Jews and Judaism

The Church cannot understand her own mystery without Israel. The Old Testament is Christian Scripture because it is first the sacred heritage received through the people of the covenant, and Jesus, Mary, the apostles, and the first disciples were Jews.

Nostra aetate teaches that Jews remain most dear to God for the sake of the fathers and that God's gifts and call are irrevocable. It rejects the claim that all Jews then living, or Jews today, can be charged indiscriminately with the Passion of Christ.^[2]

Rabbinic Judaism developed through the Second Temple period and after the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70. Mishnah, Talmuds, legal interpretation, prayer, synagogue, calendar, family life, and varied philosophical and mystical traditions cannot be reduced to a frozen continuation of one New Testament controversy.

Judaism includes Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and other movements as well as communities shaped by different regional histories. An encyclopedia should distinguish the religion, Jewish peoplehood, ethnic and cultural identities, and the modern State of Israel instead of treating them as interchangeable.

The Church must proclaim Christ and also rejects coercion, contempt, and dishonest proselytism. Official Catholic dialogue seeks mutual knowledge, cooperation, and repentance for anti-Jewish hatred while leaving intact the truth claims each community actually makes.

The Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews has stated that the Catholic Church neither conducts nor supports a specific institutional mission directed toward Jews, while Christians are still called to bear witness to faith in Jesus Christ humbly and sensitively. This pastoral judgment should be quoted with its own scope rather than inflated into a denial of the universal significance of Christ.^[4]

The Church deplores hatred, persecution, and manifestations of antisemitism directed against Jews at any time and by anyone. Anti-Jewish violence and conspiracy myths violate truth and human dignity; baptism or Catholic identity cannot excuse them.

Historical treatment must also resist collective guilt in reverse. Particular doctrines, texts, leaders, governments, and actions may be criticized with evidence, but a people cannot be made the guilty subject of every act attributed to one member or institution. Charity and accuracy require the same moral standards for all.