Can a Jewish convert go to Yom Kippur services?

[Blue_Jay]

I have been a Jewish convert to Catholicism for sixteen years now. Every year my parents want me to bring my older children to Yom Kippur services. I just want to make sure it isn’t against the Church’s teaching to go with my children to the synagogue. Actually, so many Jews come to Yom Kippur services that the synagogue is holding services at a local Protestant church. I am in need of some advice and soon since Yom Kippur is in five days.

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

The answer is essentially the same as it is for Protestant converts attending Protestant services with their non-Catholic Christian family. It is permissible to attend non-Catholic services occasionally, as a guest, and presuming you have adequate reason to do so. In this case, your parents would like you and your children to join them for a once-per-year event. This seems reasonable. You may be interested to know that St. Edith Stein, after she converted to Catholicism, chose to attend Jewish worship services at the synagogue with her elderly mother in a time when the Church was far more strict about Catholics attending non-Catholic worship services. During the Jewish services she attended, St. Edith prayed the psalms out of her Catholic breviary.