Religion

March 3, 2011

Pope wins praise for repudiating Jewish guilt for Jesus’ death

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Jewish organizations are hailing Pope Benedict XVI’s unequivocal repudiation of the claim that the Jewish people can be held forever responsible for the death of Jesus.

The Vatican already rejected the claim in general terms in 1965 with the landmark Nostra Aetate document issued by the Vatican II Conference, opening the door to formal Catholic-Jewish dialogue. But in a new volume of his book, “Jesus of Nazareth,” Benedict employs a detailed scholarly analysis of Catholic teaching to make the point clear.

The Anti-Defamation League called it “an important and historic moment” in Catholic-Jewish relations that would build on Nostra Aetate.

Excerpts of the book, which is due out March 10, were released Wednesday.

“Now we must ask: Who exactly were Jesus’ accusers? Who insisted that he be condemned to death?” Benedict writes in a passage regarding Jesus’ condemnation to death by Roman governor Pontius Pilate.

Noting that the Gospel of St. John states that it was “the Jews,” he asks, “How could the whole people have been present at this moment to clamor for Jesus’ death?” John’s use of the term, he writes, “does not in any way indicate—as the modern reader might suppose—the people of Israel in general, even less is it ‘racist’ in character. After all, John himself was ethnically a Jew, as were Jesus and all his followers.”

What John meant by “the Jews”, Benedict writes, was the priestly “temple aristocracy.”

In another passage, Benedict explicitly rejects the notion that the expression reported in the Gospel that “His blood be on us and on our children” meant an eternal curse against the Jewish people. Instead, the pontiff writes, “It means that we all stand in need of the purifying power of love which is his blood. These words are not a curse, but rather redemption, salvation.”

Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants, said the pope’s book marked “a landmark moment” in Catholic-Jewish relations.

“Pope Benedict’s theological repudiation of the deicide charge not only confirms the teachings of Vatican II, which formally rejected collective Jewish guilt, but seals it for a new generation of Catholics,” Steinberg said.

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If “the Jews” in the New Testament refers to the priestly “temple aristocracy”, that’s even better news.

The priestly Temple Aristocracy were the extinct Sadducees, not the Pharisees who were the grassroots religious authorities, the Rabbis and forebears of today’s Jews.

How about a statement repudiating Jewish guilt for Jesus’ death

Comment by Ben Plonie on 3/03/11 at 3:12 pm

(premature submit)
Now how about a statement repudiating Jewish guilt for the death of Palestinian ‘aspirations’ to steal the Jewish homeland?

Comment by Ben Plonie on 3/03/11 at 3:45 pm

As a devout and mostly self-educated Catholic blessed with just a few years of formal Catholic education, I’ve always know precisely who caused the sorrowful passion and death of Jesus Christ.  All I have to do is look in the mirror.  There has never been a need to look any further. Everything I learn about my faith is consistent with that belief.  That knowledge makes me very remorseful about my sins, and highly motivated to sin no more and avoid the near occasion of sin.  Those of us who love and believe in God need to care for and support each other.  More than anything, today’s world needs God.

Comment by Martha Lantz on 3/04/11 at 1:34 am

Thank you Martha. If more Catholics were like you the history of the last 2000 years would have been drastically different. And in that vein, let’s recognize in the Mel Gibsons and the Pat Buchanans the ‘NT-style’ Pharisees.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 3/06/11 at 4:26 pm

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