The old Covenant has been abrogated, or revoked, however you want to put it. It is totally null and void. In trying to reconcile the statements of John Paul II with the Catholic faith, some have said that the old Covenant was not revoked, but fullfilled. The truth is that it was both abrogated and fulfilled, not one or the other.
Council of Florence: It [the Catholic Church] firmly believes, professes, and teaches that the matter pertaining to the law of the Old Testament, of the Mosaic law, which are divided into ceremonies, sacred rites, sacrifices, and sacraments, because they were established to signify something in the future, although they were suited to the divine worship at that time, after our Lord’s coming had been signified by them, ceased, and the sacraments of the New Testament began; and that whoever, even after the passion, placed hope in these matters of the law and submitted himself to them as necessary for salvation, as if faith in Christ could not save without them, sinned mortally. Yet it does not deny that after the passion of Christ up to the promulgation of the Gospel they could have been observed until they were believed to be in no way necessary for salvation; but after the promulgation of the Gospel it asserts that they cannot be observed without the loss of eternal salvation. All, therefore, who after that time observe circumcision and the Sabbath and the other requirements of the law, it declares alien to the Christian faith and not in the least fit to participate in eternal salvation, unless someday they recover from these errors. Therefore, it commands all who glory in the name of Christian, at whatever time, before or after baptism, to cease entirely from circumcision, since, whether or not one places hope in it, it cannot be observed at all without the loss of eternal salvation.
Pope Pius XII taught the same in Mystici Corporis Christi:
Pope Pius XII: “And first of all, by the death of our Redeemer, the New Testament took the place of the Old Law which had been abolished; then the Law of Christ together with its mysteries, enactments, institutions, and sacred rites was ratified for the whole world in the blood of Jesus Christ. For, while our Divine Savior was preaching in a restricted area – He was not sent but to the sheep that were lost of the house of Israel -the Law and the Gospel were together in force; but on the gibbet of his death Jesus made void the Law with its decrees, fastened the handwriting of the Old Testament to the Cross, establishing the New Testament in His blood shed for the whole human race. “To such an extent, then,” says St. Leo the Great, speaking of the Cross of our Lord, "was there effected a transfer from the Law to the Gospel, from the Synagogue to the Church, from many sacrifices to one Victim, that, as our Lord expired, that mystical veil which shut off the innermost part of the temple and its sacred secret was rent violently from top to bottom.” (Mystici Corporis, #29).
As we progress rapidly towards a One World Church, and setting aside of doctrine, we can expect to find more and more “Catholics” who believe that the old Law “was never revoked by God”, but this is clearly contrary to what the Church teaches.
Thank you for taking to the time to respond. I used both of these quotes as well as a quote from Pope Benedict XIV in that thread, and people accused me of taking them out of context and misinterpretaing them. One poster even accused me of being on my way to becoming a cafeteria Catholic, because I rejected a paragraph in the CCC, and quotes by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. I was largely alone in trying to refute the prevailing opinion that the Old Covenant was never revoked. Its nice to hear opinions from Catholics that adhere to what was once believed.
