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As the sacred synod searches into the mystery of the Church, it
remembers the bond that spiritually ties the people of the New
Covenant to Abraham's stock.
Thus the Church of Christ acknowledges that, according to God's
saving design, the beginnings of her faith and her election are found
already among the Patriarchs, Moses and the prophets. She professes
that all who believe in Christ-Abraham's sons according to faith
[6]-are included in the same Patriarch's call, and likewise that
the salvation of the Church is mysteriously foreshadowed by the chosen
people's exodus from the land of bondage. The Church, therefore,
cannot forget that she received the revelation of the Old Testament
through the people with whom God in His inexpressible mercy concluded
the Ancient Covenant. Nor can she forget that she draws sustenance
from the root of that well-cultivated olive tree onto which have been
grafted the wild shoots, the Gentiles.[7] Indeed, the Church
believes that by His cross Christ, Our Peace, reconciled Jews and
Gentiles. making both one in Himself.[8]
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.
As Holy Scripture testifies, Jerusalem did not recognize the time
of her visitation,[9] nor did the Jews in large number, accept the
Gospel; indeed not a few opposed its spreading.[10]
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.[11] 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" (Soph.
3:9).[12]
Since the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews is thus
so great, this sacred synod wants to foster and recommend that mutual
understanding and respect which is the fruit, above all, of biblical
and theological studies as well as of fraternal dialogues.
True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead
pressed for the death of Christ;[13] 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.
All should see to it, then, that in catechetical work or in the
preaching of the word of God they do not teach anything that does not
conform to the truth of the Gospel and the spirit of Christ.
Furthermore, in her rejection of every persecution against any man,
the Church, mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jews and
moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel's spiritual love,
decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed
against Jews at any time and by anyone.
Besides, as the Church has always held and holds now, Christ
underwent His passion and death freely, because of the sins of men and
out of infinite love, in order that all may reach salvation. It is,
therefore, the burden of the Church's preaching to proclaim the cross
of Christ as the sign of God's all-embracing love and as the
fountain from which every grace flows.
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