloped in the love of his many friends and admirers, Hadley was baptized, confirmed, and received his first communion.

Hadley is an outstanding political philosopher and constitutional theorist who has dedicated much of his professional life to defending the dignity and rights of the child in the womb. In remarks after the service yesterday, he explained that his faith in Christ had come through the Church. The Church's moral witness, especially on the sanctity of human life and on marriage and sexual morality---a witness that has in our time made the Church a "sign of contradiction" to the most powerful and influential elements of the elite sector of contemporary western culture---persuaded him that the Church is, despite the failings of so many of its members and leaders, fundamentally "a truth-teaching institution." In teachings that many find to be impediments, Hadley found decisive evidence that the Church is, indeed, what she claims to be.

Speaking of his Jewish identity, Hadley said that he neither would nor could ever leave the Jewish people. His entry into the Church was for him, he stated, a fulfillment of his Jewish faith, and in no way a repudiation of it. Invoking the testimony and authority of the late Cardinal Lustiger of Paris, he declared that he was and would always remain a Jew, though a Jew who, like the earliest Christians, had come to accept Jesus as "the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Hadley's sponsor was Michael Novak, who read aloud some charming verses he had composed for the occasion. The other speakers were Daniel Robinson of the Philosophy Faculty at Oxford University, Michael Uhlmann of the Political Science Department at Claremont Graduate School, David Forte of the Cleveland State University Law School, and your humble correspondent. The chapel was overflowing with people who had come from all over the country. The spirit of joy was extraordinary. Part of the reason for that, I believe, is that every person in the room had become a better Christian as a result of Hadley's friendship, long before Hadley himself entered the Church. More than a few people credited Hadley for their own conversions (or reversions). Like G.K. Chesterton, he spent years leading others into the Church before he walked through the door himself.

[Hat tip to E.E.]

Convert rabbi's book on Jesus re-issued

Sandro Magister, "The Jew, Jesus, Who Changed the Life of the Chief Rabbi of Rome" (www.chiesa, February 10, 2010), writes:

ROME, February 24, 2010 – The first person he told that he had finished writing his book about Jesus was a Jewish rabbi, on the day after his visit to the synagogue of Rome, last January 18.

The rabbi is the American Jacob Neusner, and the author of the book is Benedict XVI.

The first volume of "Jesus of Nazareth" by pope Joseph Ratzinger was released three years ago. And now the second and concluding volume of the work, dedicated to the passion and resurrection of Jesus and to the infancy narratives, is ready for translation and printing.

Meanwhile, however, with significant coordination of timing, another important book about Jesus has been reprinted in recent days in Italy, entitled "Il Nazareno," written more than seventy years ago by a great Italian rabbi.

Not only that. A very positive review of this new edition of the book was published on February 20 in "L'Osservatore Romano," written by a famous scholar, Anna Foa, a Jewish professor of history at the University of Rome "La Sapienza."

And this review also marks an important new development. The author of the book, Israel Zoller, was chief rabbi of the Jewish community of Rome. And in 1945, he converted to the Catholic faith.

The stunning news of his conversion rocked the Roman and Italian Jewish community. And it responded with a silence that lasted for decades.

Anna Foa's review in "the pope's newspaper" has definitively broken this silence. Moreover, she has acknowledged that in that book, although it was written many years before its author's conversion, there already "seemed to appear between the lines a recognition of the messianic character of Christ."

Read a brief biography of Rabbi Israel Zoller, as well as Anna Foa's review, here (scroll down).

Israel Zoller, took the name Eugenio Zolli in honor of Pope Pius XII after his conversion to Catholicism. An English translation of his book is entitled The Nazarene: Studies in New Testament Exegesis(1999), and was given a very positive Review of The Nazarene by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Why Jews lean left

Why do Jews lean to the Left? -- a masterful analysis by Irving Kristol (1920-2009), a Trotskyite in the 1930s who would soon sour on socialism, break with the New Left in the 1960s to become the godfather of American "neo-conservatism" and commit the unthinkable -- support the Republican Party, once as "foreign to me as attending a Catholic Mass."

Commentary magazine has opened to the public their archives of his writing spanning his life. Kristol passed away last Friday.

Irving Kristol, "Liberalism & American Jews," Commentary (October 1988).

[Hat tip to C.B.]

Oh, come now.

• "Chief Rabbinate cuts ties with Vatican" (Jerusalem Post, January 27, 2009)
  
• "Pope Voices Support for Jews, Rejects Holocaust Denial" (Washington Post, January 28, 2009)

Kasper: how Vatican II teaches prayer for Jewish conversion

On Good Friday, Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the Vatican's Commission for Religious Relations With the Jews, published an article defending Benedict XVI's revisions to the "Good Friday Prayer for the Jews" in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: "Das Wann und Wie entscheidet Gott" (March 21, 2008). Christopher Blosser, "Kasper's attack on dual covenant theology: how Vatican II teaches prayer for Jewish conversion" (Against the Grain, April 8, 2008), links an English translation [pdf] by Dr. Thomas Pink (King's College London) along with his extended observations in the form of a guest post. Excerpts:

• Concerning the article's standing: ... Kasper's emphasis and choice of terms are certainly not those of Cardinal Schoenborn's recent Tablet defence of the Christian evangelization of Jews (Judaism’s way to salvation March 29, 2008). But I do not see any serious theological conflict between them or between either and Benedict.
  
  
• If there is an internal theological target being aimed at by Kasper, it is very clearly dual covenant theology.
  
  This is the view, increasingly widespread in certain US and German theological circles involved in Jewish dialogue, that the Jews have their own saving covenant distinct from and independent of that offered by Christ to the Gentiles, and that therefore there is no ground for Jews to convert to Christianity and enter the Church. Jewish conversion is not something for which the Church should call, pray, or strive. The dual covenant camp, theologians such as Pawlikowski et al, try and base all discussion on Nostra Aetate, and interpret this actually very short and vague declaration in isolation from preceding documents of the Council. They treat Nostra Aetate as a whole New Pentecost on its own, from which among Church documents all future Judaeo-Christian dialogue is supposed uniquely to develop, and on which whatever speculative theological structure they fancy can then be erected as new 'Church teaching'. Kasper will not have this, and reinforces the standing of Nostra Aetate by relating it to the rest of the Council, and in particular to the greater authority of Lumen Gentium. But the content of Lumen Gentium is flatly opposed to dual covenant theology, as we can see from Lumen Gentium paragraph 9, a passage that very clearly states Catholic teaching on the relation of the Jewish people to the Church and the New Covenant:

  "[God] therefore chose the race of Israel as a people unto Himself. With it He set up a covenant. Step by step He taught and prepared this people, making known in its history both Himself and the decree of His will and making it holy unto Himself. All these things, however, were done by way of preparation and as a figure of that new and perfect covenant, which was to be ratified in Christ, and of that fuller revelation which was to be given through the Word of God Himself made flesh. "Behold the days shall come saith the Lord, and I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel, and with the house of Judah . . . I will give my law in their bowels, and I will write it in their heart, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people . . . For all of them shall know Me, from the least of them even to the greatest, saith the Lord." (Jeremiah 31) Christ instituted this new covenant, the new testament, that is to say, in His Blood, calling together a people made up of Jew and gentile, making them one, not according to the flesh but in the Spirit. This was to be the new People of God."

  Dual covenant theology, it seems to me, cannot survive this passage.
  
  Notice that here the Council quotes Jeremiah chapter 31 as a prophetic foretelling of the New Covenant. It is important that Kasper refers, via discussion of St Paul, to Jeremiah 31 too, as a prophetic foretelling of the future salvation of the Jews - which, by the Pauline argument, will consist in the future saving reincorporation of the Jews into the olive tree of salvation from which they have become cut off. That olive tree, then, in the context of Jeremiah 31 is Israel (as Lumen Gentium para 9 later on also terms the Church - the 'New Israel') considered as the People of Jeremiah's New Covenant. There is only one covenant for the Jews to return to, one shared with the Gentiles.
  
  Another point that Kasper emphasizes repeatedly from the start is that Jesus really is the Christ, that is, the Jewish Messiah. But the logic of dual covenant theology is surely to put this in some doubt. (Or so I've always thought - and so Luke Timothy Johnson at least seems willing to move towards concluding: see this amazing piece in which Luke Timothy Johnson says, it seems, that Jews should not let Christians persuade them into seeing Jesus as truly the Jewish Messiah).
  
  
• The 2008 prayer clearly is viewed by Kasper (and one presumes Benedict as well) to concern the conversion of the Jewish people as a whole. ...
  
  
• Clearly St Paul in addressing the synagogues was aiming at conversions, and moved on only when he did not find them. ...
  
  
• Hence in this field, traditionalist mistrust of Kasper seems misplaced, and is based on a misunderstanding. ...
  
  
• The 1962 and 1970 liturgies: united in prayer for Jewish conversion ...

[Hat tip to Raphael's father, C.E.Y.B.]

Sungenis removes Jewish material from CAI website after contact from bishop

It has come to our attention that in a PDF document entitled "Catholic Apologetics International and its Teachings on the Jews," Robert Sungenis, President of CAI, reports that as a result of a letter from his bishop, the Very Reverend Kevin C. Rhoades of Harrisburg, PA, and a follow-up meeting with his vicar general, the Very Reverend William J. King, JCD, along with the executive director for ecumenical and inter-religious affairs of the USCCB, the Reverend James Massa, he has removed controversial material about Jews and Judaism from the CAI website. "Since our apostolate, in both name and content, publicizes itself as a Catholic institution that teaches the Catholic faith," and since "I am a faithful son of the Catholic Church," who takes "their wisdom and counsel with the utmost seriousness," as "from God himself," says Sungenis, "I consider it a privilege to obey them." Mr. Sungenis deserves our gratitude for this gesture and our prayers for fortification in his resolution to remain faithful to Mother Church. Deo Gratias.

The Rabbi vs. the Pope

"A Rabbi Debates with the Pope. And What Divides Them Is Still Jesus" (www.chiesa, June 12, 2007).

The rabbi is Jacob Neusner, to whom Benedict XVI dedicates many pages of his latest book. In the judgment of both, the disputes between Judaism and Christianity should not conceal, but rather bring to light their respective claims to truth.

May Jewish & gentile Catholics celebrate Seder Meals?

Robert Sungenis thinks not. If you visit his Catholic Apologetics International website, you will find not only his critique of the Jewish Catholic convert, Roy Schoeman, but at least five links to articles and discussions on whether Jewish traditions and customs under the Old Covenant (like the Seder Meal) have any abiding validity and worth for Catholics, and still more links on the question of the relationship between the two covenants.

The latest response to these statements is by Ben Douglass, a former associate of Sungenis, who takes issue with him in "A Last Response from Douglasstein" (Pugio Fidei, april 17, 2007). Among other things, he cites the following words of Pope Benedict XIV (fourteenth, not sixteenth) from his Ex Quo Prium (On the Euchologion):

If a man should perform acts for a different end and purpose (even with the intention of worship and as religious ceremonies), not in the spirit of that Law nor on the basis of it, but either from personal decision, from human custom, or on the instruction of the Church, he would not sin, nor could he be said to judaize. So when a man does something in the Church which resembles the ceremonies of the old Law, he must not always be said to judaize. [Ex Quo, 67]

He also takes issue with Sungenis' attempt (Q & A April 2007) to deflect the import of the following (related) words from Ex Quo Prium:

But others remarked wisely that some, surely, of the ceremonial rites of the old Law could be observed under the new Law if only they were not done as obligations of the old Law, which was abrogated, but as a custom, or lawful tradition, or as a new precept issued by one enjoying the recognized and competent authority to make laws and to enforce them, as Vasquez observes (vol. 3, in the 3rd part of the Summa, disp. 210, quest. 80, art. 7). [Ex Quo, 74]

A joyous Passover

I noticed in Sandro Magister's post on Good Friday, in which he offered Easter greetings in four different languages, that the English language is the only language of those four (English, Italian, French and Spanish) in which the term for Easter lacks any etymological connection to the Jewish word for Passover. Here they are:

• Best Wishes for a Happy Easter! (English)
• Tanti auguri di buona Pasqua! (Italian)
• Joyeuses Pâques! (French)
• ¡Feliz Pascua de Resurrección! (Spanish)

'Pasqua', 'Pâques', and 'Pascua' are each etymologically derived from the term Pesach (Hebrew: פֶּסַח) or, more precisely, the verb "pasàch" (Hebrew: פָּסַח) which is first mentioned in the Old Testament account of the flight from Egypt (Exodus 12:23) in Moses' words that God "will pass over" the houses of the Children of Israel during the last of the Ten Plagues of Egypt, in which the first-born were killed. ("Passover," Wikipedia).

Granted, there are other European languages in which other terms, not derived from Hebrew, are used to refer to the Sunday marking the feast of the Lord's Resurrection and the liturgical season of Easter. Examples include Wielkanoc (Polish), Veľká Noc (Slovak), and Velika noč (Slovenian) -- each of which translates literally as "the Great Night"; or Velikonoce (Czech), which means "Great Nights" (plural, no singular exists); or Vialikdzen’ (Belarusian), Velikden (Bulgarian), and Veligden (Macedonian) -- each of which means "the Great Day"; or Lieldienas (Latvian), which means "the Great Days" (no singular exists). There are, of course, other variations in other languages too.

"Easter," by the way, is not derived etymologically from the Babylonian fertility goddess Ishtar (other variants: Eshtar, Astarte and Ashtoreth), no matter what the phonetic similarities may suggest to the overheated imaginations of Romophobe Fundamentalists like Ralph Woodrow, Alexander Hislop, and their red headed stepchildren. Europe never had a cult of Babylonian goddess worship. Rather, it derives from the name of an Anglo Saxon goddess, Eostre, who was celebrated during the season of Eosturmonath, the equivalent of April. As the British Benedictine monk, the Venerable Bede (672 - 735) explains:

Eosturmonath, qui nunc paschalis mensis interpretatur, quondam a dea illorum quae Eostre vocabatur et cui in illo festa celebrabant nomen habuit.

("Eosturmonath, which is now interpreted as the paschal month, was formerly named after the goddess Eostre, and has given its name to the festival.") (De temporum ratione)^[1]

Nonetheless, I wish that references to this most important religious feast of the Christian liturgical year could be expressed in our language in a way that more directly exhibited the connections with the Jewish Passover, since that is what Jesus is:

Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast. Allelujah!

This is not Judaizing. It is simply fact: Christianity is preeminently Jewish. The Church is the New Israel. The word 'Allelujah' or 'Hallelujah' is Hebrew and means "[Let us] praise (הַלְּלוּ) Jah (Yah) (יָהּ)" -- 'Jah' or 'Yah' meaning 'God'. 'Amen' is Hebrew (אָמֵן ’) and means "So be it" or "Truly." Many of the traditional prayers of the Mass are derived from Hebrew liturgical sources, as Louis Bouyer shows in Eucharist: Theology and Spirituality of the Eucharist (1989). Many of these connections have been eclipsed by developments over the last few of generations in the effort to make Catholicism more accessible to contemporary society. This, I think, is highly unfortunate. We have been so immersed in chocolate Easter bunnies and Easter eggs that we've lost touch with the Hebrew roots of this Catholic feast on the level of our popular culture.^[2]

Wikipedia lists 35 languages with terms for Easter that derive from the Hebrew Pesach (פסח) for "Passover." These include:

• Latin Pascha or Festa Paschalia
• Greek Πάσχα (Paskha)
• Afrikaans Paasfees
• Albanian Pashkët
• Catalan Pasqua
• Danish Påske
• Dutch Pasen or paasfeest
• Finnish Pääsiäinen
• French Pâques
• Icelandic Páskar
• Indonesian Paskah
• Italian Pasqua
• Japanese 聖大パスハ (Seitai Pasuha, "Holy and Great Pascha")
• Rhine German Paisken
• Malayalam: പെശഹ (Pæsacha/Pæsaha)
• Norwegian Påske
• Persian Pas`h
• Polish Pascha
• Portuguese Páscoa
• Romanian Paşte
• Russian Пасха (Paskha)
• Spanish Pascua
• Swedish Påsk
• Tagalog (Philippines) Pasko ng Muling Pagkabuhay (literally "the Pasch of the Resurrection")
• Turkish Paskalya
• Welsh Pasg

From now on, I think I may undertake to respond to greetings of "Happy Easter" with some variation of "A Joyous Passover." I know there is nothing essentially wrong with appropriating the term 'Easter' as we have for Christian use. But I like the solidarity of "Joyous Passover" with "Joyeuses Pâques!" and the numerous other languages offering variations on the Hebrew Pesach (פסח) for "Passover." Furthermore, it seems eminently fitting.

Notes:

1. St. Bede, De temporum ratione ("On the Reckoning of Time"), Ch. xv, "The English months" (Source, in Latin), see Wikipedia, "Easter, Etymology" and "Bede's account of Eostre." [back]


2. In this connection, there are several books that come to mind (in addition to Bouyer's excellent volume cited above) that touch on this subject:
   
   
   • James J. Meagher, How Christ Said the First Mass or the Lord's Last Supper (1985) This book is by a traditional Catholic author and explores the Old Testament sources of the Mass in detail.
     
     
   • Mike Aquila, The Mass of the Early Christians (2001) This volume by a well-known contemporary Catholic writer explores the apostolic origins of the Mass and its Jewish antecedents, showing the continuity of the development from origins and throughout history.
     
     
   • Ceil Rosen and Moishe Rosen, Christ in the Passover: Why is This Night Different (1978) This popular little booklet is by a Jewish Evangelical Christian convert and founder of the Jews for Jesus, and explores the Christian symbolism in the Jewish Passover Seder and Haggadah. The symbolism is amazingly rich, even though non-Christian Jews will obviously dispute his interpretations. [back]

Addendum

Fr. John Zuhlsdorf offers a podcast from Rome, "Tenebrae factae sunt - Good Friday ", as he indicates in his blog on the subject, What Does The Prayer Really Say? April 6, 2007. [Hat tip to Bornacatholic].