Pope Francis leads Catholic Church in pro-Jewish direction

I strongly disagree with Caroline Glick’s conclusion in her May 27 article that Pope Francis “is leading the Catholic Church in a distressingly anti-Jewish direction.” I can understand Caroline’s distress at some of the pope’s actions and words but it is important to have balance and not draw wrong conclusions.

Pope Francis is totally committed to reconciliation between the Church and Israel. I would like to demonstrate this under five headings:

1. State of Israel Pope Francis in his first Encyclical in November 2013 affirmed God’s everlasting covenant with the Jews: “We hold the Jewish people in special regard because their covenant with God has never been revoked, for ‘the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable’ (Rom 11:29).”

It is noteworthy that Pope Francis reappointed Father Raniero Cantalamessa as preacher to the papal household.

Fr. Cantalamessa, a renowned bible scholar and teacher, in his book The Mystery of Christmas affirmed the everlasting covenant, writing, “We share with the Jews the biblical certainty that God gave them the country of Canaan forever (Genesis 17:8, Isaiah 43:5, Jeremiah 32:22, Ezekiel 36:24, Amos 9:14). We know that the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.”

Other senior Catholic leaders have publicly affirmed the eternal covenant with the Jews. For example, Cardinal Schoenborn from Austria stated “Christians should rejoice in Jews’ return to Israel as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy.” He stressed “the doctrinal importance to Christians of not only recognizing Jews’ connection to the land, but also ensuring that Christian identification with the Jewish Bible not lead to a ‘usurpation’ of Jewish uniqueness.

Only once in human history did God take a country as an inheritance and give it to His chosen people.”

2. Anti-Semitism Pope Francis has been at the forefront in condemning anti-Semitism.

It is not just when he is meeting Israeli dignitaries like President Shimon Peres last week, when he said, “There is need for a firm rejection of...

anti-Semitism in all its possible expressions,” but he has been involved in educating ordinary Catholics around the world on this issue.

In his November Encyclical Pope Francis teaches: “As Christians, we cannot consider Judaism as a foreign religion. Dialogue and friendship with the children of Israel are part of the life of Jesus’ disciples. The friendship which has grown between us makes us bitterly and sincerely regret the terrible persecutions which they have endured, and continue to endure, especially those that have involved Christians.”

Under Pope Francis’s tenure the Vatican continues to make immense strides in combating anti-Semitism.

For example, there have now been 22 meetings of The International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee (ILC). The ILC is the official forum for ongoing dialogue between the Vatican and international Jewish leaders. Its 22nd meeting took place in Spain, from 13-16 October, 2013.

It condemned the current rise of anti-Semitism and the growing phenomenon of Christian persecution.

3. Church and Israel linked together There are on going attempts at the de-judaization of Jesus, Mary and the apostles in popular Middle East Christian culture. Pope Francis in his Encyclical in November wrote, “The Church, which shares with Jews an important part of the sacred Scriptures, looks upon the people of the covenant and their faith as one of the sacred roots of her own Christian identity (Romans 11:16-18).”

He was echoing the teaching of Nostra Aetate and Pope Benedict that “the Church of the Gentiles is like a wild olive shoot, grafted onto the good olive tree that is the people of the Covenant (Romans 11:17-24).

In other words, we draw our nourishment from the same spiritual roots.” (Apostolic Exhortation Sept 2010).

4. Replacement Theology Caroline Glick implied that Pope Francis had adopted “replacement theology during his homily in Bethlehem.”

I am confident this is not the case. Caroline observed that “In his sermon [Latin Patriarch Fouad] Twal accused Israelis of being the present-day version of Christ killers by referring to the Palestinians as walking ‘in the footsteps of the divine child,’ and likening the Israelis to King Herod.” Pope Francis, however, did not affirm these comments but turned them around by comparing all of us to Herod.

Senior Catholic clergy who espouse replacement theology are actually denying the official teaching of the Catholic Church clearly expressed in the Declaration Nostra Aetate, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and in numerous declarations by John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis. The official RC position on replacement theology is very clear. Senior Vatican Cardinal Walter Kasper set it out in 2003 in a major paper on “Anti-Semitism: A wound to be healed” that:

2. A complete break between the Church and the Synagogue is in contradiction to sacred scripture.

This clear teaching on replacement theology is reaffirmed by many Catholic theologians around the world. Father Dermot Lane of Ireland wrote in his recent book Stepping Stones to Other Religions: “God’s Covenant with the Jews has never been revoked... and therefore theories of supercessionism, substitution and replacement, which have been in existence since the second century, must now be put aside.

These new perspectives are now an essential part of what it means to be Christian and Catholic in the 21st century.”

“It is time for the Church in Israel to definitively reject replacement theology, come back in line with mainstream Catholic teaching and humbly return to a healthy appreciation of its Jewish roots.”

5. Christians as fully fledged citizens: Israel is the only country in the Middle East in which the number of Christians is growing – up from 34,000 in 1949 to 161,000 in the 2013 census. So I was encouraged that Pope Francis stated to President Peres that, “A variety of Christian communities live and work in the State of Israel. They are an integral part of society. Christians wish to contribute to the common good and the growth of peace... as fullfledged citizens who reject extremism in all its forms and are committed to fostering reconciliation.”

Perhaps he had in mind courageous Palestinian Christian leaders like Father Gabriel Nadaf and Naim Khoury who stand with Israel in spite of strong Muslim opposition.

There are also a significant number of local Muslims who have become Christians in the past seven years and pay a big price for coming out of Islam – sadly the PLO’s proposed constitution has adopted Sharia Law, under which such Christians face the death penalty.

In his meeting with the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople Pope Francis also expressed profound concern for persecuted Christians in Egypt, Syria and Iraq – we need to keep them in prayer.

I would like to assure your readers that Pope Francis is leading the Church to rediscover the Jewish roots of our faith, to honor our elder brothers and see true reconciliation between Israel and the Church in the days ahead.

I end with Pope Francis’s parting words to President Peres: “Mr. President, I assure you of my continued prayers for the institutions and the citizens of the State of Israel.... Peace be upon Israel and the entire Middle East! Shalom!” Here he was echoing Psalm 122 that he had earlier placed in a crack in the Western Wall.

How about the following from a Catholic web site critical of the Jewish attitude towards Pius? Note particularly the following:

Although leading Americans like Dean G. Acheson, George C. Marshall, and James V. Forrestal also opposed the creation of the State of Israel as a homeland for the Jews, they have not been subjected to the criticism to which Pope Pius XII has been exposed. Certainly, Pius XII had sympathy for the Zionist dream of a homeland for the Jews, but he never did recognize the State of Israel and was not at all enthusiastic about Jersualem becoming the capital of the new nation.

So Pius opposed a Jewish state in the Middle East, just as Marshall, Acheson, and Forrestal did. And by the way, it isn't true that none of these men were savaged for their positions; Forrestal most certainly was because he was a conservative and anti-Communist and could be used to "show" that anti-Communism was hostile to Jewish nationhood in the Holy Land. Liberal anti-Zionists like Acheson, Marshall, the original anti-Fundamentalist Harry Emerson Fosdick, or Arnold Toynbee were ignored, or at least not attacked with the same fervor.

Unfortunately, I cannot give you the source for my next statement; I can only say that I read it somewhere. But during the Israeli War for Independence Pius was very concerned about an Israeli victory. One of his advisors supposedly comforted him by pointing out that a Jewish State in part of the Holy Land would not be a refutation of the claims of chrstianity as a Jewish State in Jerusalem would be.

And before someone pulls the "what about anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews" card, these Jews do not oppose a Jewish Messiah ruling the entire world. To the contrary, they very much support it and pray for it constantly. They oppose secular nationalism which they think is not only forbidden by the Torah but even preventing Mashiach from coming. They still love the Land of Israel and those Jews who live there. Even the Satmar Rebbe visited Israel and the late Rabbi 'Avigdor Miller (zt"l), who translated some of his anti-Zionist works into English, was buried on Har HaZeytim (the Mount of Olives).

Mrs. Don-o, I don't mean to be mean to you; you're obviously a good and sweet person. But FCOL, you live in the Bible Belt. You know the difference between the traditional Catholic attitude towards Jews and Jewish national aspirations and that of Fundamentalist Protestants going back not just to the Niagara Prophecy Conference of the 1870's but in some cases all the way back to the sixteenth century. Ignoring this plain fact does you not credit.

At any rate, the point I was trying to make is that the Vatican can only be "philo-Semitic" in the secular, liberal, relativistic, multicultural sense. Even if its theology won't let it sound like Independent Baptists, it should drop the "down with bigotry" act that sounds like it was written by Democrat activists.

First, Mrs. Don-o, let me apologize for not reading the entirety of the article you posted. I saw the usual liberal "anti-Semitism" stuff and drew my standard conclusions. In the first part of the article a Catholic scripture scholar actually calls the Jewish return to Israel a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. I did not see this and am dumbstruck that any Catholic, conservative or liberal, would say such a thing. I sincerely hope this viewpoint grows in Catholicism, though the fact that this contradicts all previous Catholic teaching gives it a whiff of liberalism, and liberalism is no answer to anti-Semitism. For not paying attention to this and making assumptions, I sincerely apologize.

Classical, magisterial Protestantism is of course highly anti-Semitic (and has moved from that to liberalism today). But other than Episcopalianism, most American Protestantism is of the radical, post-magisterial variety. And this form of Protestantism has been predicting a Jewish return to Israel since at least the seventeenth century (I apologize if I said "sixteenth" earlier).

Radical Protestantism is of course "the American religion" in that it holds that America was intended by G-d to be the land where "true biblical chrstianity" was to be restored after "the great apostasy" (ie, the rise of historical, liturgical chrstianity). The early Puritans saw themselves as a sort of (lehavdil!) "New Israel" and this land as their "Canaan." Furthermore the Hebrew Bible was held to be the pure and true liturgical worship as opposed to the ceremonial of historical chrstianity, which can't even be found in the "new testament." This is what I have been referring to as "Biblical sentimentalism"--a pull towards the Jewish liturgy and ceremony as the true Divine coin of which liturgical chrstian worship was the counterfeit. This does not mean that orthodox Puritanism believed in "two covenants" or denied supersessionism, it explains their interest in the Hebrew language.

It was outside mainstream orthodoxy that chrstian Zionism would emerge in the seventeenth century. Increase Mather for one wrote a book predicting the national restoration of the Jews to Canaan (unfortunately rejected by his son Cotton) and even Sir Isaac Newton (heterodox that he was) believed much the same thing. This budding need for national Israel to be restored to fill the vacancy which historical chrstianity was deemed unworthy to fill really began blooming in the nineteenth century and perhaps reached its first apogee in the Niagara Bible Conferences. I once read a scholarly book entitled Zionism within Early American Fundamentalism 1878-1918 which I recommend to you, but I doubt very seriously if you could ever find it anywhere.

What most people don't understand today is that back then, not only chrstian Zionism, but Fundamentalism itself, was not an ethno-cultural reference referring to "inbred trailer dwelling white trash." Early Fundamentalism began in large and respectable urban churches in the North (the South with its legacy of racism and polygenistic apologias for the same was not quite friendly to literalism originally). "Fundamentalism" meant a belief in "fundamentals." What is sectarian about that? What is "stupid" about that? What is "hateful" or "bigoted" about that? These fundamentals were in fact the historical beliefs of chrstians (or at least Protestants) until liberalism came in and took over in the churches which Fundamentalists (or at least proto-Fundamentalists) had built. It was moreover considered "ecumenical;" by stressing "fundamentals" rather than particulars, people from a wide variety of Protestant traditions could cooperate. Of course the perception is the exact opposite today.

Parenthetically, this is why I have such a thin skin when "conservatives" or "religious people" adopt the vocabulary of Hollywood sodomites and start ranting about "Bobble-toters," "snake handlers," "brain-dead bibliolators," "Cletuses," or "bigots." And yes, Catholics on FR have used all these terms.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately in the ultimate sense in which G-d sees things) Fundamentalism lost to liberalism in the mainstream churches in which it began and was driven to its last refuge in the rural folk-Protestantism of the American Bible Belt (a religious tradition which no one studies or even tries to understand, since it is considered too "ignorant" and "naive" to be worthy of such study). Thus today a "Fundamentalist" is a poor, rural, white Southern racist. But that is the connotation, not the denotation.

Before closing on this topic, I wish to note that Zionism's right wing opponents (the "Judaeo-Masonic-Bolshevik" people) have often used Fundamentalist Zionism's respectable mainstream origins as "proof" that it was created by "the Conspiracy" and should be expunged from chrstianity as the alien infection it is. The John Birch Society used to ("unofficially") promote a book entitled The Rapture Cult (full text available online) that made this very claim. The most "notorious" of all the chrstian Zionists was Cyrus Scofield, editor of the "Scofield Reference Bible." The original publisher of this book was Oxford University Press, which to the Birchers and their kin, is "proof" that the Rockefellers and the Illuminati were behind the whole thing. And there are any number of Catholic sites online which are quite anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist and which blame all the trouble in the Middle East on "chrstian Zionism." I used to be an e-mail correspondent with Robert Sungenis. I rejoiced at his creationism (though he doesn't interpret the Biblical chronologies literally) and even his geocentrism. But then he went nuts and became a raving Jew-hater, to such an extent that he accuses every critic of having Jewish ancestors.

I'm going to stop now. For whatever reason, I've been having connection problems all week. I've been constantly going off line and even now my download speed is under 1.00 (I'm going to have to call my ISP tomorrow). I'm assuming that it's because of all the rainfall and flash flooding we've been having the past couple weeks (phone lines are after all in the ground), but I'm hoping things will be restored soon. I wish I didn't have to personally call and complain to get this problem looked at.

Thank you again for everything. I hope this posts.

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