His ‘Elder Brothers’ are not amused!
Not Kosher: Top Jewish Authorities ‘concerned’ after Francis accidentally preaches Christ over Judaism
Antipope Francis with Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch in Jerusalem on May 26, 2014.
(image credit: REUTERS/Alamy Stock Photo)
From the beginning, the Argentinian Jesuit Jorge Bergoglio (aka “Pope Francis”) has been preaching not only a false gospel but even different versions of the same. What message he delivers simply depends on who is listening.
For example, while putatively Catholic ears get to hear from him that the Law of Moses cannot give life and justification can only come from Jesus Christ, the unbelieving Jews have been hearing a different story from the man who falsely claims to be the Vicar of Christ. This two-facedness has been going on for quite a while, and as long as neither side finds out what the other is told, the charade can continue.
But now the Jews have caught on.
During his General Audience on Aug. 11, 2021, Francis said:
The Apostle explains to the Galatians that, in reality, the Covenant and the Law are not linked indissolubly – the Covenant with God and the Mosaic Law. The first element he relies on is that the Covenant established by God with Abraham was based on faith in the fulfillment of the promise and not on the observance of the Law that did not yet exist. Abraham began his journey centuries before the Law. The Apostle writes: “This is what I mean: the law, which came four hundred and thirty years afterward [with Moses], does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God [with Abraham when he called him], so as to make the promise void”. This word is very important. The people of God, we Christians, we journey through life looking toward a promise, the promise is what attracts us, it attracts us to move forward toward the encounter with the Lord. “For if the inheritance is by the law, it is no longer by promise [that came before the Law, the promise to Abraham]; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise” (Gal 3:17-18), then the Law came four hundred and thirty years after. With this reasoning, Paul reached his first objective: the Law is not the basis of the Covenant because it came later, it was necessary and just, but prior to that there was the promise, the Covenant.
Such an argument disqualifies all those who sustain that the Mosaic Law was a constitutive part of the Covenant. No, the Covenant comes first, and the call came to Abraham. The Torah, the Law, in fact, was not included in the promise made to Abraham. Having said this, one should not think, however, that Saint Paul was opposed to the Mosaic Law. No, he observed it. Several times in his Letters, he defends its divine origin and says that it possesses a well-defined role in the history of salvation. The Law, however, does not give life, it does not offer the fulfillment of the promise because it is not capable of being able to fulfill it. The Law is a journey, a journey that leads toward an encounter. Paul uses a word, I do not know if it is in the text, a very important word: the law is the “pedagogue” toward Christ, the pedagogue toward faith in Christ, that is, the teacher that leads you by the hand toward the encounter (cf. Gal 3:24). Those who seek life need to look to the promise and to its fulfillment in Christ.
(Antipope Francis, General Audience, Vatican.va, Aug. 11, 2021)
It may be a rare sight, but here Bergoglio accurately portrays what St. Paul told the Galatians. Not surprisingly, the teaching of the Apostle does not sit well with the successors of Caiaphas.
A Reuters article appeared in today’s edition of The Jerusalem Post which states:
Israel’s top Jewish religious authorities have told the Vatican they are concerned about comments that Pope Francis made about their books of sacred law and have asked for a clarification.
In a letter seen by Reuters, Rabbi Rasson Arousi, chair of the Commission of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel for Dialogue with the Holy See, said the comments appeared to suggest Jewish law was obsolete.
Vatican authorities said they were studying the letter and were considering a response.
(Philip Pullella, “Israeli rabbis ask pope to clarify remarks on Jewish law”, The Jerusalem Post, Aug. 25, 2021)
So the Jews are stunned that Catholics would believe that the Mosaic law is no longer in force. That alone speaks volumes about the ecumenical and interreligious work of the Vatican II Church.
Of course the Jewish law of the Old Covenant is obsolete! That is precisely the teaching of St. Paul upon which Francis was commenting, and which the same Apostle explicates in greater detail in his letter to the Hebrews:
But now he hath obtained a better ministry, by how much also he is a mediator of a better testament, which is established on better promises. For if that former had been faultless, there should not indeed a place have been sought for a second. For finding fault with them, he saith: Behold, the days shall come, saith the Lord: and I will perfect unto the house of Israel, and unto the house of Juda, a new testament: Not according to the testament which I made to their fathers, on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt: because they continued not in my testament: and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the testament which I will make to the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord: I will give my laws into their mind, and in their heart will I write them: and I will be their God, and they shall be my people: And they shall not teach every man his neighbour and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me from the least to the greatest of them: Because I will be merciful to their iniquities, and their sins I will remember no more. Now in saying a new, he hath made the former old. And that which decayeth and groweth old, is near its end.
(Hebrews 8:6-13)
Our Blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Himself had indicated that the Old Law was being replaced with His New Law (see Mt 5:17,38-39; Mt 21:43), and so it should not be surprising that His holy Catholic Church teaches this very thing quite explicitly:
And first of all, by the death of our Redeemer, the New Testament took the place of the Old Law which had been abolished; then the Law of Christ together with its mysteries, enactments, institutions, and sacred rites was ratified for the whole world in the blood of Jesus Christ. For, while our Divine Savior was preaching in a restricted area — He was not sent but to the sheep that were lost of the house of Israel — the Law and the Gospel were together inn force; but on the gibbet of his death Jesus made void the Law with its decrees, fastened the handwriting of the Old Testament to the Cross, establishing the New Testament in His blood shed for the whole human race. “To such an extent, then,” says St. Leo the Great, speaking of the Cross of our Lord, “was there effected a transfer from the Law to the Gospel, from the Synagogue to the Church, from many sacrifices to one Victim, that, as our Lord expired, that mystical veil which shut off the innermost part of the temple and its sacred secret was rent violently from top to bottom.”
On the Cross then the Old Law died, soon to be buried and to be a bearer of death, in order to give way to the New Testament of which Christ had chosen the Apostles as qualified ministers….
(Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Mystici Corporis, nn. 29-30; underlining added.)
These beautiful words simply speak for themselves.
We recall here also the 1928 Holy Office Decree Cum Supremae in which Pope Pius XI abolished the Catholic association known as the Amici Israel (“Friends of Israel”), which had begun to compromise the Faith. The papally approved document speaks of the Jewish people as “the depository of divine promises up until the arrival of Jesus Christ…” (italics added). More information about this is available here.
It is a fascinating truth — and one that should greatly aid in the conversion of the Jews — that the replacement of the Old Covenant by the New is actually foreshadowed in the Old Testament itself; for example, in the supplanting of the elder brother, Esau, by his younger brother, Jacob, which is a type of the Gentiles supplanting the Jews (see Gen 27:34-37; cf. Mt 21:33-44; Rom 11:1-32).
The teaching that the New Covenant supersedes the Old is aptly known as “supersessionism”. Although wholly straightforward, eminently reasonable, and clearly contained in Divine Revelation, especially in the New Testament, this doctrine is vehemently rejected by the Vatican II religion.
It is for that reason that Francis has caused bewilderment among the highest Jewish authorities. As the article in The Jerusalem Post goes on to explain:
Rabbi Arousi sent the letter on behalf of the Chief Rabbinate – the supreme rabbinic authority for Judaism in Israel – to Cardinal Kurt Koch, whose Vatican department includes a commission for religious relations with Jews.
“In his homily, the pope presents the Christian faith as not just superseding the Torah; but asserts that the latter no longer gives life, implying that Jewish religious practice in the present era is rendered obsolete,” Arousi said in the letter.
“This is in effect part and parcel of the ‘teaching of contempt’ towards Jews and Judaism that we had thought had been fully repudiated by the Church,” he said.
(Pullella, “Israeli rabbis ask pope to clarify remarks on Jewish law”)
This is an impressive example of how much the Vatican II religion contradicts even the basics of the Gospel.
Confused by Bergoglio’s recent words, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel has now sent him a letter to explain himself. How dare he teach what St. Paul taught! He’s supposed to be teaching Vatican II!
Indeed, Francis’ catechesis on Galatians is pretty much an outlier. It was clear from the beginning that Francis was taking quite a risk with his vehement denunciation of the Judaizers referred to by St. Paul in his Letters to the Galatians. He even accidentally condemned the “idolatry” of “paganism” — something he never tells the pagans he loves to mingle with and confirm in their unbelief!
So what is going on here? Did the Jesuit apostate have a change of heart? Or why did he suddenly discover his aversion to these false teachers? Alas, it is not from a love of truth. Rather, Francis wanted to use the Judaizers as a cudgel against those evil “traditionalists” in his church that are, like their supposed biblical predecessors, clinging to rigid certainties of the past!
That is why the false pope has temporarily adopted the Catholic doctrine of supersessionism — so he can appeal to it as biblical precedent for his own supersession doctrine, which he has been slyly introducing by means of his “god of surprises”, the evolution of dogma, and constant “newness”. His intent is to finish the work begun by Vatican II and let the true Gospel be superseded by the Masonic new religion of human fraternity and religious diversity.
In other words, Bergoglio is merely “borrowing” the pre-conciliar supersessionism for a short while to whack those in his sect over the head who are dragging their feet over the latest “surprises of God”. It’s too bad the Jews have now rained on his parade.
Back in June, when Francis had already begun preaching on Galatians, we pointed out how he was contradicting his own Novus Ordo doctrine on the Jews:
Now isn’t that rich! Perhaps those Judaizers Francis now so hypocritically denounces had gotten hold of an early draft of Evangelii Gaudium, the 2013 “apostolic exhortation” in which Francis teaches that the Jews’ “covenant with God has never been revoked, for ‘the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable’ (Rom 11:29)” (Evangelii Gaudium, n. 247).
Or perhaps the Judaizers had an advance copy of the 2010 book Bergoglio co-authored with Rabbi Abraham Skorka, in which the then-“Archbishop” of Buenos Aires proclaimed: “The Church officially recognizes that the People of Israel continue to be the Chosen People. Nowhere does it say: ‘You lost the game, now it is our turn’” (On Heaven and Earth [New York: Image, 2013], p. 188). It’s too bad Bergoglio’s New Testament doesn’t contain St. Matthew’s Gospel (specifically chapter 21, verse 43).
The Judaizing idea that that the Old Covenant was not replaced by the New isn’t unique to Francis, alas; it is standard Novus Ordo doctrine. It was first enunciated by “St.” John Paul II in 1980, is part of the official Novus Ordo Catechism (see n. 121), and is taught also by Benedict XVI. Its roots, of course, are found in the apostate Second Vatican Council, specifically in the declaration Nostra Aetate (see n. 4).
It is amazing that Francis even uses the word “superseded”, since it is precisely the hated “supersessionism” that is vehemently rejected by Novus Ordo theology (see Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, “The Gift and the Calling of God are Irrevocable” [2015], n. 17). Oh well, sometimes you just have to bite the bullet: It looks like Francis is willing to make an exception for the sake of sticking it to those in his sect that are still rigidly attached to some elements of Catholic Tradition.
(“Francis ‘interprets’ Galatians: St. Paul warned of Rigid Clingers to the Past!”, Novus Ordo Wire, June 24, 2021)
At the same time, Jewish authorities publicly butting in to request a “papal” correction or clarification is not an entirely new phenomenon.
Francis, who in 2013 made the list of the “Most Important American Jews” and whose favorite painting contains blasphemy against Jesus Christ, had incurred Jewish wrath years before, when his constant railing against conservatives in his church as “Pharisees” began to upset… the Pharisees. Remember?
- “Jewish leaders warn Pope of anti-Semitic ‘Pharisee’ stereotype”
- Francis and the Pharisees: At Jews’ behest, Vatican Conference re-evaluates Christ’s Enemies
- Bergoglio’s Boss? The Man whom the “Dictator Pope” obeys
That Jewish leaders in our day are upset at the idea of a (supposed) Pope teaching the New Testament, shows that the Novus Ordo Church has been preaching a false gospel to the Jews for many years:
- The Kosher Church: Vatican releases Anti-Catholic Document on Judaism
- Benedict XVI and the Jews: New Ratzinger Essay on Judaism causes Controversy
- Benedict XVI: No Mission to the Jews, just Dialogue
- For Fear of the Jews: How the Novus Ordo Good Friday Prayer betrays the Crucified Christ
Of course, the very fact that these Jewish leaders have the chutzpah in the first place to tell the putative Catholic Church what it ought to teach or how it ought to pray, is an outrage all by itself. Just imagine if the roles were reversed! Obviously, someone in the past few decades has given them the impression that they have the power and the right to direct what Catholics believe and practice.
It couldn’t have anything to do with the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), could it?
In 1962, on the eve of the council, the book The Plot Against the Church by the pseudonymous Maurice Pinay warned against a Jewish infiltration of the Catholic Church. How well-founded this concern was could be seen just after Vatican II closed, in the Jan. 25, 1966 issue of Look magazine (vol. 30, no. 2), which featured the article “How the Jews changed Catholic Thinking” by Joseph Roddy — a monograph rather disparaging to traditional Catholicism.
On Jan. 10, 1937, the Jewish-Communist paper Morgen Freiheit had quoted its founder, Moissaye Olgin, as saying that “the Pope is an enemy of the Jewish people by the very fact that he is the head of the Catholic Church”. The following is a clipping from The Tablet of Mar. 5, 1938, in which this statement is quoted:
That the apostate Jews should see the Catholic Pope as a religious enemy is only right; although that works both ways, of course. After all, only one of the two religions can be the true religion of God; the other must therefore necessarily be at enmity with God.
Either Jesus Christ is the true Messiah sent by God, or He is not. There is no in between, and our Blessed Lord Himself was adamant about that: “He that is not with me, is against me; and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth” (Lk 11:23). Christ will always be a “sign which shall be contradicted” (Lk 2:34); “unto the Jews indeed a stumblingblock” (1 Cor 1:23); “…and upon whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder” (Lk 20:18).
Just as Christ Himself was persecuted, so His Mystical Body is persecuted by His same enemies, as our Lord prophesied (see Mt 10:16-25; 23:24; Jn 15:18-20; 16:2; Col 1:24). This “mystery of iniquity” (2 Thess 2:7) will “move forward” (to use one of Francis’ favorite phrases) throughout history until at last it reaches its culmination in “the man of sin …, the son of perdition, who opposeth, and is lifted up above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself as if he were God” (2 Thess 2:3-4).
Just as there are those in Church history like Francis “who say they are apostles, and are not” (Apoc 2:2), there also are those “that say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan” (Apoc 2:9). In his famous Scripture commentary, the 19th-century scholar Fr. George Haydock remarks that this is a reference to “those false teachers, who call themselves Jews and Israelites, and the chosen people of God, waiting for the coming of the Messias, but are not to be looked upon as such; having refused to own their true Messias, Jesus Christ, they are the Synagogue of Satan, the greatest enemies of the true faith” (source; underlining added).
Inevitably, some people will be offended at Catholicism. But that’s just too bad because the divine commission stands: “And he said to them: Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mt 16:15). Just because offense is taken doesn’t mean that offense has also been given, for it is God who determines what injures another, and it is certainly not His Gospel! “For the law of the spirit of life, in Christ Jesus, hath delivered me from the law of sin and of death” (Rom 8:2).
When our Blessed Lord was preaching, sometimes His hearers also took umbrage at His words: “Many therefore of his disciples, hearing it, said: This saying is hard, and who can hear it? After this many of his disciples went back; and walked no more with him. Then Jesus said to the twelve: Will you also go away?” (Jn 6:61,67-68).
St. Paul himself was no stranger to this phenomenon, and he addressed it in his very Letter to the Galatians at which today’s Jews have once again taken offense. After condemning those who would pervert the true Gospel, the Apostle asks rhetorically: “For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ” (Gal 1:10). We are not here to please people by telling them what they want to hear. We are here to please Christ by telling them what He taught us.
By the way: As far as offending people in religious matters goes, would today’s apostate Jews really want us to look closely at the Talmud, which is “the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (halakha) and Jewish theology” (Wikipedia)? It is a rhetorical question.
The fact that after six decades of the Vatican II religion, the Jews are shocked to find out that a “Pope” should teach that the Old Covenant has been replaced by the New, tells you all you need to know about the Vatican II Church and that chimerical “hermeneutic of continuity” that is often invoked.
The Vatican II Sect has perverted the Gospel of Christ and has thus become guilty of precisely the condemnation enunciated by St. Paul: “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema” (Gal 1:8).
The Reuters article states further:
Two leading Catholic scholars of religious relations with Jews agreed that the pope’s remarks could be seen as a troublesome setback and needed clarification.
“To say that this fundamental tenet of Judaism does not give life is to denigrate the basic religious outlook of Jews and Judaism. It could have been written before the Council,” said Father John Pawlikowski, former director of the Catholic-Jewish Studies Program at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.
“I think it’s a problem for Jewish ears, especially because the pope’s remarks were addressed to a Catholic audience,” said Professor Philip Cunningham, director of the Institute for Jewish-Catholic Relations at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.
“It could be understood as devaluing Jewish observance of the Torah today,” Cunningham said.
Yes, keeping at least two different sets of truth — one for Novus Ordos, another for Jews — is a difficult balancing act. And indeed, professing Catholicism means not professing what contradicts Catholicism. That is simply the nature of reality.
It has always been a logical truism that if Catholicism is true, then Talmudic Judaism is false. That’s because the two are different religions. For a Catholic to say that Judaism is false, is obviously unfavorable to Judaism. It’s supposed to be. Hello!
By the same token, for a Jew to say that Catholicism is false, is unfavorable to Catholicism. That’s how religious claims work if they are to communicate any kind of objective truth content, as opposed to merely stating a subjective personal preference. By affirming one religion to be true, we automatically and necessarily affirm all others are false. Where is the problem?
In any case, Francis can rest easy: The complaint he has on his desk now from the people he acknowledges as his “elder brothers in the faith” also includes a precise marching order on how to make restitution for the mishap: “In his letter to Cardinal Koch, [Rabbi] Arousi … asked for a clarification from the pope to ‘ensure that any derogatory conclusions drawn from this homily are clearly repudiated'”, the article concludes. Nothing like getting an action item with clearly-defined expectations!
How Francis will handle this remains to be seen. It definitely presents a conundrum for him, much like the dubia on Amoris Laetitia by “Cardinal” Raymond Burke & Co. back in 2016. Those he simply decided to ignore because either way his goose would have been cooked. This would seem to be the only viable approach for him this time around as well.
We will end this post with the one thing the Jews will never get from Bergoglio — a heartfelt, loving plea for their conversion:
Let us, then, show great charity to Jewish people. With God’s grace, may we be instrumental in lifting that veil from their hearts that still blinds them, so as to hasten the fulfillment of St. Paul’s prophecy “that blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles should come in. And so all Israel should be saved…” (Rom 11:25-26).
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