As we continue on in the Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, today we have reached the halfway point of our year-long read through the documents of Vatican II.
We have looked briefly at some of the major Eastern religions (article 2) and Islam (article 3). Today we turn our attention to the Jewish people.
Obviously, we share a lot in common with the Jewish people and the bonds of kinship with them run deep. In this passage, the Council Fathers took some important steps in countering any sentiment of anti-Semitism that might linger in certain quarters:
“True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ; still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures.”
There are a few Scripture citations outside the footnotes:
Rom. 9:4-5
Soph. 3:9
Here are the footnotes:
6. Cf. Gal. 3:7
7. Cf. Rom. 11:17-24
8. Cf. Eph. 2:14-16
9. Cf. Lk. 19:44
10. Cf. Rom. 11:28
11. Cf. Rom. 11:28-29; cf. dogmatic Constitution, Lumen Gentium (Light of nations) AAS, 57 (1965) pag. 20
12. Cf. Is. 66:23; Ps. 65:4; Rom. 11:11-32
13. Cf. John. 19:6