Catholics should not try to convert Jews, Vatican says

How are Christians going to get excited about their religion unless they feel a mandate to convert the world? I suspect that Christians who feel a mandate to convert the world are more excited about their religion than Christians who don’t feel this.

REUTERS: Catholics should not try to convert Jews and should work with them to fight anti-Semitism, the Vatican said on Thursday in a major new document that drew the Church further away from the strained relations of the past.

Christianity and Judaism are intertwined and God never annulled his covenant with the Jewish people, said the document from the Vatican’s Commission for Religious Relations with Jews.

“The Church is therefore obliged to view evangelization to Jews, who believe in the one God, in a different manner from that to people of other religions and world views,” it said.

It also said Catholics should be particularly sensitive to the significance to Jews of the Shoah, the Hebrew word for the Holocaust, and pledged “to do all that is possible with our Jewish friends to repel anti-Semitic tendencies”.

“A Christian can never be an anti-Semite, especially because of the Jewish roots of Christianity,” it said.

About Luke Ford

I've written five books (see Amazon.com). My work has been covered in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and on 60 Minutes. I teach Alexander Technique in Beverly Hills (Alexander90210.com).
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