Reading this piece on Spero News, it struck me how willingly some non-Catholics have assigned to themselves the task of interpreting Church teaching. Here, for example, is one commentator:
Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, said in a statement “While we appreciate that some of the deprecatory language has been removed from a new version of the Good Friday prayer for the Conversion of Jews in the 1962 Roman Missal, we are deeply troubled and disappointed that the framework and intention to petition God for Jews to accept Jesus as Lord was kept intact.”
“Alterations of language without change to the 1962 prayer’s conversionary intent amount to cosmetic revisions, while retaining the most troubling aspect for Jews, namely the desire to end the distinctive Jewish way of life. Still named the ‘Prayer for Conversion of the Jews,’ it is a major departure from the teachings and actions of Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul II, and numerous authoritative Catholic documents, including Nostra Aetate.“
Now, Mr. Foxman is no Catholic theologian — nor a Catholic, for that matter — so his determination that a breach in magisterial teaching has occurred is amateurish at best. It does bring up some interesting considerations, not the least of which is this: If most people think that the Church definitively taught what Mr. Foxman thinks it taught, then we are in need of a major clarification of Nostra Aetate. Just as the Holy See recently affirmed what “subsists in” means in Lumen Gentium (the short version is that it means “is”), so too, it appears that the document on non-Christians needs its own “explanatory note,” in order to clarify that the Church has not changed her teachings on the necessity of faith in Christ and the Church. Perhaps that explanatory note can include a passage from the original draft of the document:
“It is important to recall that the integration of the Jewish people into the Church is part of Christian hope. For, according to the Apostle’s teaching (cf. Rom. 11: 25), the Church awaits with unshakable faith and deep longing the entry of this people into the fullness of the People of God, which has been restored by Christ” (AS III, VIII, p. 640, translation by Father Brian Harrison)
