Pope Benedict XVI in Israel

Discuss the relationship between Jews and Christians throughout history to our own day.

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Ariel
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Pope Benedict XVI in Israel

Post by Ariel »

Anyone have any thoughts on the Pope's visit in Israel?

While the Israeli media and some rabbis are certainly too critical and uncharitable towards him, I personally also think that his speeches were a bit disappointing so far and pretty politically correct. As if there were a ghost of Vatican aides and pressure groups looming over him causing the #1 concern to be to not offend anyone.
“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world” C.S. Lewis
Barra
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Re: Pope Benedict XVI in Israel

Post by Barra »

As an admirer of His Holiness, I was disheartened by the address on the Temple Mount. The writer in the link below expresses the disappointment of many.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/026110.php#more

However, some of those who comment after the article interpret the Pope's speech as an invitation to rational dialogue and therefore a subtle critique, and criticism, of Islam. Benedict XVI is certainly a subtle thinker but the world is not an academic seminar and such subtlety may be a source of grave misunderstanding. I allow that the import of the address may not be as it seems at first blush, but the writer's concerns are quite valid.
surfnetter
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Re: Pope Benedict XVI in Israel

Post by surfnetter »

Hello all -- new here, but not to the subject matter.

Have a book out that some Jews find very interesting about the Lost Tribes -- there's a link to it in the topic I posted here. Roman Catholic theologian Dr. Warren H. Carroll gave it a quick look see and encouraged me in this way:

"God wants all of the Jews, of any tribe, to be members of the New Covenant, the Catholic Church. Anything you can do to help Jews see that they are called to the New Covenant is important work and I encourage you to continue it."

It made me think of what Jesus said to the Samaritan woman:

"Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews."
John 4:22

If Our Lord meant what He said, and the way He said it (and of course He did) then the Catholics have to go to the Jews for salvation, not the other way around.

Jews are the only people who have ever lived who don't have to go to someone else to be saved. Everyone else has to come to them. It's just not in the way -- or to whom specifically -- most of them thought it would be.

The strange dichotomy is that you can be anything and still be a Jew -- even an atheist. But if you express a belief in Jesus -- the most successful historic Jew who ever lived -- you're on the slippery slope of losing your Jewish identity. On the other hand, the more we Christians worship a Jewish man as God, and read and listen to the words of His Hebrew forbears and followers, the less Semitic they all become.

Something is amiss, methinks .... :?:

I much appreciated Pope Benedict's predecessor's attitude toward the Jewish people. We all need to be furthering John Paul the Great's work in this regard.
Ariel
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Re: Pope Benedict XVI in Israel

Post by Ariel »

Hi surfnetter,
the Catholics have to go to the Jews for salvation, not the other way around
There are big problems with your quotes above.. that is, I somewhat agree with the first part (that Catholics going to Jews can enrich their salvation), but the other way around is important too. There cannot be full communion with the Messiah and with God without full communion which His Body, the Church (see Why be Catholic? and our online course)
the more we Christians worship a Jewish man as God, and read and listen to the words of His Hebrew forbears and followers, the less Semitic they all become.
Not really, there are plenty of Jewish sources that point to the divinity of Messiah.
“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world” C.S. Lewis
surfnetter
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Re: Pope Benedict XVI in Israel

Post by surfnetter »

Ariel -- There are big problems with your quotes above.. that is, I somewhat agree with the first part (that Catholics going to Jews can enrich their salvation), but the other way around is important too. There cannot be full communion with the Messiah and with God without full communion which His Body, the Church (see Why be Catholic? and our online course)
You missed my point. "Salvation is of the Jews." These are Jesus's words. He was in the process of identifying Himself as the Messiah to the Samaritan woman, and yet he did not say, "Salvation is of this Jew."

The Catholic Church is not a Gentile entity, no matter how you slice it. Everyone except the Jews have to leave their genealogical "house" and go to the Jews for Salvation, even the Pope.

I'm not talking about the modern religions -- I'm speaking as the prophets spoke -- how Jesus spoke.

I watched a Jewish woman come to faith in Jesus as her Messiah - her savior. For her it was coming to recognize that the God she had come to know as a loving, Fatherly presence as a child all along was this Jewish man she had been taught to keep at a distance. It made her embrace and love her faith and heritage even more. She sees the Catholic Church as a facsimile -- a copy of the real thing. Whether or not she is "right" doesn't matter. As long as the Catholic position is that Jews have to go to the Gentiles for salvation it won't ring true to them. They go to Mass and everything looks quasi Jewish -- the ritual, the vestments, the feasts. And the people we worship and venerate and whose words we read -- all Jewish, or more accurately Hebrew. And then there's Jesus saying, "Salvation is of the Jews."

Under this rubric "Why be Catholic?" is a rhetorical question.
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