Decree Cum Supremae — Suppression of Amici Israel or the “Friends of Israel” (1928)

Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, approved and ordered published by Pope Pius XI

Compiled for scholarly research on modern papal decrees and Vatican-approved documents concerning the Jewish question, supersessionism, and Zionism.

Methodological Note: This document presents the verified English translation of Cum Supremae against the Latin original (Acta Apostolicae Sedis XX, 1928, pp. 103–104), with a scholarly commentary on its reception, theological significance, and use in pre-Vatican II Catholic thought on the Jews, supersessionism, and Zionism. The translation has been verified against the primary source.

I. Document Information

FieldDetail
TypeDecree of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office
Approved byPope Pius XI (Achille Ratti, r. 1922–1939), personally
Date of decreeWednesday, March 21, 1928 (plenary session)
Date of papal approvalThursday, March 22, 1928
Date of publicationMarch 25, 1928 (Feast of the Annunciation)
Original languageLatin
Primary sourceActa Apostolicae Sedis XX (1928): pp. 103–104
Vatican PDFhttps://www.vatican.va/archive/aas/documents/AAS-20-1928-ocr.pdf
English translationNovus Ordo Watch (verified against the Latin original)
Translation sourcehttps://novusordowatch.org/pius11-abolition-friends-of-israel/

II. Historical Context

The Opus sacerdotale Amici Israël (“Friends of Israel”) was a Catholic association founded in Rome in 1926. At its peak it counted approximately 19 cardinals, 278 bishops and archbishops, and over 3,000 priests among its members. Its aims were formally missionary: to pray and work for the conversion of Jewish people to Catholicism.

The organization became controversial when it petitioned the Holy Office to remove or modify the term perfidis (“faithless” or “perfidious”) from the traditional Good Friday prayer Oremus et pro perfidis Judaeis, and to reform other elements of the Roman Rite’s liturgical language that cast Jews in a negative light. The petition directly challenged centuries of established liturgical practice and, by extension, the theological tradition of Adversus Judaeos.

Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val, Secretary of the Holy Office, led the opposition. His noted objection, submitted March 7, 1928, argued that the Amici Israel risked playing into a Jewish-led effort to sanitize Christian memory of Jewish rejection of Christ. The Supreme Sacred Congregation convened a plenary session on Wednesday, March 21, 1928, voted to suppress the organization entirely, and Pius XI personally approved, confirmed, and ordered publication of the decree on Thursday, March 22, 1928. It was promulgated on March 25, 1928.

Note on a date discrepancy: The OCR transcription of the Vatican PDF (AAS XX, 1928) renders the plenary session date as “23 Martii,” which would be a Friday — inconsistent with the decree’s own designation of “Feria IV” (Wednesday) and with the subsequent clause placing papal approval on “Feria V, die 22” (Thursday the 22nd). The correct date, confirmed by both internal logic and the day-of-week calculation for 1928, is March 21 — which the English translation correctly renders.

III. Full English Translation

(Translation by Novus Ordo Watch, verified against the Latin of AAS XX, 1928, pp. 103–104.)

Acts of the Sacred Congregations

Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office

DECREE

ON THE ABOLISHMENT OF THE ASSOCIATION COMMONLY CALLED “AMICI ISRAEL”

When this Supreme Congregation of the Holy Office formally considered the nature and aim of the association known as “Amici Israel” [“Friends of Israel”] as well as the booklet titled Pax super Israel [Peace upon Israel], which had been published and distributed far and wide so that the association’s mission and mode of proceeding might become known to the general public, the Most Eminent Fathers, who are charged with safeguarding faith and morals, acknowledged before all else its praiseworthy intention of urging the faithful to pray to God and to toil on behalf of the Israelites’ conversion to the Kingdom of Christ.

It is no wonder that, from the start, not only did a number of the Christian faithful and priests, cognizant of this objective, join that association but also not a few bishops and lord cardinals. The reason is that the Catholic Church has always been accustomed to pray for the Jewish people, who were the depository of the divine promises up until the arrival of Jesus Christ, notwithstanding their subsequent blindness, or rather, because of this very blindness. Moved by that charity, the Apostolic See has protected the same people from unjust ill-treatment, and just as it censures all hatred and enmity among people, so it altogether condemns in the highest degree possible hatred against the people once chosen by God, viz., the hatred that now is what is usually meant in common parlance by the term known generally as “anti-Semitism.”

Nevertheless, noting and considering that the association “Amici Israel” then embarked on a plan of acting and communicating at variance with the sense of the Church, the mind of the holy Fathers of the Church, and the sacred liturgy, the Most Eminent Fathers, upon the earlier recommendation of the Consultors, decreed in the plenary session held on Wednesday, March 21, 1928, that the association “Amici Israel” must be abolished, and declared it abolished in fact, and they ordained that in the future no one shall venture to write or publish books or booklets that in any way whatsoever promote erroneous initiatives of this sort.

And on the ensuing Thursday, the 22nd day of the same month and year, His Holiness Pius XI, by divine Providence Pope, in the customary audience shared with the Assessor of the Holy Office, approved, confirmed, and ordered to be published the decision of the Most Eminent Fathers, which had been referred to him.

Given at Rome, at the Palace of the Holy Office, on March 25, 1928.

(SEAL)

A. Castellano, Notary of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office

IV. Scholarly Commentary: The Decree’s Use in Pre-Vatican II Catholic Thought

IV.A. Supersessionism: The Decree’s Core Theological Claim

The central theological assertion of Cum Supremae is supersessionist: the Jewish people “were the depository of the divine promises up until the arrival of Jesus Christ,” after which they fell into “blindness.” This is classic fulfillment theology of the Adversus Judaeos tradition — the view that Judaism, having served as the preparatory custodian of divine revelation, was superseded by the Church at the Incarnation. Jewish rejection of Christ is here described not merely as historical error but as providentially meaningful “blindness,” for which the Church continues to pray.

This passage was repeatedly cited in pre-Vatican II Catholic literature as the authoritative modern restatement of the Church’s traditional position. The decree neither condemned supersessionism nor softened it; it condemned the Amici Israel specifically for departing from it. As Hubert Wolf notes in Pope and Devil (Harvard UP, 2010), the suppression was understood by contemporaries as an explicit reaffirmation of the traditional theological framework — the Jews as a once-elect people now spiritually blinded, requiring conversion rather than dialogue.

The same supersessionist structure appears in Pius XI’s other major documents:

  • Quas Primas (1925, §18) places Jews, as those “outside the Christian faith,” among all peoples universally subject to the kingship of Christ.
  • The draft encyclical Humani Generis Unitas (1938, §133–136), commissioned by Pius XI, states that the “Jewish question” is “directly religious in character” — rooted in Jewish rejection of Christ and the Church’s supersession of the Mosaic covenant.

IV.B. Upholding the Liturgical Adversus Judaeos Tradition

The most immediate practical consequence of Cum Supremae was its implicit endorsement of the Good Friday prayer Oremus et pro perfidis Judaeis:

“Let us also pray for the perfidious [faithless] Jews: that our God and Lord may remove the veil from their hearts, that they also may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The Amici Israel had petitioned specifically to remove the word perfidis and to suppress the prostration-omission rubric (the traditional Roman Rite omits the customary genuflection during this prayer, a liturgical mark of dishonor). By suppressing the organization for acting “at variance with the sense of the Church, the mind of the holy Fathers of the Church, and the sacred liturgy,” Pius XI effectively ruled that these liturgical forms were not to be changed.

The word perfidis was not removed from the Roman Rite until 1959, under Pope John XXIII — over thirty years later. Pre-Vatican II traditionalist commentators, including those associated with the Society of St. Pius X, have consistently cited Cum Supremae as evidence that the post-conciliar reform of this prayer represented a rupture with defined Catholic tradition rather than organic development. The decree is thus a live reference point in ongoing debates about liturgical continuity.

Fr. Edward Cahill, S.J., writing in his imprimatured Framework of a Christian State (1932) — a work presenting itself as a summary of papal social teaching under Pius XI — described the suppression of the Amici Israel explicitly as “an authoritative reassertion of the traditional attitude of the Church towards the Jewish people.”

IV.C. The Decree and Pre-Vatican II Anti-Zionism

Although Cum Supremae does not mention Zionism directly, its theological framework — Jews as a people whose divine election has lapsed, now spiritually blind and awaiting conversion — was foundational to the Catholic anti-Zionist position of the era.

The Holy See’s opposition to Zionism during the pontificate of Pius XI rested on two intersecting arguments:

  1. Theological: A Jewish state in the Holy Land was objectionable in part because it would place the Holy Places under the authority of a people the Church understood to have forfeited their special claim to the Land through rejection of Christ. This argument presupposes the supersessionist framework Cum Supremae authoritatively reaffirmed.
  2. Political: The Vatican objected to the privileged status Zionism would grant to Jewish settlers over other inhabitants of Palestine, including Arab Christians. Cardinal Francis Bourne of Westminster, explaining the Holy See’s position to the press in July 1922, stated that the Holy See objected to proposals that would give Zionists “a privileged position over those who belong to other races and other religious beliefs” (The Catholic Columbian, July 21, 1922).

La Civiltà Cattolica — the Vatican-reviewed Jesuit journal described by the Encyclopaedia Judaica as “the faithful interpreter of papal thought” — published a three-part series in 1937 by Fr. Mario Barbera, S.J., explicitly connecting the two arguments. The series, “La questione giudaica e il sionismo” (CC, vol. II, quaderno 2087, June 5, 1937), invokes the theological framework of Cum Supremae in arguing that the Jewish “messianic aspiration to world domination” made a Zionist state not merely politically undesirable but theologically impermissible, and that the proper solution to the Jewish question lay in segregation — “friendly segregation” in Barbera’s terminology — rather than either assimilation or statehood.

Scholarly analysis of these positions is provided by:

  • Nina Valbousquet, “Transatlantic Catholic Responses,” Journal of Modern Italian Studies 24:1 (2019) — situates CC‘s anti-Zionism within the broader theological framework renewed by Cum Supremae.
  • David I. Kertzer, The Popes Against the Jews (Knopf, 2001) — traces the connection between the Holy Office’s supersessionist theology and the Church’s anti-Zionist diplomacy through the 1920s–1930s.
  • Hubert Wolf, Pope and Devil (Harvard UP, 2010) — uses Vatican archival sources to reconstruct the Amici Israel case in detail, showing how Cardinal Merry del Val’s framing of the petition as a Jewish-influenced infiltration of the Church shaped the decree’s language.

IV.D. The Decree’s Condemnation of “Anti-Semitism” — and Its Limits

Cum Supremae contains what is often cited as one of the stronger pre-Vatican II papal condemnations of anti-Semitism:

“…the Apostolic See has protected the same people from unjust ill-treatment, and just as it censures all hatred and enmity among people, so it altogether condemns in the highest degree possible hatred against the people once chosen by God, viz., the hatred that now is what is usually meant in common parlance by the term known generally as ‘anti-Semitism.'”

Scholars have noted the significant qualifications embedded in this condemnation:

  1. The condemnation is of “hatred” (odium), not of discriminatory legislation or segregation. The decree does not condemn legal restrictions on Jews, economic boycotts, or policies of social separation — only the affective disposition of hatred. This distinction was regularly exploited in subsequent Catholic commentary to endorse civil anti-Jewish measures while claiming compliance with the papal condemnation.
  2. The theological framework of the condemnation is itself supersessionist. Jews are described as “the people once chosen by God” — past tense — currently in “blindness.” The charity the Church extends to them is the charity one extends to the spiritually afflicted, not the respect owed to a living religious tradition of equal validity.
  3. The suppression of the Amici Israel effectively silenced the most organized Catholic voice advocating for improved Jewish-Christian relations at the time. As Martin Rhonheimer argues in First Things (November 2003), the Church’s pre-Vatican II condemnations of hatred left untouched — and in the case of Cum Supremae, actively reinforced — the theological and liturgical structures that sustained social anti-Judaism.

La Civiltà Cattolica‘s own editorial response to the decree, published by Fr. Enrico Rosa, S.J. in May 1928 (“Il pericolo giudaico e gli ‘Amici d’Israele’,” CC, vol. II, quaderno 1870), argued that Catholics must maintain “a ‘healthy perception of danger coming from the Jews’ through their influence on politics and religion.” Rosa read Cum Supremae not as a call for charity but as an endorsement of vigilance — a reading that, given the decree’s stated rationale, was not implausible.

IV.E. The Decree in Post-Vatican II Debate

Cum Supremae occupies a contested position in post-conciliar Catholic debate:

  • Traditionalists (particularly in the Society of St. Pius X and sedevacantist circles) cite the decree as evidence that the Second Vatican Council’s Nostra Aetate (1965) — which repudiated the charge of collective Jewish guilt for the crucifixion and affirmed the ongoing validity of the divine covenant with the Jewish people — represents a break with defined Catholic teaching rather than a development of it. The decree is read as binding Magisterium affirming the traditional supersessionist and liturgical framework.
  • Mainstream Catholic scholars generally view Cum Supremae as a disciplinary decree addressing the internal affairs of a private association, not a dogmatic definition of the Church’s theology of Judaism. On this reading, Nostra Aetate represents a legitimate development within the doctrinal tradition, not a contradiction of a binding decree.
  • Jewish-Catholic dialogue scholars, including those associated with the Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations (CCJR), situate Cum Supremae within the broader pre-Vatican II pattern of “teaching contempt” — a phrase coined by Jules Isaac — while acknowledging its unusual explicit condemnation of antisemitic hatred.

V. Sources

Primary Sources

  1. Latin original: Acta Apostolicae Sedis XX (1928): pp. 103–104. Vatican PDF: https://www.vatican.va/archive/aas/documents/AAS-20-1928-ocr.pdf
  2. English translation: Novus Ordo Watch. https://novusordowatch.org/pius11-abolition-friends-of-israel/
  3. Wikipedia, “Opus sacerdotale Amici Israel”: Background on the organization and its suppression. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opus_sacerdotale_Amici_Israel
  4. CCJR — Primary Texts: Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations resource archive. https://www.ccjr.us/dialogika-resources/primary-texts-from-the-history-of-the-relationship/
  5. La Civiltà Cattolica, Fr. Enrico Rosa, S.J. — “Il pericolo giudaico e gli ‘Amici d’Israele'”:CC, vol. II, quaderno 1870, May 19, 1928, pp. 335–344. Described in:
  6. La Civiltà Cattolica, Fr. Mario Barbera, S.J. — “La questione giudaica e il sionismo”: CC, vol. II, quaderno 2087, June 5, 1937, pp. 418–431. Primary source PDF (English translation): https://christtheking.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/La-Civilta-Cattolica-1937-Volume-88-No-2-The-Jewish-Question-and-Zionism.pdf
  7. Fr. Edward Cahill, S.J. — Framework of a Christian State (1932). Nihil Obstat and Imprimi Potest. https://archive.org/details/FrameworkOfAChristianStateRevCahill/
  8. Cardinal Bourne on Palestine Mandate: The Catholic Columbian (Cincinnati), vol. 47, no. 29, July 21, 1922. Catholic News Archive, ref. CC19220721-01.2.46.

Secondary Scholarly Sources

  1. Hubert Wolf, Pope and Devil: The Vatican’s Archives and the Third Reich (Harvard University Press, 2010). — Reconstructs the Amici Israel case from Vatican archival sources; essential for the internal deliberations leading to Cum Supremae.
  2. David I. Kertzer, The Popes Against the Jews: The Vatican’s Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism (Alfred A. Knopf, 2001). — Connects supersessionist theology to Vatican anti-Zionist diplomacy; contextualizes Cum Supremae within the broader pattern.
  3. Martin Rhonheimer, “The Holocaust: What Was Not Said,” First Things 137 (November 2003), pp. 18–28. — Argues that the pre-Vatican II Church’s condemnations of hatred left the theological structures of contempt intact; cites Cum Supremae.
  4. Nina Valbousquet, “Transatlantic Catholic Responses to Fascist Antisemitism,” Journal of Modern Italian Studies 24:1 (2019). — Situates CC‘s anti-Zionist series of 1937–38 within the theological framework reinforced by Cum Supremae. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1354571X.2019.1550696
  5. “The Jewish Enemy. Fascism, the Vatican,” Journal of Modern Italian Studies 14:2 (2009). https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13545710902826444
  6. Susan Zuccotti, Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy (Yale University Press, 2000). — Broader context of Vatican policy toward Jews under Pius XI and Pius XII.
  7. Georges Passelecq and Bernard Suchecky, The Hidden Encyclical of Pius XI (Harcourt, Brace, and Co., 1997). — Text and analysis of Humani Generis Unitas, the draft encyclical commissioned by Pius XI that articulates the supersessionist framework underpinning Cum Supremae.
  8. Ruggero Taradel and Barbara Raggi, La segregazione amichevole: “La Civiltà Cattolica” e la questione ebraica, 1850–1945 (Editori Riuniti, 2000). — Traces CC‘s reception of Cum Supremae and the “friendly segregation” framework that followed.
  9. Encyclopaedia Judaica, “Civiltà Cattolica, La” — characterizes the journal as “the faithful interpreter of papal thought.” https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/la-civilt-cattolica
  10. Wikipedia, “Pope Pius XI and Judaism”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Pius_XI_and_Judaism
  11. Treccani, “Per una storia dell’antisemitismo cattolico in Italia”: https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/per-una-storia-dell-antisemitismo-cattolico-in-italia_(Cristiani-d’Italia)/

Compiled April 2026 for scholarly research. All quotations are from verified primary or secondary scholarly sources with citations. The English translation has been verified against the Latin original in AAS XX (1928), pp. 103–104.