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Vatican: Don't Convert Jews
Creative Minority Report ^ | 12/10/2015 | Matthew Archbold

Posted on 12/10/2015 10:03:29 AM PST by paladinan

So here's my question: If I inadvertently convert a Jew do I have to go to confession? Like if a Jew comes up and says "Hey I was wondering about this Jesus" should I say "I can't talk to you about Him."

But isn't that anti-Semitic? I'm confused.

[from] The Guardian:

Catholics should not try to convert Jews and should work with them to fight antisemitism, the Vatican has said, in a major new document that draws 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 evangelisation to Jews, who believe in the one God, in a different manner from that to people of other religions and world views," it said.

"In concrete terms this means that the Catholic church neither conducts nor supports any specific institutional mission work directed towards Jews." So why not all become Jews? They have good food and good jokes without all that judgey Jesus stuff. There is bacon. That would kinda' stink, not having bacon. So there's that. Wait, can I talk to Jews about bacon?


TOPICS: Catholic; Current Events; Theology
KEYWORDS: catholic; convert; evangelism; jews
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God have mercy on me for saying (and having to say) this, but: Will someone, please, PLEASE get this man out of the Chair of Peter?!?

...and please send his many cronies to small mission chapels where their only job will be filling the holy water fonts?

1 posted on 12/10/2015 10:03:29 AM PST by paladinan
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To: paladinan

**”In concrete terms this means that the Catholic church neither conducts nor supports any specific institutional mission work directed towards Jews.” **

The first people to hear the word of God as Jesus preached it were the Jews.


2 posted on 12/10/2015 10:07:45 AM PST by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: paladinan

I’m glad that the Lord Himself and His Apostles were busily converting Jews. Not good Catholics, I guess. The Lord even converted Saul of Tarsus, a Jew’s Jew, by a direct act.


3 posted on 12/10/2015 10:08:46 AM PST by Genoa
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To: paladinan

Next thing, it will be, “Don’t convert Muslims.” Or his he already said that?


4 posted on 12/10/2015 10:13:59 AM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: Cicero

Has.


5 posted on 12/10/2015 10:14:23 AM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: paladinan

Shame on St Paul and the first “pope” Peter.


6 posted on 12/10/2015 10:15:24 AM PST by Bertha Fanation
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To: paladinan
Luke 13:34 "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.

35 Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'"

-----

It would appear this Pope who have the last line scratched out, lest the "Jews" find, read, and thereby save Jerusalem from final destruction.

7 posted on 12/10/2015 10:22:00 AM PST by amorphous
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To: paladinan

The literal text of the statement is that Jews can’t be organizationally targeted for evangelization and conversion.

It doesn’t say anything about personal interaction that results in the conversion of Jews.

So being approached by a Jewish friend on the subject, with the outcome being that he converts as a result of the discussion, is ok. It’s just that the Church as an organization is not going to run any programs aimed at Jewish conversion.

Actively, and as an individual, identifying and targeting Jews for conversion is a big gray area tho.


8 posted on 12/10/2015 10:23:24 AM PST by tanknetter
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To: paladinan

So the Pope is basically saying Jews aren’t worth saving?

What else can he be saying, when his own church’s doctrine clearly states that not being evangelized is a sure path to damnation?


9 posted on 12/10/2015 10:23:38 AM PST by Boogieman
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To: Salvation

If Christ is the New Covenant should we not pray harder for Jews to convert and join in it?


10 posted on 12/10/2015 10:25:08 AM PST by lastchance (Credo.)
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To: paladinan

Ok, so Jesus Himself said to go and make disciples, first to Jerusalem, which I think is Jewish, and then to the rest of the word. Does that mean that that the Vicar of Christ thinks that Christ was being anti-Semitic?


11 posted on 12/10/2015 10:25:19 AM PST by tbpiper
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To: paladinan

Jesus really screwed up when he appeared to Paul and told him to join his church instead of persecuting Christians. Thanks for the tip, Frank.


12 posted on 12/10/2015 10:25:24 AM PST by Defiant (There are two Republican parties--the GOPe and the PRP (People's Republican Party). PRP will win.)
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Comment #13 Removed by Moderator

To: Salvation
The first people to hear the word of God as Jesus preached it were the Jews.

Yes, they were.
According to the Vatican figures there are an estimated 1.2 billion Roman Catholics in the world. Naturally the Catholic bashers will find SOMETHING wrong about that, either too many, not enough or just plain wrong.

Matthew 10:22 You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.

John 15:18 If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.

Mark: 13:13 Everyone will hate you because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.

When I read the Catholic bashing I recall these verses from Jesus. I know that there are so many Protestants, from all denominations, that do not feel this way so it's saddening to read it here.

14 posted on 12/10/2015 10:27:45 AM PST by cloudmountain
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To: paladinan

Jews are not the problem, they are part of the solution, and have contributed tremendously to our culture.


15 posted on 12/10/2015 10:28:06 AM PST by lee martell
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To: Salvation

... and they stayed Jews all their lives. Paul says very clearly in Acts 28 that he IS a Jew, and faithfully kept all the traditions of Judaism all his life.


16 posted on 12/10/2015 10:28:59 AM PST by Tzfat
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To: paladinan

The problem is, Christianity and Judaism both teach that a Jew that converts to Christianity is no longer a Jew. This is not biblical. the Catholic Church, by acknowledging that Jews should remain Jews is at least semantically correct.


17 posted on 12/10/2015 10:31:17 AM PST by Tzfat
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To: tanknetter
The literal text of the statement is that Jews can't be organizationally targeted for evangelization and conversion.

Invalid argument. Jesus Christ addressed Jewish crowds has a whole. So did St. Peter.

What's changed?

18 posted on 12/10/2015 10:31:24 AM PST by ebb tide (We have a rogue curia in Rome.)
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To: Boogieman
This is some Vatican commission on relations with Judaism speaking. If the Pope wanted to say it under his own name, he would have done so.

"Neither conducts nor supports any specific institutional mission work directed towards Jews" doesn't imply that Jews aren't worth saving, nor that there is no objective need for them to convert. That's reading more into it than it actually says.

his own church's doctrine clearly states that not being evangelized is a sure path to damnation?

Not sure where you're getting this from. Catholic doctrine always teaches that damnation is the consequence of voluntary fault. "Not being evangelized" isn't a voluntary fault of the person who wasn't evangelized, but it may very well be one of the person who was supposed to evangelize, but didn't!

19 posted on 12/10/2015 10:33:07 AM PST by Campion (Halten Sie sich unbedingt an die Lehre!)
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To: paladinan
Will someone, please, PLEASE get this man out of the Chair of Peter?!?

In the mean time, don't stand too close to Frank during a thunderstorm.

JMHo

20 posted on 12/10/2015 10:33:43 AM PST by Rashputin (Jesus Christ doesn't evacuate His troops, He leads them to victory.)
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