posted 01-24-2002 01:14 AM            

letter of a friend (names deleted) and articles are below.....
---------------------------

Dear ,

Yes, total apostasy. This is, truly, an astonishing thing, because even
with "Assisi II" approaching, "rome" is extremely careful in inculcating
heresy. The tactic, now time-honoured, is to write in mostly vague terms so
that the natural sense and thrust of the text is heretical, but so that it
is always possible for a Brian Harrison figure to extract an orthodox, or at
least semi-heretical, meaning, for those who think such is "good enough."

However, in this case they have gone right over the top, and the Jews
themselves have been struck by the change in tactic. "This is a total
novelty!" says a Rabbi. Yes, indeed, it is.

Here is one explicit heresy: "Like them, we also live in expectation," the
document continues. "The difference is in the fact that for us the One who
will come will have traces of that Jesus who has already come and who is
present and active among us."

TRACES! Another translation puts "traits" in this place. Either way, it is
heretical. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. This is
Arianism. It is a denial that Jesus Christ will in fact return. It is
Islamism. It is the assertion that Christ Jesus was merely a prophet, and
another like Him will arise at the end of the world. It is insanity. It
is, to be mild, STAGGERING.

And that old Vatican HACK, Navarro-Valls is quite explicitly heretical also.
"The expectancy of the Messiah was in the Old Testament," said
Navarro-Valls, "and if the Old Testament keeps its value, then it keeps that
as a value, too. It says you cannot just say all the Jews are wrong and we
are right." Asked whether that could be taken to mean that the Messiah may
or may not have come, Dr. Navarro-Valls said no. "It means it would be wrong
for a Catholic to wait for the Messiah, but not for a Jew," he said.

"What think ye of Christ?" is no longer the question of the ages. It is no
longer the Great Shibboleth. With Pilate, these men say, "What is truth?"

"Everything in the report is now considered part of official church
doctrine, Dr. Navarro-Valls said."

Yes, official. Are the Campos clergy listening...?

-----------------------

JEWISH SCRIPTURE IS A KEY TO UNDERSTANDING JESUS, DOCUMENT SAYS

Pontifical Biblical Commission Publishes a New Text

VATICAN CITY, (Zenit.org).- A new Vatican document says it is not possible
to understand Christianity fully, without reflecting on divine revelation as
contained in the Jewish Bible.

Moreover, the text, published by the Pontifical Biblical Commission, affirms
that it is mistaken "to use as a pretext for anti-Judaism" the "warnings"
that the Christian Bible addresses to Jews.

Likewise, the document recognizes that "in the past, errors were committed
by unilaterally insisting on the discontinuity" that exists between the
Jewish Bible (Old Testament) and the Christian Bible (Old and New
Testament).

The 200-page study, entitled "The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures
in the Christian Bible," was published by the Vatican Press. At present, it
is not on the Vatican´s Web page.

"This is a total novelty," Chief Rabbi Joseph Levi of Florence told the
Italian press. Rabbi Levi is especially pleased with the objective of the
document: to manifest officially "the amazing force of the spiritual ties
that unite the Church of Christ with the Jewish people."

The Biblical Commission, presided over by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect
of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is composed of 20 leading
biblicists. The members were appointed by John Paul II at the cardinal´s
suggestion.

In introducing the study, which began in 1997, Cardinal Ratzinger invites
Christians to recognize "the Jewish reading of the Bible as a possible
reading." In other words, such a reading might be of great help in important
questions, such as the Messiah.

"The Jewish Messianic Expectation is not vain," the document states. "It can
become a strong stimulus for us to maintain the eschatological dimension
alive," that is, the Christian expectation of Jesus´ return at the end of
time, it says.

"Like them, we also live in expectation," the document continues. "The
difference is in the fact that for us the One who will come will have traces
of that Jesus who has already come and who is present and active among us."

The new publication "hopes to foster love toward the Jews in the Church of
Christ," following the "abominable crimes" of which they were object during
World War II.

In "light of the Scripture, the rupture between the Church of Christ and the
Jewish people should not have happened," the document affirms.

The newly published document is divided into chapters. The first one, which
is fundamental, states that the New Testament recognizes the authority of
the Old Testament as divine revelation, and cannot be understood without
being intimately related to it and with the Jewish tradition that
transmitted it.

The second chapter examines more analytically how the writings of the New
Testament accept the rich content of the Old Testament, referring to its
fundamental topics in light of Jesus Christ.

The third chapter records the extremely varied attitudes on the Jews
reflected in the New Testament, something which also occurs in the Old
Testament.

---------------------

>From the New York Times:

Vatican Says Jews' Wait for Messiah Is Validated by the Old Testament
By MELINDA HENNEBERGER

VATICAN CITY, Jan. 17 - The Vatican has issued what some Jewish scholars are
calling an important document that explicitly says, "The Jewish wait for the
Messiah is not in vain."

The scholarly work, effectively a rejection of and apology for the way some
Christians have viewed the Old Testament, was signed by the pope's
theologian, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

The document says Jews and Christians in fact share the wait for the
Messiah, though Jews are waiting for the first coming, and Christians for
the second.

"The difference consists in the fact that for us, he who will come will have
the same traits of that Jesus who has already come," wrote Cardinal
Ratzinger, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

At least one Jewish scholar said the new document is a marked departure from
"Dominus Iesus," a study of the redemptive role of Jesus that was released
last year in Cardinal Ratzinger's name and that fanned disputes between
Catholic and Jewish scholars.

The new document also says Catholics must regard the Old Testament as
"retaining all of its value, not just as literature, but its moral value,"
said Joaquín Navarro-Valls, the pope's spokesman. "You cannot say, `Now that
Jesus has come, it becomes a second-rate document.' "

"The expectancy of the Messiah was in the Old Testament," he went on, "and
if the Old Testament keeps its value, then it keeps that as a value, too. It
says you cannot just say all the Jews are wrong and we are right."

Asked whether that could be taken to mean that the Messiah may or may not
have come, Dr. Navarro- Valls said no. "It means it would be wrong for a
Catholic to wait for the Messiah, but not for a Jew," he said.

The document, the result of years of work by the Pontifical Biblical
Commission, goes on to apologize for the fact that certain New Testament
passages that criticize the Pharisees, for example, had been used to justify
anti-Semitism.

Everything in the report is now considered part of official church doctrine,
Dr. Navarro-Valls said.

The Rev. Albert Vanhoye, a Jesuit scholar who worked on the commission, said
the project sees Scripture as a link between Christians and Jews, and the
New Testament as a continuation of the Old, though divergent in obvious
ways.

A number of Jewish scholars and leaders said they were pleased but stunned
and would have to take some time to digest fully the complicated, 210-page
study, published in French and Italian.

"This is something altogether new, especially compared with the earlier
document from Ratzinger that was so controversial," said Rabbi Alberto
Piattelli, a professor and leader of the Jewish community in Rome.

"This latest declaration is a step forward" in closing the wounds opened by
that earlier document, Rabbi Piattelli said. "It recognizes the value of the
Jewish position regarding the wait for the Messiah, changes the whole
exegesis of biblical studies and restores our biblical passages to their
original meaning. I was surprised."

Prof. Michael R. Marrus, dean of graduate studies at the University of
Toronto, who specializes in the history of the Holocaust, was also
complimentary. Professor Marrus was among the Jewish members of a panel
studying the Vatican's role in the Holocaust, but the group was disbanded
after disputes between Catholic and Jewish scholars.

"This is important," he said, "and all the more so because it comes from
Cardinal Ratzinger, who is not considered the most liberal spokesman for the
church. It represents real and remarkable progress on the Catholic-Jewish
front," even as the dispute over the Catholic Church's wartime history seems
to be hardening, he added.

At least initially, the only voices of dissent were on the Catholic side,
where some traditionalists said they felt the church under Pope John Paul II
had done altogether too much apologizing already.

Vittorio Messori, a Catholic writer and commentator, said he respects the
pope but "his apologies leave me perplexed."

"He's inspired and has his reasons," Mr. Messori said, "but what's dangerous
in these apologies is that he seems to say the church itself has been wrong
in its teaching," rather than just some within the church.

The oddest thing about the document from the Jewish perspective is that it
was so quietly released. It has been in bookstores here since November, but
as a small book titled "The Jewish People and the Holy Scriptures in the
Christian Bible," it drew no notice until the Italian news agency ANSA
printed a small report on it Wednesday.

Tullia Zevi, a longtime Jewish community leader and commentator here, said:
"The widespread opinion on the document is that it's trying to question the
validity of past attitudes of the church, and seems an attempt to move us
closer to together. So why was such an important document kept secret?"

One possibility, she said, was that the church was trying to avoid criticism
within its own ranks.

Vatican officials, however, say it was not announced because it was seen
mainly as a theological study intended for other theologians.

The Vatican is governed by tradition and habit, and is thus quite able to
keep silent about even important new policies. In December, for example,
word emerged without fanfare of new rules on the treatment of priests
accused of pedophilia.

Andrea Riccardi, the founder of the Sant'Egidio Community, a left- leaning
Catholic group with a history of mediating international conflicts and
promoting religious dialogue, said he was most impressed by the depth of the
new document.

"This should be reassuring" to Jews, he said, "especially because these last
years have not been easy."

He said the document in no way backtracks from "Dominus Iesus" ("The Lord
Jesus"), but does represent a significant shift.

"In the past, we've talked about an ancient, common heritage," he said. "But
now, for the first time, we're talking about our future waiting for the
Messiah and the end of time."

Waiting together?

"No," Mr. Riccardi said. "But waiting close to each other."

-------------------

from the Associated Press: ---

Praise for Vatican Paper on Jews By CANDICE HUGHES, Associated Press Writer
ROME (AP)

- A leader of Rome's Jewish community praised a new Vatican document that
says Christians should respect the Jewish wait for a messiah, but questioned
Friday why its release was kept quiet. The document says both Christians and
Jews share the wait for a messiah, although Jews are waiting for the first
coming and Christians for the second. ``The Jewish wait for the messiah is
not in vain,'' it says. Tullia Zevi, an Italian Jewish leader who lives in
Rome, said the document, part of an ongoing attempt by the Vatican to
improve relations with the Jews, ``is very noble in a certain sense. It
carries weight.'' But the
Vatican did nothing to herald the publication of the document, the work of
its most important theologian, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. It appeared in
Rome bookstores as a small volume called ``The Jewish People and the Holy
Scriptures in the Christian Bible.'' ``It is very interesting it was kept in
the cooler,'' Zevi said. ``People are questioning why.'' The document is
viewed as a departure from ``Dominus Iesus,'' a declaration issued by
Ratzinger last year that challenged the idea that ``one religion is as good
as another.'' That declaration raised criticism from some Jewish and other
non-Catholic scholars, and Zevi and others speculate that while the new
document was meant to help mend relations, the Roman Catholic church kept it
quiet because it feared dissent within its own ranks. The Vatican denies
that. ``There was no intention to hide it,'' said a Vatican spokesman, the
Rev. Ciro Benedettini. Zevi said the publication was a positive development
in the often strained relationship between the Vatican and Jews, but one
that would take some time to be absorbed by religious scholars and
communities. ``It will be interesting to see what the various strands of
Judaism and Catholicism will take out of it,'' she said. ``It took a long
time to be born and will take a long time to grow up.'' The book - so far
published only in French and Italian - was produced by the pontifical
commission on bible studies. There was no word on when it would be
officially released by the Vatican press office. Both Jews and Christians
believe in the coming of a messiah to save the world. Christians believe
Jesus Christ fulfilled the promise once and promised his followers he would
return a second time and take them to heaven.