by Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Catholic Church remains committed to deepening its relations with Jews and finds it “absolutely unacceptable” to consider the Jewish people as enemies, the Vatican spokesman said.
“It is absolutely unacceptable, impossible, to define the Jews as enemies of the Church,” Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi said.
In an audio recording posted on YouTube, the head of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) called the Jewish people “enemies of the church,” saying Jewish leaders’ support of the Second Vatican Council “shows that Vatican II is their thing, not the Church’s.”
Bishop Bernard Fellay, the society’s superior general, said those most opposed to the Church granting canonical recognition to the traditionalist society have been “the enemies of the church: the Jews, the Masons, the modernists.”
The remarks were made during a nearly two-hour talk at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Academy in New Hamburg, Ontario.
While the society’s Swiss headquarters did not respond to a request for comment, the society’s U.S. district published a press release on its website.
“The word ‘enemies’ used here by Bishop Fellay is of course a religious concept and refers to any group or religious sect which opposes the mission of the Catholic Church and her efforts to fulfill it: the salvation of souls,” it said.
The group said, “this religious context” is based on Jesus telling the Pharisees in the Gospel of St. Matthew: “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”
“By referring to the Jews, Bishop Fellay’s comment was aimed at the leaders of Jewish organizations, and not the Jewish people,” the statement said, adding that any accusations of the society being anti-Semitic were false and an example of “hate speech made in an attempt to silence its message.”
Father Lombardi said that the Second Vatican Council document “Nostra Aetate,” as well as many papal speeches and Vatican initiatives, reflected the Church’s continued, firm support “of dialogue and deepening relations” with the Jewish people. “Nostra Aetate” described Christians and Jews as having a common heritage and a profound spiritual bond and denounced any form of contempt of the Jews.
Pope Benedict XVI’s visits to the Western Wall in Jerusalem and synagogues in Cologne, New York and Rome also represent “very significant gestures of the Church’s good relations and dialogue with Jews,” the spokesman said.
In his talk, Bishop Fellay spoke about the society’s three years of discussions with the Vatican over the society’s future and explained how he interpreted behind-the-scenes communications about the talks.
Apparently speaking without a text, the bishop said he has been receiving mixed messages from the Vatican for years over if and how the group might be brought back into full communion with the Church.
Pope Benedict launched a series of doctrinal discussions with the SSPX in 2009, lifting excommunications imposed on its four bishops, who were ordained in 1988 without papal approval, and expressing his hopes they would return to full communion with the Church.
In 2011, the Vatican gave SSPX leaders a “doctrinal preamble” to sign that outlines principles and criteria necessary to guarantee fidelity to the Church and its teaching; the Vatican said the SSPX leaders would have to sign it to move toward full reconciliation.
But Bishop Fellay said he repeatedly told the Vatican that the contents of the preamble – particularly acceptance of the modern Mass and the council as expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church – were unacceptable.
Bishop Fellay said the pope wrote to him, emphasizing that full recognition required the society accept the magisterium as the judge of what is tradition, accept the council as an integral part of tradition and accept that the modern Mass is valid.
Judaism is not the religion of the Old Testament.
Catholicism is the religion of the Old Testament.
Anything that claims to be the religion of the Old Testament must have a Temple, a priesthood, and sacrifice.
After the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, Judaism had none of these things, but the Church had all of them.
The Temple was Christ, who explicitly stated that he was its replacement. The Church also had the priesthood, which celebrated the new sacrifice, which was the unbloody sacrifice of the Mass.
Judaism as we know it is a religion that was created by Jochanan ben Zacchai after the destruction of the Temple.
The Jewish religion became a debating society or school, which met at synagogues. The codification of those debates became known as the Talmud, which got written down between the third and seventh centuries AD.
The Talmud is a systematic distortion of the Torah—“Whatever the Torah forbids, the Talmud permits”—whose purpose is to keep the Jewish people away from Logos and in bondage to Jewish leaders.
Although it is true that we cannot charge the Jews of our time or any other time after the Passion of Christ directly with the death of Christ, we can nevertheless say that they are suffering to this very day because of it.
This is true not so much because they have been rejected or accursed by God but rather because they themselves have rejected Christ, calling His Blood down upon them to mark them and set themselves up in opposition to Him.
As the Fathers of the Church point out, however, the Jews will ultimately fulfill their vocation too when they return home at the end of time and are likewise marked with the Blood of Christ in a cleansing manner.
Pope Pius XI captures this notion in his prayer for the Consecration of the World to the Sacred Heart of Jesus: “Turn Thine eyes of mercy towards the children of that race, once Thy chosen people. Of old, they called down upon themselves the Blood of the Savior; may It now descend upon them as a laver of redemption and of life.”
At no time in its history has the Catholic Church officially designated the Jews who lived in the last two millennia after the death of Christ as the “Chosen People,” “People of God,” or any similar term.
All references in official Catholic teaching to the Jews as being the Chosen People refer only to Jews who lived in the Old Testament, prior to the death of Christ.
Additionally, Nostra Aetate does not excuse the Jews for being involved in the death of Christ.
It says without equivocation: “Jewish authorities … pressed for the death of Christ.”
In this it agrees with Scripture: “…the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out. They are not pleasing to God, but hostile to all men” (1Thess 2:14-15).
Nostra Aetate only excuses, and rightly so, other Jews of that time who were not involved in his death (NA 4: “…neither all Jews indiscriminately at that time, nor Jews today, can be charged with the crimes committed during his passion”).
Moreover, the Catholic Church prior to Vatican II had never officially taught that “all” Jews committed deicide or that “all” Jews, apart from the rest of the world, are to be held responsible for the death of Christ.
In short, Nostra Aetate is not teaching new doctrine. It is continuing the official teaching of Catholic tradition.