Taking responsibility for Catholic-Jewish reconciliation
By Rabbi Eugene Korn
January 25, 2010 NEW YORK (JTA) -- Pope Benedict XVI's recent visit to the Great Synagogue in Rome was by far his most effective gesture to the Jewish people. After misreading his audience during his trip to Israel, Benedict spoke to Jewish hearts and minds at the Rome synagogue.
The move came none too soon. Jewish-Catholic relations have had a rocky ride under Benedict's papacy, leaving Jews and Catholics alike to doubt the future of Catholic-Jewish relations. In July 2007, the Vatican authorized the wider use of the Tridentine Mass with its Good Friday prayer for the conversion of the Jews. In January 2009, the pope lifted the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop, Richard Williamson, and three other bishops of the Society of Pope Pius X. The renegade group rejects the Second Vatican Council's salutary changes in Catholic teaching toward Jews and Judaism, and its Web site featured repugnant anti-Semitic canards.
Last June, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement -- later retracted -- that Catholics in interfaith dialogue should evangelize to Jews and extend to them an implicit invitation to the Church. And several weeks ago, Benedict issued a decree advancing sainthood for the Holocaust-era pope, Pius XII, whose record during the Holocaust remains a legitimate historical question and is the subject of a deep emotional disagreement between some in the Vatican and Jewish leaders.
Vatican II's official document, Nostra Aetate, proclaimed that the Church deplores all forms of anti-Semitism, that the living covenant between God and the Jewish people is irrevocable, and that the charge of deicide is utterly baseless. Yet the recent steps taken by Benedict had led some professionals in Jewish-Catholic dialogue to question whether these breathtaking teachings are still operative Catholic theology. Benedict addressed most of these concerns at the Great Synagogue. His visit affirmed -- in word and in deed -- that he wishes to continue the policy of warm relations with the Jewish people established by his saintly predecessor, John Paul II.
He stressed that the Second Vatican Council marked a significant and irreversible transformation in the Church's attitude to the Jewish people and signaled the Church's irrevocable commitment to a dialogue of brotherhood and mutual understanding with Jews. Reflecting on the terrible history of Jewish-Catholic relations that culminated in the Holocaust, Benedict repeated John Paul's poignant prayer asking for forgiveness for Catholics who caused Jewish suffering. He also reiterated what he said at Auschwitz in 2006: Because the Jewish people remain witnesses to God's presence and to divine revelation at Sinai, Hitler knew that to destroy God and God's moral law, he needed to murder the Jewish people first. This is an enormously significant theological statement, acknowledging that Jews and Judaism continue to play an essential role in the unfolding of God's plan for humanity.
Yet serious pitfalls remain between the Church and the Jewish people. It seems that Benedict still will be forced to choose at times between appealing to arch-traditionalists among the Catholic faithful and strengthening the Church's new relationship with the Jewish people. Moreover, pursuing Pius XII's sainthood before the historical record is clarified is certain to cause public disagreement between the Vatican and the Jewish people, and inflict pain on Jews whose loved ones were murdered in the Holocaust.
One continuing disappointment for informed Jews and Catholics over the past 50 years has been that the wonderful teachings of Nostra Aetate and post-conciliar documents relating to Catholic-Jewish relations have not filtered down sufficiently to priests and worshipers in the pews. Too many Catholics are still unaware of the depth and beauty of Nostra Aetate. Nor are Jews as aware as they should be about post-Vatican II teachings about Judaism.
In light of Benedict's reaffirmation of the irrevocable validity of these teachings, now would be the perfect time for the Vatican to take positive steps to permanently root the new Catholic-Jewish relationship in the minds of all Catholics. This could be done in a number of ways, such as rigorously implementing the existing mandate to teach Nostra Aetate to all Catholic worshipers and seminarians, promoting the study of Pope John Paul II's teachings about the Jewish people and Judaism, and perhaps instituting a non-conversionary prayer for today's Jewish people and for the Jewish state on the Feast of St. James, the patron saint of Jerusalem. Jewish leaders also must teach Jews of the significance and content of Nostra Aetate and later Vatican documents about Catholic-Jewish relations if Jews are to understand Catholics and their faith.
As Nostra Aetate teaches, Jews and Catholics share a common spiritual patrimony. Catholic-Jewish reconciliation is one of God's great blessings, one that inspires all people around the world. Because if the Church and the Jewish people can make peace with each other after nearly 2,000 years of enmity, then peace is possible between any two peoples anywhere. It is too important for Jews, for Catholics and for the world to allow to lapse, and too important to be spoken about only on special occasions. Jews and Catholics both have responsibility to do what they can to ensure that future obstacles to mutual understanding and respect are overcome, and that the Church and the Jewish people remain living witnesses to hope for a more peaceful future for all God's children. (Emphasis supplied).
(Rabbi Korn is the North American director of the Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding and Cooperation.)
Hoffman's Afterword: "Then I heard another voice from heaven saying,'Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues" (Revelation 18:4)
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16 comments:
The Church is a supernatural society whose first and supernatural end is the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Yet, it is upon the failings of her social and human side that some erect this criterion (of whether or not she has been a bulwark against Judaism or promoter of it) and set themselves up as a judge, neglecting the Church’s supernatural bulwarks : the indomitable defenses of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Sacraments, Tradition and the Scriptures. None of these could Luther offer his followers, who now spend eternity in hell with the Father of the Jews, the Devil. Many deplore the shadow of the Church while rejecting the substance, making her the mere husk of what she really is. The Catholic Church, by the very fact that she is the Church of Jesus Christ, will forever stand as the bitterest enemy of the accursed synagogue.
This is not to say that the Conciliar Church is not a fifth column inside the City Catholic, which also damns its adherents. (As Fr. Wathen stated : Intra Ecclesiam Conciliariam Nulla Salus) I hope Mr. Hoffman when making such statements like "Come out of her my people" you affirm the defined dogma of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus, and use your intellect towards creating a clearer understanding for confused Catholics on these two operating points. For if there is No salvation outside the Church and No Salvation inside the Conciliar Church, what is one to do. How does one submit himself to the Roman Pontiff, when he knows in his heart of hearts that the Holy Father is a Judeo-Masonic Revolutionary change agent?
In the Church Fathers there are two "abomination of desolation" warned of. One is in the Church when faith is degraded to infidel paganism and the Holy immutable Sacrifice of Christ is done away with and replaced by that which is only of the Antichrist. Vatican II Ecumenism and holocaustianity have accomplished both of these conditions. The other "abomination of desolation" is the last, which will be accomplished in the rebuilt temple against all commandment of God, in Jerusalem. The Church Fathers completely upheld the absolute dictum of Christ concerning this and warned the faithful to have utterly nothing to do with either of these "abomination of desolation."
The Punishments Of The Apostates In The Future
The Christians heeded Our Lord Jesus Christ's warning in 70 A.D. and fled from Jerusalem to Pella and were not harmed.
Generation in the text in the Greek can mean a human generation or any length of time. The emphasis in the Gospel of St. Luke is on 70 A.D.
Lk 21:
20 And when you shall see Jerusalem compassed about with an army; then know that the desolation thereof is at hand. [This is Our Lord Jesus Christ’s Prophecy of the Destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. by Titus.]
21 Then let those who are in Judea, flee to the mountains; and those who are in the midst thereof, depart out: and those who are in the countries, not enter into it. [The Christians heeded and were not destroyed.] 22 For these are the days of vengeance, that all things may be fulfilled, that are written. 23 But woe to them that are with child, and give suck in those days; for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. 24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword; and shall be led away captives into all nations; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles; till the times of the nations be fulfilled.
THE WORLD CHRONICLE OF ISIDORE OF SEVILLE
"71. Vespasian ruled for ten years. Vigorous in military discipline, through his fighting he restored to the republic many provinces which Nero had lost. He was unmindful of offenses and he bore lightly the insults said against him. In his second year Titus took and overthrew Jerusalem, where 1,100,000 Jews perished by famine and the sword. Beyond these, another 100,000 were publicly sold into slavery."
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Generation in the text in the Greek can mean a human generation or any length of time. The emphasis in the Gospel of St. Matthew is on the future.
Mt:24:
14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations: and then shall the consummation come.
15 When therefore you shall see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place: he that readeth let him understand. [This is Our Lord Jesus Christ's Prophecy to be apart from the Antichrist sitting in the temple of God when Our Lord Jesus Christ returns from heaven with his elect angels.]
This is in Italian but it looks like the Chief Rabbi of Rome is telling the pope that he must choose between the Judaics or the SSPX.
http://secretummeummihi.blogspot.com/2010/01/la-iglesia-recibe-ultimatum-judio-o-los.html
Indeed, it seems that Mr. Hoffman (whose scholarship on Judaism I respect highly, owning a copy of Judaism Discovered myself) always shys away from defending the true Christian Church (The Holy Catholic Church) whenever he condemns the conciliar religion.
To Giovanni 1:11 p.m.
I will reply to your criticism by quoting Blaise Pascal in "Pensées" --
"If the ancient Church was in error, the Church is a fallen one. If it should be in error today, it is not the same thing because it always has the ultimate principle of the tradition of the faith of the ancient Church...submission and conformity to the ancient Church...corrects everything." (Oxford World's Classics [2008] p. 84).
So, the possibility of reform is always there, by the means Pascal has outlined.
However, not being a sedevacantist I cannot pretend that Benedict is not the pope or that the papacy did not promote evil prior to the Second Vatican Council ("conciliar" era). That is the great weakness in the view of people who create a theory of a "conciliar religion" -- the supposition that it arose almost exclusively from a 20th century or late 19th century modernism.
The evil inside the Church came to a head in the Renaissance and was never rooted out. Certain popes struggled to completely eradicate it and failed. You have not studied my research on this subject - lectures recorded on CD and material in my books - and you can't expect me to try to duplicate all that work on this blog. If you are interested in learning, then study something beyond your own milieu. If not, continue to believe that it all commenced in 1890, 1910 or 1963.
The history of the occult corruption of the Catholic Church in the Renaissance is largely hidden from traditional Catholics and many do not want to be troubled by facts or new research. They would rather console themselves in the pages of their collection of Belloc books.
Finally, I do not wish to further digress from the topic of this post: that the modern Catholic Church and its popes teach the horrific, Gospel-nullifying lie that Christ-denying "Jewish" people are holy by virtue of their alleged continuing ethnic covenant with God.
Sure, it's a total joke. But if you asked your average Catholic about dual covenant theology, 99% of them would tell you there is no such thing. You ask your average Protestant and they'll tell you God's covenant with the Jews still exists and that the Jews are God's chosen people. I mean, the whole idea comes from Protestants, who from the start have been backed by the Jews. The idea is now basically part of world mainstream culture, if there is such a thing. I don't see why you're picking on the Church, especially since you're not even a Catholic. You're not in the Church calling for change, you're already an apostate. Why don't you target the dual covenant theology that is nearly the cornerstove of every protestant sect and tend your own garden? My suspicion is that it's not as exciting as you know in your heart that protestantism is erroneous out of the gate and their errors are therefore forgivable. Like a child behind the wheel of a car. But you're willingly in that car, veering all over the road, while screaming at the ancient truck driver on his umpteen millionth time around the track, now saturated with underage drivers, running out of steam, tired and alone. So although your criticisms are valid, you're still willingly in the baby's car, ultimately muddling up the track while screaming at the trucker to improve his driving. It rings somewhat hollow.
To Anonymous 7:57 a.m.
It's patent that you are judging "Protestantism" solely on the basis of the Fundamentalist Dispensationalism of the past 80 years and that you are ignorant of, for example, the classic Lutheran doctrine on Judaism, which was in effect for 400 years.
Moreover, even in our time many Protestant leaders have fought against Dispensationalism including Loraine Boettner, Herman Otten, Charles D. Provan, Stephen Sizer, Earl Jones and countless others.
Stephen Sizer's book "Zion's Christian Soldiers?" is mandatory reading for all who would be educated on this subject.
"Dual covenant" theology was not invented by Protestants, as you claim. Johann Reuchlin, Pico della Mirandola and Marcilio Ficino were the Catholic promoters of this poison and helped to convey it throughout Christendom, including into some (but by no means all) Protestant ranks.
You ought to study and research before you make outlandish generalizations and accusations based solely on your own peculiar ipse dixit.
The purpose of this blog is to venture beyond partisan blustering, into a thoughtful investigation of history's fratricidal enmities and rivalries, to determine how these may have been manipulated by the Cryptocracy.
I have said it before: I am not interested in re-fighting the disastrous, Antichrist wars of religion between Protestant and Catholic.
Reading your stereotypical regurgitations of tired propaganda about Protestants, absent any reference to documentation and any familiarity with current research, is about as interesting as watching paint dry.
Thank you Mr. Hoffman for your reply.
Yes, I am not among those gullible enough to believe that all the problems that the Church faces today sprung out of mid-air with the Second Vatican Council. I found your section on Papal approval of the Talmud in the Renaissance very enlightening (and alarming as well).
In my opinion, Pope Saint Pius V was the best pope in that he was a true Vicar of Christ and worked to fight rabbinical tyranny (you mention him in Judaism Discovered as Cardinal Ghislieri I think).
Thank you again.
This is all prophecy is it not? By virtue of Matt 16:18, Christ promised that the hell would not prevail against His church, and that he would always be with Peter - i.e whoever was his successor, until the end of time.
Nothing Benedict or JPII has said or done, although horrific as Michael rightly calls it, is binding on us or spoken exe cathedra.
Therefore, none of us must panic and think we are bound in any way to Benedict's grave errors. God is in charge of His Church. Benedict He is still Peter and remains resolute in matters of faith and morals. Thus, no matter the depth of masonic / occultic infiltration, on matters concerning homosexuality, women priests, salvation, abortion etc Christ's promise still ensures this never changes. Therefore the Church reveals that it is the One and Only Way, must to the frenzied confusion of the illuminati / zionists etc, who simply do not realise that The Church is supernaturally protected.
None of us have any right, authority or ability to 'decide' to 'leave' The Church that Christ instituted. Sure, we can monitor it and report on gross error, as Michael does like no other.
But ultimately, in the last days the prophecy of the Saints and martyrs is clear which Church will remain the Mystical Body of Christ. The serious problem and spiritual battle taking place in our church is temporary - The Church is permanent, and we must stay with it.
For this reason I am interested if Michael is still Catholic or has he 'left' the Church? He isn't an 'empty seat' believer he's made that clear, so just curious...
Revisionist History newsletter circa 32-33 AD; headline: "Christ picks a betrayer and a devil to be one of the Twelve. The Occult corruption of The Church and the neutralization of God's plan for salvation has begun."
It amuses me when I read about "the corruption" of The Church or "the rot" of The Church. I often wonder if nostalgia for a perceived past has become a dogmatic benchmark against which all Papal or Curial action is judged.
Pope Benedict XVI in his book, "Jesus of Nazareth," has answered, quite masterfully, rabbi Neusner's assertions. Neusner's commentary about the Pope's book in his Jerusalem Post article, "My Argument With the Pope" demonstrates in its first two or three paragraphs a not-so-subtle fear of this Pope and his mind on Neusner's part. The Pope's masterstroke was using a pop-culture medium (indeed, what would become a world-wide bestseller) to refute rabbinical charges against Jesus.
And, remarkably, when Ratzinger clearly states in the Pontifical Biblical Comission's "The Jewish People and their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible," that we cannot accept the rabbinical exegesis of the Bible, you claim in RH #47 that he "allowed" this to be inserted to placate or fool "conservatives." Um, no, he simply stated what was obviously the truth.
Although it's quite admirable and praiseworthy to point out potential pastoral dangers, personally I can't share in some sort of hyperfeminized handwringing that places the Pope in thrall to cryptocrats (real or imagined) or that demands the Pope (or any papal candidate) possess revisionist credentials.
To Anonymous 5:55 p.m.
In the synagogue Benedict gives every impression of endorsing the fallacy of sufficient salvation by membership in the Jewish race. Then in an exchange with Neusner, Benedict gives the impression that he refutes the rabbis.
Not so long ago, the presence of a pope in a synagogue, for any reason other than to do as the apostles did and rebuke, admonish and instruct them concerning their lost state, would have produced a near universal revulsion among Catholics, no matter how many dissimulating texts the pope had written containing statements contradicting the synagogue. The symbolism of Pope Benedict XVI making pilgrimage to the Roman synagogue and being applauded by the Pharisees there, whose ears he regaled with soothing shibboleths, the tenor of which encouraged them to remain in their man-made, Bible-nullifing traditions and sins, and giving them the sense that they continue to represent the Old Testament covenant with Yahweh -- trumps in power and efficacy, any text the pontiff has penned containing opposite sentiments. Talking out of both sides of one's mouth is a demonic characteristic, not a sign of a follower -- much less "Vicar"--of Christ.
You say that: "Ratzinger clearly states in the Pontifical Biblical Commissions's 'The Jewish People and their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible,' that we cannot accept the rabbinical exegesis of the Bible."
What is there that is "clear" about Ratzinger's doubletalk?
You present as evidence for the pope's alleged orthodoxy only the decoy text in the document, while you omit the statement that follows it:
"Christians can, nonetheless, learn much from Jewish exegesis practiced for more than two thousand years."
From 2,000 years of a gigantic pile of stinking Satanic delusions and lies (Mishnah, Gemara, Midrash, Zohar, Shulchan Aruch ad nauseum), Christians can "learn much"?
"Um," this is the "obvious truth"?
You conclude your comment by stating that I demand that the pope possess "revisionist credentials." Not at all. I merely expect that he possess - and proclaim- the truth: the greatest crime in history did not occur at the slave labor camp of Auschwitz, but rather on Calvary; and since Pope Pius XII never once undertook any "hyperfeminized handwriting" about "gas chamber" extermination, Catholics might want to ask why it has been incumbent on subsequent popes to make a cult out of supposed Auschwitz execution gas chambers, when Pius XII did not trouble to mention them even once?
The Vatican has made belief in the fairytale of homicidal gas chambers in Auschwitz a criterion for assuming ecclesiastic office (Vatican Secretariat of State, Feb. 4, 2009).
"Revisionist credentials"? I'd settle for the pope eschewing his Holocaustolatry credentials.
I think if I hear the phrases "bible-nullifying, gospel-nullifying, betrayal of the Gospel" one more time I will be ill. They smack of Bibliolatry as fanatical as a Foxman foaming out "Holocaust Denial!"
The full import of the Popes actions can not be summed up in a phrase like "Bible nullification." What is being betrayed with a kiss here is the Mystical Body of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity : the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
To Ecclesiasticus 4:59 p.m.
Your problem is really with Jesus Christ. He condemned Bible nullification in Mark 7:9, and elsewhere.
Just what exactly is "Bibliolatry"?
I will hazard the guess that it denotes worship of the Divine Word of Almighty God, which is a terrible transgression in the eyes of the denizens of Churchianity.
Mr Hoffman,
Peradventure you are an admirer of Savonarola, perchance a 'sedevacantist' who perhaps didn't 'pretend that the papacy did not promote evil prior to the Second Vatican Council' and possibly never had the pleasure of consoling himself in the pages H. Belloc:
'He now penned his famous " Letter to the Princes of Europe," telling them that the Church was full of abominations, and they made no attempt to remedy them, so that the Lord was grievously displeased, and had left the Church without a pastor; for, he says, " I testify now to you, in verbo Domini, that this Alexander is not Pope, nor can he be retained as such; for, leaving alone his most wicked sin of simony, by which he obtained the papal chair, and the fact that every day he sells the ecclesiastical benefices to whosoever will buy them, and apart from his other manifest vices, I affirm that he is not a Christian, and that he does not believe there is a God."'
http://books.google.com/books?id=-HZoAAAAMAAJ&lpg=PA339&ots=FZvitAQrNa&dq=savonarola%20letter%20to%20the%20emperor&pg=PA339#v=onepage&q=savonarola%20letter%20to%20the%20emperor&f=false
Or wasn't that Fra Girolamo Savonarola's point?; that is, that the papacy on account of heresy or marranoism or whatever wasn't one.
See also in this matter: http://www.strobertbellarmine.net/savonarola.html
Dear Mr.Hoffman,
this is my first visit to your website, and I think I will learn more by visiting again.
Firstly, because you are a christian scholar I would like to request/suggest that you write an article about the title of "Christ", and explain that it is a translation of the word "Messiah".
If you have already done so then I will look for article to read it.
More later.
with best wishes,
Najam
One must begin by understanding the fact that in order to be Catholic, one must be in communion with His Church. Without The Truth of Love, everything becomes permissible, including the destruction of innocent human life and the condoning and affirmation of demeaning sexual acts and sexual relationships. Without a final authority, there can be no cohesiveness of belief. Without a cohesiveness of belief, there can be no cohesiveness of Faith. Without a cohesiveness of Faith we become our own god.
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