A number of local and national Jewish individuals, committees and agencies that work closely with Catholics in interfaith dialogue are upset over the recent change made to the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults. The United States Catholic Catechism for Adults was approved by the USCCB in November 2004 as a basic and concise introduction to the Catholic faith. It is a catechetical text rather than a theological textbook.
The catechism is slated to go into its second printing and the U.S. bishops requested a change in reference to the covenant enacted at Sinai with the Jewish people. The change clarifies Catholic teaching on God’s covenant with the Jews. The first version, in explaining relations with the Jews stated, “Thus the covenant that God made with the Jewish people through Moses remains eternally valid for them.”
The revised text now states, “To the Jewish people, whom God first chose to hear his Word, ‘belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ’” (Romans 9: 4-5).
This one sentence change was discussed by the bishops in executive session at their June Meeting in Orlando, Fla., but did not receive the two-thirds majority of all members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops at that time. But after a mail balloting, the final vote of 231-14, with one abstention, was announced Aug. 5, in a letter to bishops from Msgr. David Malloy, USCCB general secretary. The Vatican in turn has given its “recognition” (permission) for the change. The clarification is not in essence a change in the church’s teachings concerning the Jewish people.
In a press release issued by the bishop’s conference it was explained that “the clarification is not a change in the church’s teaching. The clarification reflects the teaching of the church that all previous covenants that God made with the Jewish people are fulfilled in Jesus Christ through the new covenant established through his sacrificial death on the cross. Catholics believe that the Jewish people continue to live within the truth of the covenant God made with Abraham, and that God continues to be faithful to them. As the Second Vatican Council taught and the Adult Catechism affirms, the Jewish people ‘remain most dear to God, for God does not repent of the gifts he makes nor of the calls he issues’”(Lumen Gentium, no.16).
In my reading and understanding of the revision, it seems to be more of a description or view of the Sinai covenant for Christian understanding. It is not a diminution of the unique covenant of God with the Jewish people. The bishop’s explained in their press release that, “Catholics understand that all previous covenants that God made with the Jewish people have been fulfilled in Jesus Christ through the new covenant established through his sacrificial death on the cross. The prior version of the text might be understood to imply that one of the former covenants imparts salvation without the mediation of Christ, whom Christians believe to be the universal savior of all people.”
In a letter to the USCCB from Jewish leaders from the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the National Council of Synagogues, which represent the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructive movements and the Orthodox Union and the Rabbinical Council of America, the signatories expressed their “serious concern” with the revision to the catechism and a recent document by the bishops’ titled “A Note on Ambiguities Contained in Covenant and Mission” (which I will address in a future column). Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League said that, “on Aug. 27, the bishops announced that the Vatican had officially affirmed its decision to jettison a teaching in the American adult catechism that the ‘covenant that God made with the Jewish people through Moses remains eternally valid for them.’ The USCCB had several options to update its adult catechism, but chose instead to no longer affirm the validity of the Sinai covenant.”
As difficult as this moment is in our interfaith discussion, it is an excellent opportunity for Catholics to explain our duty to proclaim Christ sole mediator between God and humanity. Our soteriological understanding is not a judgment on other faith’s relationship with God but a proclamation of faith in the unique character of salvation in Christ alone.
More to come.
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