Catholic Church and Judaism
Jews were expelled from Catholic kingdoms, including England and Spain and many of the principalities and cities of the Holy Roman Empire and Italy.
Christians moved away from Jews in subsequent centuries, but modern Catholicism has retained much of its Hebrew literary heritage, the Old Testament (Tanakh).
The current prayer of the Roman Liturgy for Good Friday prays for "the Jewish people, first to hear the word of God, that they may continue to grow in the love of His name and in faithfulness to His covenant."
Around 400, St Augustine, one of the most influential and foundational figures of Catholic theology, preached that the Jews must be protected for their ability to explain the Old Testament.
[10][11] The bull forbade Christians, on pain of excommunication, from forcing Jews to convert, from harming them, from taking their property, from disturbing the celebration of their festivals, and from interfering with their cemeteries.
[citation needed] In the modern world, anti-Jewish sentiment reached its zenith with the murderous racial antisemitism of the Nazi Holocaust.
In the aftermath of the defeat of Hitler's Germany, and discovery of the extent of Nazi war crimes, the long history of Christian anti-Judaism came to be critically examined by scholars attempting to explain the origins of the Holocaust.
Prior to his death in 1963, John prepared a document to be read by every Roman Catholic Church on a fixed date: We are conscious today that many many centuries of blindness have cloaked our eyes so that we can no longer either see the beauty of Thy Chosen People nor recognize in their faces the features of our privileged brethren.
On May 4, 2001, at the 17th meeting of the International Liaison Committee in New York, Church officials stated that they would change how Judaism is dealt with in Catholic seminaries and schools.
In part, they stated: In October 2015 the Catholic Church in Poland published a letter referring to antisemitism as a sin against the commandment to love one's neighbor.
The letter also acknowledged the heroism of those Poles who risked their lives to shelter Jews as Nazi Germany carried out the Holocaust in occupied Poland.
The bishops who signed the letter cited the Polish Pope John Paul II who was opposed to antisemitism, and believed in founding Catholic-Jewish relations.
[15] In 2015, the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews released a theological reflection that, while rejecting the idea of "two different paths toward salvation, the Jewish path without Christ and the path with the Christ", and calling on Christians to "bear witness to their faith in Jesus Christ ... in a humble and sensitive manner" to Jewish people, acknowledged that Jews were "participants in God's salvation" and that the Church views evangelization to Jews "in a different manner from that to people of other religions and world views", rejected the principle of an institutional Jewish mission, and called on Catholics to fight antisemitism.
"[17] On 3 December 2015, fifty years after the issue of Nostra aetate, the Israel-based Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding and Cooperation (CJCUC) spearheaded a petition of orthodox rabbis from around the world calling for increased partnership between Jews and Christians.
The document pays particular tribute to the Second Vatican Council's Declaration Nostra aetate, whose fourth chapter represents the Magna Charta of the Holy See's dialogue with the Jewish world.
Between Jerusalem and Rome does not hide the theological differences that exist between the two faith traditions while all the same it expresses a firm resolve to collaborate more closely, now and in the future.
[27] In addition, although the Jewish community appreciated John Paul II's 1994 statement, We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah, which offered a mea culpa for the role of Christians in the Holocaust, some Jewish groups felt that the statement was insufficient, as it focused on individual members of the Church who helped the Nazis, portraying them as acting against the teachings of the Church.
In a May 2002 interview with the Italian-Catholic publication 30 Giorni, Honduran Cardinal Oscar Maradiaga claimed that Jews influenced the media to exploit the recent controversy regarding sexual abuse by Catholic priests in order to divert attention from the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.
[28] The high-profile Don Pierino Gelmini of Italy, himself personally accused of sexually abusing a number of young men, put the blame on a nebulous "Jewish radical chic" in an interview with the Corriere della Sera.
Recognized religious communities, including Catholics, are granted official status and authority, notably in matters of marriage, burial, and divorce.
[35][36] The Catholic Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish at Tabgha, in northern Israel was damaged by arson in 2015 and sixteen yeshiva students were arrested over suspected involvement in the religiously motivated attack.
Piero Stefani, a scholar at the Facoltà Teologica del Nord Italia, a Church-owned institute, noted, "The Church is no longer endorsing a policy of missionary conversion, especially toward Jews.
