{"id":1490,"date":"2009-06-19T17:30:15","date_gmt":"2009-06-19T17:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2009\/06\/revised-catholic-statement-on.php"},"modified":"2009-06-19T17:30:15","modified_gmt":"2009-06-19T17:30:15","slug":"revised-catholic-statement-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/06\/revised-catholic-statement-on","title":{"rendered":"Revised Catholic Statement on Conversion Worries Jews"},"content":{"rendered":"

(UNDATED) U.S. Catholic bishops tried Thursday (June 18) to clarify the Catholic Church’s relationship with Judaism, saying Jews will not be targets of evangelism, but the church reserves the right to share its faith and welcome Jewish converts.
\nThe bishops resurrected a 2002 statement that they called “insufficiently precise and potentially misleading” about whether Christians should share the Gospel with Jews. The bishops said the document had “raised many questions” among U.S. Catholics.
\nJewish groups, however, worry that Catholics are retreating from decades of interfaith progress that culminated in a 1986 statement by Pope John Paul II that the Jewish covenant with God is “irrevocable.”
\nThe bishops’ 2002 document, produced by an ongoing dialogue with Reform and Conservative rabbis, said targeting Jews for conversion is “no longer theologically acceptable” because Jews “already dwell in a saving covenant with God.”
\nIn a three-page statement issued at the bishops’ spring meeting in San Antonio, the bishops’ doctrine and ecumenical committees said the 2002 statement presented a “diminished notion of evangelization” that seemed to imply that Catholics should not attempt to convert Jews.
\nThe new statement appears to try to answer Catholic critics who said the 2002 statement implied that salvation could be found outside of Jesus Christ, or that the church didn’t have the duty to evangelize.
\nJewish leaders say the revised statement is the latest in a series of troubling steps by the Catholic Church.
\nLast year, Pope Benedict XVI revised, but refused to delete, a Good Friday prayer in the Latin Mass that calls for Jews to be converted. The U.S. bishops last year deleted a section in the official U.S. Catholic Cathechism for Adults that said “the covenant that God made with the Jewish people through Moses remains eternally valid for them.”
\n“There was a growing comfort level in the Jewish community over how Catholics viewed Jewish salvation,” said Rabbi Gary Greenebaum, the U.S. director of interfaith relations for the American Jewish Committee.
\n“That’s now becoming less sturdy, less clear, and will need a new redefinition.”
\nA spokeswoman for the bishops, Sister Mary Ann Walsh, said the San Antonio statement was primarily directed at Catholics, not Jews, and sought to “clarify any misunderstanding” over the earlier document.
\nShe added that the 2002 statement was produced by the dialogue team and was never an official document of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops “although it was treated that way.”
\nThe bishops said confusion had “led some to conclude mistakenly that Jews have an obligation not to become Christian and the church has a corresponding obligation not to baptize Jews.” Instead, the bishops said the church is “always giving witness to the following of Christ, to which all are implicitly invited.”
\nThe bishops reaffirmed longstanding teaching that God “does not regret, repent of, or change his mind” about the covenant he established with the Jews through Abraham and Moses. Yet they said Jesus Christ “fulfills God’s revelation,” and sharing that message is “at the heart of (the church’s) mission.”
\nBishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Conn., who heads the bishops’ doctrine committee, said the Catholic Church believes that the Jewish covenant that began with Moses and Abraham and “that continues to be adhered to by Jews today is fulfilled … in Jesus.”
\nRabbi Jerome Epstein, the outgoing head of the Conservative movement who worked on the original 2002 document, said he would like some “clarification” on who, exactly, the bishops are trying to address.
\n“If they’re saying they want to stress that…for Catholics the way to the covenant is through belief in Jesus Christ, I would say that message is appropriate,” Epstein said from Israel.
\n“But if they’re saying that they’re going to go sell that message to Jews, then I’ve got a problem with that.”
\nBy KEVIN ECKSTROM
\nc. 2009 Religion News Service
\nCopyright 2009 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(UNDATED) U.S. Catholic bishops tried Thursday (June 18) to clarify the Catholic Church’s relationship with Judaism, saying Jews will not be targets of evangelism, but the church reserves the right to share its faith and welcome Jewish converts. The bishops resurrected a 2002 statement that they called “insufficiently precise and potentially misleading” about whether Christians…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nRevised Catholic Statement on Conversion Worries Jews<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/06\/revised-catholic-statement-on\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Revised Catholic Statement on Conversion Worries Jews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"(UNDATED) U.S. Catholic bishops tried Thursday (June 18) to clarify the Catholic Church’s relationship with Judaism, saying Jews will not be targets of evangelism, but the church reserves the right to share its faith and welcome Jewish converts. The bishops resurrected a 2002 statement that they called “insufficiently precise and potentially misleading” about whether Christians…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/06\/revised-catholic-statement-on\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-19T17:30:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"nsymmonds\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Revised Catholic Statement on Conversion Worries Jews","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/06\/revised-catholic-statement-on","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Revised Catholic Statement on Conversion Worries Jews","og_description":"(UNDATED) U.S. Catholic bishops tried Thursday (June 18) to clarify the Catholic Church’s relationship with Judaism, saying Jews will not be targets of evangelism, but the church reserves the right to share its faith and welcome Jewish converts. The bishops resurrected a 2002 statement that they called “insufficiently precise and potentially misleading” about whether Christians…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/06\/revised-catholic-statement-on","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2009-06-19T17:30:15+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/06\/revised-catholic-statement-on","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/06\/revised-catholic-statement-on","name":"Revised Catholic Statement on Conversion Worries Jews","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-06-19T17:30:15+00:00","dateModified":"2009-06-19T17:30:15+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/06\/revised-catholic-statement-on#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/06\/revised-catholic-statement-on"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/06\/revised-catholic-statement-on#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Revised Catholic Statement on Conversion Worries Jews"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2","name":"nsymmonds","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","caption":"nsymmonds"},"description":"Nicole Symmonds is Beliefnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prayer editor and also covers Christianity. A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. From fashion to faith and the journey isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t over yet\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/nsymmonds"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1490\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}