Ecumenitis:
Conversion of the Jews is not Necessary???
"There
are many deceptions taking place among you, and one being the falsification of
the manner of the salvation of souls. When I was upon earth, I established the
rules and I gave you My Church, My House. However, now I watch as many have gone
forward with itching ears and novelty, and they are setting upon the world a new
religion."
- Jesus, May 20,
1978
On August 12, 2002, members of the Bishops' Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs (BCEIA), an arm of the National Council of Catholic Bishops (NCCB), along with the National Council of Synagogues (NCS), released the document "Reflections On Covenant And Mission." Reporting on this highly controversial document, the Boston Globe ran an article entitled, "Targeting Jews for Conversion Not Acceptable." Furthermore, Cardinal Kasper stated in New York City on May 1, 2001, “There does not exist any Catholic missionary organization for Jews.” Baffled by all this, a reader of Mother Angelica’s EWTN site posed his concerns about this document and the statement of Cardinal Kasper, and received the following reply from Fr. Echert
Why Be Catholic? Question from Absolutely Baffled on 08-17-2002:
Father Echert; just WHAT is going on in the Church? In the recently released announcement of our bishops they say that we can't try to convert Jews to the Catholic Faith because of the Old Covenant. Vatican II mandated this. Really? Well what if a Catholic said, "Hey forget Catholicism, I want to be Jewish!" Does it REALLY matter to be Catholic? If the likes of our bishops and Cardinal Kasper are correct then it really doesn't. Maybe we are in "First Class," but are all aboard the same plane to heaven so to speak. Have we lost our minds?...
Answer by Fr. John Echert on 08-17-2002:
From what I have read of the document, parts of it strike me as contrary to divine revelation, and I predict that it will not be approved by the Vatican, or perhaps the bishops themselves. As I understand it, this draft was put together by a committee, and it does not have approval by the body of bishops. It is an embarrassment, lacks any teaching authority, and serves to reveal the thinking of some people who hold powerful positions in the national conference. If a document such as this gains approval, as it currently stands, I will seriously consider the prospect that we are moving into one of the signs of the end times, namely, apostasy. - Father John Paul Echert (Read more…)
Fr. Echert’s comment that this controversial document strikes him as “contrary to divine Revelation” refers to the Divine Mandate of Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, who commanded, “Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” (Mt. 28: 19) There is no authority that can or will repeal this command of Christ, and there can be no document that can in any way contradict or in any way impede the command to evangelize the whole world (without exception) with the Gospel of Christ. Furthermore, we have the Scriptural warning from St. Paul, "But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema." (Gal. 1:8)
The false belief that one religion is as good as another, associated with the denial of the Church’s missionary mandate, is the error of religious indifferentism. Pope Pius IX, in his encyclical letter Qui Pluribus (1846), wrote against this error: “[Among errors against the Catholic Faith] must be included the horrible system, repugnant even to the natural light of reason, according to which there is no difference between religions [indifferentism]. These crafty people doing away with all distinction between virtue and vice, truth and error, honesty and dishonesty, feign that people can attain to eternal salvation by the practice of any religion whatever.”
That the Jewish people are to be evangelized is basic knowledge to any faithful Catholic. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is to be proclaimed to all nations and all individuals, even until the end of time. In these days of apostasy and deception, we must be armed more than ever with the knowledge of the true teaching of the Church. Scripture, the Popes, and the saints have been unanimous with the true doctrine concerning the necessity of evangelizing the Jewish people:
SCRIPTURE:
“And you have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him you believe not. Search the scriptures, for you think in them to have life everlasting; and the same are they that give testimony of me. And you will not come to me that you may have life. I receive not glory from men. But I know you, that you have not the love of God in you. I am come in the name of my Father, and you receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him you shall receive. How can you believe, who receive glory one from another: and the glory which is from God alone, you do not seek? Think not that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one that accuseth you, Moses, in whom you trust. For if you did believe Moses, you would perhaps believe me also; for he wrote of me.” (John 5:38-39)
“The Gentiles, who followed not after justice, have attained to justice, even the justice that is of faith. But Israel, by following after the law of justice, is not come unto the law of justice. Why so? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were of works. For they stumbled at the stumblingstone.” (Romans 9:30-32)
“Many shall come from the East and West and sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of Heaven, but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 8:11-12)
“For if the word, spoken by angels, became steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward: How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? Which having begun to be declared by the Lord, was confirmed unto us by them that heard Him.” (Hebrews 2:2-3)
COUNCILS OF THE CHURCH:
The General Council of Florence
“[The Holy Roman Church] firmly believes, professes and teaches that the legal [statutes] of the Old Testament or Mosaic Law, divided into ceremonies, holy sacrifices and sacraments, were instituted to signify something to come, and therefore, although in that age they were fitting for divine worship, they have ceased with the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ, whom they signified. [With him] the sacraments of the New Testament have begun. Whoever puts his hope in these legal [statutes] even after the passion [of Christ] and submits oneself to them as though faith in Christ were unable to save without them, sins mortally. Yet [the Church] does not deny that between the passion of Christ and the promulgation of the Gospel they could be observed, provided one in no way believed that they were necessary for salvation. But she asserts that after the promulgation of the Gospel (post promulgatum evangelium) they cannot be observed without the loss of eternal salvation. Therefore, she denounces as foreign to the faith of Christ all those who after that time observe circumcision, the Sabbath and other laws, and she asserts that they can in no way be sharers of eternal salvation, unless they sometime turn themselves away from their errors.”
PRONOUNCEMENTS OF THE POPES:
Blessed Pope Gregory X:
“Jews prefer to persist in their stubbornness rather than to recognize the words of their prophets and the mysteries of the Scriptures and thus arrive at a knowledge of the Christian Faith and salvation.” (“Concerning the Jews,” The Jew in the Medieval World. Jacob Marcus, Cincinnati: The Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1938, p. 151)
Pope St. Leo the Great:
“So clearly was the transition then made from the Synagogue to the Church that, when the Lord gave up His soul, the veil of the temple was rent in two.” (Sermon 168, BVM II, 119)
Pope John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 5, 11:
"...the Covenant in the redeeming blood of Christ. The Covenant begins with a woman, the ‘woman' of the Annunciation at Nazareth. Herein lies the absolute originality of the Gospel: many times in the Old Testament, in order to intervene in the history of his people, God addressed himself to women, as in the case of the mothers of Samuel and Samson. However, to make his Covenant with humanity, he addressed himself only to men: Noah, Abraham, and Moses. AT THE BEGINNING OF THE NEW COVENANT, WHICH IS TO BE ETERNAL AND IRREVOCABLE, there is a woman: the Virgin of Nazareth. It is a sign that points to the fact that ‘in Jesus Christ' ‘there is neither male nor female' (Gal 3:28)."
Pope John Paul II, Redemptoris Custos, 32:
“May St. Joseph become for all of us an exceptional teacher....This just man, who bore within himself the entire heritage of the Old Covenant, WAS ALSO BROUGHT INTO THE ‘BEGINNING OF THE NEW AND ETERNAL COVENANT in Jesus Christ. May he show us the paths of this saving Covenant as we stand at the threshold of the next millennium, in which there must be a continuation and further development of the "fullness of time" that belongs the ineffable mystery of the Incarnation of the Word.”
Pope John Paul II, Dominicae Cenae, 9:
"Accordingly, precisely by making THIS SINGLE SACRIFICE OF OUR SALVATION present, men and the world are restored to God through the paschal newness of Redemption. This restoration cannot cease to be: IT IS THE FOUNDATION OF THE ‘NEW AND ETERNAL COVENANT' of God with man and of man with God."
Pope John Paul II, Redemptoris Custos, 11:
"The principle which holds that ALL THE RITES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT ARE A SHADOW OF THE REALITY (cf. Heb 9:9; 10:1) serves to explain why Jesus would accept them. As with all the other rites, circumcision too is ‘fulfilled’ in Jesus. GOD'S COVENANT WITH ABRAHAM, of which circumcision was the sign (cf. Gn 17:13), REACHES ITS FULL EFFECT AND PERFECT REALIZATION IN JESUS, who is the ‘yes’ of all the ancient promises (cf. 2 Cor 1:20).”
Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, 25:
"It is the sprinkled blood. A symbol and prophetic sign of it had been the blood of the sacrifices of THE OLD COVENANT, whereby God expressed his will to communicate his own life to men, purifying and consecrating them (cf. Ex 24.8; Lev 17.11). NOW ALL OF THIS IS FULFILLED AND COMES TRUE IN CHRIST: his is the sprinkled blood which redeems, purifies and saves; it is the blood of the Mediator OF THE NEW COVENANT ‘poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’ (Mt 26.28).”
OTHER VATICAN STATEMENTS:
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Libertatis Conscentia (49):
"The Church reads the Old Testament in the light of Christ who died and rose for us. She sees a prefiguring of herself in the People of God of the Old Covenant, made incarnate in the concrete body of a particular nation, politically and culturally constituted as such. This people was part of the fabric of history as Yahweh's witness before the nations until the fulfillment of the time of preparation and prefigurement. In the fullness of time which came with Christ, THE CHILDREN OF ABRAHAM WERE INVITED TO ENTER, together with all the nations, INTO THE CHURCH OF CHRIST in order to form with them one People of God, spiritual and universal."
Vatican II, Nostra Aetate, Relation to Non-Christian Religions, 4:
"The Church, therefore, cannot forget that she received the revelation of the Old Testament through the people with whom God in His inexpressible mercy CONCLUDED THE ANCIENT COVENANT. Nor can she forget that she draws sustenance from the root of that well-cultivated olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild shoots, the Gentiles. Indeed, the Church believes that BY HIS CROSS Christ, Our Peace, RECONCILED JEWS AND GENTILES making both one in Himself."
THE SAINTS:
St. Augustine:
“The Jews knew that Christ was the son of David. And even now they hope for His Coming. It is hidden from them that He has come, but it is hidden because they willed it so. For, not acknowledging Him on the cross, the knowledge of Him reigning in glory should not be theirs…. Why are the Jews hoping for what has already come, and not fearful for what is to come? For Our Lord Jesus Christ … referred to Himself as ‘the Stone’ (Matthew 21:44), that whoever stumbles upon it shall be bruised; but upon whom it shall fall, it will grind to powder … Lying on the ground, it crushes the proud. The Jews have already been shaken by their previous stumble. What awaits them is to be crushed by His Coming.” (Sermon 91, PL 38: 567)
St. Augustine:
“For the Jews, still clinging to that sacrifice which is according to the Order of Aaron, let slip the sacrifice according to the Order of Melchisedech, and they lost Christ. And the Gentiles, to whom He had not hitherto sent His heralds, began to possess Him.” (“Explanation of the Psalms,” XXXIII, sermon I:5 ff., FOC II:336; PL: 36)
St. Ambrose:
“The faithlessness of the Synagogue is an insult to the Savior. Therefore, He chose the barque of Peter and deserted the boat of Moses; that is, He rejected the faithless Synagogue and adopted the believing Church … of these two ships, one is left at the shore, idle and empty; the other, loaded and filled, is launched into the deep. For the Synagogue is left idle on the beach. Because of its own fault, it has lost Christ along with the warnings of the prophets. But the freighted Church is taken out into the deep, because it received the Lord together with the teaching of the Apostles. The Synagogue, I say, remains on the land, held fast as it were to earthly things. The Church is called forth to the deep, as though to search into the profoundest mysteries of Heaven.” (“The Two Ships,” Sermon 37, PL 17: 675; SS: III:223)
St. Athanasius:
“Therefore, the Jewish system is destroyed, for it was only a shadow; but that of the Church is firmly established, for it is built on the Rock, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.” (“Against the Arians,” Oration IV:34; FOC I:219)
St. Thomas Aquinas:
“The ‘exterior darkness’ [Mt. 8:11-12] is that of the Jews, who have heard the truth but not believed.” (CA: SS I:299)
The great Dietrich von Hildebrand, whom Pope Pius XII called a 20th Century Doctor of the Church, wrote extensively against the error that certain classes of people, such as the Jews, do not need to be evangelized:
“Apart from the contradiction with the words of Christ and the Apostles, indeed with the whole teaching of the Church, this notion of leaving the Jews alone shows a very great lack of love for the Jews. For the deepest core of true love of neighbor is the concern for the eternal salvation of the neighbor. Therefore, one should encounter no man without seeing in him a living member of the Mystical Body of Christ or a catechumen in spe (a prospective catechumen).
“Let it not be objected that he can also attain his eternal salvation outside the Church, as a Protestant or as a non-Christian. This is, of course, a dogma which was defined at the First Vatican Council, but it changes nothing of the mission which Christ gave us: ‘Go forth into all the world and teach all peoples and baptize them,’ nor of the enormous importance of the adoration of God in truth, in Christ, per ipsum, cum ipso, et in ipso. There is after all an infinite value in the glorification of God which is present in the true Faith, in union with God through sanctifying grace and all the sacraments. And this desire to glorify God is an apostolate which flows from the true love of Christ, cannot be separated from true love of neighbor, which is grounded in the love of Christ alone.
“A polite respect for the Jews takes the place of true love—a typical case of this-worldliness.”
“But it is still worse that the Old Testament is no longer seen as ordered to the New. Is Christ the Messiah, of whom Isaias speaks? Is He the Son of God who redeemed mankind? If so, then the expectation of another Messiah is a clear error and not a parallel way to God. In the light of truth and before God this claim is a betrayal of Christ and a denial of the fact that the Revelation of the Old Testament is an essential part of the Christian Revelation.
“Is Christ the Son of God—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Is He the Redeemer, promised by God to Abraham? Did Christ not say, ‘Abraham saw my day and rejoiced’ (John 8:56)? And did He not also say, ‘I am not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it’ (Mt. 5:17)? How is it possible that ecumenitis has brought fruits which are in radical contradiction to the Gospel, to the Apostles, and to the teaching of the Church?” (The Devastated Vineyard, pp. 93-94)
Dietrich von Hildebrand further expounds on this “monstrosity of ecumenitis”:
“This monstrosity of ecumenitis combines many serious errors: it is, in the first place, an express ignoring of the mandate of Christ [cf. Mt. 28:19]. In the second place, it shows a terrible disregard for the value of God’s revelation for non-Christians: it means acting as though God’s revelation in Christ and the death of Christ on the cross were superfluous for them. For from the standpoint of this ecumenitis, all men, especially Jews, would have been saved anyway, as long as they had lived in accordance with their respective beliefs. In the third place, there is here an absolute lack of interest in the truth. The question of which is the true religion no longer plays a role. The ultimate seriousness of truth, on which every religion stands or falls, is ignored. The essence, and the justification for the existence of the holy Church, is thereby destroyed, as indeed is the entire Christian religion. The teaching of the Church is either the true Revelation of God, the Revelation of Christ and absolutely and unconditionally true—or it is nothing. With this is connected, in the fourth place, the elimination of the glorification of God; only the salvation of men still plays a role. We have pointed out already that the glorification of God demands that He is adored in truth, and that this glorification does not occur when He in His infinite mercy grants eternal beatitude to a man who is not a member of the Mystical Body of Christ. In a similar fashion, the glorification of God through the saints is overlooked. For there can only be saints in the holy Church, in absolute imitation of Christ.” (ibid., p. 95)
The conversion of the Jew, Alphonse Ratisbonne
Certainly Our Lady herself does not subscribe to the error that the Jews are not to be converted to the Catholic Faith, as illustrated by the following conversion story. Alphonse Ratisbonne was a Jewish man who was one day challenged by a Catholic friend of his. Alphonse was challenged to wear the Miraculous Medal and pray the Memorare to Our Lady for one week. Believing that nothing would happen, Alphonse accepted. On January 20, 1842, while waiting for his friend who was attending a funeral at Sant' Andrea delle Fratte, Alphonse went inside the church to wait for the funeral to end. The following account is in the words of Alphonse himself:
"When I traversed the Church, I arrived at the spot where they were getting ready for the funeral. Suddenly I felt interiorly disturbed, and saw in front of me something like a veil. It seemed to me that the entire church had been swallowed up in shadow, except one chapel. It was as though all the light was concentrated in that single place. I looked over towards this chapel whence so much light shone, and above the altar was a living figure, tall, majestic, beautiful and full of mercy. It was the most holy Virgin Mary, resembling her figure on the Miraculous Medal. At this sight I fell on my knees right where I stood. Unable to look up because of the blinding light, I fixed my glance on her hands, and in them I could read the expression of mercy and pardon. In the presence of the Most Blessed Virgin, even though she did not speak a word to me, I understood the frightful situation I was in, my sins and the beauty of the Catholic Faith.”
Alphonse Ratisbonne became a Catholic. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:
“After his conversion he assisted his brother, Theodor, in founding the Sisterhood of Our Lady of Sion in 1843, was ordained priest in 1847, and entered the Society of Jesus. Desirous, however, to devote himself entirely to the conversion of the Jews, he left the society with the consent of Pius IX, transplanted the Sisters of Sion to Jerusalem in 1855, and built for them in 1856 the large Convent of Ecce Homo with a school and an orphanage for girls. In 1860 he erected the Convent of St. John on the mountain at Ain Karim, together with a church and another orphanage for girls. Here Alphonse laboured with a few companions (Pères de Sion) for the conversion of Jews and Mohammadens until his death.”
Our Lady of the Roses has warned us:
"My Son, His heart is torn asunder by His representatives in the priesthood who now are Judases in His own House. They consort with the enemies of your God. In the manner of humanism and modernism, and an ecumenism that has been designed from hell, man now is plunging fast into making ready the full capitulation of My Son's Church and the world under a dictatorship of evil.” (Our Lady, November 22, 1976)
The Church’s missionary mandate has not changed, nor will it ever change. God wills “all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). The fullness of saving truth is in the God-man Jesus Christ, the Messiah who has come and who is truly the King of the Jews.
"My child and My children I do not have to tell you that the knowledge of hell and purgatory has been slowly corrupted, cut apart, and cut asunder from the Church. My child and My children, you are all My children. I judge you not by color or race, and I do not judge you by your creed; however, should the knowledge of the One True Church be given to you, and the way to Heaven along the narrow road be given to you, you will follow it or you will be rejected.” – Jesus, August 21, 1985
Directives…
D123 -
Catholic Church, Part 1
D124 -
Catholic Church, Part 2
D125 -
Ecumenism
D161 -
The Great Apostasy
D164 - Heresy
Links…
Tertullian, An Answer to the Jews
http://www.ewtn.com/library/PATRISTC/ANF3-7.TXT
St. Cyprian, Three Books of Testimonies against the Jews
http://www.ewtn.com/library/PATRISTC/ANF5-20.TXT
Response of Fr. John Paul Echert
Conversion of the Jews Not Necessary?? The Apocalyptic Ramifications of a Novel Teaching (Catholic Apologetics International)
http://www.catholicintl.com/epologetics/Conversion_of_the_Jews.htm
Our Lady converts the Jew, Alphonse Ratisbonne
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12659a.htm
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