By JOHN YOUNG
Should we pray and work for the conversion of the Jews? Until recent years a Catholic would have answered affirmatively without hesitation. But since the Second Vatican Council that position has been questioned and even denied by some people.
A striking example of this is found in the change made by religious congregations founded to pray and work for the conversion of the Jewish people: the Congregations of Our Lady of Sion. One section is composed of priests and religious brothers, the other of religious sisters. Their founder, Theodore Ratisbonne, converted from Judaism in 1826, and devoted his life to the apostolate of helping the Jewish people to accept the Catholic faith. This work was central to the congregations he founded.
But after Vatican II the congregations changed direction. They still do good work in trying to improve relations between Catholics and Jews, but no longer officially pray for, or emphasize, the need for conversion to Catholicism.
People who deny that the conversion of the Jews is important sometimes claim that Vatican II supports their position. In fact there is no basis for this claim, and the very opposite is implied by that council.
The Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions (Nostra Aetate) states: “As Holy Scripture testifies, Jerusalem did not recognize the time of her visitation (cf. Luke 19:44), nor did the Jews in large numbers accept the Gospel” (n. 4). The clear implication is that the Gospel is for them and that they should accept it.
Another reason given why the conversion of the Jews should not be sought is that God made a covenant with them, and He doesn’t go back on His word. But this argument has no value. There is no question of God rejecting His earlier covenant; that covenant was perfected in the coming of Christ.
It is very plain from the New Testament that all people, including the Jews, are called into the New Covenant inaugurated by Jesus Christ. He chose only Jews to be His twelve apostles, and He Himself preached almost exclusively to His Jewish people. When the Canaanite woman implored Him to cure her daughter, He said: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 15:24).
Following Jesus’ example, the apostles first preached to the Jews, and it was only after a revelation to St. Peter that it became plain that Gentiles were equally invited into the Church (cf. Acts 10).
On the day of Pentecost, St. Peter, addressing the Jews, urged them to be baptized in the name of Christ; and some three thousand were baptized (Acts 2). Later, before the Sanhedrin, Peter declares concerning Christ: “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under Heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
St. Paul’s practice in the early days was to go first to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles. But then, because of the hostility of some Jews, Paul and Barnabas told them: “It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken first to you. Since you thrust it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:46).
So anguished was St. Paul (the great Apostle of the Gentiles) at the rejection of Christianity by most of his Jewish brethren that he said he would be willing to be cut off from Christ if it would bring the Jews to Christ (Romans 9:1-3).
Despite the overwhelming evidence, this strange prejudice persists that the Jewish people retain their own covenant with God; that He wants them to go to Him independently of Jesus Christ.
Part of the explanation lies in the widespread relativism that rejects absolute truth. The very important document Dominus Iesus, issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in August 2000, points out that the Church’s missionary work “is endangered today by relativistic theories which seek to justify religious pluralism….As a consequence, it is held that certain truths have been superseded; for example the definitive and complete character of the revelation of Jesus Christ, the nature of Christian faith as compared with that of belief in other religions” (n. 4).
Linked with this is a false ecumenism that frowns on any attempt to show the truth that the Catholic Church was founded by Christ Himself and is for all peoples.
Influenced by these mistaken ideas too many Catholics are lukewarm about helping others to come into the Church, or even about praying for their conversion. They are not keen about the New Evangelization because they don’t see the need for evangelization.
As a result millions, whether Jews or Gentiles, are starved of the truth and grace awaiting them in the Church. They lack the guidance so necessary in this secular age, and they lack the Mass (which is the re-presentation of Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary) and so many other channels of grace.
Coming back to the Jews. St. Paul speaks of the blessings that their acceptance of Christ the Messiah will bring. He compares the Chosen People, the Jews, to an olive tree from which some of the branches have been broken off, with the Gentiles being grafted on in their place. “They were broken off because of their unbelief” (Romans 11:20).
But, he continues, these natural braches will more easily be grafted back into their olive tree. That statement indicates the blessings for the Catholic Church and the world from Jewish converts. It is a matter of experience that converts often do wonderful work (think of the converts at present who put many of us cradle Catholics to shame). Surely this applies to Jewish converts who see that Jesus is their Messiah, the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies.
Further, before the end of the world the Jewish people as a whole will recognize Christ and His Church and be converted. St. Paul speaks of this. “A hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles come in; and so all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:25, 26).
In 1945 the chief rabbi of Rome, Israel Zolli, was baptized a Catholic. The event caused quite a stir. Asked why he had given up the Synagogue for the Church, he answered: “But I have not given it up. Christianity is the integration (completion or crown) of the Synagogue. For the Synagogue was a promise, and Christianity is the fulfillment of that promise.”
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(John Young is a graduate of the Aquinas Academy in Sydney, Australia, and has taught philosophy in four seminaries. His book The Scope of Philosophy was published by Gracewing Publishers in England in 2010. He has been a frequent contributor to The Wanderer on theological issues since 1977.)
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