Church

Two years after its publication, the authors of the "Kairos Palestine" document held an anniversary conference in Bethlehem, constituting themselves a tribunal before which to arraign all the churches of the world for not showing enough enthusiasm for their original document.

For over two decades, parts of the Christian world have been bemused by the writings of self-styled "Palestinian Christian theologians." Since their brightest lights are Protestant pastors, they are minor figures among the overwhelmingly Orthodox and Catholic faithful of the Holy Land. But they are strangely popular in Liberal Protestant circles abroad and especially beloved of church bureaucrats.

In the plan of God’s rule over history, Israel has a great role to play in preparing the nations for the return of the Messiah in glory. In the twentieth century began the great epochal change preparing mankind for the conclusive event of history: the final coming of the Kingdom of God, for which all Christians pray every day, saying: Thy Kingdom come!

I would like to present three images, one taken from the Old, and the other two from the New Testament, images which express the unique divine plan which embraces Jews as well as Christians: the mountain upon which all the peoples of the world come as pilgrims; the wall which at one time divided humanity, definitely torn down by Jesus Christ; and the tree, nourished by a single root, which should shine in the abundance of its leaves.

From Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger's Book 'The Promise':"The Church appears in Jerusalem, after Pentecost, as an "assembly" kahal in Hebrew, ecclesia in Greek. it is unthinkable that she would claim to replace Israel. She is not another Israel, but the very, fulfillment, in Israel, of God's plan..."

A compilation of authoritative Church documents pertaining to Jews and Judaism, from the 1965 Declaration Nostra Aetate to the 2015 The Gifts and the Calling of God are Irrevocable.

"God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers; He does not repent of the gifts He makes or of the calls He issues-such is the witness of the Apostle."

"Christians must strive to acquire a better knowledge of the basic components of the religious tradition of Judaism."

AHC President David Moss interviewed Archbishop Raymond L. Burke in La Crosse, Wisconsin on Aug 5, 2010, on the topic of the election and vocation of the Jewish people within the Catholic Church.

God has tied His saving and redemptive concern for the welfare of all men to His love for the people of Israel. Only those who love the people of Israel can love the God of Israel. Israel is thus God's first-born, most precious in His eyes. -- Michael Wyschogrod (1928-2015)