Posted on 03/02/2011 11:14:14 AM PST by T Minus Four
Pope Benedict XVI has made a sweeping exoneration of the Jewish people for the death of Jesus Christ, tackling one of the most controversial issues in Christianity in a new book. In Jesus of Nazareth-Part II excerpts released on Wednesday, Benedict explains biblically and theologically why there is no basis in Scripture for the argument that the Jewish people as a whole were responsible for Jesus' death. Interpretations to the contrary have been used for centuries to justify the persecution of Jews. While the Catholic Church has for five decades taught that Jews weren't collectively responsible, Jewish scholars said on Wednesday the argument laid out by the German-born pontiff, who has had his share of mishaps with Jews, was a landmark statement from a pope that would help fight anti-Semitism today. "Holocaust survivors know only too well how the centuries-long charge of 'Christ killer' against the Jews created a poisonous climate of hate that was the foundation of anti-Semitic persecution whose ultimate expression was realised in the Holocaust," said Elan Steinberg of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants.
(Excerpt) Read more at au.news.yahoo.com ...
Well that’s mighty neighborly of him!
You mean to say that it's still in Catholic doctrine to believe that at least some Jews today are responsible for the death of Jesus?
The Vatican police department should file murder charges against those Jews if they still believe that. I'd like to counter sue the Catholic church on bringing false charges.
ping
>>>How magnanimous of the Pope
I was thinking the same thing. It was a very close verdict that could have gone either way, but we are relieved that the Jews were found to be innocent. Perhaps we should meet up with Jewish freepers over the weekend, and have a big celebration. I volunteer to buy the drinks. /s
Grow up. The Pope, as well as everybody else, knows the Jews as a whole weren’t “responsible” for this (the Romans actually did it, although the Jewish priests agitated for it), and this is just a formal statement to make sure that this charge, the blood libel, cannot be levied with any semblance of formal approval from anywhere.
People who are ignorant of European history (or just plain ignorant) probably don’t understand the signifance of this, however.
Why don’t you go after the Muslims, whose scriptures include specific instructions on how to find and kill Jews? Maybe some ayatollah will come out and say it was all a mistake? Tell me when that happens. Snicker.
The question was: did all the Jews of His day, or all the Jews of succeeding ages, share a collective guilt for this murder/deicide? --- and the answer is "No."
Particular men, Judas and Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate and the guys with flails and hammers in their hand,s Jewish and Roman, had particular responsibility for a false judicial judgment, torture and a murderous execution.
In the larger moral sense, the sins which nailed Him to the Cross where yours and mine.
But you knew this.
Don’t get too excited. There is still a portion of the “evangelical” church that looks forward to future divine wrath against Jewish people after the Church is safely out of the way.
The church as a whole never taught that. Some church fathers and others did.
What the Pope here is reiterating (for this is nothing new) is that there is no "collective guilt" particularly damning Jews --- who, like Gentiles, share in a damaged, sin-prone human nature, as do we all, and whose sins, like all of humanity's sins, are the real burden Jesus carried as our Savior.
Did you read the statement?
You guys are forgetting that faith in the Lord Jesus is a gift! God will not condemn those who did not get that gift - on no fault of their own hence the word invincible ignorance. That too is dogma.
BTW, the Jewish people were redempted by the Son of God Himself when He prayed, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” The key word here is redemption not exoneration. Exoneration would be a kind of protestant error whereby we are all shoe-ins for Heaven no matter how we lead our lives. We still have to conform our behavior to God’s laws and be in a state of grace to enter Heaven and/or Purgatory. Christ gave us the opportunity, but we have to cooperate. And on Jesus’s remark, I think it’s fair to say that he was referring to the Roman soliders as well as everyone else, probably all of us too.
HUH? The Catholic Church never taught this. You’re going to have to do better than that.
The actual quote is:
True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ (13); still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today.
I see nothing in there singling out any Jews of today for special blame.
Jesus already did that. “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.”
The pope is a fool and his ridiculous wardrobe is fitting. The Jews, and every other human to ever live are responsible for Christ’s death through our sin. A life He laid down freely, a sacrifice for our sins the catholic church refuses to recieve.
I doubt you know the significance of the wardrobe.
I was just pointing out that 5 decades ago things changed. Which is good!
And things changed in quite a few ways about that length of time ago!
This is a good thing by the Pope, really.
Personally, I think it’s a shame that apparently many of the faithful need to hear it from the pope before they will believe it.
But maybe the catholic church is mainly after a different demographic to educated, Bible-reading Christians. At least outside of America. Maybe there are a lot of people who were born to have someone tell them how to think, and it’s best that they hear it from the catholic church than from an imam!
It’s a good thing he’s done here really. There are definitely a lot of people who base their jew-hatred on that idea.
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