T
theMutant
Guest
Note: I haven’t read all of the posts after the one to which I am responding.
It is sadly true that there have been, undoubtedly still are, Catholics who are anti-Semitic. However, having studied Catholicism in depth for many years, I have found that the authentic teaching of the Church has always been incompatible with anti-Semitism. This is because Catholicism was founded by Jesus of Nazereth, who was born and raised a Jew. Whom we believe is the Messiah foretold in the Hebrew Scriptures, the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. The God who established the covenant with Israel with the promise that through his descendants, all the nations of the world would be blessed and learn to call on the name of the Lord. The Jewish religion was a part of that covenant. When Jesus came, He declared that he did not come to abolish, but to fulfill the covenant. This was done by establishing a new covenant which would embrace gentiles along with the Jews.
However, this establishment was not a repudiation of Judiasm or even of Jews for it was established among Jews. In fact, the New Covenant did not extend to the Gentiles until after the Crucifixion. Prior to that, when Jesus sent out His disciples, He gave them explicit instructions that they were only to go among the children of the house of Israel. When God became Man, he did so as a Jew and was born to a **Jewish virgin ** whom we Catholics refer to as our Blessed Mother and praise as the greatest Saint in heaven; whom no one will ever equal. **All of the Apostles whom Jesus chose to lead the Church of the New Covenant were Jews ** and anyone, Jew or gentile, was welcome and remains welcome to this day. Now, it is true that certain ritual practices have either changed or been eliminated. These changes are explained in the New Testament as relating to the difference between the ritual sacrifices required by the Old Covenant no longer being required due to Christ’s perfect Sacrifice. Therefore, again Catholicism does not repudiate Judaism but claims its glorious fulfillment in Catholicism. Again, the perfect example of this is the Passover, which was a perpetual rememberence. Has that been eliminated in Catholicism? No. The Mass is our Passover celebration because Christ, as the Lamb of God, is our Passover Sacrifice. Therefore, the Passover is fulfilled and is now celebrated every day!
What of the Old? Are we to disregard it? No. For it is our own origin, which is why we revere the writings of the Old Testament equally with those of the New. They are both, for us, the Word of God. The true and full understanding of the New Testament is not possible without reference to the Old Testament and to Judaism for they are our roots. If we cut off the roots, the vine would die!
I don’t mean to wax on. I only hope to illustrate the collossal misunderstanding that exists on both sides. To be anti-Semitic is to be anti-Catholic; for the Jews, as descendents of Shem, are our religious elder brothers as Pope John Paul II emphasized. In the accounts I have read of Jews who have become Catholic (including the book I referred to before, “Salvation is from the Jews”), they do not really conisder themselves as converts because, for them, they have at last found the fulfillment for which Judaism is perpetually longing. If we Catholics who have no experience of Judaism gave serious thought to that, we would realize that, by being Catholic, we are not in a new religion but part of the fulfillment of Judaism. That we are now part of the covenant with God’s chosen people who are, as was revealed through Moses, God’s firstborn. We gentile Catholics are the younger siblings who have been granted unfettered access to our older brother’s inheritance.
What a glorious God we have!
I have never heard anything anti-semitic, but quite the opposite.
