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To: Houghton M.
It was a synod of Eastern Rite Catholics, who are in communion with the Bishop of Rome but have significant autonomy.

We are discussing the archbishop's claim that the Church teaches modern Jews have no special God-given right to the land of Israel. Are you saying there is a difference between the Eastern and Roman Rite Catholic teaching on this issue?

94 posted on 10/30/2010 7:19:59 PM PDT by mas cerveza por favor
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To: mas cerveza por favor

Yes. Supersessionism (or “replacement”) theology has never been embraced by the Catholic Magisterium. Individual theologians may have taught it, Augustine roundly opposed it. In Catholic theology the Church fulfills but does not replace, Israel as God’s people.

Politically, the Holy See has always been cautious about the uncritical enthusiasm for the state of Israel that accompanies some kinds of Protestant eschatology. Catholic eschatology looks for God’s chosen people to play some kind of role in the eschaton but does not see the founding of the State of Israel as a key to the End Times. For Catholics and for the Holy See, the secular state of Israel is one among all the other nation-states and is dealt with along the same lines.

Many Christians in the Middle East do not like Israel. Maybe they are justified in this, maybe they are not. But just because they don’t take the same line toward the state of Israel as blank-check American Eangelicals do, doesn’t mean they hate Jews.

The synod apparently has taken a harder anti-state-of-Israel line than Vatican diplomacy does. If the synod actually claimed that supersessionism is true, then they are at odds theologically with the Church. But I’d reserve final judgment pending more careful study of what the synod actually said.

It is possible for a national or regional group of bishops to do stupid things. The American bishops do so routinely. But whether this synod of Middle Eastern bishops has done that, I don’t know.

What I do know is that to say that this is the voice of “the Vatican” is ignorant.

But then it wouldn’t be the first time that those who already hate the Catholic Church have seized on specious evidence to make drastic, false claims.

And it won’t be the last.


99 posted on 10/30/2010 7:32:48 PM PDT by Houghton M.
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