Friday, August 17, 2007
DUAL COVENANT THEORY AGAIN
It is no longer possible to clarify what the Church officially believes about the Jews. Here is another article at Catholic News Service that presents the confusion. The article revolves around that controversial Good Friday prayer for the conversion of the Jews. Quoted in the article is the Israeli ambassador to the Vatican, Oded Ben-Hur:
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, told reporters in late July that the problem of the Good Friday prayer would be studied at the Vatican and might be resolved by deciding that even those who use the 1962 missal would use the 1970 text of the prayer.
Ben-Hur said members of the Jewish community expect the Vatican to fulfill promises to correct the situation.
So apparently the Jews are now dictating how the Catholics will pray. Strange. May we then dictate how the Jews will pray, one wonders?
The change being proposed will open up the possibility of intermingling the 1970 rite with the 1962 rite. Since intermingling of various religious concepts and even some non-religious concepts with the Novus Ordo has landed us in our present predicament, this is an ominous development at this particular time.
By praying for the conversion of the Jews, the older prayer appears to contradict the Second Vatican Council's teaching that "God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their fathers; he does not repent of the gifts he makes or of the calls he issues."
That has all the ingredients for the making of a dual-covenat, one plan for the Jews and another different plan for the Catholics. It demands an answer to the question does Jesus Christ save all, or is there an alternative plan for the Jews? Dominus Iesus gives the answer that is not consistent with the ideas presented in this article.
Cardinal Kasper adds to the confusion:
Two years later, Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Commission for Relations With the Jews, told a U.S. conference that Christians cannot ignore their core belief in the universality of salvation in Christ.
However, he said, "this does not mean that Jews, in order to be saved, have to become Christians; if they follow their own conscience and believe in God's promises as they understand them in their religious tradition, they are in line with God's plan, which for us comes to historical completion in Jesus Christ."
Because Jews believe in the one God, creator of all and source of salvation, "mission understood as a call to conversion from idolatry to the living and true God does not apply and cannot be applied to Jews," the cardinal said.
That is a dual covenant. Will the next move be to try to eliminate our covenant with Christ? Eventually our shepherds will have to take a stand for Christ and stick to it. That stand will include our belief in the Trinity, and that brings us right back to the Noahide Laws.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
