The Transitory Nature of the Mosaic Law

Two years ago I did a post entitled "Not to Abolish, but to Fulfill" (July, 2015) addressing the question of what Jesus meant when He said he did not come to abolish the Law of Moses, but to fulfill, it. The post can be summed up in the following excerpt:

Jesus did not come to destroy the Law. He came to fulfill its precepts, obligations and prophecies to the last letter. He fulfills the function of all the sacrifices, He lives a perfect life and keeps the essence of its commandments flawlessly, and brings to fulfillment all its prophecies - the greatest being His atoning death on the cross, which ushers in the New Covenant...and brings the Old Law to its natural conclusion.Yes, the Old Law is obsolete and has passed away. No, our Lord did not "destroy" it or "abolish" it; rather, like so much else of the Old Testament, He took it up, transfigured it, ennobled it, and fulfilled it.

Recently I received this inquiry from a reader on the question of the Law of Moses:

How do we refute the Jews' assertion that the Law of Moses is permanent...interpreted by the rabbis and those in the Sanhedrin leading up to the Talmud? And also how do we demonstrate that Jesus is the Messiah when they have a doctrine that the Messiah must be a political leader? Traditional Catholicism may claim to have unbroken tradition, but the Jews will respond that we broke from their tradition, therefore making us heretics in their view. I know this is an old blog post, but these thoughts keep bugging me.

The fulfillment of the Old Covenant by the coming of Christ is one of the most important teachings of the Christian faith. Understanding the relationship between the New Testament and the Old is essential for grasping how the claim of the Old Testament are fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

The question of the impermanence of the Mosaic Law is a very broad question that cannot be exhaustively answered in a single post. This question was of pressing concern to the Church Fathers, however. Judaism was a powerful rival of Christianity in the late Roman Empire; Christians felt an urgent need to answer Jewish attacks on the claims of the Church to be the fulfillment of Old Testament Israel. We refer the reader to two important patristic works on the subject: Dialogue with Trypho the Jew by St. Justin Martyr, and Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews by St. Cyprian of Carthage. These lengthy works give a very systematic exposition of the early Church's understanding of the transitory nature of the Mosaic Law and the Law's fulfillment in Christ. These works a very dense, but essential reading.

That being said, I think there are a few points we can make to help address the question.

Part I: The New Covenant is Distinctively Different from the Old Testament Law of Moses

One first must realize there is nothing you can say to the Jews that will suddenly convince them. There is no "gotcha" verse or argument that will make them stop and think "Whoa...he's correct. Our thousands of years of tradition is wrong." That should not be the aim here. It sometimes happens that over time the accumulated weight of many arguments, coupled with a charitable example and the grace of the Holy Spirit, can win someone over. But in presenting the following points we are aiming more towards edifying Christians rather than building a case against the Jews.

Second, it seems the question is making the assumption that an unbroken tradition is inherently good. To the Jews, we are the heretics because we broke with their tradition. That may be true from the Jewish viewpoint. But remember, Christ taught that the Jewish traditions had actually obscured the revelation of God:

"For leaving the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men, the washing of pots and of cups: and many other things you do like to these. And he said to them: Well do you make void the commandment of God, that you may keep your own tradition" (Mark 7:8-9).

The tradition of Judaism actually is a hindrance to understanding the truth about God. St. Paul teaches that the Jews interpret the revelation of God in a "fleshly" manner, thinking sanctity consists in washings, keeping of certain feasts, ceremonial purity, dietary rules, circumcisions, etc. He says their reading of the Old Testament is skewered, and he draws a parallel between this and the veil that Moses put over his face. Just as Moses wore a veil to hide the glory of God that came off his face, so the Jewish traditions constitute a sort of "veil" over a right understanding of the Scriptures:

"Their senses were made dull. For, until this present day, the selfsame veil, in the reading of the old testament, remains not taken away (because in Christ it is made void). But even until this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. But when they shall be converted to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away" (2 Cor. 3:14-16).

So we ought not be given pause by the fact that Christianity is viewed as a Jewish "heresy" by the Jews. The Jews have ever rejected the truth when it is given to them. They wanted to stone Moses for bringing them out of Egypt. They killed the prophets and persecuted the righteous. Christ laments over their hardness of heart when He cries for Jerusalem:

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’” (Luke 13:34-35)

Of course, ultimately, they killed the Messiah Himself because their tradition had blinded them to the truth about who the Christ would be.

The Jews' own law testified that the dictates of Moses' law would one day give way to something more perfect. Moses himself testifies to this when he says:

"The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren—him you shall heed— just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ And the Lord said to me, ‘They have rightly said all that they have spoken.  I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him" (Deut. 18:15-18).

God had spoken to the Israelites at Mount Horeb, but they had begged him not to speak anymore to them because they were terrified of His presence. Moses, His messenger, they rebelled against when they sinned and made the golden calf, as well as at other times. Thus Moses promises them that in the future God will raise up a prophet whom they will listen to. Thus the Israelites were awaiting the coming of a new prophet from among their brethren who would speak with the power and authority of Moses and whom they would heed. This prophet would reveal God to them in a way they could draw close to, not like the fiery cloud on Horeb.

That the law would be impermanent, we see in the book of the prophet Jeremiah, where God says:

“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more" (Jer. 31:31-34)

In this passage, God says He will make a new covenant with Israel. Note that this new covenant is "not like the covenant" He made with them through Moses  - i.e., it is not just a rehash of the Mosaic Law. It is of an essentially different character altogether. The law will be written on their hearts, not on tablets of stone. It is a kind of interiorization of the Mosaic Law.

In Ezekiel too, God promises that a new kind of covenant will come where it is not the hands but the heart that is washed, and that this washing will come from God Himself:

“Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them; and the nations will know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. For I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. You shall dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God" (Ezk. 36:22-28).

This washing is essentially unlike the ritual washings proscribed by Moses. It consists of giving a "new heart" and a "new spirit." The washing is not a fleshly washing, but an interior renewal, such that the law of God will be able to be kept in a new manner, not like the Old Law.

These passages show us that God will indeed inaugurate a New Covenant that will be fundamentally different in nature from the Old Covenant. Besides being different in nature, it will also be geographically universal - this is found in the prophets as well. This is beyond the scope of this article, but I recommend the essay "Epiphany in the Prophets" (USC, 2013), as well as "Old Testament Typology: Epiphany" (USC, 2015) for the biblical background of the universality of the New Covenant.

Thus the New Covenant is prophesied in the Old Testament, it is markedly different than the Old Testament Law of Moses, and will be geographically universal.

Part II. The Messianic Age

This is all well and good, and Jews would acknowledge that all these things will come to pass in the Messianic age. The real difference between Jews and Christians is in when the Messianic age will come. For Jews, the Messianic age has not happened yet and the Law of Moses is still in effect. For Christians, the coming of Christ has definitively ended the Old Testament and we are now in the Messianic era, though before the definitive realization of His kingdom at the end of the age.

It is well-known that the Jewish conception of the Messiah was fundamentally political, and that they expected with his reign the overthrow of Roman and Gentile dominion in the political order. This was not entirely unreasonable. Many Old Testament Messianic prophecies speak of the Messiah as destroying or ruling over the nations, notably Psalm 2, Psalm 110, Daniel 2 (as well as other prophecies of Daniel), Isaiah 9, Isaiah 11, and many other passages. 2 Samuel 7 says that the Messiah will be of the line of David and Solomon and will rule over a kingdom whose duration is eternal. It stands to reason that the nature of this kingdom would be like the Davidic kingdom.

The problem is not misinterpreting Old Testament passages that make the Messiah a kingly figure; it is clear that this is taught. The problem is in traditional Jewish understanding of passages that show another side to the Messiah. For example, Isaiah 53 which speaks of how the Messiah will suffer and be humiliated, Zechariah 13 which states that the Messiah will be struck and his sheep scattered; Psalm 22, which prophesies the details of the crucifixion minutely, and Wisdom 2, which also foretells the suffering of the righteous Servant of God at the hands of the wicked.

The Jews did not have a clear way to reconcile these passages. They tended to attributed the glorious passages to the Messiah and the suffering passages to some other character (this is the so-called "Two Messiah" theory). One will note upon reading the New Testament that the Jews were not only awaiting the coming of the Messiah, but another character called "the prophet":

"And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed, he did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” And he answered, “No.” They said to him then, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” (John 1:19-22)

The "prophet" is probably the prophet referred to in Deuteronomy 18. Notice that according to the Scriptural exegesis of the Pharisees, this prophet is distinct from the Messiah (as well as the Prophet Elijah, whose return the Jews were also expecting). This is an example of the division of Scriptural prophecies about the Messiah into two distinct classes, whereas Christian revelation as always seen the suffering/meek and glorious/reigning prophecies about the Messiah all reconciled in the person of Christ.

Jews, however, did not make this reconciliation. It was quite impossible in their understanding that the Messiah should suffer. This is why St. Paul says "we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews" (1 Cor. 1:23); the idea that the Messiah could suffer the death of crucifixion at the hands of Gentiles was as abhorrent to the Jews as the idea of a resurrection of the flesh was to the Greeks (cf. Acts 17:32). The crucifixion of the Messiah was the fundamental issue Jews took with the Gospel. Of course, the suffering of the Messiah is not in opposition to His glory. The entire paradox of the mission of Christ is that in His suffering He has His triumph. He finds His glory through meekness and submission to the will of God.

This was not the only stumbling block, though. Anyone who has attentively read the Book of Acts, or the Epistles to the Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews knows that the Jews - even Jewish Christians - were deeply scandalized by the inclusion of the Gentiles into the Church without imposing upon them the necessity of keeping the Mosaic Law. In the eyes of many Jews, Gentiles were second-class humans, to be excluded from the commonwealth of God. The glory of the Messiah would be that He would destroy the nations, not that He would include them in a transfigured, reconstituted Israel. But reviewing Old Testament prophecy (we refer the reader above to the links about Epiphany) we see that the full inclusion of the Gentiles was always part of God's saving plan. Those who were not God's people would become God's people (Hos. 2:23); and they do not become God's people because the Messiah will destroy them in a military sense and reduce them to subservience, but because "the knowledge of God will fill the earth as water fills the seas" (Hab. 2:14). God will give the Gentiles to the Messiah as a gift, as a token of His favor towards the Messiah and His will to save all men:

"It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth"(Isa. 49:6).

Traditional Jewish understanding of the Old Testament did not seem to grasp that God did not will for the Gentiles to be destroyed and brought prostrate to the Jews; rather, He wanted to elevate them and make them brothers with the Jews in a single family of God that would be a kind of reconstituted Israel, the "Israel of God" (Gal. 6:16) composed of Jews and Gentiles both following the teaching revealed by the Messiah. And we can see this Jewish misunderstanding in the way the Jews react to the full inclusion of Gentiles into the Church throughout the New Testament.

By the way, it should be pointed out that some Jews, notably of the Reformed or more moderate branches, do away with the concept of a Messiah altogether and interpret the suffering Messianic passages as referencing Israel itself. Thus, for example, when Isaiah 53:4 says "Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted", they apply the passage to Israel allegorically, such that it is Israel as a people who are suffering - and that Israel's suffering is somehow redemptive of the human race. This concept illustrates the trouble Jews have traditionally had with the suffering Messiah passages.

Part III. His Coming in Glory

What are we to do with the passages that do predict a glorious triumph of the Messiah over the nations, such as Psalm 2? God wills to establish the universal dominion of the Messiah, but He does not wish to do it without the cooperation of mankind. Therefore He has left a period - whose duration is known only to God - where mankind will come to know and love God through the work of grace, not through force, for "the son of man did not come to destroy men's lives but to save them" (Luke 9:56).

But though God is patient, He has appointed an hour when He will judge the living and the dead through the Christ, at which time all the glorious prophecies about the Messiah will be fulfilled in the triumphant everlasting reign of the Son of God.

Thus, the Jewish confusion about the nature of the Messiah's reign has to do with (a) their reluctance to attribute the suffering passages and the triumphant passages to the same individual, and (b) historical failure to see that the plan of God was the full inclusion of the Gentiles into His family; it is this full, voluntary inclusion which makes the "Church age" necessary and accounts for the gap between Christ's first and second advents.

Part IV. Impossibility of Keeping the Old Law

One last point to emphasize: God not only sent the Messiah to establish the New Covenant, but in establishing the New, He allowed the Old to pass away. St. Paul discusses this in the Letter to the Hebrews, where he notes that the New Covenant has made the Old obsolete:

"Christ has obtained a ministry which is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion for a second...In speaking of a new covenant he treats the first as obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away" (Heb. 8:6-7, 13).

With the coming of the  perfect, the imperfect passes. The Mosaic Law was like a teacher that God's family needed in its youth; but with the coming of Christ, God's people reaches maturity and no longer needs a teacher (cf. Gal. 3:24).

The fascinating thing about the Old Law is that since the coming of the New Covenant, it is actually impossible to keep the Mosaic Law. I will not pretend this is my observation; others have commented upon it before, including Fr. Ripperger, among  others. The Mosaic Law requires animal sacrifices. No animal sacrifices are currently being carried out. The Law - at least since the time of Solomon - required a centralized worship in the Temple of Jerusalem. This is no longer possible. The keeping of the Mosaic Law requires a High Priest and Levites, who cannot merely possess the title but must be biological descendants of Aaron and Levi respectively. The genealogical trees of the Jews have long been lost.

Thus, as Fr. Ripperger states, there is no such thing as a practicing Jew. To be sure, the Jews have invented justifications and exceptions to why the current Synagogue system of Jewish worship is acceptable, but these are circumlocutions to get around the problem that the actual keeping of the Mosaic Law today is impossible and that the Synagogue system exists as a kind of "replacement" Judaism due to the fact that actual Judaism died out in the year 70 AD with the destruction of the Temple and the priesthood.

Conclusion

None of this will convince a Jew. But it should give certainty to a Christian. Yes, we are "heretics" from the Jewish point of view. But that is ultimately irrelevant. How do we know the Mosaic Law is not permanent? The Old Testament itself tells us that one day a New Covenant will come that will be fundamentally different than the Old. Thus, the Mosaic Law itself attests to its impermanence. It comes to an end with the advent of the Messiah, who will be both meek and glorious - in His meekness He will draw all the Gentiles to Himself, and in His triumph He will crush those who refuse to submit. Jews have not understood this; indeed, as St. Paul says, a "veil" is over their interpretation of the Law. The fundamental disagreement with the Jews is on when the Messianic age begins; Jews historically have not valued the full inclusion of the Gentiles into God's family and hence see no reason for a "Church age", which explains the distance between Christ's first and second advents, a distance which exists to "make disciples of all nations" (Matt. 28:19). With the advent of the Messiah, the Old Covenant passed away, not only in its obligations, but in the very possibility of its observance.

Thus, in the New Covenant, both Jew and Gentile are all called to obey the Messiah, as Moses prophesied (Deut. 18:15); it is this family of those who believe in Christ that is called the true "Israel of God" (Gal. 6:16).

+AMDG+

The Great Commission is Institutional

Some further thoughts on the Jewish-Catholic question, following up from my last post on the Holocaust and its influence on Catholic ecclesiology.

The new Vatican document, "The Gifts and Calling of God are Irrevocable", is vexing many because of its apparent contradictions: while stating that there is not "two ways", not "two paths to salvation", it also states that Jews do not need to explicitly confess Christ and that they can have full access to God through their observance of the Old Covenant alone without Jesus.

I am not going to parse this whole document; it is very dense. Although to be fair, it says some good things. But it is also terribly flawed in what it insinuates. Let's look at this for a moment.

Point one:

"The theory that there may be two different paths to salvation, the Jewish path without Christ and the path with the Christ, whom Christians believe is Jesus of Nazareth, would in fact endanger the foundations of Christian faith."

Great. So let's be clear...it says that Jesus is the only path to salvation and that to claim there is a "second" path without Jesus "would...endanger the foundations of the Christian faith." So, it is established that Christ is the only way. This is clear from the document.

Now, point two:

"From the Christian confession that there can be only one path to salvation, however, it does not in any way follow that the Jews are excluded from God’s salvation because they do not believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah of Israel and the Son of God."

So...for the record, after pointing out that Jesus is the only way to salvation, the document is clear that Jews "do not believe in Jesus Christ." Ergo, they do not believe in the one path to salvation. They reject Jesus' identity as the Messiah and Son of God.

Now...what is the appropriate Catholic response to a group of people - any group of people - who do not accept the one means of salvation? What should be the appropriate Catholic response? Point three:

"In concrete terms this means that the Catholic Church neither conducts nor supports any specific institutional mission work directed towards Jews."

STOP. If we admit that Jesus is the only way to salvation, and we admit that Jews reject Jesus Christ, how can this statement possibly be justified? How can the Church admit that a certain group does not have Jesus Christ but reject any efforts to bring Him to those people?

Point four:

"While there is a principled rejection of an institutional Jewish mission, Christians are nonetheless called to bear witness to their faith in Jesus Christ also to Jews, although they should do so in a humble and sensitive manner, acknowledging that Jews are bearers of God’s Word, and particularly in view of the great tragedy of the Shoah."

So...Christians are encouraged to "bear witness" to Jews privately, but the Church rejects doing so in an "institutional" framework? What does that mean?

Does this mean that what is good for individual Christians can be bad for the Church as a whole? How can that be possible? If it is bad for the Church to promote something institutionally, how can it be good privately? And if it is praiseworthy and encouraged privately, why will the Church not support it institutionally?

And, if individual Christians are encouraged to witness Christ to the Jews, isn't that still "the Church" doing it? "Now you are the body of Christ, and members of it individually" (1 Cor. 12:27). When Christians are corporately encouraged to do something - even being told they are called to do it - that is still "the Church" doing it.

Unless we reduce "the Church" to merely the hierarchy. That would be an ironic example of crass clericalism! But even if so, it brings us back to the above point - if it is good for particular Christians to witness to Jews, why doesn't the hierarchy embrace it? And how can it have a "principled rejection" of such a mission, which it "neither conducts nor supports", while simultaneously reminding Christians that they are "called to bear witness to their faith in Jesus Christ also to Jews"?

And - and - does the Church not have a mission to all men? An institutional mission? There's this Bible verse I seem to remember from somewhere...oh, yes, here it is:

"Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world" (Matt. 28:19-20).

The Great Commission. Preach the Gospel to all nations. Not just all people individually, but all nations - every tribe, tongue, race, religion.

Was the Great Commission an institutional commission? Of course it was. It was made to the Apostles, who are the foundations of the Church's institutional hierarchy. If it is an institutional commission, the Church is breaking the very commandments of Jesus Himself. If it is not an institutional commission, then please dig up an exegete who can explain why a command of Jesus Christ to the Apostles, the foundation stones of the Church (Eph. 2:20; Rev. 21:14) does somehow not qualify as an institutional directive.

I will accept that the Church has no institutional mission to the Jews the day you can convince me that the Great Commission is not an institutional commission.
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." (Rom. 1:16)

By the way, there is an excellent blog called St. Corbinian's Bear that has a series of post on this document. It is one of my favorite new blogs; I have linked them up on my blog roll.

The Holocaust and Its Shaping of Catholic Ecclesiology

You may have never heard of Enzo Bianchi. He is the lay "prior" of the so-called "interconfessional monastery" of Bose in Biella, Italy. The Bose community contains over eighty "brothers" and "sisters" from various Christian denominations. In 2012 Mr. Bianchi was named as a peritus to the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization; in 2014 the pontificate of Pope Francis elevated Mr. Bianchi to be Consultor of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

Bianchi has gone of record in the past with his belief that the 1917 Fatima apparitions are a "swindle." The reason? Because Fatima does not specifically predict the Holocaust. "A God who thinks in 1917 that there will be a persecution of Christians, but does not speak of the Holocaust and the six million Jews annihilated, is not a credible God", said Bianchi, the quote coming from La Repubblica." 

The French leftist dissident Dominican Jean Cardonnel, a friend and supporter of Bianchi, expanded on this theme, stating that, "A credible God, I repeat Bianchi, the God of Catholic racism who cares only for his family, for his Catholic race, while the kin of Jesus may fall prey to oblivion." 

Vittorio Messori, author of the famous Ratzinger Report, summed up the positions of Cardonnel and Bianchi: "Even God must - if he wants to speak to us through Mary - recognize the Shoah and especially curse it, otherwise he is not a credible God."

The blog Eponymous Flower has an excellent refutation of this absurd line of thinking - as if God cannot speak on whatever subject matter He wants at any time! I highly recommend the article, where you can also find all the sources for the above citations.

The phenomenon I want to comment on is this fixation on the Holocaust in contemporary Catholic discourse. The Holocaust was undoubtedly one of the most horrendous events in human history - not the first genocide, and not even the biggest, but certainly horrendous nonetheless. Still, the Holocaust - like the Norman Conquest, Reformation, or Civil War - is ultimately only a historical event. While the will of God unfolds throughout history, and while grace can be found in any event, the Holocaust possessed no special eschatological or salvific significance. The Holocaust is not an article of faith that must be continually referenced and paid special tribute to.

It is fascinating to see how the Holocaust has slipped from the realm of history into a theological context. In fact, as we shall see, the obligation of memorializing the Holocaust has become a theological linchpin in the contemporary Church's approach to Judaism.

* * * * *

Let us begin with the document "We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah", the 1998 letter issued by the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews under John Paul II. This letter establishes the principle that the Holocaust cannot be considered as a mere historical event, but deserves a kind of "religious memory":

"The very magnitude of the crime raises many questions. Historians, sociologists, political philosophers, psychologists and theologians are all trying to learn more about the reality of the Shoah and its causes. Much scholarly study still remains to be done. But such an event cannot be fully measured by the ordinary criteria of historical research alone. It calls for a "moral and religious memory" and, particularly among Christians, a very serious reflection on what gave rise to it."

Certainly moral lessons can be drawn from any historical episode; but not every historical episode calls for a special "moral and religious memory." In taking this approach, the Magisterium of John Paul II seemed to be saying that the Holocaust must be elevated beyond other historical events, not in terms of its importance, but in terms of what sort of phenomenon it was. It makes sense to say that Civil War was a more important historic event than the War of Jenkins' Ear in terms of its magnitude and consequences; but here we are just moving along a spectrum of magnitude on the axis of historical events. What We Remember is saying is something different; it says not that the Holocaust is a more important historical event than other historical events, but rather that it should not be understood as merely a historical event at all - rather, it merits "moral and religious memory." It is a difference of quality, not just magnitude.

* * * * *

By allowing the Holocaust to bleed over from the historical into the religious, this historic event can now be considered as a kind of theological criterion for understanding Church teaching. The introductory letter by Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy in the above mentioned document demonstrates the attempt to move the Holocaust from the historical into the theological. He wrote:

"In the Guidelines and Suggestions for Implementing the Conciliar Declaration Nostra Aetate,n. 4, published on 1 December 1974, the Holy See's Commission recalled that "the step taken by the Council finds its historical setting in circumstances deeply affected by the memory of the persecution and massacre of Jews which took place in Europe just before and during the Second World War". Yet, as the Guidelines pointed out, "the problem of Jewish-Christian relations concerns the Church as such, since it is when "pondering her own mystery" (Nostra Aetate, n. 4) that she encounters the mystery of Israel." 

This needs a bit of parsing. The memory of the Holocaust provides the "historical setting" for the Council's discussion of the Church's relation with non-Christian religions, specifically the Jews. The relationship is bound up with the Church's own self-understanding, since in "pondering her own mystery" the Church inevitably confronts the "mystery of Israel." In other words, the question of Jewish-Christian relations is central to the mystery of the Church, and the "historical setting" by which this question must be framed is the Holocaust. The Holocaust thus becomes a point of departure for theological considerations relating to the Church's own identity.

The modern context for Catholic ecclesiology is the memory of the Holocaust, at least in considering relations with Jews. This one historic event is thus elevated to the level of a meta-historical act whose import is religious, similar to the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. It is the theologizing of the Holocaust.

* * * * *

It is well-known that the enemies of the Church are fond of blaming Christian civilization for creating the atmosphere of European anti-Semitism that made the Holocaust possible. Pop-Catholic apologists have spent a great deal of effort refuting this position. What these pop-apologists might not be aware of is the modern Magisterium itself is in agreement with these claims. In We Remember, the Magisterium of John Paul II unambiguously endorses the view that centuries of negative Christian attitudes towards Jews bear some responsibility for the Holocaust. The relevant points are worth citing at length:

"The fact that the Shoah took place in Europe, that is, in countries of long-standing Christian civilization, raises the question of the relation between the Nazi persecution and the attitudes down the centuries of Christians towards the Jews.  The history of relations between Jews and Christians is a tormented one. His Holiness Pope John Paul II has recognized this fact in his repeated appeals to Catholics to see where we stand with regard to our relations with the Jewish people. In effect, the balance of these relations over two thousand years has been quite negative.

Despite the Christian preaching of love for all, even for one's enemies, the prevailing mentality down the centuries penalized minorities and those who were in any way "different". Sentiments of anti-Judaism in some Christian quarters, and the gap which existed between the Church and the Jewish people, led to a generalized discrimination, which ended at times in expulsions or attempts at forced conversions. In a large part of the "Christian" world, until the end of the 18th century, those who were not Christian did not always enjoy a fully guaranteed juridical status." 

The letter goes on to make a distinction between "anti-Judaism" and nationalist "anti-Semitism", convicting Christians of the former but not the latter. It points to Naziism as a neo-pagan ideology that was also anti-Christian as well as anti-Jewish, in attempting to draw a historical separation between the two types of anti-Jewish hostility. But the document goes on to ask:

"But it may be asked whether the Nazi persecution of the Jews was not made easier by the anti-Jewish prejudices imbedded in some Christian minds and hearts. Did anti-Jewish sentiment among Christians make them less sensitive, or even indifferent, to the persecutions launched against the Jews by National Socialism when it reached power?"

While making mention of Christians who helped persecuted Jews, the document goes on to condemn the attitudes of the majority of Christians who "were not strong enough" in their opposition to National Socialism:

"Nevertheless, as Pope John Paul II has recognized, alongside such courageous men and women, the spiritual resistance and concrete action of other Christians was not that which might have been expected from Christ's followers. We cannot know how many Christians in countries occupied or ruled by the Nazi powers or their allies were horrified at the disappearance of their Jewish neighbours and yet were not strong enough to raise their voices in protest. For Christians, this heavy burden of conscience of their brothers and sisters during the Second World War must be a call to penitence. We deeply regret the errors and failures of these sons and daughters of the Church."

Thus, while anti-Judaism is logically and historically distinct from "pagan anti-Semitism", the earlier Christian anti-Judaism aided anti-Semitism in a fashion by deadening the responses of Christians to the horrors of the Holocaust.

* * * * *

We Remember references John Paul II. The reference in questions is from John Paul II's 1997 Address to the Symposium on the Roots of Anti-Judaism, in which the pope specifically says that alleged Christian indifference to the Holocaust proceeded directly from the pre-modern Christian hostility towards the Jews:

"In fact, in the Christian world — I do not say on the part of the Church as such — erroneous and unjust interpretations of the New Testament regarding the Jewish people and their alleged culpability have circulated for too long, engendering feelings of hostility towards this people. They contributed to the lulling of consciences, so that when the wave of persecutions inspired by a pagan anti-Semitism, which in essence is equivalent to an anti-Christianity, swept across Europe, alongside Christians who did everything to save the persecuted even at the risk of their lives, the spiritual resistance of many was not what humanity rightfully expected from the disciples of Christ."

Among the "erroneous and unjust interpretations of the New Testament" that John Paul II references is presumably the belief that the Church has replaced the Jews as the true Israel, as well as the perennially held Christian assertion that the Old Covenant, on its own, is no longer salvific. He does not suggest this explicitly, but it is easily inferred by the fact that the pope cites Romans 11:29 ("the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable") in the conclusion of his address, a verse consistently but erroneously invoked by those who argue that the Jews have "their own covenant" with God outside of Jesus Christ. 

It is baffling how John Paul II could say these teachings were never taught "on the part of the Church as such", since the Council of Florence Cantate Domino specifically and unambiguously taught the very thing John Paul II seems to consider "erroneous and unjust":

“[The Holy Roman Church] firmly believes, professes and teaches that the legal prescriptions of the Old Testament or the Mosaic law, which are divided into ceremonies, holy sacrifices and sacraments, because they were instituted to signify something in the future, although they were adequate for the divine cult of that age, once our Lord Jesus Christ who was signified by them had come, came to an end and the sacraments of the new Testament had their beginning. Whoever, after the Passion, places his hope in the legal prescriptions and submits himself to them as necessary for salvation and as if faith in Christ without them could not save, sins mortally. It does not deny that from Christ's passion until the promulgation of the Gospel they could have been retained, provided they were in no way believed to be necessary for salvation. But it asserts that after the promulgation of the gospel they cannot be observed without loss of eternal salvation.”

Thus, John Paul II seemed to think that the traditional ecclesiology of the Church vis-a-vis the Jews was in fact responsible for a deadening of feeling and an indifference among Christians that helped facilitate the Holocaust.

* * * * *

We Remember states that the religious import of the Holocaust is understood in terms of a binding commitment of future generations to let the Holocaust serve as the starting point for a new beginning with the Jewish people. In the following extraordinary statement, notice the admission of Catholic guilt and repentance for Christian failings in facilitating the Holocaust, coupled by the assertion that this repentance calls for a "binding commitment" to develop a "new relationship" with the Jewish people for the purpose of eliminating "anti-Judaism":

"At the end of this Millennium the Catholic Church desires to express her deep sorrow for the failures of her sons and daughters in every age. This is an act of repentance (teshuva), since, as members of the Church, we are linked to the sins as well as the merits of all her children. The Church approaches with deep respect and great compassion the experience of extermination, the Shoah, suffered by the Jewish people during World War II. It is not a matter of mere words, but indeed of binding commitment....

We pray that our sorrow for the tragedy which the Jewish people has suffered in our century will lead to a new relationship with the Jewish people. We wish to turn awareness of past sins into a firm resolve to build a new future in which there will be no more anti-Judaism among Christians or anti-Christian sentiment among Jews, but rather a shared mutual respect, as befits those who adore the one Creator and Lord and have a common father in faith, Abraham."

Notice the use of the term "anti-Judaism." Given that the document went to lengths earlier to distinguish between "anti-Judaism" and "anti-Semitism", we must presume an internal consistency in the term's usage. This would infer that the elimination of "anti-Judaism" is referring to, not nationalist anti-Semitism, but rather "the erroneous and unjust interpretations of the New Testament" that John Paul II referred to - in other words, the teaching that the Jewish covenant taken on its own is not salvific and that Jews need Christ. The traditional position suddenly becomes problematic because it infers that the Jews are not alright just where they are - that their condition is not enviable, that they need Jesus Christ. This position is untenable to the modern Magisterium.

* * * * *

It all begins to come together. Because of the horror of the Holocaust - and guilt for perceived Christian numbness to Jewish suffering - the modern Magisterium has lost the fortitude to tell the Jews that they are in need of salvation through Christ. Any suggestion that the Jewish religion is not a complete and integral salvific system are taken as a type of "anti-Judaism", for such a position necessarily finds fault with the current status of the Jews. Never mind that the Nazi remedy to the Jewish question was extermination whilst the Christian remedy is conversion; if the Church is sufficiently to distance itself from the Holocaust, it must no longer insist that there is anything lacking or objectionable in Judaism. The Holocaust is the event - at once historical, religious, and moral - that has become the historical context for this change in direction. And the obligation to continue in this trajectory is a "binding commitment" on Christians. This is why we will only ever see more waffling from the Magisterium when it comes to the question of Jews and salvation.

A case in point is the horrible new document "The Gifts and Calling of God are Irrevocable" (2015). This document will go further than any other Magisterial statement in teaching the Jews do not need conversion to Christ and the Church for salvation. Note the title is taken from Romans 11:29, the same verse John Paul II cited against the "erroneous and unjust interpretations of the New Testament", as found in the Council of Florence. It is eminently schizophrenic, suggesting that "From the Christian confession that there can be only one path to salvation, however, it does not in any way follow that the Jews are excluded from God’s salvation because they do not believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah of Israel and the Son of God." Apparently the principle of non-contradiction has been replaced with Folgers Crystals, as Steve Skojec so tartly put it.

But yes, the document repudiates the centuries old teaching that the Church is the true Israel, even though admitting that this teaching was "the standard theological foundation of the relationship with Judaism" from the patristic era and for the entirety of the Church's tradition, "only to be defused at the Second Vatican Council...with its Declaration Nostra aetate", which has replaced the 2,000 year tradition with a new "constructive dialogue relationship." What crass arrogance to so blatantly "defuse" what the document admits is the universal tradition!

But look at how evangelization to the Jews is said to be a no-no and the Shoah is invoked:

"In concrete terms this means that the Catholic Church neither conducts nor supports any specific institutional mission work directed towards Jews. While there is a principled rejection of an institutional Jewish mission, Christians are nonetheless called to bear witness to their faith in Jesus Christ also to Jews, although they should do so in a humble and sensitive manner, acknowledging that Jews are bearers of God’s Word, and particularly in view of the great tragedy of the Shoah."

It goes on about "the dark and terrible shadow of the Shoah", and encourages Christians to "reflect anew" upon this tragedy as a point of departure for Christian-Jewish relations. Following John Paul II, it speaks of a moral "duty of Christians" to remember the Shoah. This language is truly amazing; strictly speaking, the only historical events we have a moral duty to recall are those that are part of salvation history: the great stories of the Old Testament, the events surrounding the life, death and Resurrection of our Lord, the miraculous founding of the Church, Of course we commemorate many saints and other historical events, but nobody ever speaks of a grave "duty" to remember Lepanto or tells us we have a "binding commitment" to never forget the Investiture Controversy. The only historical events we have any binding commitment to remember and honor are those which are integral parts of salvation history.

And this is precisely the role many would like to assign to the Holocaust. The Church's "new relationship", her new "constructive dialogue" with Judaism exists as a kind of theological response to the Shoah, which is put forward as an event of such meta-historical importance that it justifies abandoning 2,000 years of Catholic Tradition.

* * * * *

I recall once when I was in college I was taking a philosophy course by a professor who was a fairly decent Catholic but who was unfortunately an ardent disciple of Von Balthasar. He was discussing changes in Catholic theology, art, architecture, and literature in the wake of World War I, and how all these changes were prompted by a desire of Catholic intellectuals to "respond" to the horrors of the war. I raised my hand and asked why Catholicism had to "respond" at all? Why could not the Church simply address the horrors of the modern world by continuing unperturbed on its ageless mission, without turning to the left nor to the right? Instead of "responding" to the modern world, why not call the modern world to respond to the timeless Gospel? The professor kind of hemmed and hawed; the thought had apparently never occurred to him.

I have often mentioned Alyssa Lyra Pitstick's book Light in the Darkness, which is mandatory reading for those interested in learning what an outrageously heterodox theologian Hans Urs Von Balthasar was. In the introduction to her book, Pitstick notes that modern theologians who put forward novel theories often are driven by the desire of these thinkers to "respond" to the horrors of the modern age; to allow their thinking to be "conditioned" by the times. She makes this point with reference to theories about Christ's death, but it is just as applicable to our discussion:

"In particular, the face of death in the twentieth century - conditioned by philosophical and social alienation, the great wars, and atheism - often figures noticeably in the new interpretations of Christ's death...However, as Vatican II suggests, such pastoral exigencies can only be adequately met with God's revealed truth, proclaimed anew to a changed audience, not by the molding of doctrinal content to the image of human horror in any age" (Pitstick, Light in the Darkness, pg. 3)

Is not the contemporary Church's refusal to say anything remotely challenging to the Jews an example of doctrinal content being molded in response to the Holocaust? Indeed, it is the elephant in the room; because of some kind of collective guilt over the Holocaust, the Catholic Church has lost the ability - or rather the will - to tell them they need to convert to Christ. Instead of proclaiming the timeless truth of Christ to a modern audience, we are allowing our "response" to the horrors of the 20th century to alter the truth.