How can Pope Benedict let go of ancient truths?

ANCESTRAL PRIDE

By Bishop Richard Williamson, SSPX

Eleison Comments • CCXXII (222)
http://www.dinoscopus.org

London, England -- In his second volume on the life of Jesus published several months ago, Pope Benedict XVI made remarks enabling journalists to jump to the conclusion that the Jews must no longer be held responsible for deicide, i.e. the killing of  God. Worse, on May 17 the executive director of the US Bishops’ Conference’s Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs said that one cannot charge the Jewish people with deicide at any time in history without falling out of communion with the Catholic Church. Against what many people today want to believe, it is time to recall, however briefly, what the true Church always used to teach on the judicial murder of Jesus.

Firstly, the killing of Jesus was truly “deicide”, i.e. the killing of God, because Jesus was the one of the three divine Persons who in addition to his divine nature had taken a human nature. What was killed on the Cross? Only the human nature. But who was killed on the Cross in his human nature? None other than the second divine Person, i.e. God. So God was killed, deicide was committed.

Secondly, Jesus died on the Cross to save all of us sinful human beings from our sins, and in this sense all men were and are the purpose of his death. But only the  Jews (leaders and people) were the prime agents of the deicide because it is obvious from the Gospels that the Gentile most involved, Pontius Pilate, would never have condemned Jesus to death had not the Jewish leaders roused the Jewish people to clamour for his crucifixion (Mt. XXVII, 20). Certainly the learned leaders were more guilty than the unlearned people, says St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa III, 47, 5), but they all cried together for Jesus’ blood to come down upon them and their children (Mt. XXVII, 25).

Thirdly, at least Pope Leo XIII considered there to be a real solidarity between the Jews clamouring then for Jesus to be killed and the collectivity of Jews of modern times. Did he not in his Act of Consecration of the Human Race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus have the entire Church, from the end of the 19th century onwards, pray to God that he turn his “eyes of mercy towards the children of that race, once God’s chosen people: of old they called down upon themselves the Blood of the Savior; may it now descend upon them a laver (i.e. washing) of redemption and life”?

But Leo XIII is by no means alone in observing such a continuity amongst Jews down the centuries. Do they themselves not lay claim today to the land of Palestine on the grounds that it is theirs by right from the God of the Old Testament? Has there ever been a race-people-nation on the face of the earth more proudly self-identifying as identical down the ages?

Originally raised by God to cradle the Messiah, alas, when he came they refused, collectively to recognize him. Collectively also, meaning there are always noble exceptions, they have remained faithful to that rejection, so that they changed their religion from that of Abraham and Moses and the Old Testament to that of Anas, Caiphas and the Talmud. Tragically, their very messianic training by God drives them to go on rejecting the one whom they hold to be a false messiah. Until they convert at the end of the world, as the Church has always taught they will do (cf. Rom. XI, 26-27), they seem bound to choose to go on acting, collectively, as enemies of the true Messiah.

How can the Pope let go of such ancient truths?

Kyrie eleison.

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Emphasis and link in the preceding issue of "Eleison Comments" supplied by On the Contrary.
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Listen to me, you who know what integrity means,

people who take my laws to heart: do not fear the taunts of men, 

nor be dismayed by their insults,

for the moth shall eat them like garments,

the grub devour them like wool,

but my integrity will remain forever.

Isaiah 51: 7-8 

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The word “holocaust” to be removed from Catholic Bibles

Political Correctness gone wild!


God’s Word cannot be allowed to compete with the word used for Judaic suffering in World War II. Now even God is subject to editing by human decree. This is nothing less than Talmudic praxis. Notice that this censored Bible will be published at the start of Lent; clearly a ritual affront. Michael Hoffman


Revised Bible provides 'more clarity, more detail' for today's Catholic

By Patricia Zapor, Feb. 3, 2011

Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The revised New American Bible that will be released on Ash Wednesday, March 9, may seem most notably different to casual readers for its efforts at providing context and clarity in how the passages fit together, according to the coordinator of its publication.

"It will be like going from regular TV to high-definition," said Mary Elizabeth Sperry, associate director of New American Bible utilization for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "You'll have the same programs but more clarity, more detail."

What is being called the New American Bible Revised Edition, or NABRE, will include the first revised translation since 1970 of the Old Testament. The New Testament translation is the same as in 1986 and later editions of the New American Bible.

The NABRE also will include the updated Book of Psalms, which was revised between 1991 and 2010 and has been included in versions of the New American Bible published since 1991.

The new Bible will be available in an assortment of print, audio and electronic formats, from a variety of publishers. Individual publishers will roll out their versions on their own schedules. For instance, Oxford University Press announced its line of compact NABRE editions will be available by Easter, April 24, and its study Bibles will be on the market for fall 2011 courses.

The NABRE's publication will not affect what Scripture texts are used for Mass. The Lectionary translation has already been updated recently.

Sperry explained that some of the updating in the Old Testament resulted from developments in biblical scholarship since the last time it was translated. For instance, recent archaeological discoveries have provided better texts, which affected scholarly views on how certain passages should be translated, she said.

The goal of retranslating the Old Testament was to "get it closer to the original language," Sperry said. Scholars start with the original Hebrew or Greek text, for instance, rather than simply working from the 1970 New American Bible version, or from translations used in other Bible editions.

For the most part, the changes will be hard to spot, except by those who are serious students or scholars, she said.

In other places in the NABRE, even casual readers may catch the differences.

She and Benedictine Father Joseph Jensen, executive secretary of the Catholic Biblical Association and one of the scholars who worked on the translation, both gave two examples of the type of changes everyday readers might notice: the disappearance of the words "cereal" and "booty."

The goal when possible was "to make the language more contemporary," said Father Jensen. In today's culture the phrase "cereal offering" conjures up images of Wheaties and Cheerios, not the bushels of wheat type of offering that the term is intended to mean, he said.

The word "booty" also has taken on the slang meanings of "buttocks" or sometimes, "sexual intercourse," instead of its primary meaning of "plunder," such as a marauding army might acquire.

Sperry said another change made for contemporary readers was the elimination of the word "holocaust" in favor of "burnt offerings." Since millions of Jews were killed in German death camps before and during World War II, the word Holocaust has gradually come to specifically refer only to that period of history, she explained.

Kathleen Nash, associate professor and chair of the religious studies department at Le Moyne College, translated the book of Joel for the NABRE and "shepherded" 1 Samuel through the process after it was translated by Carmelite Father Craig Morrison, currently of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. Nash joined the process in 1996, several years after the team of translators got started.

It turned out to be a long-term commitment. The editorial board met one weekend a month for years, reviewing each others' work, sometimes spending multiple weekends on a single book, she explained. Later the group's meetings revolved around queries from bishops who had their own questions and suggestions after they received the translations.

"For a good number of years, that's all I did: live and breathe translation," Nash said.

Coming into the work fairly early in her academic career, Nash said, she was very excited to be involved in the process, especially since the team was "a good mix of senior and younger scholars. ... we worked well together."

There were disagreements, to be sure, such as over whether the pronoun "he" should be used in all references to God, she said. Another effort was made to substitute "it" for references to the church as "she."

"That didn't fly," Nash said.

The completed Old Testament revision was approved by the bishops at their November 2008 meeting. In 2010 the bishops signed off on the latest revision of the Psalter, as the Book of Psalms is called.

The publication of the revised Bible also reinvigorates an ongoing dispute between the Catholic Biblical Association and the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, a separately incorporated entity whose membership is composed of the members of the USCCB Administrative Committee. The confraternity licenses religious and spiritual literature.

For decades, the association received payments from the confraternity for sales of Bibles and other publications that use the NAB translation. Payments -- which the association said represented 25 percent of the income from licensing -- but were stopped in 2008 while the confraternity sought changes in the arrangement.

The two sides entered into the process of conciliation provided for under canon law. Both the USCCB and Father Jensen declined to comment on the specifics of the case.

In a statement to CNS, Sperry said: "At the request of the CBA, the matter is in canonical conciliation. That process requires confidentiality. The bishops take the process seriously and will abide by its terms."

Father Jensen said that conciliation effort "has not been effective, but we are continuing to try."

Father Jensen said the suspension of the payments had various ramifications, from the issue of who has the legal rights to the payments to how the association would continue to pay for its program of scholarships and stipends for scholars and students.

The first year after the payments were cut off, the Catholic Biblical Association had a $170,000 deficit because it honored the grants to which it was already committed, he said, adding that the association has suspended all its grants except for a few student stipends and a famine relief donation.

(Emphasis supplied)

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