In 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain sent Columbus on his adventurous mission to the New World. But in that same year, forgetting about the brilliance of Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides and the talents of Jewish business people, the Spanish king and queen expelled all Jews from Spain.
Along with this intellectually and fiscally unwise decision, the later defeat of the Spanish naval armada by the British navy in 1588 sealed the decline of the Spanish Empire on the world stage from which that nation never fully recovered in spite of their vast territorial holdings.
Much of continental Europe sadly had little respect for the Jewish nation as the severe pogroms in Russia in the nineteenth century and the Nazi holocaust in the twentieth century quite horribly testify. On the other hand, prudent leaders of the British Empire significantly embraced the world’s capable Jewish population especially the Rothschilds, the Sassoons, and Sir Ernest Cassel who greatly backed the expansion of the British Empire through prudent investments.
The Roman Catholic population sadly has not always looked kindly on the place of the Jewish community within history. Starting in the 1500s, under Pope Gregory XIII, Jews in Rome were forced to attend a Catholic church on the Sabbath to listen to sermons intended to discredit Judaism and convert them to Christianity.
This forced attendance continued for centuries in the Papal States, despite resistance from the Jewish community. The custom was finally abolished by Pope Pius IX in 1846. The Second Vatican Council quite happily and quite solemnly took official steps not only to eliminate prejudice but more importantly to ensure continued respect for the Jewish nation and Jewish tradition.
The Council document “Nostra Aetate” had many kind words for the world’s great religions but special recognition was rightly accorded the Jewish community. Using the text that will be heard as the second reading at this coming Sunday’s Mass, the Council fathers declared, ‘The Church keeps ever in mind the words of the Apostle about his kinsmen: “theirs is the sonship and the glory and the covenants and the law and the worship and the promises; theirs are the fathers and from them is the Christ according to the flesh’ (Rom. 9:4-5), the Son of the Virgin Mary. She also recalls that the Apostles, the Church’s main-stay and pillars, as well as most of the early disciples who proclaimed Christ’s Gospel to the world, sprang from the Jewish people.”
The Council fathers admit their sadness that the Jewish nation did not fully embrace Christ and his Gospel message twenty centuries ago: “As Holy Scripture testifies, Jerusalem did not recognize the time of her visitation, nor did the Jews in large number accept the Gospel; indeed not a few opposed its spreading.”
But the bishops assembled in Rome went on to insist that Jews as a people still hold a place in God’s providence: “Nevertheless, God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers; He does not repent of the gifts He makes or of the calls He issues-such is the witness of the Apostle. In company with the Prophets and the same Apostle, the Church awaits that day, known to God alone, on which all peoples will address the Lord in a single voice and ‘serve him shoulder to shoulder’ (Zeph. 3:9).”
The Catholic community is rightly joyous when individuals from other religious circumstances fully embrace the Christian faith as taught by the Church. Edith Stein was a German-Jewish philosopher who converted, became a Carmelite nun, and was killed in Auschwitz. She is now canonized as St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross. Yet Jewish believers who continue to understand God through “the gifts He makes or the calls He issues” deserve every respect from believing Christians.
In fact, the Council opposed all negative views: “The Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures.” Instead, “God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers” and every sincere Catholic will certainly hold those Jews most dear who continue to see God’s plan for them in their Law and their Prophets.
