On the one hand, as Catholics we wish to remain faithful to the Church's mission of evangelization. On the other hand, we also wish to be mindful of the difficult history of Jewish-Christian relations, and be respectful and appreciative of the Jewish faith, customs, and traditions as a God-given heritage that should be preserved and cherished.
Paragraph 43 of Verbum Domini (2010) addresses the special bond between Christians and Jews arising from their shared scriptural heritage. Calling Jews "beloved brothers" in the faith of Abraham, Benedict XVI draws on St. Paul's reminder that the gifts and call of God are irrevocable, and encourages dialogue and shared study of the sacred Scriptures.
Ten basic steps outlining God's plan of salvation for us: God created us out of love and made a covenant with us; by sinning we have broken His covenant; God sent Jesus the Messiah to restore us to communion with Him; and He restores this communion through the Catholic Church He established and especially the seven sacraments.
My name is Miryam Leah. I am 35 years old – Jewish, Italian, from an ultra-orthodox hassidic family (lubavitch – my father is the shaliach, the “sent one” of the Rebbe), and now for 8 years, Catholic and Dominican sister.
Catholics for Israel is an apostolate faithful to the Magisterium—the living teaching office of the Church, to whom Christ entrusted the authentic interpretation of the word of God. Accordingly, the official teachings of the Catholic Church—especially Nostra Aetate §4 and the Catechism of the Catholic Church—form the foundation of our convictions regarding Israel and the Jewish people.
On the heels of the Gaza disengagement, which was intended to empower the Palestinian Authority to improve the lives of its people, few journalists have reported on the acutely trying times facing the Christians residing in areas "governed" by the Palestinian Authority. Professor Justus Reid Weiner, Scholar in Residence at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, provides an in-depth look into the nearly uninterrupted persecution of Christians throughout the decade since the Oslo peace process began. Read Human Rights of Christians in Palestinian Society.
Hamas denies Israel's right to exist. But for pontifical diplomacy, the Jewish state is wrong to defend itself with force. The custodian of the Holy Land reveals the thinking behind the Church's policy in the Middle East.
Aaron Jean-Marie Lustiger, cardinal and archbishop, died on August 5th, 2007, aged 80. At the funeral of Jean-Marie Lustiger, at Notre Dame de Paris on August 10th, his second cousin Jonas Moses-Lustiger read a psalm in Hebrew and placed on the coffin a jar of earth that had been gathered on the Mount of Olives. Then another cousin, Arno Lustiger, bent over the coffin to recite Kaddish. Only when those things were done was the body of Cardinal Lustiger carried inside the cathedral, where Catholic panoply took over.
AHC President David Moss interviewed Archbishop Raymond L. Burke in La Crosse, Wisconsin on Aug 5, 2010, on the topic of the election and vocation of the Jewish people within the Catholic Church.
An interview with Petra Heldt, head of the Ecumenical Theological Research Fraternity in Israel and proud friend of Israel, on Christians in Israel, dhimmitude and Sharia law, and Jewish-Christian relations.
Part II: Israel and the Church Today - How Vatican II and Nostra Aetate transformed the Church's relationship with the Jewish people. Church documents on the Jewish people from Vatican II to the 21st century. The promised restoration of Israel according to the prophets. An evaluation: can Old Testament prophecies still apply to Israel today? The Catholic Church and the modern State of Israel. Israel's "passion, death and resurrection"?
Paddy Monaghan responds to the recent Jerusalem Patriarchs’ denunciation of Christian Zionism. Drawing on decades of Catholic renewal and the witness of evangelical Catholic leaders worldwide, Monaghan argues that biblical Zionism is not a political distortion but a faithful expression of historic Christian teaching on God’s enduring covenant with Israel.
Is the baptized Jew obligated to keep the commandments of the Jewish Law? In the first part of this series, we see how Jesus did not abrogate the Law of Moses that was given to the Jewish people. We also see how the early Jewish-Christian community continued to live in accordance with the Torah.
There are no disagreements between Judaism and Catholicism. Where their teachings diverge, it is because they apply to two different, well, let’s call them universes, two ways that human experience is unified (uni-verse, “turned into one”) in relation to G-d according to their respective covenants.
Here is a translation of Magdi Allam’s account of his conversion to Catholicism. The formerly Muslim journalist was baptized by Benedict XVI at Saturday's Easter Vigil Mass 2008 in St. Peter's Basilica.
Matt Fradd claims to lay out "the Catholic position" on Christian Zionism. The problem? He gets it wrong. The Church does not teach what he says it teaches. Church Fathers, papal preachers, Benedict XVI, John Paul II, even a key editor of the Catechism all contradict him. Here's the evidence.
Matt Fradd recently claimed that Catholic teaching clearly condemns Christian Zionism — and packaged that claim as a "catechism." But in doing so he committed a basic error: presenting a contested theological opinion as settled Church teaching. This point-by-point refutation exposes the loaded questions, false dilemmas, selective citations, and supersessionist assumptions that run through his argument.
Having been raised in a Conservative Jewish home in suburban Toronto, I was a regular attendee at synagogue on Sabbaths and High Holidays. My father is a Holocaust survivor from Poland and my mother’s family escaped the pogroms in Russia. Both settled here in Canada and raised my sister and myself in a Jewish and Yiddish speaking environment where all of our friends were Jewish and Israel was our raison d’être. Christianity was the religion of the outsiders, the faith of anti-semites and Jew-haters, the creed of the Crusaders, Inquisitors, Persecutors, and Nazis. Yet my mother would remind me continually that "Jesus was a Jew"...
Jesus and Muhammad could hardly have been more different in how they lived or in what they taught others. Why should we not expect starkly contrasting legacies - from the conduct of their closest companions to the livability of modern-day countries influenced by the predominance of one founder's teachings over the other?
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.
