Hampered on Friday by things such as school work, meetings, and leading a section, I was a little slow in getting around to this one today, but oh! I was certainly going to get around to it.

Apparently, Walter Cardinal Kasper can’t get enough of the media limelight right now. He is everywhere: one moment, proclaiming progress with the Orthodox, the next, calling for Communion for those in adulterous relationships, and now, he reminds us the Church’s teaching about converting the Jews is in need of clarification. What doesn’t the good cardinal think to be in need of clarification these days?

The thing which I find most frustrating about this story is that it is, in reality, such a non-issue. Or, at the very least, theologically speaking, it is a non-issue. I understand that the Church is sensitive about covering its backside lest any charge of anti-Semitism appear remotely plausible. Further, certain prelates, including the late pontiff, think it necessary to apologize for every act of anti-Semitism committed throughout history by Catholics.

Thus far, though I have no strong feelings in this direction myself, I am fine. But how did it come about that . . . there is now a question about whether it would be a good thing for a Jewish person to convert to the Catholic Faith? What a mash we now make of extra ecclesiam nulla salus!

Before I specifically address the latest business in Rome which happened as a result of the 40th anniversary celebrations for Nostra Aetate, some background is in order.

You will commonly hear people speak of Judaism as the mother religion of Christianity or as our elder brother or sister in the worship of the one, true God. John Paul II himself has said as much. With all due respect to the revered pontiff, at least one important sense, this is not true. While at Oxford, I recall reading in a book about Judaism by Norman Solomon that this claim by the pope was untrue–and, yes, Solomon was directly responding to the pope on this point. So it caught my attention.

What is the substance of the point? Only this, that Judaism, in any of its many present-day forms, came into existence at the same time that Christianity did. The two religions may be sisters, but if they are, they are fraternal twins. At one level, only a moment’s reflection on the evidence confirms this point: the religion of Moses and King David is something very different than what we see at a Jewish synagogue today; we should ask first of all: where are the sacrifices? Interestingly, the Catholic religion has claim to have a sacrifice, according to the prophecy of Malachi, but the Jews make no such claims about themselves today. In ever so many respects, Catholicism can claim the heritage of ancient Israel to be her own, and indeed, everything in Holy Writ indicates that the Church should do so.

What better guide could we have in this matter than the Apostles themselves? On the day of Pentecost, St. Peter, leading the others, went forth and proclaimed the Kingdom, baptism, and the resurrection of our Lord. Over the next few years, the Catholics were just as often in the Temple at Jerusalem as any Jew. (Even to use the word ‘Jew’ is misleading because they were all Jews at that point!)

Then, as the Acts of the Apostles recounts, St. Peter, the head of the apostolic college, was made to know that the reign of Christ was to be extended to all men, to those of the circumcision and to those without. Finally, the utter devastation of Jerusalem and the complete destruction of the Temple, such that one stone was not left on top of another, fulfilled our Lord’s prophecies during His time on earth and confirmed the truth of what many Jews had already learned: Jesus Christ alone is the way, the truth and the life; and, that no man cometh unto the Father but by Christ Jesus.

Throughout history, Jews have always converted to the Catholic Faith, but except for those first years, I believe, never in such great numbers. Recently, Roy Schoeman wrote an excellent book entitled Salvation is from the Jews published by Ignatius Press. The website which I have linked for you is very interesting. I would encourage you to read two of his pages, the first here and the second here.

Perhaps the most famous convert from Judaism in recent times was the chief rabbi of Rome. During World War II, while Pius XII was working to shelter the Jews in and around Rome from Nazi persecution, Israel Zolli took refuge in the Vatican. His time there was the culmination of long period of reflection on the nature of the Messiah. Eventually, he recognized Christ Jesus as the Messiah and the one Church which Christ had founded, and he converted.

Another convert from Judaism is the former archbishop of Paris, Jean Marie Cardinal Lustiger. (Now the interesting details of the anniversary celebrations begin.) Cardinal Lustiger was at the celebration of Nostra Aetate, and the current Chief Rabbi of Rome, Riccardo di Segni, refused to attend in protest on account of the presense of a Jewish convert, namely Lustiger. Instead of the Chief Rabbi, speaking for the Jewish side, Rabbi David Rosen of the American Jewish Committee called for the Vatican to denounce the practice of seeking to convert Jews to Catholicism.

One’s initial reaction might be: who’s trying to convert the Jews these days anyway?! Cardinal Kasper and Nostra Aetate and Unitatis Redintegratio have beat us about the head for so long that not only are we not trying to convert anyone, but we’re led to feel shame when someone does convert, and this despite our best efforts to encourage them to remain on their own “unique journey” to God (as the Catholic chaplain at Cornell, Fr. Daniel McMullin recently put it).

Exhibit A: the ceremony in Rome Thursday night for Nostra Aetate. Not only was the Messiah, Christ Jesus, not proclaimed to the Jews (as St. Peter did not fail to do on the day of Pentecost), but instead Catholic prelates were subjected to a call from a Jew to change the teaching and policy of the Catholic Church. If Cardinal Kasper had marched into a synagogue and called for the Jews to change their policy regarding abstaining from pork, because, well, times have changed and that Babe movie showed that pigs are very clean, friendly animals, he would have been strung up by his toes and hung from the rafters!

Rabbi Rosen’s statement is one more in a long tradition of denying the Messiah of the whole world, Jesus Christ. I ask you, how is this denial any different than that of the Jews who gathered around to stone St. Stephen? Pray God, many of the Jews who witnessed St. Stephen’s death were converted by the blood of this glorious and proto-martyr, and we can have good hope, I think, that they were. We simply do not know how many Jews, at the time of St. Paul and St. Peter, heeded the call to receive the Baptism of the Church. Fr. Neuhaus of First Things speculates that many or a majority of them did convert.

This is a very interesting thought and, if true, should go some way in shaping how we think about the Jews today. They are not the elder daughter in the faith nor are they our spiritual parents, and least of all are these claims true of the Jews who went to the Nostra Aetate ceremony on Thursday night. Indeed, the Jews we are seeking to convert today (I follow St. Peter and not Kasper) are but a recalcitrant minority (perhaps) of the Jews to whom the Gospel was first proclaimed by our Blessed Lord and his disciples.

But Cardinal Kasper thinks that the Church’s position with regard to the Jews is in need of clarification. Good for him. I think that Cardinal Kasper is a dangerous man because of the souls whom he is leading away from salvation and because of the indifferentism which his words beget. I’m interested to hear those of you who disagree with me, but before you disagree, I would like you to speak with St. John Bosco and the young Jewish man whom Bosco brought to the Faith of the Church.

The following anecdote is from the autobiography of St. John Bosco; you are reading the saint’s own words. The autobiography was written under obedience to the Universal Pastor of souls, the Roman Pontiff, Blessed Pope Pius IX. It recounts a period in the saint’s life from 1815 to 1855.

St. John Bosco writes:

While I was still a humanities student lodging at John Pianta’s cafe, I got to know a Jewish youngster called Jonah. He was about eighteen, was remarkably good looking, and had an exceptionally fine singing voice. He was a good billiards player, too. [I love this comment.]

We met at Elijah’s bookstore, and he would always ask for me as soon as he came into the shop. I liked him a lot, and he was very attached to me. Every spare minute he had, he spent in my room; we sang together, played the piano, or read. He liked to hear the thousand little stories I used to tell.

One day he got into a difficult quarrel which could have had sorry consequences for him. He came running to me for advice.

“Jonah, my friend,” I said to him, “if you were a Christian, I would advise you to go to confession. But in your case, that’s not possible.”

“But we Jews can go to confession, if we want to.”

“Go to confession by all means, but your confessor is not obliged to secrecy. Neither can he forgive your sins or administer any sacraments.”

“If you’ll take me, I’ll go to a priest.”

“I could do that for you, but a lot of preparation is necessary.”

“What sort of preparation?”

“Confession takes away sins committed after baptism. If you wish to receive any of the other sacraments, you must receive baptism first.”

“What must I do to be baptized?”

“You must be instructed in the Christian religion. You must believe in Jesus Christ, true God and true man. After that you can be baptized.”

“What good will baptism do me?”

“It wipes out original sin, and actual sins too. It opens the way to the other sacraments. Finally, it makes you a child of God and an heir to heaven.&#