Heresy in the US adult cathechism?

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eelpis

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The United States Catholic Catechism for Adults (2006), states explicitly:
“The covenant that God made with the Jewish people through Moses remains eternally valid for them."

What kind of authority does this pronouncement have? It seems to contradict Exra ecclesiam nulla salus and also Dominus Iesus .(Christ as the sole savior of humanity) “No one can come to the Father except by me.”
 
I do not know what the context is, but from what I can see that sounds like heresy…or at least it implies heretical notions. Yes you are correct, salvation can only be obtained through Jesus Christ and His Holy Church. The Jewish Covenant anticipated the New Covenant of Christ.
 
eelpis said:
The United States Catholic Catechism for Adults (2006), states explicitly:
“The covenant that God made with the Jewish people through Moses remains eternally valid for them."

What kind of authority does this pronouncement have? It seems to contradict Exra ecclesiam nulla salus and also Dominus Iesus .(Christ as the sole savior of humanity) “No one can come to the Father except by me.”
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This article addresses your question
catholicintl.com/epologetics/dialogs/pastoral/ccc-heresy1.htm
 
eelpis said:
The United States Catholic Catechism for Adults (2006), states explicitly:
“The covenant that God made with the Jewish people through Moses remains eternally valid for them."

What kind of authority does this pronouncement have? It seems to contradict Exra ecclesiam nulla salus and also Dominus Iesus .(Christ as the sole savior of humanity) “No one can come to the Father except by me.”
Click to expand...
Two things come to mind. First, the older Catechism (approved by Pope John Paul in 1997) says this:

839
"Those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways."325
Code: 
The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People. When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People,326 "the first to hear the Word of God."327 The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God's revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews "belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ";328 "for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable."329
The second thing that comes to mind is that the Jews have a Covenant with God: You will be my people and I will be your God.

God’s Covenant cannot be broken. If it could be broken, what reason would we have to believe him and follow him now? He could change his mind next week and we’d be left out.
 
SuscipeMeDomine said:
The second thing that comes to mind is that the Jews have a Covenant with God: You will be my people and I will be your God.

God’s Covenant cannot be broken. If it could be broken, what reason would we have to believe him and follow him now? He could change his mind next week and we’d be left out.
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Great point! 👍
 
SuscipeMeDomine said:
Two things come to mind. First, the older Catechism (approved by Pope John Paul in 1997) says this:

839
"Those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways."325
Code: 
The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People. When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People,326 "the first to hear the Word of God."327 The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God's revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews "belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ";328 "for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable."329
The second thing that comes to mind is that the Jews have a Covenant with God: You will be my people and I will be your God.

God’s Covenant cannot be broken. If it could be broken, what reason would we have to believe him and follow him now? He could change his mind next week and we’d be left out.
Click to expand...
The Old Covenant is a complete contrast with the New- A sacrificial priesthood with no real power to forgive sins, a Covenant with God that only promised future salvation, etc. The New Covenant fulfilled the Old- the Church is nothing but the continuation of the ancient Judaic religion. To say the Hebrew Covenant is still valid is to say Christians formed a new religion, which we did not.
 
SuscipeMeDomine said:
Two things come to mind. First, the older Catechism (approved by Pope John Paul in 1997) says this:

839
"Those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways."325
Code: 
The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People. When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People,326 "the first to hear the Word of God."327 The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God's revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews "belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ";328 "for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable."329
The second thing that comes to mind is that the Jews have a Covenant with God: You will be my people and I will be your God.

God’s Covenant cannot be broken. If it could be broken, what reason would we have to believe him and follow him now? He could change his mind next week and we’d be left out.
Click to expand...
I find the above quote to be quite complete…as is my agreement with it. I might just add as a little food for rumination our dear Lord’s words to the samaritan woman in John 4:22 -

" Your people worship what you do not understand, while we understand what we worship; after all, salvation is from the Jews."
 
NeedImprovement said:
I find the above quote to be quite complete…as is my agreement with it. I might just add as a little food for rumination our dear Lord’s words to the samaritan woman in John 4:22 -

" Your people worship what you do not understand, while we understand what we worship; after all, salvation is from the Jews."
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Yes salvation is from the Jews because Christ comes from them according to the flesh NOT because by keeping the Mosaic law you can enter heaven.

ALL, including the Jews, need Christ to be justified. NO ONE will ever be saved without him.

The statement is scandalous to the faith in Christ.
 
eelpis said:
Yes salvation is from the Jews because Christ comes from them according to the flesh NOT because by keeping the Mosaic law you can enter heaven.

ALL, including the Jews, need Christ to be justified. NO ONE will ever be saved without him.

The statement is scandalous to the faith in Christ.
Click to expand...
“…blindness has come to Israel until the full number of Gentiles enter in, and then all Israel will be saved…In respect to the Gospel, for Jews are enemies of God for your sake; in respect to the election, they are beloved by him because of the patriarchs. God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.” from Rom. 11:25-29.

All of Romans Chs. 9-11 are worth reading, to shed light on what the Church teaches about this. Certainly Paul was not arguing that it didn’t matter if a Jew converted or not…far from it! He did say that no one has standing to write off the Jews, and that those Christians who are ignorant of this mystery stand in danger of becoming conceited.

IOW, there is not a contradiction in the catechism. This is what the Scriptures teach, and what the Church teaches. Changes in the emphasis, whether on the necessity of Christ for salvation or the fidelity of God to his promises, might give the appearance of change, but there is no change. If you read Romans, you will see that there isn’t a conflict, even if people have always tried to imagine one.
 
Hmmm, I may be misreading it, but that seems to be in error, since it is the Abrahamic covenant that has permanence while the Mosaic is intervening and transitory. Remember, the Abrahamic is the covenant of faith that has been offered now to the Gentiles as well as the Jews and faithfulness includes faith in the Divine Logos made flesh, Jesus.

I highly recommend then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s work:

“The New Covenant: A Theology of Covenant in the New Testament,” * Communio: International Catholic Review * 22, no. 4 (1995): 635-651.

Here is a pretty good summary of it:
catholicculture.org/library/view.cfm?recnum=7878
 
The following document entitled:

***Notes on the Correct Way to Present the Jews and Judaism
in Preaching and Catechesis in the Roman Catholic Church

Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews
June 24, 1985 ,***

is a pretty interesting read…can be viewed at the following link:

uwo.ca/kings/ccjl/docs/catholic_docs/notes/notes.html
 
childofmary1143 said:
Au contraire mon ami:

Magisterial Teachings of the Holy Catholic Faith 1 USCCB 0
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Okay, I stand corrected (see my user name), but maybe next time you could tell me in english… 90% of my apostolate is in the french language; additionally at the seminary here the english speaking seminarians are taught in french (if you say Catholic Answers Forum they’ll think it’s where the Catholic hockey team plays their home games.
 
Saying “The Jews’ covenant with God is permanent” is not the same thing as saying “the Jews can be saved through the Old Covenant alone.”

The former affirms that God still has a special relationship with the Chosen People; they haven’t been abandoned or anything. Obviously, we don’t want to go as far as the Dispensationalists who paint the entirety of Christian history as a brief interruption of God’s dealings with Israel, but we can affirm with Paul that God still fully intends to bring physical Israel into union with spiritual Israel before the end of time.

The latter statement, which is the heretical one, alleges that Jews can be saved through Judaism, without Christ.

The former statement has often been misunderstood to mean the same as the latter statement, but it does not. Catholics can affirm the former statement, but not the latter.

The Church does acknowledge that some Jews may be saved and attain Heaven without visibly converting to Christianity, just as She says the same about Muslims and members of other religions. However, none of those people are saved because of their religion, but rather in spite of it, because they sought to serve God as best they could given the knowledge they had.

Basically, we don’t want to characterize today’s Jews as “losers” who missed the boat on the Messiah and have been following a defunct Covenant ever since. Rather, they are our spiritual ancestors and elder brothers, and God still has plans for His “natural branches” that we “grafted branches” (Gentile Christians) have no part in. At the same time, we affirm that those plans involve in some way the coming of Israel as a corporate entity to acknowledge the Messiah Who has already come.

Usagi
 
NeedImprovement said:
Okay, I stand corrected (see my user name), but maybe next time you could tell me in english… 90% of my apostolate is in the french language; additionally at the seminary here the english speaking seminarians are taught in french (if you say Catholic Answers Forum they’ll think it’s where the Catholic hockey team plays their home games.
Click to expand...
On the contrary my friend is what my fractured French was trying say!!
 
eelpis said:
The United States Catholic Catechism for Adults (2006), states explicitly:
“The covenant that God made with the Jewish people through Moses remains eternally valid for them."

What kind of authority does this pronouncement have? It seems to contradict Exra ecclesiam nulla salus and also Dominus Iesus .(Christ as the sole savior of humanity) “No one can come to the Father except by me.”
Click to expand...
When all else fails, let’s go directly to the word of God. St. Paul in Romans 11:24-29 writes, "…blindness has come upon part of Israel until the full number of Gentiles enter in, and then all Israel will be saved. As Scripture says, "Out of Zion will come the deliverer who shall remove all impiety from Jacob; and this is the covenant I will make with them when I take away their sins. In respect to the gospel, the Jews are enemies of God for your sake. In respect to the election, they are beloved by him because of the patriarchs. Gods gifts and his call are irrevocable."

I see no heresy. Only that the number of gentiles have not yet entered into the kingdom. From the way we see this world and all that is going on, I think it will take a long time to reach that unquantified number. But remember, the Jews are still beloved by God. Thats the inspired word of God. Not ours.
Prayers & blessings
Deacocn Ed B
 
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