@adrian009 Further to the above, an important document - which I think illustrates how far we've come away from "supersessionism" since the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s - was published by Pope Francis's Vatican in 2015:
“The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Rom 11:29) - A reflection on theological questions pertaining to Catholic-Jewish relations (10 December 2015)
A supersessionist interpretation of Christianity could never have recognised the co-validity of Rabbinic exegesis with the Christian understanding of the Bible or indeed condemned all institutional missionary endeavours towards Jews.
Until about 1960, prayers at Catholic Masses on Good Friday - the solemn day commemorating the death of Jesus - called for the conversion of Jews and it read as follows:
This prayer had remained the same since the Middle Ages in the Roman Rite and it reflects the high medieval (circa. 12th century) supersessionist theology from which it was begotten, which is discordant with modern values and patently offensive to Jews.
That prayer was, however, eliminated from general use after the 1962-1965 Second Vatican Council by Pope St. John XXIII who introduced a new missal for use at Masses, with a new prayer eventually written in 1970, which reads:
As you can see: no reference to Jews as "faithless", no beseeching of God to rend the "veil from their hearts" that they may acknowledge Jesus as Messiah. Rather, a prayer that Jews may 'advance in love of HaShem' and in faithfulness to the Torah, with only an oblique reference to the "fullness of redemption" without specifying that this is to be found in Christianity. In his interview with Peter Seewald back in 2005, then Pope Benedict XVI stated that, with reference to the post-Vatican II liturgy, "we do not pray directly for the conversion of the Jews in a missionary sense, but that the Lord might hasten the historic hour in which we will all be united" which is a reference to the statement in Vatican II's Nostra Aestate (1965) citing the prophet Zephaniah from the Nevi'im: "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" (Zephaniah 3:9)", this verse:
Zephaniah 3:9: “For then I shall turn to the peoples a pure tongue that all shall call upon the Name of G‑d to serve Him with one consent.”
Without comment as to what that actually means, so as to admit of both the (different) Jewish and Christian interpretations.
This is a demonstration, liturgically in the actual public recital and ritual of the Mass, of the 'replacement' of supersessionist/replacement theology with a more inclusive reading that leaves sufficient ambiguity to respectfully accomodate the divergent religious perspectives of Jews and Christians, whilst emphasising a shared anticipation of a future Messianic Age in which all human beings will be, in some sense known only to God, united.
So in sum, I regard supersessionism as an ideology that is fundamentally irreconcilable with true interreligious dialogue, as it presupposes a religious 'superiority complex'. It thus had to be overcome for a more productive relationship to begin and thanks be to God, I'd say it has been overcome in my church courtesy of the Second Vatican Council.
“The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Rom 11:29) - A reflection on theological questions pertaining to Catholic-Jewish relations (10 December 2015)
The Scriptures of ancient Israel constitute an integral part of the Scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, understood by both as the word of God, revelation, and salvation history. The first Christians were Jews; as a matter of course they gathered as part of the community in the Synagogue, they observed the dietary laws, the Sabbath and the requirement of circumcision, while at the same time confessing Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah sent by God for the salvation of Israel and the entire human race.
With Paul the ‘Jewish Jesus movement’ definitively opens up other horizons and transcends its purely Jewish origins. Gradually his concept came to prevail, that is, that a non-Jew did not have to become first a Jew in order to confess Christ. In the early years of the Church, therefore, there were the so-called Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians, the ecclesia ex circumcisione and the ecclesia ex gentibus, one Church originating from Judaism, the other from the Gentiles, who however together constituted the one and only Church of Jesus Christ....
....the so-called replacement theory or supersessionism steadily gained favour until in the Middle Ages it represented the standard theological foundation of the relationship with Judaism: the promises and commitments of God would no longer apply to Israel because it had not recognised Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God, but had been transferred to the Church of Jesus Christ which was now the true ‘new Israel’, the new chosen people of God. Arising from the same soil, Judaism and Christianity in the centuries after their separation became involved in a theological antagonism which was only to be defused at the Second Vatican Council. With its Declaration "Nostra aetate" (No.4) the Church unequivocally professes, within a new theological framework, the Jewish roots of Christianity.
A replacement or supersession theology which sets against one another two separate entities, a Church of the Gentiles and the rejected Synagogue whose place it takes, is deprived of its foundations. From an originally close relationship between Judaism and Christianity a long-term state of tension had developed, which has been gradually transformed after the Second Vatican Council into a constructive dialogue relationship.
24. God revealed himself in his Word, so that it may be understood by humanity in actual historical situations. This Word invites all people to respond. If their responses are in accord with the Word of God they stand in right relationship with him. For Jews this Word can be learned through the Torah and the traditions based on it. The Torah is the instruction for a successful life in right relationship with God. Whoever observes the Torah has life in its fullness (cf. Pirqe Avot II, 7). By observing the Torah the Jew receives a share in communion with God. In this regard, Pope Francis has stated: "The Christian confessions find their unity in Christ; Judaism finds its unity in the Torah. Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the Word of God made flesh in the world; for Jews the Word of God is present above all in the Torah. Both faith traditions find their foundation in the One God, the God of the Covenant, who reveals himself through his Word. In seeking a right attitude towards God, Christians turn to Christ as the fount of new life, and Jews to the teaching of the Torah." (Address to members of the International Council of Christians and Jews, 30 June 2015).
25. Judaism and the Christian faith as seen in the New Testament are two ways by which God’s people can make the Sacred Scriptures of Israel their own. The Scriptures which Christians call the Old Testament is open therefore to both ways. A response to God’s word of salvation that accords with one or the other tradition can thus open up access to God, even if it is left up to his counsel of salvation to determine in what way he may intend to save mankind in each instance.
27. The covenant that God has offered Israel is irrevocable. "God is not man, that he should lie" (Num 23:19; cf. 2 Tim 2:13). The permanent elective fidelity of God expressed in earlier covenants is never repudiated (cf. Rom 9:4; 11:1–2).
The New Covenant can never replace the Old but presupposes it....
Since the Sadducees who were bound to the temple did not survive this catastrophe [of the fall of the Temple in 70 CE], the rabbis, following in the footsteps of the Pharisees, who had already developed their particular mode of reading and interpreting Scripture, now did so without the temple as the centre of Jewish religious devotion.
31. As a consequence there were two responses to this situation, or more precisely, two new ways of reading Scripture, namely the Christological exegesis of the Christians and the rabbinical exegesis of that form of Judaism that developed historically...
The document of the Pontifical Biblical Commission "The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible" in 2001 therefore stated that Christians can and must admit "that the Jewish reading of the Bible is a possible one, in continuity with the Jewish Scriptures from the Second Temple period, a reading analogous to the Christian reading which developed in parallel fashion". It then draws the conclusion: "Both readings are bound up with the vision of their respective faiths, of which the readings are the result and expression. Consequently, both are irreducible" (No. 22)...
In concrete terms this means that the Catholic Church neither conducts nor supports any specific institutional mission work directed towards Jews.
Among other things, like sternly condemning (again) replacement theology, it clearly states - approvingly citing a 2001 Pontifical Biblical Commission - that Christians must admit that the Rabbinic Judaism of the Talmud represents a valid and historically consistent reading of the Old Testament, "in continuity with the Jewish Scriptures from the Second Temple period, a reading analogous to the Christian reading which developed in parallel fashion" and that the "Catholic Church neither conducts nor supports any specific institutional mission work directed towards Jews", which is a repudiation of active conversion of Jews.With Paul the ‘Jewish Jesus movement’ definitively opens up other horizons and transcends its purely Jewish origins. Gradually his concept came to prevail, that is, that a non-Jew did not have to become first a Jew in order to confess Christ. In the early years of the Church, therefore, there were the so-called Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians, the ecclesia ex circumcisione and the ecclesia ex gentibus, one Church originating from Judaism, the other from the Gentiles, who however together constituted the one and only Church of Jesus Christ....
....the so-called replacement theory or supersessionism steadily gained favour until in the Middle Ages it represented the standard theological foundation of the relationship with Judaism: the promises and commitments of God would no longer apply to Israel because it had not recognised Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God, but had been transferred to the Church of Jesus Christ which was now the true ‘new Israel’, the new chosen people of God. Arising from the same soil, Judaism and Christianity in the centuries after their separation became involved in a theological antagonism which was only to be defused at the Second Vatican Council. With its Declaration "Nostra aetate" (No.4) the Church unequivocally professes, within a new theological framework, the Jewish roots of Christianity.
A replacement or supersession theology which sets against one another two separate entities, a Church of the Gentiles and the rejected Synagogue whose place it takes, is deprived of its foundations. From an originally close relationship between Judaism and Christianity a long-term state of tension had developed, which has been gradually transformed after the Second Vatican Council into a constructive dialogue relationship.
24. God revealed himself in his Word, so that it may be understood by humanity in actual historical situations. This Word invites all people to respond. If their responses are in accord with the Word of God they stand in right relationship with him. For Jews this Word can be learned through the Torah and the traditions based on it. The Torah is the instruction for a successful life in right relationship with God. Whoever observes the Torah has life in its fullness (cf. Pirqe Avot II, 7). By observing the Torah the Jew receives a share in communion with God. In this regard, Pope Francis has stated: "The Christian confessions find their unity in Christ; Judaism finds its unity in the Torah. Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the Word of God made flesh in the world; for Jews the Word of God is present above all in the Torah. Both faith traditions find their foundation in the One God, the God of the Covenant, who reveals himself through his Word. In seeking a right attitude towards God, Christians turn to Christ as the fount of new life, and Jews to the teaching of the Torah." (Address to members of the International Council of Christians and Jews, 30 June 2015).
25. Judaism and the Christian faith as seen in the New Testament are two ways by which God’s people can make the Sacred Scriptures of Israel their own. The Scriptures which Christians call the Old Testament is open therefore to both ways. A response to God’s word of salvation that accords with one or the other tradition can thus open up access to God, even if it is left up to his counsel of salvation to determine in what way he may intend to save mankind in each instance.
27. The covenant that God has offered Israel is irrevocable. "God is not man, that he should lie" (Num 23:19; cf. 2 Tim 2:13). The permanent elective fidelity of God expressed in earlier covenants is never repudiated (cf. Rom 9:4; 11:1–2).
The New Covenant can never replace the Old but presupposes it....
Since the Sadducees who were bound to the temple did not survive this catastrophe [of the fall of the Temple in 70 CE], the rabbis, following in the footsteps of the Pharisees, who had already developed their particular mode of reading and interpreting Scripture, now did so without the temple as the centre of Jewish religious devotion.
31. As a consequence there were two responses to this situation, or more precisely, two new ways of reading Scripture, namely the Christological exegesis of the Christians and the rabbinical exegesis of that form of Judaism that developed historically...
The document of the Pontifical Biblical Commission "The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible" in 2001 therefore stated that Christians can and must admit "that the Jewish reading of the Bible is a possible one, in continuity with the Jewish Scriptures from the Second Temple period, a reading analogous to the Christian reading which developed in parallel fashion". It then draws the conclusion: "Both readings are bound up with the vision of their respective faiths, of which the readings are the result and expression. Consequently, both are irreducible" (No. 22)...
In concrete terms this means that the Catholic Church neither conducts nor supports any specific institutional mission work directed towards Jews.
A supersessionist interpretation of Christianity could never have recognised the co-validity of Rabbinic exegesis with the Christian understanding of the Bible or indeed condemned all institutional missionary endeavours towards Jews.
Until about 1960, prayers at Catholic Masses on Good Friday - the solemn day commemorating the death of Jesus - called for the conversion of Jews and it read as follows:
Let us pray also for the faithless Jews: that almighty God may remove the veil from their hearts; so that they too may acknowledge Jesus Christ our Lord. Let us pray. Let us kneel.
This prayer had remained the same since the Middle Ages in the Roman Rite and it reflects the high medieval (circa. 12th century) supersessionist theology from which it was begotten, which is discordant with modern values and patently offensive to Jews.
That prayer was, however, eliminated from general use after the 1962-1965 Second Vatican Council by Pope St. John XXIII who introduced a new missal for use at Masses, with a new prayer eventually written in 1970, which reads:
Let us pray also for the Jewish people, to whom the Lord our God spoke first, that he may grant them to advance in love of his name and in faithfulness to his covenant. (Prayer in silence. Then the Priest says:) Almighty ever-living God, who bestowed your promises on Abraham and his descendants, hear graciously the prayers of your Church, that the people you first made your own may attain the fullness of redemption.
As you can see: no reference to Jews as "faithless", no beseeching of God to rend the "veil from their hearts" that they may acknowledge Jesus as Messiah. Rather, a prayer that Jews may 'advance in love of HaShem' and in faithfulness to the Torah, with only an oblique reference to the "fullness of redemption" without specifying that this is to be found in Christianity. In his interview with Peter Seewald back in 2005, then Pope Benedict XVI stated that, with reference to the post-Vatican II liturgy, "we do not pray directly for the conversion of the Jews in a missionary sense, but that the Lord might hasten the historic hour in which we will all be united" which is a reference to the statement in Vatican II's Nostra Aestate (1965) citing the prophet Zephaniah from the Nevi'im: "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" (Zephaniah 3:9)", this verse:
Zephaniah 3:9: “For then I shall turn to the peoples a pure tongue that all shall call upon the Name of G‑d to serve Him with one consent.”
Without comment as to what that actually means, so as to admit of both the (different) Jewish and Christian interpretations.
This is a demonstration, liturgically in the actual public recital and ritual of the Mass, of the 'replacement' of supersessionist/replacement theology with a more inclusive reading that leaves sufficient ambiguity to respectfully accomodate the divergent religious perspectives of Jews and Christians, whilst emphasising a shared anticipation of a future Messianic Age in which all human beings will be, in some sense known only to God, united.
So in sum, I regard supersessionism as an ideology that is fundamentally irreconcilable with true interreligious dialogue, as it presupposes a religious 'superiority complex'. It thus had to be overcome for a more productive relationship to begin and thanks be to God, I'd say it has been overcome in my church courtesy of the Second Vatican Council.
Last edited:
But given regardless of the response to Jesus
