The bishops issued the statement at the close of their two-week meeting, called by Pope Benedict XVI to discuss the plight of Christians in the Middle East amid a major exodus of the faithful from the region.
The Catholic Church has long been a minority in the largely Muslim region but its presence is shrinking further as a result of war, conflict, discrimination and economic problems.
“The Holy Scriptures cannot be used to justify the return of Jews to Israel and the displacement of the Palestinians, to justify the occupation by Israel of Palestinian lands,” Monsignor Cyril Salim Bustros, Greek Melkite archbishop of Our Lady of the Annunciation in Boston, Massachusetts, and president of the “Commission for the Message,” said at Saturday’s Vatican press conference.
“We Christians cannot speak of the ‘promised land’ as an exclusive right for a privileged Jewish people. This promise was nullified by Christ. There is no longer a chosen people – all men and women of all countries have become the chosen people.
“Even if the head of the Israeli state is Jewish, the future is based on democracy.
The Palestinian refugees will eventually come back and this problem will have to be solved,” the Lebanese-born Bustros said.
Mordechay Lewy, Israel’s ambassador to the Holy See, told The Jerusalem Post that Bustros, in saying that Jesus nullified God’s covenant with the Jewish people, was “returning to successionist theology, contradicting Second Vatican Council teaching and Pope Benedict himself – who has welcomed the return of Jews to their ancient homeland.”
“Also,” added the ambassador, “by inviting all Palestinian refugees to return and denying Israel’s right to define itself a Jewish state – the only such in the world – he is regressing to hard-line positions that deny Israel’s right to exist.”
from the JP article:
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=192474
Will the Holy Father refute the statements of the Final Joint Communique of the Ecumenical Conference that he called to discuss the plight of Christians in the Middle East?
‘Will the Holy Father refute the statements of the Final Joint Communique of the Ecumenical Conference that he called to discuss the plight of Christians in the Middle East?’
His policies have refuted it in advance. If the Pope was to spend his time correcting misstatements made by one or another of the one and a half billion Catholics, even those who were his guests, he would have no time to run the Church.
‘Will the Holy Father refute the statements of the Final Joint Communique of the Ecumenical Conference that he called to discuss the plight of Christians in the Middle East?’
His policies have refuted it in advance. If the Pope was to spend his time correcting misstatements made by one or another of the one and a half billion Catholics, even those who were his guests, he would have no time to run the Church.