This article was originally published by CAMERA on April 10, 2026. Reprinted by permission.
See also Matt Fradd's "Catechism" on Christian Zionism: A Point-by-Point Response
Introduction
In his The Daily Wire piece, “Why Ted Cruz Is Wrong About Christian Zionism,” Matt Fradd purports to “lay out the Catholic position” on Christian Zionism “as straightforwardly as possible.” Unfortunately, Fradd’s “mini-catechism” on the subject featuring an embedded video of his conversation with Pints with Aquinas show guest Daniel Suazo:
- Excludes important information for Catholics to consider in developing an informed perspective on Christian Zionism:
- Alternative definitions of Christian Zionism.
- Catholic eschatological expectations about a Jewish return to the land of Israel:
- Patristic and scholastic theologians
- Pope John Paul II
- Catholic affirmations or suggestions that the State of Israel is or could become an eschatological sign:
- Kenrick-Glennon Seminary Associate Professor of Theology Lawrence Feingold
- Roman Catholic and Messianic Jewish Dialogue Group
- Father Antoine Lévy
- Father Elias Friedman
- Former Archbishop of Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schönborn
- Pope Benedict XVI
- Catholic affirmations or suggestions that the biblical promise of land to the Jewish people endures:
- The Preacher to the Papal Household Raniero Cantalamessa
- Catholic Theologian and Philosopher Jacques Maritain
- Duquesne University Professor of Catholic Studies and Theology William M. Wright IV
- Notes on the Correct Way to Present Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesis in the Roman Catholic Church
- The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible
- Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas Lecturer Gavin D’Costa
- Inaccurately suggests eschatology is central to all Christian Zionists.
- Inaccurately suggests the Catholic Church precludes the development of a theological view of the State of Israel.
- Elides distinctions between Old Testament and New Testament conceptions of Gentile inclusion.
- Inaccurately suggests Jews who do not recognize Jesus cease to be Israel.
Excluding Alternative Definitions of Christian Zionism
While Fradd provides a variety of definitions of Zionism, indicating that it can mean “support for a Jewish nation-state, without any claim about biblical prophecy or divine promises,” he only provides one definition of Christian Zionism: “the ideological belief that the modern State of Israel fulfills biblical prophecy concerning the restoration of the Jewish people and that the promises made to Abraham, especially that of land, await a future political realization.” However, other definitions of Christian Zionism exist. For example, in his foreword to a book on Christian Zionism by the scholar of Christian Zionism Faydra L. Shapiro, the Oral Roberts University Graduate School of Theology Emeritus Professor of Biblical Literature and Judaic-Christian Studies Brad H. Young defines Christian Zionism in the following terms:
Christian Zionism may be defined for what it is. Zionism holds that the Jewish people have a right to live in their national homeland. A Christian is a committed follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ within the historic beliefs of the early church in faith and practice. A Christian Zionist joins these two beliefs together (Christian Zionism: Navigating the Jewish-Christian Border, p. x).
By providing only one definition of Christian Zionism that emphasizes biblical prophecy, Fradd effectively obscures the diversity of views among Christian Zionists who would not endorse every particular of Fradd’s definition. The Middlebury College Pardon Tillinghast Professor Emeritus of Religion and scholar of Christian Zionism Shalom Goldman has observed how the term “Christian Zionist” has been used to describe individuals subscribing to a variety of theological and political beliefs:
The term “Christian Zionist” has a much longer history and a much wider connotation [than conservative evangelical churches who are influenced by fundamentalist views]. Over the past century, it has been used to describe Catholics and Protestants, liberals and conservatives, reformers and traditionalists (Zeal for Zion: Christians, Jews, & the Idea of the Promised Land, p. 2).
The founder of political Zionism, Theodor Herzl, used the term “Christian Zionist” to refer to “Christian associates who supported the cause [of Zionism]” (Ibid.). This understanding of “Christian Zionist” would include such Catholics as the British diplomat Sir Mark Sykes and the English writer G. K. Chesterton (A Short History of Christian Zionism: From the Reformation to the Twenty-First Century, p. 5).
Suggesting Eschatology is Central to All Christian Zionist Support for the State of Israel
The definition of Christian Zionism that Fradd provides with its emphasis on the fulfillment of biblical prophecy suggests eschatology is central to all Christian Zionists. Similarly, Suazo suggests that dispensationalism with its eschatological beliefs is central to Christian Zionism when he generalizes that Christian Zionists believe:
God works through these different epochs or breakdowns of time […], and there’s an eschatology tied to it, which leads, all of this, to things such as the rapture […] They believe Christians will be raptured and then Christ will later on reveal himself to the Jewish people, the second people of God, and then bring them also into the fold.
However, the historian of religion and expert on Christian Zionism Daniel G. Hummel has observed that eschatology is less central to the most activist circles of Christian Zionism while attributing a wider range of motives to advocates of Christian Zionism historically than Fradd’s definition allows:
In its most activist circles today, Christian Zionism is less about apocalyptic theology or evangelism than it is a range of political, historical, and theological arguments in favor of the State of Israel based on mutual and covenantal solidarity. In recent years, a type of nation-based prosperity theology, promising material blessings to those who bless Israel, has played a prominent role. In earlier decades, atonement for Christian anti-Judaism and Israel’s strategic importance in the Cold War proved decisive (Covenant Brothers: Evangelicals, Jews, and U.S.-Israeli Relations, p. 3).
An empirical indication that eschatology plays less of a role in motivating young evangelical advocates of Christian Zionism is found in survey data analyzed by the scholars of Christian Zionism Motti Inbari and Kirill Bumin showing a “relative decline of premillennialism” among this demographic (Christian Zionism in the Twenty-First Century: American Evangelical Public Opinion on Israel, p. 163). Inbari and Bumin observed that 20% of young evangelical Christian Zionists “gave political, historical, or foreign policy justifications” (Ibid., p. 152) for such support, not eschatological reasons. Moreover, among the 59% of young evangelicals supporting Israel who provided “religious arguments” for their support for the Jewish State, the top three arguments provided did not explicitly reference eschatological beliefs to which Fradd and Suazo allude.
While Suazo seems to allude to dispensationalism in his description of what Christian Zionists believe, he and Fradd omit that many advocates of the so-called “New Christian Zionism”—a term popularized by the Anglican theologian and Reformed Episcopal Seminary and Jerusalem Seminary Distinguished Professor of Anglican Studies Gerald R. McDermott in a volume dedicated to the subject featuring contributions from a range of believers in Jesus, including Catholic, Mainline, Evangelical, Aramean, and Messianic authors—have sought to distinguish their Christian Zionist beliefs from a dispensationalist theological framework. McDermott explicitly says this in describing the Christian Zionism presented in his edited volume on the subject:
The Christian Zionism that this book proposes is not connected to the dispensationalism [that puts Israel and the church on two different tracks, neither of which runs at the same time and is attached to an elaborate schedule of end-time events dominated by the great tribulation and a rapture of the church that leaves Jews and the rest of the world behind]. It looks to a long history of Christian Zionists who lived long before the rise of dispensationalism and to other thinkers in the last two centuries who have had nothing to do with dispensationalism—theologians such as Karl Barth, Reinhold Niebuhr, Robert Jenson and the Catholic Old Testament scholar Gary Anderson, as well as President Harry Truman (The New Christian Zionism: Fresh Perspectives on Israel & the Land, p. 11).
Fradd also neglects to mention contemporary Catholic intellectuals who have affirmed various features that have come to be associated with Christian Zionism, including the Catholic theologian and Sacred Heart Major Seminary Associate Professor of Old Testament & Biblical Languages André Villeneuve, who has contributed to and produced videos for the Catholics for Israel organization that he directs, and the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas Lecturer Gavin D’Costa, who has authored and co–edited three books featuring Catholic views on Israel.
Excluding Catholic Eschatological Expectations about a Jewish Return to the Land of Israel
Fradd acknowledges that the Catholic Church views the modern State of Israel “[a]s a legitimate political entity,” but he believes that viewing the Jewish return to the land of Israel and the State of Israel as representing the fulfillment of biblical prophecy and promises is incompatible with Catholic teaching. However, various Church fathers, Catholic theologians, Catholics priests, a key editor of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and Popes have affirmed various features that have come to be associated with Christian Zionism, including the belief that the restoration of the Jewish people to the land of Israel would happen in the future, suggested a return of Jewish people to the land of Israel fulfills biblical prophecy, and indicated that the return of Jewish political sovereignty over the land of Israel as embodied by the State of Israel constitutes an eschatological sign and a necessary development enabling the realization of the Catholic eschatological expectation of Jews coming to recognize Jesus.
Patristic and Scholastic Theologians Expected Jewish Return to the Land of Israel
The Fuller Theological Seminary Theology Professor and Loyola Marymount University Theological Studies Professor Nicholas R. Brown has observed that “several patristic theologians were vigilantly protective of the chiliastic belief that Jesus would restore a landed kingdom to Israel at the parousia” (For the Nation: Jesus, the Restoration of Israel and Articulating a Christian Ethic of Territorial Governance, p. 13). Villeneuve identifies a number of these patristic theologians along with scholastic theologians who expressed an expectation that Jews would return to the land of Israel in the eschatological future:
[S]everal Church Fathers and scholastic theologians anticipated a Jewish return to the land. Saint Justin Martyr (First Apology 52), the Venerable Bede (Commentary on Luke 21:24), and Saint Thomas Aquinas (Commentary on Jeremiah 31:37) each offered reasons, from within the Catholic tradition, to expect such a restoration.
In light of such texts in the Catholic tradition, Gideon Lazar, a Catholic who was raised Jewish and has been a guest on Fradd’s Pints with Aquinas show, has cautioned Catholics against “dismiss[ing] a literal land promise as the naïve theory of modern dispensationalists stemming from the Scofield Reference Bible.”
Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II in a 1991 address to a Jewish audience in Brasilia applied to contemporary Jewish people a passage from Ezekiel about the ingathering of the Jewish people to the land of Israel:
May our Jewish brother[s] and sisters, who have been led “out from among the peoples and gathered from the foreign lands” and brought back “to their own country” [Ezek. 34.13], to the land of their ancestors, be able to live there in peace and security on the “mountains of Israel,” guarded by the protection of God, their true shepherd (The Saint for Shalom: How Pope John Paul II Transformed Catholic-Jewish Relations, p. 225).
D’Costa notes that the Pope’s decision to reference a biblical prophetic text about the future ingathering of the Jewish people to the land of Israel in speaking of modern Jews in the land need not be understood as making an eschatological claim (Jesus – The Messiah of Israel?: Messianic Judaism and Christian Theology in Conversation, p. 347). However, the Pope’s choice to use this prophetic text in referencing Jews who have returned to the land of Israel following the establishment of the State of Israel is nevertheless suggestive.
Excluding Catholic Affirmations or Suggestions that the State of Israel is or Could Become an Eschatological Sign
Catechism of the Catholic Church
Under the heading “The glorious advent of Christ, the hope of Israel,” the Catechism states:
673 Since the Ascension Christ’s coming in glory has been imminent, even though “it is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority.” This eschatological coming could be accomplished at any moment, even if both it and the final trial that will precede it are “delayed”.
674 The glorious Messiah’s coming is suspended at every moment of history until his recognition by “all Israel”, for “a hardening has come upon part of Israel” in their “unbelief” toward Jesus.
The portion of the Catechism above features Jesus’ response to his disciples’ question about whether Jesus would “at this time restore the kingdom to Israel” (Acts 1:6): “[I]t is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority” (Acts 1:7). In this biblical passage, Jesus notably does not preclude the possibility that Jewish political sovereignty over the land of Israel would occur in the eschatological future.
Kenrick-Glennon Seminary Associate Professor of Theology Lawrence Feingold
In commenting on Jesus’ response to his disciples’ question, the Association of Hebrew Catholics Theology Director and Kenrick-Glennon Seminary Associate Professor of Theology Lawrence Feingold, who holds an S.T.B., S.T.L., and S.T.D. from Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome and studied Hebrew as well as Greek at the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum in Jerusalem, notes:
Jesus answered not by rebuking the foolishness of the question. Instead, as on other occasions when asked about eschatological signs, he emphasized that knowledge of the day and hour of eschatological events is hidden from us […] [T]he restoration of a kingdom to Israel, unlike the witness that will build up the Church, will not be the work of the disciples empowered by the Spirit. But Jesus’ response does not rule out a connection between the fulfillment of the mandate to be “witnesses…to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8) and the restoration of a kingdom to Israel (Contemporary Catholic Approaches to the People, Land, and State of Israel, p. 13).
To reiterate, a New Testament statement by Jesus cited by the Catechism regarding the future of the Jewish people does not preclude the return of sovereignty to the Jewish people in the eschatological future. In fact, Feingold maintains that the return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel and of Jewish sovereignty over the holy city of Jerusalem should be regarded by Catholics as an eschatological sign:
The fact that the Land of Israel is somehow “married” again, to use Isaiah’s language [“your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a virgin, so shall your sons marry you” (Is. 62:4-5)], to the Jewish people cannot be regarded as theologically insignificant from the Christian perspective, as from the Jewish. If Jerusalem is always an eschatological sign, how much more a Jerusalem in which the Land is “wedded” again in some sense to the People of the Promise. It makes sense, therefore, that the return of the Land and of Jerusalem to Jewish sovereignty after so many centuries of exile should be considered a sign of the times that should be read through the illumination of the Holy Spirit (Ibid., p. 11).
Feingold here suggests that the return of the Jewish people to their land with Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem should be regarded as an eschatological sign. He also argues that “the emergence of large numbers of Jewish believers in Jesus” in Israel could be recognized as an eschatological sign (Ibid., p. 18). In explaining how the return of the Jewish people offers “renewed possibility for a corporate encounter of the Jewish people with Jesus in a way different than in the diaspora,” Feingold states:
In Israel, Jesus is more easily seen for what he is, a Jew of the Land, a sabra born and nourished in Second Temple Judaism. This encounter can serve first of all to improve Jewish perceptions of Christianity as something more normal, since so many Christian sites are located in their land, and Israeli tour guides very often explain Christian sites to Christian pilgrims and tourists. Secondly, the Land of Israel makes it possible (admittedly on a very small scale) for Israelis to encounter Christian liturgy in Hebrew, so that they can see it as something not totally alien to their culture, but very deeply rooted in it, with regard to both sacrifice and the indwelling divine presence (Shekinah) (Ibid.).
Feingold, thus, views the growth of Jewish believers in Jesus as an eschatological sign, with the land of Israel facilitating an encounter of Jews with Jesus.
Roman Catholic and Messianic Jewish Dialogue Group
It bears noting in this regard that Catholic leaders involved in dialogue with Messianic Jews have acknowledged that the emergence of the Messianic Jewish movement constitutes “a work of the Holy Spirit.” The theologian of the household of Pope John Paul II, Rev. Georges Cottier, O.P. (later Cardinal), formed the Roman Catholic and Messianic Jewish Dialogue Group in 2000 with the blessing and encouragement of Pope John Paul II, who along with Cottier and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) met with Messianic Jews. Cardinal Ratzinger in his role as the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith seems to have affirmed a similar eschatological belief about Jews coming to recognize Jesus in the eschatological future as suggested by remarks he reportedly made upon privately encountering a group of Messianic Jews in 1997: “If you are whom you say you are, this is an eschatological sign” (Stones the Builders Rejected: The Jewish Jesus, His Jewish Disciples, and the Culmination of History, p. 187).
Catholic leaders’ determination that the emergence of Messianic Jews is a work of the Holy Spirit and possibly an eschatological sign is notable given how central the land and State of Israel have figured in Messianic Jewish self-understanding. As Temple University Assistant Professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies and Rabbi Carol Harris-Shapiro has observed about Messianic Jews in her study of a Messianic Jewish congregation:
Israel plays center stage in Messianic life both in history and in prophecy […] Israel also reminds Messianic Jews of God’s faithfulness and power […] The unique outlook of Messianic believers intertwines their very existence more closely with Israel’s destiny than even the average evangelical or normative Jew (Messianic Judaism: A Rabbi’s Journey through Religious Change in America, pp. 127-129).
The Helsinki Studium Catholicum Director, University of Helsinki Department of Theology Adjunct Professor, University of Eastern Finland Strategic Professor, Helsinki Consultation on Jewish Continuity in the Body of Messiah founding member, and former Hebrew University Rosenzweig Center Research Fellow Father Antoine Lévy, O.P. has similarly observed: “Support for the State of Israel is one of the defining features of the Messianic movement in its current form” (Jewish Church: A Catholic Approach to Messianic Judaism, p. 321). That Catholic leaders have attached theological significance to the emergence of a movement that has placed great importance on the return of Jewish people to the land of Israel and the establishment of the State of Israel there is a development on which it is worth reflecting.
It is also worth noting that the Catechism’s expectation of the eschatological salvation of “all Israel” alludes to Romans 11:26, a biblical passage that multiple scholars argue situates the specific land of Israel within Paul’s eschatological and soteriological vision. For example, Hartford International University for Religion & Peace Rabbi Stanley M. Kessler Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies Amy-Jill Levine, the first Jewish professor to teach New Testament Studies at the Pontifical Biblical Institute (PBI) who co-organized as well as co-led a major international conference on the subject of the Pharisees hosted by PBI in cooperation with the Pontifical Gregorian University Cardinal Bea Centre for Judaic Studies, suggests Paul could have had the land of Israel in mind in the above passage:
Paul’s reference to “all Israel” (Romans 11:26a) may well mean exactly that—the Jewish nation, Abraham’s descendants according to the flesh. In Paul’s view, their salvation will occur together with the salvation of the non-Jews, as in Romans 15:10: “and again he says, ‘Rejoice, O gentiles/pagans with his people’” […] Jews are not subsumed into a broader assembly, and they do not lose their ethnic identity. Since they do not lose their ethnic identity, they do not lose their connection to the land. Rather, that connection, like circumcision and kashrut and Shabbat-observance, is presupposed. The focus on the land is then reinforced in Romans 11:26b, when Paul presumes the ongoing role of Zion, whence the Deliverer will come (Peace and Faith: Christian Churches and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, p. 144).
Boston University Aurelio Professor of Scripture Emerita, Hebrew University of Jerusalem Comparative Religion Professor, and New Testament scholar Paula Fredriksen also indicates this Romans passage features Paul’s expectation about the eschatological restoration of the twelve tribes of Israel in the land:
When Paul speaks of End-time redemption, he too recalls this ancient lineage going back to Noah: the gentiles’ plērōma means “all seventy nations.” So too Paul’s evocation of the plērōma of Israel, pas Israēl: his phrasing recalls the patriarchal narratives, the lineage of Abraham passing through Isaac to Jacob and thence to Jacob’s twelve sons, the “fathers” of Israel’s tribes. “All Israel” conjures the full restoration of these twelve tribes, another traditionally eschatological event. As in Deuteronomy 32.43, which Paul will quote at the end of this letter, so also here in Romans 11: the ingathering of Israel is linked immediately to the inclusion of the nations” (Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle, p. 161).
Paul’s allusions in Romans 11:26-27 to Isaiah 27:9 and 59:20 also suggest that Paul viewed Israel’s salvation as including a territorial dimension. As the St. Bonaventure University Professor Emeritus of Theology and Franciscan Studies Christopher Stanley adduced by the University of Kansas New Testament scholar Mark D. Nanos explains:
Though the story is not identical, the obvious parallels between this passage [Isa. 27:9] and Isa. 59.20-63.7 make it easy to see why an ancient reader (who worked from the premise of a unified Scripture) might have felt compelled to interpret the one passage in the light of the other […] Both passages reach their climax in the return of the dispersed children of Israel to their land, in the one case by the supernatural activity of Y[-]H[-]W[-]H himself, in the other by the hand of the defeated nations. The final scene shows the fulfillment of all the dreams and aspirations cherished by Y[-]H[-]W[-]H’s people over the years: eternal peace and security in their own land (The Mystery of Romans: The Jewish Context of Paul’s Letter, p. 280).
Paul’s reference in Romans 11:27 to Jeremiah 31, where Israel’s restoration to the land is discussed, also suggests Paul expected Israel’s salvation to involve the restoration of the Jewish people to the land of Israel. As Moody Theological Seminary Professor of New Testament J. Brian Tucker explains:
Within a future eschatological miracle understanding of “all Israel will be saved” is an often overlooked idea that this also means that Israel will need to be restored to the land […] In Rom 11:27, Paul writes, “And this is my covenant with them, when I take away their sins.” This citation from Jeremiah 31 highlights the prophetic hope for the restoration of the houses of Judah and Israel (Jer 31:31, 33-34). The context of Jeremiah predicts a return from exile to the land for God’s people […] It is more likely that Paul has been moving towards the conclusion that begins at 9:13: “his concern for Israel includes her exile … his hope for Israel’s salvation includes the restoration of Israel and Judah.” The reference to Jer 31:33 in Rom 11:27 suggests that since restoration in the land was part of the prediction in Jeremiah, part of the “mystery” that Paul is revealing includes Israel’s restoration. This is particularly probable given the subjugation of Israel at the hands of the Romans in Paul’s day (Reading Romans After Supersessionism: The Continuation of Jewish Covenantal Identity, pp. 192-194).
Some might conclude that since most of these scholars are not Catholic, these scholars’ interpretations of New Testament texts should not affect how Catholics interpret Scripture. However, D’Costa argues that new findings of modern biblical scholarship, even if made by non-Catholics, can impact how Catholics understand Scriptures given that Protestant biblical scholarship has already influenced how Catholics interpret Romans 9-11:
Historically, the rereading of Romans 9-11 that was central to Catholic changes of attitude to the Jewish people derived from Protestant biblical scholarship. It is possible that these shifts in scholarship will begin to affect future Pontifical Biblical Commissions […] [S]ince Catholic scholarship is taking slow steps and sometimes follows certain Protestant prompts, such developments may well take place in the future in this area (Catholic Doctrines on the Jewish People after Vatican II, pp. 92-93).
The Catholic Church could, thus, come to explicitly teach what many contemporary scholars have already observed: namely, the continuing positive theological significance and eschatological importance that New Testament texts attach to the land of Israel for Jews.
Father Antoine Lévy
Father Lévy, O.P. has argued that the land and State of Israel play an indispensable role in enabling the fulfillment of the Catholic eschatological expectation of the corporate Jewish recognition of Jesus described in the above passage of the Catechism:
[T]he recognition of Yeshua the Jew by his own as one of their own, alive in the Church, is the eschatological endpoint of Israel’s long journey of exile. It can only take place in a Land where Jews are entirely free to make such a move. Jewish political sovereignty is the guarantee that this recognition is sincere[,] as it can no longer have been caused by external social pressure (Jewish Church, p. 342).
Thus, Father Lévy has understood the Jewish return to the land of Israel and assumption of political sovereignty over the territory as playing a crucial role in the realization of the Catholic eschatological vision of Jews coming to recognize Jesus.
Father Elias Friedman
Father Elias Friedman, a Zionist Jew who moved to Israel and promoted “Hebrew Catholicism,” maintained that “the restoration of a Jewish homeland and the reunification of the city of Jerusalem under Jewish authority” were “signs that the ‘times of the Gentiles’ referred to by Yeshua in Luke 21:24 were coming to an end” (Postmissionary Messianic Judaism: Redefining Christian Engagement with the Jewish People, p. 294). The Merrimack College Assistant Professor of Religious and Theological Studies Emma O’Donnell Polyakov describes Father Friedman’s perspective as “a Catholic version of evangelical Christian Zionist eschatology” (The Nun in the Synagogue: Judeocentric Catholicism in Israel, p. 112) in maintaining that “the drama of the Jews offered the key to a Catholic interpretation of the events of our time until the end of the world and the Second Coming of Christ” (“Branch, Re-ingrafted,” p. 25).
Former Archbishop of Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schönborn
The former Archbishop of Vienna and key editor of the Catechism Cardinal Christoph Schönborn has suggested that the establishment of the State of Israel is connected to biblical prophecy: “Hardly anybody will dispute that the foundation of this state [of Israel] had something to do with the biblical prophecy even if that something is hard to define.”
Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI suggested that the State of Israel at peace with its neighbors could play a role in the fulfillment of biblical prophecy by invoking a passage from Isaiah in his 2009 Discourse at Ben Gurion Airport:
Let it be universally recognized that the State of Israel has the right to exist, and to enjoy peace and security within internationally agreed borders. Let it be likewise acknowledged that the Palestinian people have a right to a sovereign independent homeland, to live with dignity and to travel freely. Let the two-state solution become a reality, not remain a dream. And let peace spread outwards from these lands, let them serve as a “light to the nations” (Is 42:6), bringing hope to many other regions that are affected by conflict.
The reference to a passage from Isaiah by Pope Benedict XVI in his Discourse at Ben Gurion Airport suggests the State of Israel could fulfill a prophetic role.
Excluding Catholic Affirmations or Suggestions that the Biblical Promise of Land to the Jewish People Endures
Fradd argues that Catholic teaching and Christian Zionism are incompatible because “the Church teaches that the promises made to Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1725) have already been fulfilled in Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of Heaven, not in any modern political state.” However, many prominent Catholics have maintained that the promise of a specific land to the Jewish people endures.
The Preacher to the Papal Household Raniero Cantalamessa
The preacher of the papal household of Pope John Paul II, Raniero Cantalamessa, has indicated that Catholics share with Jews an understanding that biblical texts recognize the enduring divine promise of a specific land to the Jewish people: “We share with the Jews the biblical certainty that God gave them the country of Canaan forever (Genesis 17:8, Isaiah 43:5, Jeremiah 32:22, Ezekiel 36:24, Amos 9:14). We know that the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” (The Mystery of Christmas: A Comment on the Magnificat, Gloria, Nunc Dimittis, p. 38). By connecting the land God gave to the Jewish people to “the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29) mentioned by Paul, a text Fradd highlights in explaining that the Catholic Church affirms that Israel’s election endures, Cantalamessa suggests this specific land remains one of the irrevocable gifts God gave the Jewish people.
Catholic Theologian and Philosopher Jacques Maritain
The Catholic theologian and philosopher Jacques Maritain, whose teachings played a decisive role in reforming Catholic perspectives on the Jewish people and who assisted in the development of the Vatican II response to the Holocaust while contributing to the Vatican’s reconsideration of its attitude toward the State of Israel, maintained that the return of Jewish people to the land of Israel and the establishment of the State of Israel demonstrate God’s faithfulness to the Jewish people as expressed in the refulfillment of the divine promise:
[T]he return of part of the Jewish people to the Holy Land, and its reestablishment there (of which the existence of the state is a sign and guarantee), is the refulfillment of the divine promise which is not withdrawn. One remembers that which was said to Abraham, Jacob, and Moses, and that which Ezekiel proclaimed….[I]t is not impossible [that the establishment of the state of Israel is a kind of prelude to the realization of the prophecy]. But surely[,] we should keep in mind our respect for the ways of God? And I have no doubt that this event, mysterious as it is for Jews and Christians alike, bears the sign of God’s faithful love for the people which is ever His (Zeal for Zion, p. 198).
As indicated in the above passage, Maritain, while not ruling out the possibility that the establishment of the State of Israel could constitute a prelude to the realization of biblical prophecy, holds that the return of a portion of global Jewry to the Holy Land and the reestablishment of a state for the Jewish people there constitute the refulfillment of the divine promise.
Duquesne University Professor of Catholic Studies and Theology William M. Wright IV
Duquesne University Professor of Catholic Studies and Theology William M. Wright IV has argued that Catholics can affirm a divine role in the return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel while suggesting this return is consistent with Old Testament texts:
Catholics can acknowledge the return of the Jewish people to live in their ancestral homeland as an instance of God’s loving-kindness and faithfulness to his covenant people. Catholics can do so in a manner akin to honoring the abiding value and religious significance of the plain-sense dimensions of the Old Testament and the realities which it presents (Catholic-Jewish Engagements on Israel: Holy Land, Political Territory, or Theological Promise?, p. 100).
Wright IV, thus, holds that Catholics can recognize the return of Jews to the land of Israel as an example of divine loving-kindness and faithfulness to the Jewish people with whom God stands in a covenantal relationship.
Notes on the Correct Way to Present Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesis in the Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic document Notes on the Correct Way to Present Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesis in the Roman Catholic Church not only mentions that “The Catholic Church teaches that Christians can respect the sense of attachment to the land of the Jewish people,” but also acknowledges this attachment is based on Old Testament texts that have authority for Catholics. As D’Costa observes:
If paragraph one deals with Jewish self-understanding that is respected and acknowledged, the next paragraph establishes […] the Jewish attachment to the land “finds its roots in Biblical tradition.” Jewish self-understanding is biblically justified. This refers to the Old Testament teachings that have authority as revelation for Catholics (Catholic Doctrines on the Jewish People after Vatican II, p. 130).
Father Lévy points out that the document’s acknowledgement of the biblical justification of a Jewish attachment to the land of Israel reflects the fact that “this religious argumentation is [not] foreign to Catholic theology” and can even be regarded as “valid” even if the document holds that this view “cannot be the one and exclusive criterion of justice regarding the conflict” (Contemporary Catholic Approaches to the People, Land, and State of Israel, p. 201). In recognizing that a Jewish attachment to the land of Israel is rooted in Old Testament texts that have authority for Catholics, the document suggests that Catholics could reach a similar conclusion as Jews when it comes to the religious significance of the land.
Notes also acknowledges: “The permanence of Israel (while so many ancient peoples have disappeared without trace) is a historic fact and a sign to be interpreted within God’s design.” D’Costa contends the recognition of Israel’s permanence as a divine sign in Notes also hints at the role the land of Israel plays in ensuring Israel’s survival:
To affirm that God is behind the Jewish people’s survival and protection already gestures towards the embodied conditions that make this possible: the land of Israel […] The subtle equation of the argument in Notes might read: God’s primary concern is his People. His people are also constituted by the promise of the land. If the people are a sign of God’s design, then so is their hoped-for land (Catholic Doctrines on the Jewish People after Vatican II, p. 132).
Catholics can, therefore, regard the land of Israel as playing a role in the divine preservation of the Jewish people.
The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible
The Pontifical Biblical Commission document The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible acknowledges the biblical promise of a specific land to the people of Israel in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Regarding the biblical promise of land in the Old Testament, the document states:
Israel was freed from slavery in Egypt and received from God the promise of land. Its realization required time and gave rise to many problems throughout the course of its history. For the people of the Bible, even after the return from the Babylonian Exile, the land remained an object of hope: “Those blessed by the [L]ord” will possess the land (Ps 37:22).
In discussing the biblical promise of land in the New Testament, the document goes out of its way to remind readers: “It should not be forgotten […] that a specific land was promised by God to Israel and received as a heritage.”
Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas Lecturer Gavin D’Costa
In addition to promoting a “minimalist Catholic Zionism,” D’Costa suggests that the emergence of a Hebrew Catholic community with a liturgy of its own in the land of Israel could play a role in a broader picture demonstrating the arrival of the promises about the land: “To be able to have a community of such Hebrew Catholics liturgically present in the land might become part of the picture that indicates the arrival of the biblical promises regarding the land” (Catholic Doctrines on the Jewish People after Vatican II, p. 185). This understanding of the biblical promises suggests that the fulfillment of some aspects of the promises has yet to be fully realized.
Fradd claims that Hebrews 11:10 and Revelation 21:1-2 indicate that the promise of land “points beyond itself to the Kingdom of God and the New Jerusalem,” suggesting the original promise of a specific land to the Jewish people no longer has any positive theological significance. However, the Hebrews and Revelation passages to which Fradd refers do not negate the enduring significance of the land of Israel. The Messianic Jewish theologian and Near Eastern Studies scholar Mark S. Kinzer, whom D’Costa describes as “seek[ing] fuller union with the Catholic Church” (Ibid., p. 47) and who has been involved in dialogue with prominent Catholic leaders, has observed how the imagery that Hebrews employs suggests the land remains significant:
The eschatological imagery of Hebrews depicts the world to come as land (Heb 3:7-4:11; 11:14-16) and city (Heb 11:10, 16; 12:22; 13:14) […] However, the eschatological city is called Mount Zion (Heb 12:22)—i.e., the Temple Mount […] I would underline the observation that Hebrews speaks explicitly of an eschatological city and land […] [A]s Moffitt stresses, that city and that land are “physical” realities, just as the resurrected form of Jesus is truly a “physical” body. Moreover, while the city and the land of the future are distinguished from the city and land of the present age, the two ontological orders must have some relation to one another—just as the future world as a whole is distinct from the present world and yet related to it. Hebrews does not […] negate the significance of the city of Jerusalem, the land of Israel, or the Jewish people. The traditional scholarly view that the author viewed Israel as “a thing of the past, the husk of the first, now antiquated covenant” should be discarded (Jerusalem Crucified, Jerusalem Risen: The Resurrected Messiah, the Jewish People, and the Land of Promise, pp. 93-94).
If one is to take the language utilized by Hebrews seriously, therefore, as Kinzer does, the land of Israel, including Jerusalem, must retain its significance if it is to meaningfully relate to the eschatological realities described in the book. Similarly, the reference in Revelation 21:1-2 to “a new heaven and a new earth” does not negate the continuing significance of the land any more than the “new human” that Christians “put on” in baptism negates the continuing reality of Jesus. As Kinzer explains:
In many biblical texts[,] the underlying Hebrew and Greek words rendered here as “new” would be more suitably translated as “eschatologically renewed.” One is dealing with an “old” or existing reality that is eschatologically transformed by the sovereign action of God. Thus, the new heavens and new earth of Isaiah (65:17; 66:22) and Revelation (21:1) are glorified forms of what existed before. The “new human” that is “put on” in baptism (Eph 4:24; Col 3:10)—i.e., Jesus—is but the old human (i.e., a true descendant of Adam and Eve), raised from the dead and eschatologically transformed. The continuity—and discontinuity—of Jesus’ own life serves as the basic paradigm of eschatological newness. The risen Jesus is new, different, yet also the same human being as the one who was born of Mary. He is unrecognized by his disciples until he makes himself known (Luke 24:13-32), yet his hands and feet still show the marks of his violent death (Luke 24:40; see John 20:24-28) (Searching Her Own Mystery: Nostra Aetate, the Jewish People, and the Identity of the Church, pp. 47-48).
Villeneuve has also observed that the expansion of Zion to include a heavenly dimension does not negate the earthly Zion: “The New Testament does expand the notion of Zion to include a heavenly dimension (Heb 12:22)—but expansion is not cancellation. The earthly promises are not erased by their heavenly fulfillment.” Even if one accepts that the land points beyond itself, this need not negate other levels of significance, including the plain-sense meaning of the biblical promise of a specific land to the people of Israel. As Villeneuve explains:
An authentic Catholic reading of the Bible attends to the four senses of Scripture: literal, christological, ecclesial, and eschatological (CCC 115–118). To dismiss or collapse the literal and eschatological senses into a purely spiritual reading is not Catholic exegesis. The promises of Israel’s physical ingathering to their ancestral land have not been fulfilled in Christ or the Church, and their open horizon leaves ample room for Catholic Zionism.
Similarly, Feingold suggests that Catholics can understand the type of the physical land of Israel as both retaining its literal significance and pointing to an antitype holding additional meaning:
The reality that the type points to (the antitype) does not replace the type, although it often fulfills its meaning in a higher way. In other words, the existence of a spiritual sense of Scripture does not replace, annul, or stand in competition with the literal sense, on which it depends for its meaning (Contemporary Catholic Approaches to the People, Land, and State of Israel, p. 7).
Fradd’s suggestion that the literal sense of the land has lost its theological significance following the coming of Jesus is, therefore, at odds with how the Catechism teaches Catholics should interpret Scripture. The past president of the Academy of Catholic Theology and University of Virginia William R. Kenan Jr. Professor Emeritus of the History of Christianity Robert Louis Wilken points out that patristic theologians, like Irenaeus and Tertullian, expected an earthly Jerusalem in the future, suggesting that some of the earliest Christians thought the earthly Jerusalem would retain its theological significance in the eschaton (The Land Called Holy: Palestine in Christian History & Thought, p. 70). However, even if one affirms with Fradd that “promises made to Abraham […] have already been fulfilled in Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of Heaven,” one need not affirm what Fradd suggests: namely, the biblical promises bear no relation to the Jewish return to and control over territory in the land of Israel today. As the Mundelein Seminary James N. and Mary D. Perry Jr. Chair of Theology and Catholic theologian Matthew Levering argues:
[T]he return of the Jewish people to dwell in and govern the land of Israel […] is [theologically significant […] because the Jewish people, as a theological-political entity, are obeying a divine commandment that has not been revoked (even if Christians know that it has been messianically fulfilled and reconfigured)” (Engaging the Doctrine of Israel: A Christian Israelology in Dialogue with Ongoing Judaism, p. 386).
For Levering, “the original mode of the covenant is in force for the Jewish people as a whole who legitimately do not know Jesus Christ” given “this situation of scandal” involving the historical “counter-witness of Christians” whereby “the very name of Jesus Christ recalls acts of vile persecution rather than love” for Jews. Given this reality, Levering suggests that “Catholics must presume that the Jewish people as a whole are acting in good faith when they strive to obey the original obligations of the covenant,” which include “dwelling in and governing the land of Israel, which the Jewish people who live in the State of Israel now do.” Moreover, Levering contends: “Since these obligations come from the living God whose word is true, Catholics should encourage the ongoing Jewish people (presuming they do not know Jesus as the Christ) in obeying the commandment of God,” for “what could be more important for God’s people to do, while they await the Messiah” (Ibid., p. 382)?
Inaccurately Suggesting the Catholic Church Precludes the Development of a Theological View of the State of Israel
Fradd asserts that “the Church reject[s] a theological reading of a modern state,” suggesting this precludes Catholics from adopting a theological view of the State of Israel. However, Catholic priests and intellectuals have adopted views that complicate the simplistic binary that Fradd constructs.
Father David Mark Neuhaus
Catholic priests have acknowledged that the language of international law that the church uses in discussing the State of Israel cannot be entirely disconnected from revelation. For example, the Israeli Catholic priest and Patriarchal Vicar Emeritus of Hebrew-speaking Catholics Father David Mark Neuhaus, S.J. has observed:
The Church, in speaking about the land and the state of Israel, is committed to the language of international law. This language is not completely divorced from the language of revelation, for revelation too relies on categories of human rationality, universality, and humanism, even if it transcends these categories when it comes to the relationship between God and the human person (Contemporary Catholic Approaches to the People, Land, and State of Israel, p. 186).
For Father Neuhaus, the language of international law that the Catholic Church has adopted in approaching modern states is not disconnected from the language of revelation.
Father Antoine Lévy
Father Lévy argues that revelatory content extends beyond morality and politics: “I claim that the revelation is not confined to providing moral and political laws with their ultimate source of intelligibility. Revelation is also about the destiny of a concrete and very unique nation from the time of Abraham to that of Jesus” (Ibid., p. 203). He holds that international agreements relating to the State of Israel require a religious interpretation to be comprehensible:
[T]he 1948 international agreement, just as other similar decisions, is incomprehensible without the specific religious interpretation of the Bible associated with Zionism. Religion lurks behind about every aspect of the conflict. How could considerations regarding justice not take the religious perspective into account (Ibid., p. 207)?
Father Lévy argues that the Holy See provides a precedent for adopting both theological and political views toward a state:
[W]hat is the Holy See […] if not a legal entity, encompassing an internationally recognized state called the Vatican, that draws its most fundamental and enduring justification from some ancient faith tradition? That the permanence of the Vatican as a state is no longer the source of a military conflict does not change the fact that this state sees the reason for its existence, and ultimately for its resistance to annihilation, in a religious belief going back to two-thousand-year-old events (Ibid., p. 205).
Prominent Catholics have recognized not only that the State of Israel is legitimate according to international law, but also that God has played a role in the State of Israel’s establishment and continued flourishing.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has observed that the establishment of the State of Israel is a demonstration of God’s fidelity to the Jewish people: “The Vatican…has recognized the State of Israel as a modern constitutional state, and sees it as a legitimate home of the Jewish people […] [I]t expresses God’s faithfulness to the people of Israel” (“Grace and Vocation,” p. 178). Similarly, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has stated: “It is not difficult, I believe, to see that in the creation of the State of Israel, the fidelity of God to Israel is revealed in a mysterious way.” Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI did not regard affirming God’s role in the establishment of the State of Israel as incompatible with Catholic beliefs. One can affirm with Pope Benedict XVI that the land is not theologically equivalent to a nation state while also recognizing that God’s faithfulness is revealed in the establishment of the State of Israel.
Catholic Theologian and Scholar Monsignor John M. Oesterreicher
The Catholic theologian and scholar Monsignor John M. Oesterreicher, who had a Jewish background, joined the Catholic Church, and played an integral role crafting the Vatican II document Nostra Aetate articulating a reformed Catholic understanding of the Jewish people, affirmed that the success of the State of Israel constitutes an expression of God’s favor. As the University of California, Berkeley Professor of History John Connelly states:
In his last decades, Oesterreicher acted as a Christian Zionist, insisting that the success of Israel was a sign of divine favor, due not simply “to the cunning of her statesmen, the superior strategy of her generals, the bravery of her soldiers, and the steadfastness of her citizens,” but to the “‘outstretched arm’ (Exodus 6:6) of the Lord which once more rescued His people…Today’s Israel is new proof that God stands by His covenant; that the last word lies, not with the inventor of the “final solution[,]” but with Him (From Enemy to Brother: The Revolution in Catholic Teaching on the Jews, 1933-1965, p. 279).
Monsignor Oesterreicher also “appeared at the American Zionist Federation in New York,” where he “expressed his ‘love’ for Zion, comparing the mystery of Zionism to the mystery of Christianity” (Ibid.).
The Brandeis University Schusterman Center for Israel Studies Founding Director Ilan Troen has argued: “[T]he reluctance of the Roman Catholic Church to acknowledge the legitimacy of the State of Israel as a Jewish state” and its efforts to adopt a “balanced posture” toward the “Arab-Jewish conflict” reflect a pragmatic attempt “to protect the diminishing Christian minority, not only in Israel, but throughout the Muslim Middle East” (Israel/Palestine in World Religions, p. 137), from Islamist persecution. However, Troen observes that if pragmatic, not theological, considerations underly these positions of the Roman Catholic Church, “evolving historical circumstances” could result in the Roman Catholic Church modifying its theological position on the State of Israel (Ibid.).
Eliding Distinctions Between Old Testament and New Testament Gentile Inclusion
Suazo inaccurately suggests that the form of Gentile inclusion found in the New Testament reflects what had existed since the biblical figure of Moses, specifically citing the Old Testament figure of Ruth as an example:
Take for example the story of Ruth [in the Old Testament] […] [S]he was a Moabite. She was not of the Hebrew stock, but what happens? She ends up coming into the faith […] The point is that converting or joining the people of God is not a new thing. This has been the case again since the times of Moses through time until now.
However, Suazo’s view fails to adequately explain the surprise with which Peter, traditionally regarded by Catholics as the first Pope, greets this new development of Gentile inclusion within the Jesus movement and how what is taking place in his own time differs in significant respects from how the Hebrew Bible represents how Jews and Gentiles relate to one another. As Fuller Theological Seminary Assistant Professor of Bible and Mission Collin Cornell explains:
This is a different form of inclusion than we find in the Old Testament. Ruth the Moabite, for instance, literally and physically joined the family of Judah; Rahab, similarly, married into the lineage of Abraham (Matt. 1:5). They and other gentiles came not only to worship Israel’s God but to participate wholly in the people of Israel with all that entailed—namely, leaving behind their own gods but also their own families, lands, and languages. In the New Testament, however, gentiles are called into a new and anomalous identity: we become worshipers of Israel’s God and we renounce the gods of our own nations. We become readers of Israel’s scriptures. But we do not thereby become Israel; we remain non-Jews (God Draws Near: Rethinking the Biblical Theology of Mission, p. 177).
These distinctions between conceptions of Gentile inclusion in the Old Testament and New Testament suggest that contrary to Suazo’s remarks, the development of Gentile inclusion in Peter’s time differs in significant ways from the inclusion of Ruth and other Old Testament figures. A recognition of this reality not only helps to explain Peter’s initial surprise at the new development in his own time, but also could help inform how Catholics approach the State of Israel today. As Kinzer explains:
Just as Peter the Jew was compelled to reconsider what Jesus and Scripture taught about gentiles in light of what he experienced in Jaffa and Caesarea, so gentile Christians today are summoned to rethink what Jesus and Scripture teach about Jews in light of the new realities they are encountering. The regathering of Jewish people to their ancestral land and the rebirth of Jewish ecclesial communities are historical phenomena that demand a theological response. Israel outside the borders of the ekklēsia challenges Christians to rethink their view of Israel’s enduring covenant and the role of the Jewish people in history. Israel within the ekklēsia challenges Christians to rethink Christian identity itself. Both realities call Christians to a humble recognition that they are a part and not the whole (Stones the Builders Rejected, p. 70).
For Catholics who had earlier given theological significance to Jewish exile from the land of Israel to refrain from attributing any theological significance to the return of Jewish people to the land of Israel would also seem to betray inconsistent theological reasoning. As the Saint Joseph’s University Institute for Jewish-Catholic Relations Director and Professor of Theology Philip A. Cunningham observes: “[T]o suddenly claim that a renewed Jewish presence in the Land is devoid of religious meaning after alleging for centuries that Jewish exile from the Land was theologically significant seems capriciously inconsistent” (Seeking Shalom: The Journey to Right Relationship between Catholics and Jews, p. 224).
Inaccurately Suggesting Jews Who Do Not Recognize Jesus Cease to be Israel
Suazo also inaccurately suggests that Jews who do not recognize Jesus should not be regarded as Israel:
You have the ability of rejecting a covenant and you are “cut off” from the people. How do you do that? You can just plainly reject it, or you can commit certain sins that would cut you off from being called the people of God—Israel. This is not new. This is in the Torah itself. It says that if you do certain things, like breaking the Shabbat, and you were persistent in it, you would be “cut off.” You’re no longer Israel. You can be a Benjamite. You can be even a Levite. You could be from different tribes, but you cease to be Israel if you’re not in a proper covenant relationship with God. What does that mean for us nowadays? It means that to be Israel, you need to be in a new and eternal covenant. I as a Jew could be a Jew, but I would not be Israel unless I am in a proper covenant relationship with God.
Similarly, Suazo claims that Ephesians 2 supports this point: “It talks about the Gentiles being people that were afar off, strangers to the covenant, but it says that in Christ, they have been brought in, into the commonwealth of Israel. What does that mean? Now, the Gentiles are Israel.”
However, Catholics have insisted on continuing to identify Jews who do not recognize Jesus as Israel.
The Bible
While Suazo adduces Ephesians to support his argument, the Catholic exegete Franz Mussner has argued that formulating the past negative situation of Gentiles described in Ephesians positively toward Israel would read: “Israel possesses the hope of the Messiah. Israel forms a ‘commonwealth’ (politeia): the qehal Y[-]H[-]W[-]H. To Israel belong the covenants of the promise. Israel possesses thereby hope. Israel lives in community with God and in the knowledge of God in the world” (Tractate on the Jews, p. 25). This language echoes the language Paul uses to describe the privileges that belong in the present tense to his fellow kinsmen: “They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever” (Romans 9:4-5). Paul’s application of “Israel” to Jews, including those who do not recognize Jesus, would seem to suggest that he held that even Jews who do not recognize Jesus should still be regarded as Israel, a view affirmed by the Catholic priest and New Testament scholar Daniel J. Harrington (Paul on the Mystery of Israel, p. 49).
Catechism of the Catholic Church
The Catechism applies the name Israel in the present tense to the Jewish people: “Israel is the priestly people of God, ‘called by the name of the Lord,’ and ‘the first to hear the word of God,’ the people of ‘elder brethren’ in the faith of Abraham” (CCC 63). That this portion of the Catechism should be understood as a description of the Jewish people is indicated by the phrase “the first to hear the word of God,” which also appears in CCC 839 and is taken from the Good Friday prayer for the Jewish people that was added to the 1970 Roman Missal:
Let us pray for the Jewish people, the first to hear the word of God, that they may continue to grow in the love of his name and in faithfulness to his covenant, Almighty and eternal God, long ago you gave your promise to Abraham and his posterity. Listen to your Church as we pray that the people you first made your own may arrive at the fullness of redemption.
The Catechism, thus, insists on identifying the Jewish people as Israel.
Former Archbishop of Paris Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger
The former Archbishop of Paris Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger seems to have used “Jewish people” and “Israel” interchangeably in speaking of the suffering endured by Israel in the Holocaust:
We must believe that all the suffering of Israel, persecuted by pagans because of its Election, is a part of the Messiah’s suffering, just as the killing of the children in Bethlehem makes up a part of Christ’s passion. Otherwise, God himself would appear incoherent regarding his promise to Israel. If Christian theology is unable to inscribe in its vision of the Redemption, of the mystery of the Cross, that Auschwitz also makes up a part of Christ’s suffering, then we have reached the summit of absurdity (The Promise, p. 50).
Kinzer notes that this statement indicates: “It is not only the martyrs of the Church whose suffering is linked to the atoning work of Jesus, but also the martyrs of the Jewish people” (Searching Her Own Mystery, p. 125). Similarly, the archbishop appears to have used the terms in a comparable manner in underscoring why it is important for Christians not to regard the Jewish people as simply another ethnicity:
To make of Israel only a particular case, and, ultimately, an ethnic case—which it is also in certain respects—is a temptation for the Christian. We yield to this temptation if we consider the Jewish population as we would any other […] But the mystery of Israel remains at the center of the Christian faith. If we consider it unessential, we expose just how far we are from being Christians (Ibid., p. 93).
The archbishop is not alone in identifying the Jewish people who endured suffering during the Holocaust as Israel.
Catholic Theologian and Philosopher Jacques Maritain
In his book on the Catholic theologian and philosopher Jacques Maritain, the Catholic Benedictine College Professor of History Richard Francis Crane points out that Maritain rejected as “utter nonsense” the charge that he “equat[ed] Israel and the Church” (Passion of Israel: Jacques Maritain, Catholic Conscience, and the Holocaust, p. 47). In fact, Maritain considered Jewish people who do not believe in Jesus and those who suffered in the Holocaust part of Israel while drawing a clear distinction between Israel and the Church:
Jesus Christ suffers in the passion of Israel. In striking Israel, the Anti-Semites strike Him, insult Him, and spit on Him. To persecute the house of Israel is to persecute Christ, not in His mystical body as when the Church is persecuted, but in His fleshly lineage and in His forgetful people whom He ceaselessly loves and calls. In the passion of Israel, Christ suffers and acts as the shepherd of Zion and the Messiah of Israel, in order gradually to conform His people to Him (“On Anti-Semitism,” p. 572).
Maritain likewise distinguished between Israel and Christians: “Despite itself, Israel is climbing the route to Calvary side by side with Christians, and these strange companions are sometimes surprised to find themselves together” (Messages, pp. 121-122, 161). Similarly, Maritain distinguished between Israel and self-styled Christians: “Israel is beginning to open its eyes [to Jesus Christ], whereas the eyes of many self-styled Christians are blinded, darkened by the exhalations of the old pagan blood suddenly ferociously welling up once more among the Gentiles” (“On Anti-Semitism,” p. 570). These kinds of statements indicate that Catholics need not adopt the simplistic equation of Israel with the Church.
The Preacher to the Papal Household Raniero Cantalamessa
Cantalamessa also indicates the Church and Israel are not identical, as the two cannot be said to have been “rejoin[ed]” with one another:
We are not saying this in a spirit of proselytism but in a spirit of conversion and obedience to the Word of God because it is certain that the rejoining of Israel with the Church will involve a rearrangement in the Church; it will mean a conversion on both sides. It will also be a rejoining of the Church with Israel (The Mystery of Christmas, p. 101).
The fact that Cantalamessa indicates that the Church and Israel will be “rejoin[ed]” in the future suggests that they are not identical.
Suazo suggests that Jews who do not recognize Jesus are “cut off” from “Israel” and should, therefore, not be identified as “Israel.” However, the Lukan passages in which being “cut off” appears do not indicate that being “cut off” entails such “cut off” individuals losing their identity as part of “Israel” in this world. Based on his analysis of Acts 13:46 (“It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken first to you [as Jews]. Since you reject it and judge yourselves to be unworthy of eternal life, we are now turning to the gentiles”), Kinzer explains:
Those whose unambiguous “rejection of God’s prophetic messenger” has proven “definitive and irreversible” will be deemed “unworthy of eternal life,” and as a result will forfeit their place among the people of Israel in the world to come. This sentence is severe indeed, but it neither negates nor qualifies the covenantal status of these Israelites in this world (Jerusalem Crucified, Jerusalem Risen, p. 150).
Kinzer observes that an indication that the text does not intend “cut off” to mean that those so described lose their covenantal identity as members of the people of Israel in this world is the wilderness generation to which Stephen refers in citing the Deuteronomy passage from which the “cut off” language derives:
The Jews of Jerusalem who hear Peter and Stephen are in danger of becoming like the wilderness generation who proved unworthy of Israel’s inheritance. This threat contains fearsome long-term penalties, but it does not challenge the covenantal status of those Jews in the present age. This is evident from the parallel case of the wilderness generation. That generation did not die immediately after sentence was passed upon them, nor did they forfeit their covenantal status in this age. If their disobedience had disqualified them from legitimate Israelite identity, then they would have been barred from worship at the wilderness sanctuary, and their children would have been disqualified along with their parents as heirs of the promise. However, the Torah places no such restriction on their involvement with the sanctuary (e.g., Num 17:1-11), and the children of the wilderness generation are the ones who inherit the land in place of their parents. The people of the wilderness generation remain Israelites, and the people of the generation of Peter and Stephen likewise remain Israelites. Their long-term future is in danger, but their present covenantal status remains intact (Jerusalem Crucified, Jerusalem Risen, pp. 151-152).
As Kinzer explains, while the “spiritual posterity” of those who are “cut off” will “vanish,” those “cut off” individuals “do not forfeit the status of Israelites, or even the status of ‘leaders of Israel’ (Acts 23:4-5), but their long term prospects, in both this world and the next, are dim” (Jerusalem Crucified, Jerusalem Risen, p. 153).
Conclusion
The above analysis has shown that in attempting to “lay out the Catholic position” on Christian Zionism, Fradd and Suazo exclude significant information for developing an informed perspective on Christian Zionism, including alternative definitions of Christian Zionism, Catholic eschatological expectations about a Jewish return to the land of Israel, Catholic affirmations or suggestions that the State of Israel is or could become an eschatological sign, and Catholic affirmations or suggestions that the biblical promise of land to the Jewish people endures. In addition, Fradd and Suazo inaccurately suggest eschatology is central to all Christian Zionists, the Catholic Church precludes the development of a theological view of the State of Israel, and that Jews who do not recognize Jesus cease to be Israel while eliding distinctions between Old Testament and New Testament conceptions of Gentile inclusion. Fradd is an intelligent person with an engaging personality who brings interesting guests on his show, but viewers of his show would benefit from learning more about Christian Zionism and the range of Catholic perspectives on the State of Israel.
