are Jews saved without converting to catholicism?

[recentrevert]

Agreed!!! The Church does not teach Jews are going to hell. Maybe that is just where they learned about their Catholic faith. Makes me wonder if he is a convert. I am a cradle catholic, going to 12 years of Catholic school, and have worked at a Catholic high school for 20 years and not one of the many, many priest I have known, ever taught the Jews were not going to be saved.

I don’t see why people care if the Jews are saved or not. They should be worrying about their own salvation and I don’t see damning people to hell helping them get there!

Firstly, the Church teaches that unless non-Catholics convert, they will be damned. Outside of the Church there is no remission of sin. They must convert. God gives all people who sincerely seek to do His Will the graces they need to enter the Church. We cannot say for certain that any particular non-Catholic is in hell because that person could, in his last moments, have accepted the Faith and desired baptism - where there is life there is hope.

Secondly, if it is true that neither your parents, nor your teachers, nor your catechists, nor your priests have ever taught you that non-Catholics must convert then they have done a most terrible job of teaching you the Faith. Why do you think so many martyrs have died spreading the Gospel if belief in it is just some sort of unneccessary choice?

Thirdly, I care about whether the Jews are saved or not because God has commanded me to love my neighbour as I love myself. It would not be loving to pretend that non-Catholics will go to heaven when we know that if they die in unbelief they will not. If we tell Jews that they need not convert we lie and we call Christ a liar and we damn ourselves also. Not that you are lying, because you do not know, but you should consider whether that is something you ought to have known. We must preach the Gospel and pray for their conversion.

 

[steve_b]

Nobody was in Heaven before Jesus walked the earth. Heaven was CLOSED until the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus went down to the dead and took the righteous (those who accepted him as God and heard the good news) with him to Heaven.

Exactly

Jesus came to convert the Jews 1st Matthew 10:6 , Matthew 15:24 That automatically should get one to ask, Why… if the old covenant God established with the Jews was sufficient for their salvation? What do they need converting to if everything is contained in the OLD?

When Jesus went to preach to the souls in prison (shoel / hell), why do THAT if the OT was sufficient for salvation? Shoel in this case isn’t Gehenna, the bode of the condemned. Shoel is the abode of the righteous of the OT. All the prophets. They are the ones who were looking forward to Jesus.

Covenants can only be broken by the death of one of the parties who made the covenant. God died on the Cross. That’s how the OLD gives way to the NEW.
th:

CCC 633 Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, “hell” - Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek - because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God. Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into “Abraham’s bosom”: “It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior in Abraham’s bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell.” Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.

CCC 634 “The gospel was preached even to the dead.” The descent into hell brings the Gospel message of salvation to complete fulfilment. This is the last phase of Jesus’ messianic mission, a phase which is condensed in time but vast in its real significance: the spread of Christ’s redemptive work to all men of all times and all places, for all who are saved have been made sharers in the redemption.

CCC 635 Christ went down into the depths of death so that “the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” Jesus, “the Author of life”, by dying destroyed “him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and [delivered] all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage.” Henceforth the risen Christ holds “the keys of Death and Hades”, so that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth.”

 

[ancailindeas]

Sorry, you don’t know, you believe, that is why it is called faith and not fact. The Jews know what they know and the Muslims know what they know but we are cannot know what truth is, we each believe what the truth is.

Has any one wondered why the Pope speaks they way he does sometimes. I was raised by The Jesuit priests so it is not new to me. Why do so many Catholic these days spend so much time looking at and speaking against others instead of going out and finding something to love about the people they meet. I find it very sad and it troubles me when people use evangelizing to excuse their judging.

If I am around a group of Muslims, I am not going to start preach the Bible to them, just like I don’t want the southern Baptist knocking on my door. I go to Church to hear the Gospel, I do not what to hear about from some stranger.

Shelby your argument is not very clear. Are you saying that Jews and Muslims can ‘know’ the facts of their respective religions but we cannot know the facts of Catholicism. We can know the truth in many ways - by deduction, by induction , by revelation… The truth is truly knowable. This is Catholic philosophy and theology. That there is much about God that is beyond us does not negate that we can know things about Him by ways I have just mentioned.

You then pose a question about the Pope. Are you being rhetorical? What do you mean - it simply is not clear to me. Who is judging people here? The issue is a judgement about false religions because that is what they are. These false religion do nothing to aid the eternal salvation of their adherents. It is only loving to say it. That I have been born into Catholicism through no virtue of my own is a great privilege and I would like that privileged extended to non believers. Strangers have always preached the Gospel to non believers and such strangers (like St Paul) became a spiritual father to such people - like the Romans and the Corinthians.

 

[shelby_sun]

Firstly, the Church teaches that unless non-Catholics convert, they will be damned. Outside of the Church there is no remission of sin. They must convert. God gives all people who sincerely seek to do His Will the graces they need to enter the Church. We cannot say for certain that any particular non-Catholic is in hell because that person could, in his last moments, have accepted the Faith and desired baptism - where there is life there is hope.

Secondly, if it is true that neither your parents, nor your teachers, nor your catechists, nor your priests have ever taught you that non-Catholics must convert then they have done a most terrible job of teaching you the Faith. Why do you think so many martyrs have died spreading the Gospel if belief in it is just some sort of unneccessary choice?

Thirdly, I care about whether the Jews are saved or not because God has commanded me to love my neighbour as I love myself. It would not be loving to pretend that non-Catholics will go to heaven when we know that if they die in unbelief they will not. If we tell Jews that they need not convert we lie and we call Christ a liar and we damn ourselves also. Not that you are lying, because you do not know, but you should consider whether that is something you ought to have known. We must preach the Gospel and pray for their conversion.

Again, and again, and again, you do not know, you believe, just as the Jews believe in their faith. Why in the world would they listen to someone like you? Would you listen to them if they were trying to change your faith, NO. So why would you expect them to listen to you, oh yes because your right, but to them they are right.

No not everyone is called to preach the Gospel just like not everyone is meany to be a surgeon and save lives or go work among the poorest of the poor. Those who simply preach have taken an easy way of serving God, yet still get so puffed up about it.

At the Jesuit school I work at, our boys are not expected to memorized the Bible, they are taught to live it. My son went with a group of teenagers this summer to serve some of the poorest people in the US. They didn’t ask them what they believed. Another group went to Peru to wash and care for lepers and people with full blown AIDS, not to mention some of the most disabled children in that country. Yet another went to Mexico to help poor parishes. None of them asked what their beliefs were or preached to them, they simple went to help and give comfort. You can preach all you want, that doesn’t mean you get it, which you obviously don’t.

People send so much of their time memorizing Bible versus, yet they simple do not get and fully understand what God is asking of us, and “knowing” who is going to be saved and who is not is only something God knows and in my opinion anyone that believe they know is purely arrogant and disrespectful to God.

 

[Personanongrata]

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The Church teaches that no one comes to the Father except through HIs Son, Jesus Christ. Nobody, neither Catholic faithful nor the Church, damns Jews. But Judaism will not save the Jew. And it is the wish of Christ and His Church that the Jews are saved. They too are precious to him. It is normal that Catholics would worry about non- Catholics souls and desire them to convert. Its normal. It is a sign of charity. It is certainly not condescension - none of us know whether we shall be saved either - we can lose grace at any time but we can have holy hope. There is only one faith - it does not depend where you learned it - but rather whether you learned it at all. Not every priest in the Church preaches sound doctrine - I wish they did but this is reality. There is no triumphalism here. This desire for Jewish conversion on the side of Catholics is a holy thing.

Since I have many loyal Jewish friends and Jewish FAMILY, I simply do not believe that “Judaism will not save the Jew”. That message does not come from a loving God. You are open to your own interpretations.

I’d like to hear Pope Francis make that claim. He won’t. How many Catholics are out there saving Jews? Actively trying to convert them?? I have no desire to convert my Jewish friends and family.

 

[Prayer_Warrior]

Since I have many loyal Jewish friends and Jewish FAMILY, I simply do not believe that “Judaism will not save the Jew”. That message does not come from a loving God. You are open to your own interpretations.

I’d like to hear Pope Francis make that claim. He won’t. How many Catholics are out there saving Jews? Actively trying to convert them?? I have no desire to convert my Jewish friends and family.

We are not open to interpretation-- this is the Gospel message-- Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God, He died on the Cross for our sins, and He is the only Way in which we can enter heaven. He is the Door, He is the Gate, there is no going around Jesus to enter heaven. The entire New Testament witnesses to the Covenant in Jesus’ Blood. If you reject this, you reject Christ and the Gospel, not to mention 2,000 years of Church teaching.

The fact that Jesus was willing to be born into space and time just so He could die on the Cross to save all of humanity–including those who would reject Him- testifies to His great love. THAT is a loving God. It is also a God Who kept His promises to the Israelites.

We cannot know the depth of the mercy of God. But as Christians, we profess with the Scriptures and the Church that there is no other way to heaven except through Jesus. Will He grant mercy to those Jews who don’t know Him but seek God with a sincere heart? The Catholic Church says that is possible (CCC 847). But it won’t be because of the Old Covenant that they are saved, it will be because of the mercy and love of Jesus. Read the Old Covenant promises for yourself, they are not about eternal salvation. Talk with some of your Jewish friends to see what they believe about life after death. You’ll soon see they don’t believe in salvation as we know it, they don’t believe in hell as we know it and they don’t claim to be “saved” under the Old Covenant. Why would you presume that they are saved under the Old Covenant when they don’t even believe that themselves?

PS. Evangelization does not mean screaming in someone’s face that they are going to hell. It doesn’t even necessarily mean being “preachy”. It does mean testifying to Jesus in your life and giving the basic gospel message.

 

[Prayer_Warrior]

Here are some Scriptures to consider when talking about salvation in Jesus Christ:

Acts 4:12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus,

John 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

1 John 5:11 And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

Galatians 2:16 “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.”

Titus 3:5 “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;”

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

John 10:9 " I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture."

John 14:6 “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

1 Corinthians 3:11 “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”

1 John 5:12 “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.”

John 1:12 “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:”

 

[Personanongrata]

We are not open to interpretation-- this is the Gospel message-- Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God, He died on the Cross for our sins, and He is the only Way in which we can enter heaven. He is the Door, He is the Gate, there is no going around Jesus to enter heaven. The entire New Testament witnesses to the Covenant in Jesus’ Blood. If you reject this, you reject Christ and the Gospel, not to mention 2,000 years of Church teaching.

The fact that Jesus was willing to be born into space and time just so He could die on the Cross to save all of humanity–including those who would reject Him- testifies to His great love. THAT is a loving God. It is also a God Who kept His promises to the Israelites.

We cannot know the depth of the mercy of God. But as Christians, we profess with the Scriptures and the Church that there is no other way to heaven except through Jesus. Will He grant mercy to those Jews who don’t know Him but seek God with a sincere heart? The Catholic Church says that is possible (CCC 847). But it won’t be because of the Old Covenant that they are saved, it will be because of the mercy and love of Jesus. Read the Old Covenant promises for yourself, they are not about eternal salvation. Talk with some of your Jewish friends to see what they believe about life after death. You’ll soon see they don’t believe in salvation as we know it, they don’t believe in hell as we know it and they don’t claim to be “saved” under the Old Covenant. Why would you presume that they are saved under the Old Covenant when they don’t even believe that themselves?

PS. Evangelization does not mean screaming in someone’s face that they are going to hell. It doesn’t even necessarily mean being “preachy”. It does mean testifying to Jesus in your life and giving the basic gospel message.

I’m sorry. But what you say is not believable and I have discussed this very topic in detail with my Jewish friends and family.

 

[Prayer_Warrior]

I’m sorry. But what you say is not believable and I have discussed this very topic in detail with my Jewish friends and family.

If you do not believe that all salvation is through Christ Jesus you have rejected the Gospel message and the teaching of the Catholic Church.

Here is a Jewish site which shows what Jews believe about the afterlife with a “type of hell” which is not eternal separation from God but a “cleansing” and a “kindness”. Clearly it is not how Christians define hell. Here is a Jewish site that talks about the Olam Ha-Ba which is a place of the afterlife which is a place of Spiritual perfection. It is not the beatific vision of God as we believe we will have in heaven. I have also talked to Jewish friends about the topic and they have told me what these websites say regarding the afterlife-- including the fact that Judaism is much more about the here and now than the life to come. It is interesting that the latter site says there is much room for opinion on the matter and that the there is not much dogma about the afterlife (first paragraph)

 

[Personanongrata]

If you do not believe that all salvation is through Christ Jesus you have rejected the Gospel message and the teaching of the Catholic Church.

Here is a Jewish site which shows what Jews believe about the afterlife with a “type of hell” which is not eternal separation from God but a “cleansing” and a “kindness”. Clearly it is not how Christians define hell. Here is a Jewish site that talks about the Olam Ha-Ba which is a place of the afterlife which is a place of Spiritual perfection. It is not the beatific vision of God as we believe we will have in heaven. I have also talked to Jewish friends about the topic and they have told me what these websites say regarding the afterlife-- including the fact that Judaism is much more about the here and now than the life to come. It is interesting that the latter site says there is much room for opinion on the matter and that the there is not much dogma about the afterlife (first paragraph)

You can always find “stuff” on the internet to support invalid positions. I don’t believe it, I am not convinced…

 

[steve_b]

Since I have many loyal Jewish friends and Jewish FAMILY, I simply do not believe that “Judaism will not save the Jew”. That message does not come from a loving God. You are open to your own interpretations.

Why did Jesus insist on converting the Jews 1st? (all emphasis mine) If Judaism saves a Jew,

Mt 10:5 These twelve Jesus sent out, charging them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans,b] 6 but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 And preach as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without pay, give without pay. 9 Take no gold, nor silver, nor copper in your belts, 10 no bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor a staff; for the laborer deserves his food. 11 And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it, and stay with him until you depart. 12 As you enter the house, salute it. 13 And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. 14 And if any one will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. 15 Truly, I say to you, it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomor′rah than for that town.

Mt 15: 21 And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and cried, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely possessed by a demon.” 23 But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying after us.” 24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”e] 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” 26 And he answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” 27 She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” 28 Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

the footnotes b & e for Mt 10:5 & Mt 15:24 refer to each other.= The gospel, the Messianic salvation, had first to be preached and offered to the chosen people, Israel. Later it would be offered to the Gentiles

I’d like to hear Pope Francis make that claim. He won’t. How many Catholics are out there saving Jews? Actively trying to convert them?? I have no desire to convert my Jewish friends and family.

“It is not possible to find Jesus outside the Church”

http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-mass-on-feast-of-st-george-full-text

 

[mikekle]

Why then doesn’t Pope Francis specifically state that the Jews must be converted to the true faith in order to be saved? I do not think that he believes in the doctrine of supersession.

Yeah, this is totally wrong, the Jewish people are Gods CHOSEN people…I doubt he would say that and then have them all end up in hell.

 

[steve_b]

Yeah, this is totally wrong, the Jewish people are Gods CHOSEN people…I doubt he would say that and then have them all end up in hell.

That’s why Jesus went to convert Jews 1st and instructed His apostles to go to the Jews 1st… #72

 

[Michael_Francis]

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