by Doug Lawrence
In a recent address to a group of prominent German Jewish leaders, the Pope made the following statement:
“We Christians must also become increasingly aware of our own inner affinity with Judaism. For Christians, there can be no rupture in salvation history. Salvation comes from the Jews. When Jesus’ conflict with the Judaism of His time is superficially interpreted as a breach with the Old Covenant, it tends to be reduced to the idea of a liberation that views the Torah merely as a slavish enactment of rituals and outward observances. In fact, the Sermon on the Mount does not abolish the Mosaic Law, but reveals its hidden possibilities and allows more radical demands to emerge. It points us towards the deepest source of human action, the heart, where choices are made between what is pure and what is impure, where faith, hope and love blossom forth.”
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Let’s “parse” the Holy Father’s statement:
“We Christians must also become increasingly aware of our own inner affinity with Judaism.”
OK. Let’s start with what we believe about Jesus Christ, the Holy Trinity, the Church, and the means of eternal salvation.
“For Christians, there can be no rupture in salvation history. Salvation comes from the Jews.”
Insofar as what God has done … especially through Jesus, Mary, and the Apostles … and in spite of the continuous Jewish denial and rejection of virtually every Christian truth … the words of the Holy Father are true. But the facts show that even Muslims routinely show a greater degree of respect for Jesus Christ and his mother, than does a typical Jew.
“When Jesus’ conflict with the Judaism of His time is superficially interpreted as a breach with the Old Covenant, it tends to be reduced to the idea of a liberation that views the Torah merely as a slavish enactment of rituals and outward observances…”
There’s ABSOLUTELY NOTHING SUPERFICIAL about it!
Pius XII: Mystici Corporis, 29: “And first of all, by the death of our Redeemer, the New Testament took the place of the Old Law which had been abolished; then the Law of Christ together with its mysteries, enactments, institutions, and sacred rites was ratified for the whole world in the blood of Jesus Christ…but on the Gibbet of His death Jesus made void the Law with its decrees fastened the handwriting of the Old Testament to the Cross, establishing the New Testament in His blood shed for the whole human race. “To such an extent, then,” says St. Leo the Great, speaking of the Cross of our Lord, “was there effected a transfer from the Law to the Gospel, from the Synagogue to the Church, from the many sacrifices to one Victim, that, as Our Lord expired, that mystical veil which shut off the innermost part of the temple and its sacred secret was rent violently from top to bottom.”
30: “On the Cross then the Old Law died, soon to be buried and to be a bearer of death, in order to give way to the New Testament of which Christ had chosen the Apostles as qualified ministers”
Council of Trent, ch 1, 793: “but not even the Jews by the very letter of the law of Moses were able to be liberated or to rise therefrom”
Council of Trent, Session 6, ch 2: “that He might both redeem the Jews, who were under the Law”
Council of Trent, Canon 1: “If anyone shall say that man can be justified before God by his own works which are done through his own natural powers, or through the teaching of the Law…let him be anathema.”
Council of Florence, DS 695: “There are seven sacraments of the new Law: namely, baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, penance, extreme unction, orders, and matrimony, which differ a great deal from the sacraments of the Old Law. For those of the Old Law did not effect grace, but only pronounced that it should be given through the passion of Christ; these sacraments of ours contain grace, and confer it upon those who receive them worthily.”
Council of Florence, DS 712: “It firmly believes, professes, and teaches that the matter pertaining to the law of the Old Testament, of the Mosiac law, which are divided into ceremonies, sacred rites, sacrifices, and sacraments, because they were established to signify something in the future, although they were suited to the divine worship at that time, after our Lord’s coming had been signified by them, ceased, and the sacraments of the New Testament began; and that whoever, even after the passion, placed hope in these matters of the law and submitted himself to them as necessary for salvation, as if faith in Christ could not save without them, sinned mortally.”
“All, therefore, who after that time observe circumcision and the Sabbath and the other requirements of the law, it declares alien to the Christian faith and not in the least fit to participate in eternal salvation, unless someday they recover from these errors. Therefore, it commands all who glory in the name of Christian, at whatever time, before or after baptism’ to cease entirely from circumcision, since, whether or not one places hope in it, it cannot be observed at all without the loss of eternal salvation.”
Pope Benedict XIV, Ex Quo Primum, #59: “However they are not attempting to observe the precepts of the old Law, which as everyone knows have been revoked by the coming of Christ.”
Pope Benedict XIV, Ex Quo Primum, #61: “The first consideration is that the ceremonies of the Mosaic law were abrogated by the coming of Christ and they can no longer be observed without sin after the promulgation of the Gospel.”
Pius VI, DS 1519-1520 (condemned the following): “Likewise, the doctrine which adds that under the Law man ‘became a prevaricator, since he was powerless to observe it, not indeed by the fault of the Law, which was most sacred, but by the guilt of man, who, under the Law, without grace, became more and more a prevaricator’; and it further adds, ‘that the Law, if it did not heal the heart of man, brought it about that he would recognize his evil, and, being convinced of his weakness, would desire the grace of a mediator’; in this part it generally intimates that man became a prevaricator through the nonobservance of the Law which he was powerless to observe, as if ‘He who is just could command something impossible, or He who is pious would be likely to condemn man for that which he could not avoid’ (from St. Caesarius Serm. 73, in append., St. Augustine, Serm. 273, edit. Maurin; from St. August., De nat, et “rat., e. 43; De “rat. et lib. arb., e. 16, Enarr. in psalm. 56, n. I),– false scandalous, impious, condemned in Baius (see n. 1504).
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Pope Benedict XVI patronizes his Jewish brothers and sisters by failing to tell them the whole truth about salvation … that “it” (more properly HE … Jesus Christ) did (initially) come into the world through the Jews … but that salvation now comes by faith, exclusively through the grace and truth of Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God … and through the Catholic Church that Jesus personally founded … which is the permanent, divinely designated, universal sacrament of salvation, for ALL.
(Romans 10:9-13) For if thou confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thy heart that God hath raised him up from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For, with the heart, we believe unto justice: but, with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation.
For the scripture saith: Whosoever believeth in him shall not be confounded. For there is no distinction of the Jew and the Greek: for the same is Lord over all, rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
No wonder our modern “theologians” have so often run amock, when we have the head of the church and its chief theologian speaking in such a duplicitous way!
Jesus Christ IS salvation.
The Catholic Church is the divinely designated, primary “dispenser” of the saving grace that Jesus obtained for us, on the cross.
It will remain exactly so, until the end of time.
The Jews (along with everyone else) deserve to be clearly informed of all these facts. Not patronized with political, self-serving half-truths and modernist fictions.
(From Dictionary.com)
Definition of duplicity
1. deceitfulness in speech or conduct, as by speaking or acting in two different ways to different people concerning the same matter.
September 24, 2011
Categories: Books & Publications, Catholic Q & A, Events, history, Human Rights, Inspirational, Politics, Scandals, Tracts, Catholic Theology, and Other Permanent Pages . Tags: Catholic-Church, duplicity, Germany, gospel, half truths, Jesus Christ, jews, patronizing, Politics, Pope Benendict XVI, salvation . Author: Doug Lawrence . Comments: Leave a comment
Catholic readers address current German scandals, apostasy, exodus
We’ve heard for years about the “fruits of the council.” Well, now we know who these fruits are. This has all come about since Vatican II, the “Great Council,” and flourished under “John Paul the Great,” who appointed these bishops. The scandal that still gets no coverage is the horrible state of the liturgy and the disobedience of these same bishops who have been instructed to let us have the old Mass back and refuse to do so. We need the old Mass, because it instructs the faithful so much better than the new. — David, US
It is not a question of what the Church can do to win Catholics back, but of those lapsed Catholics realizing that scandal in the Church has always been, and always will be, present in the Church. The present abuse scandal is nothing new. Christ promised the Church infallibility in proclaiming His gospel; He did not promise her impeccability in the conduct of any particular members. Those German Catholics who have deserted the Church because of the abuse scandal would be well advised to reflect on this fact, and return to their religious duties before their desertion causes irreparable harm to their souls. — Geoffrey, United Kingdom
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April 9, 2011
Categories: Books & Publications, Catholic Q & A, Events, Inspirational, Politics, Scandals . Tags: Catholic-Church, catholics, comments, Exodus, Germany, ideas . Author: Doug Lawrence . Comments: Leave a comment