Sunday, September 02, 2007
DUAL COVENANT THEOLOGY
This editorial is taken from a 2002 issue of "Christian Order":
October 2002
TO DECEIVE THE ELECT!
THE EDITOR
On 12 August 2002 the American Bishops' Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs released a joint-document with their Jewish counterparts entitled "Reflections on Covenant and Mission." Among many other astonishing things, it declares that "campaigns that target Jews for conversion to Christianity are no longer theologically acceptable in the Catholic Church." Jewish participant Rabbi Gilbert Rosenthal confirmed that "neither group believes that we should missionize among the other in order to save souls via conversions." Cardinal Keeler, the U.S. Moderator for Catholic-Jewish relations, then contributed his own bravura impression of Judas, passing off this treachery as a "significant step forward in the dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Jewish Community in this country."
On 17 August EWTN's Fr. John Echert hit out at the document, fuming: "… parts of it strike me as contrary to divine revelation... It is an embarrassment, lacks any teaching authority, and serves to reveal the thinking of some people who hold powerful positions in the national conference. If a document such as this gains approval, as it currently stands, I will seriously consider the prospect that we are moving into the end times, namely, apostasy."
God bless Father Echert! Readers on this side of the Atlantic know exactly how he feels. The same thought arises every time Cardinal Murphy O'Connor and his British brothers and bureaucrats showcase their truly embarrassing, ignorant, erroneous and compromising Modernist beliefs on ecumenism and just about any other issue of note (CO passim). But it is not only the national episcopates and their delegates who are taking us ever closer to the theological brink. Increasingly, Rome is facilitating the wholesale confusion. After all, contrary to Church teaching as recently affirmed in Dominus Iesus, it is Cardinal Kasper, the Vatican's grand fromage on ecumenical affairs, who is openly promoting the scandalous view at the heart of the above Reflections: that the Jews are not in need of conversion to Christianity. Even Cardinal Ratzinger himself, a Kasper antagonist, has muddied the waters in that regard with baffling, equivocal utterances ["Some Thoughts on the Reception of Dominus Iesus," CO, Jan. 2001].
The plain truth is that outright public betrayals or serious undermining of Catholic teaching by our Shepherds have become so frequent in recent years that we cannot help but call to mind the Gospel passage underlying Fr. Echert's sentiments on the apostasy that ushers in the end times: "For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show signs and wonders insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect" [Matt 24:24]. This warning, in turn, recalls Sister Lucia's reference to the wholesale "diabolic disorientation" of the contemporary Catholic hierarchy. None of which is to say that apocalyptic end times are upon us or anywhere within sight. But such thoughts are very naturally to the fore in these murky days, and they immediately sprang to mind as I read about Rome's recent approval of the Neocatechumenal Way - perhaps the most frightening indicator of hierarchical deception thus far.
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