His Holiness Pope Pius XI
Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office
Cum Supremae (1928)
Decree on the Abolishment of the Association
commonly called “Amici Israel”
When this Supreme Congregation of the Holy Office formally considered the nature and aim of the association known as “Amici Israel” [“Friends of Israel”] as well as the booklet titled Pax super Israel [Peace upon Israel], which had been published and distributed far and wide so that the association’s mission and mode of proceeding might become known to the general public, the Most Eminent Fathers, who are charged with safeguarding faith and morals, acknowledged before all else its praiseworthy intention of urging the faithful to pray to God and to toil on behalf of the Israelites’ conversion to the Kingdom of Christ.
It is no wonder that, from the start, not only did a number of the Christian faithful and priests, cognizant of this objective, join that association but also not a few bishops and lord cardinals. The reason is that the Catholic Church has always been accustomed to pray for the Jewish people, who were the depository of the divine promises up until the arrival of Jesus Christ, notwithstanding their subsequent blindness, or rather, because of this very blindness. Moved by that charity, the Apostolic See has protected the same people from unjust ill-treatment, and just as it censures all hatred and enmity among people, so it altogether condemns in the highest degree possible hatred against the people once chosen by God, viz., the hatred that now is what is usually meant in common parlance by the term known generally as “anti-Semitism.”
Nevertheless, noting and considering that the association “Amici Israel” then embarked on a plan of acting and communicating at variance with the sense of the Church, the mind of the holy Fathers of the Church, and the sacred liturgy, the Most Eminent Fathers, upon the earlier recommendation of the Consultors, decreed in the plenary session held on Wednesday, March 21, 1928, that the association “Amici Israel” must be abolished, and declared it abolished in fact, and they ordained that in the future no one shall venture to write or publish books or booklets that in any way whatsoever promote erroneous initiatives of this sort.
And on the ensuing Thursday, the 22nd day of the same month and year, His Holiness Pius XI, by divine Providence Pope, in the customary audience shared with the Assessor of the Holy Office, approved, confirmed, and ordered to be published the decision of the Most Eminent Fathers, which had been referred to him.
Given at Rome, at the Palace of the Holy Office, on March 25, 1928.
SEAL
A. Castellano, Notary of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office
Source: Acta Apostolicae Sedis XX (1928): pp. 103-104. Translation into English by Novus Ordo Watch.
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