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)

In this message I try to outline a a Jewish Catholic doctrine of Mary, a doctrine that, I think, does full justice to Mary as she is understood by the Church while, at the same time, acknowledging the dignity of Israel as it is understood in Judaism.

"The hostility or diffidence of numerous Christians toward Jews in the course of time is a sad historical fact and is the cause of profound remorse for Christians aware of the fact that “Jesus was a descendent of David; that the Virgin Mary and the Apostles belonged to the Jewish people; that the Church draws sustenance from the root of that good olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild olive branches of the Gentiles; that the Jews are our dearly beloved brothers, indeed in a certain sense they are ‘our elder brothers.’”

"The permanence of Israel (while so many ancient peoples have disappeared without trace) is a historic fact and a sign to be interpreted within God's design."

If we wish to grasp the meaning of God's Plan in history with regard to Israel, we must go far beyond the issues relating to the present political Israel or any other temporal  vision regarding Israel. We must grasp the role Israel has in God's Plan in the last days of history, wherein we have entered with the end of the time of the nations and the beginning of the time of Israel as God’s nation called in the end times to accept Messiah.

"Here the History of Humanity Was Decisively Changed."Here is the text of the address Benedict XVI gave during his visit to the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.

….In the meantime, Israel retains its own mission. Israel is in the hands of God, who will save it “as a whole” at the proper time, when the number of the Gentiles is complete….the evangelization of the Gentiles was now the disciples’ particular task…. (Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, Vol 2, pp. 44-46).

There has been much excellent academic study of the history of Christianity in the land of its birth. It could fill a whole library. In recent years, however, all that fine work has been eclipsed by the myth, created by the so-called "Palestinian narrative," of Palestinian Christianity.

A statement clarifying two points of Catholic teaching relative to the Jewish community was released June 18, 2009, at the spring meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). A Note on Ambiguities Contained in Covenant and Mission was jointly issued by the Committee on Doctrine and Pastoral Practice and the Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs.

Following the reactions aroused by the recent Decree of the Congregation for Bishops, with which the excommunication of the four Bishops of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X was remitted, and in relation to the negationist and reductionist declarations concerning the Shoah on the part of Bishop Williamson of the same Fraternity, it is held opportune to clarify certain aspects of the matter.