Msgr. Francesco Spadafora (1913–1997) was a distinguished Italian Catholic biblical scholar, professor of Sacred Scripture at the Pontifical Lateran University, and an expert peritus for Sacred Scripture on the preparatory commission for the Second Vatican Council. He was the trusted adviser of Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, Prefect of the Holy Office, on matters of biblical exegesis, director of the Rivista Biblica, and author of more than thirty volumes and hundreds of scholarly articles. A fierce opponent of Modernist biblical criticism, he collaborated on the Catholic Encyclopedia and directed the Biblical Dictionary (Dizionario Biblico). The quotations below are drawn exclusively from his published writings and are translated from Italian.
I. The Pressure of Jewish Lobbying Behind Nostra Aetate
“Pope John XXIII received in audience, in June 1960, the Israelite Jules Isaac, who pled the cause of his people before him, according to the theses already formulated in his book Jesus and Israel, and sent him to Cardinal Bea. Thus began the contacts with the most well-known representatives of Judaism; and in the audience of September 18, 1960, Isaac received from the Pontiff the charge of preparing for the Council a document on the delicate matter. It was the beginning of the journey that, after five years, would lead to the conciliar Declaration.”
— Cristianesimo e Giudaismo (Ed. Krinon, Caltanissetta, 1987), pp. 11–12
“To overcome the reluctance and difficulties encountered, and to favorably predispose the [Council] Fathers, Cardinal Bea prepared for La Civiltà Cattolica a lengthy article with the challenging title ‘Are the Jews deicides and cursed by God?’ The article was to appear simultaneously in the German journal Stimmen der Zeit and in the Nouvelle Revue Théologique of Louvain. The Secretariat of State, however, did not deem its publication opportune. Cardinal Bea, nonetheless, yielded to the insistence of the director of the German journal and the article appeared there under the signature of Fr. Ludovico von Hertling, S.J., former professor of Ecclesiastical History at the Pontifical Gregorian University. Then the article, translated into Italian and printed by an industrialist from Genoa, in various languages as well, was distributed to the Bishops at the opportune moment for the presentation of the schema at the Council. And its influence was notable and truly decisive.”
— Cristianesimo e Giudaismo, pp. 11–12
II. The Question of Deicide
“‘There is no doubt that the condemnation and execution of Christ constitute in themselves,’ objectively speaking, ‘a crime of deicide, because Jesus is Man-God.‘ But ‘the leaders of the Sanhedrin and the people‘ did not know ‘clearly the human-divine nature of Christ.‘ In them there was ‘a certain ignorance: this concerned above all the most difficult point for a Jew to understand, namely the divinity of Jesus.‘”
— Cristianesimo e Giudaismo, pp. 8–10, citing Cardinal Bea’s own admission in La Civiltà Cattolica (Nov. 6, 1965, pp. 209–229)
“The words of Jesus on the cross — comments the Author [Bea] — are ‘a true excuse in favor of the Jews. The cited texts, however, cannot be considered as an absolution properly speaking, and still less a complete one, of those responsible for the death of Jesus; for example, the prayer of forgiveness of Jesus would have no reason for being, if there had been complete ignorance and therefore a complete absence of guilt.‘ Ignorance therefore of the divinity of Jesus. Yet the Gospel texts, unambiguously, attest to a grave ‘culpable‘ ignorance: they refused to believe.”
— Cristianesimo e Giudaismo, pp. 8–10
“Let it suffice here to recall the words of Jesus: ‘If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. If I had not done among them works that no one else has done, they would have no sin; but now, though they have seen, they hate both me and my Father.’ (John 15:18–25). And in chapter 10 of Romans, St. Paul affirms the same thing concerning ‘the Jews responsible for their reprobation’ (A. Vaccari), in vv. 18–21.”
— Cristianesimo e Giudaismo, pp. 8–10
“Jesus has before Him the Leaders of Judaism, responsible for His death. They knew, more than anyone else, what they were doing. And because they knew it, they sinned and had need of pardon. In every human sin there is always some ignorance and Jesus invokes this excuse. Jesus’s prayer for the Jews could have appeared contradictory with Mt. 27:25 — ‘His [Jesus’s] blood be upon us and upon our children‘ — and with the texts in which His definitive repudiation is foretold. A prayer in these circumstances, asking forgiveness for enemies, is authentically Christian: it is in harmony with the Lord’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 5:44), with His example (Lk. 22:48, 51, with the traitor Judas!).”
— Cristianesimo e Giudaismo (Ed. Amicizia Cristiana, Chieti, 2012)
“The Jews did not comprehend the full enormity of their crime. This ignorance, insofar as it was the fruit of resistance to grace and voluntary blindness, did not absolve them of their guilt; Jesus, however, presents it to the Father as an attenuating circumstance, and so would St. Peter do later (Acts 3:17).”
— Cristianesimo e Giudaismo
III. The Collective Responsibility of the Jewish People
“[Cardinal Bea’s] response is strangely negative; in open conflict with the texts, he restricts all responsibility to the leaders and a few inhabitants of Jerusalem: he denies the principle of collective solidarity. [For] St. Peter, for example, in Acts 2 speaks to Jews gathered in Jerusalem from all regions of the Roman Empire: cf. vv. 5–13, ‘Jews of every nation… Parthians… inhabitants of Mesopotamia, etc.‘”
— Cristianesimo e Giudaismo, pp. 10–11
“‘Only the principle of collective responsibility can, in particular, adequately explain the fact that the Apostles’ reproach was directed also at Jews from other Palestinian cities or from the diaspora, indeed even at proselytes: and perhaps at people who for the first time were hearing about Jesus.‘”
— Cristianesimo e Giudaismo, pp. 10–11, citing Bishop Carli, Palestra del Clero (April 1, 1966, p. 405), in turn citing Spadafora’s own doctoral thesis, Collettivismo e Individualismo nel Vecchio Testamento (Rovigo, 1953)
“It clearly emerges from the four Gospels that, if the Romans ratified and executed the sentence of death against Jesus, this sentence certainly came from the side of the Jews.“
— Cristianesimo e Giudaismo, pp. 20–23, citing Fr. Pierre Benoit, O.P., Revue Biblique 56 (1949), p. 612, approvingly
“The fable, if there is one, is it not precisely constituted by this story one would have us believe — of a Jewish people conquered and made enthusiastic by Jesus, but deprived of this Prophet despite itself by a clique of politicians and false devotees, acting without any mandate and against the intentions of the people? But how then to explain that the Jewish people, once the first moment of surprise had passed, did not adhere to this dear Prophet who now wore the halo of a Martyr? How to explain that they ratified, completely, in full, the sentence of their leaders, opposing everywhere, and this time through the mass of their members, in Palestine and in the Diaspora, this ferocious resistance to the nascent Church, continuing in the disciples of Jesus the work of persecution unto death?“
— Cristianesimo e Giudaismo, pp. 20–23, citing Fr. Pierre Benoit, O.P., Revue Biblique 56 (1949), pp. 610–611, approvingly
“The Jewish people who had known Him could not have been ignorant of it, but wishing to follow Him when they expected a triumph, they abandoned Him when they saw the cross. The Jewish leaders knew this above all, but refused to have anything to do with a new Master and a new life opened to all. Abandoned by the crowd, rejected by the leaders, Jesus was truly rejected by His people, the Jewish people, even if, or rather precisely because, this people refused to renounce itself in order to believe in Him.“
— Cristianesimo e Giudaismo, pp. 20–23, citing Fr. Pierre Benoit, O.P., Revue Biblique 56 (1949), p. 612, approvingly
IV. The Responsibility Declared by the Jews Themselves
“‘The responsibility of His death is all ours and our children’s’ (Mt. 27:25).”
— Pilato (Istituto Padano di Arti Grafiche, Rovigo, 1973), pp. 129–130
V. Supersessionism — The Church as the True Israel
“‘Rejecting Jesus, Israel divided itself in two; the part that accepted Christ became the Church, the true Israel, fulfillment of the Old Testament. The other part, which rejected Christ, with a collective sin, is the unfaithful Israel, which has lost its election, its privileges; as a group it is outside of salvation — as a group, I mean, because the responsibility of each individual soul is unknown to us.'”
— Cristianesimo e Giudaismo, pp. 20–23, citing D. Judant, Les deux Israël (Paris: Cerf, 1960), and the approving review of Fr. Pierre Benoit, O.P., Revue Biblique 68 (1961), pp. 458–462
“‘It would be illusory and false to pretend that the second election of the “new Israel” leaves intact [for Judaism] and that present-day Israel retains all of its “privileges,” as another “People of God,” parallel to the Church, from which the Church should await integration in order finally to have all its means of salvation.'”
— Cristianesimo e Giudaismo, pp. 20–23, citing Fr. Pierre Benoit, O.P., Revue Biblique 68 (1961), p. 459, approvingly
“Charity is inseparable from truth, and we [Christians] have a duty of truth to fulfill. It is for a sound exegesis, free from every polemical hint, to fulfill this duty of truth in charity.”
— Cristianesimo e Giudaismo, pp. 20–23, citing D. Judant, Les deux Israël, p. 152, approvingly
VI. The Jewish Rejection of Christ as Messiah and the Theological Enmity Between Jews and Christians
“Thus the heretic who denies the Son has no communion with the Father, though he pretends he does. He who possesses the Father and is in true communion with Him is uniquely the faithful one who confesses the Son. The same St. Paul affirms of the Jewish persecutors of Christians: they ‘do not know God and do not obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus.‘ (2 Thess. 1:5–8)”
— Cristianesimo e Giudaismo
“Judaism believed that the book of Daniel (cc. 2, 7–9, 12) confirmed its dream of empire, assimilating the kingdom ‘of the saints’ in every way to the empires that in the vision preceded it. The Messiah, as a new Alexander, would have conquered, in a great battle, the Romans and would have given the empire to the Jews. The Messiah was considered a warrior and conqueror king. The forgiveness of sins, redemption, and, in a decisive manner, the sufferings of the Messiah were altogether ignored (cf. John 6:15; 18:34 ff.).”
— Cristianesimo e Giudaismo
“The Jewish interpretation could not have deviated more strikingly from the redemptive work of the Messiah, who came ‘not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for all men’ (Mt. 20:28).”
— Cristianesimo e Giudaismo
“The revelation concerning the Messiah and His work was rich in various elements, not easily harmonizable by an exegesis not illuminated by the light of its fulfillment in Jesus Our Lord.”
— Cristianesimo e Giudaismo, citing P. M. J. Lagrange, O.P., Le Judaïsme avant Jésus-Christ (Paris, 3rd ed., 1931), pp. 587–591
VII. The Abrogation of the Mosaic Law — Supersessionism in St. Paul
“Jesus Our Lord realizes the divine plan of salvation, foretold and prepared by all of the Old Testament; He fulfills the covenant of God with Israel, the ancient covenant, inaugurating the new one ‘in His blood’ (1 Cor. 11:25), according to the prophecy of Jeremiah (31:31–33): ‘The days are coming in which I shall conclude with Israel and Judah a new covenant — says the Lord — . Not like the pact I made with their fathers, when I led them out of Egypt, a pact violated by them. But in the new one, I shall place my law in their hearts and minds…And all, small and great, shall know me. I will forgive their iniquity.'”
— Cristianesimo e Giudaismo
“‘With the sacrifice of the Cross, Jesus abolished the Law, as St. Paul teaches magnificently (particularly cf. Gal. and Rom.), and when the primitive Church confirmed this affirmation for its universality, it did so under the action of the Holy Spirit, who is none other than the Spirit of Jesus.'”
— Cristianesimo e Giudaismo, pp. 20–23, citing Fr. Pierre Benoit, O.P., Revue Biblique 56 (1949), p. 612, approvingly
“The blood, that is, the death of Jesus establishes the new diatéche [covenant]. The old covenant is therefore the Mosaic law, which is abrogated as a consequence of the inevitability of its transitory provisions, replaced and surpassed by the new, to which is granted a supereminent glory.”
— Cristianesimo e Giudaismo, citing the exegete J. Behm, Th. W. z. NT, s.v. Diatéche, vol. II
VIII. The Traditional Good Friday Prayer and the Question of Jewish Unbelief
“Thus the Jews who have not received and continue not to receive Jesus as Messiah and Redeemer of mankind — for [John XXIII] — are not ‘faithless/unbelievers,’ that is, non-believers in the true Messiah. Indeed, ‘perfidis‘ comes from the Latin per fidem, which means ‘false and deviant faith.’ The decision taken by [John] XXIII in 1959, therefore, not only cancelled an ancient tradition of the Church, but introduced a novelty that would appear contrary to divine Revelation.”
— Cristianesimo e Giudaismo
IX. The Jewish Sources Hostile to Christ (Cited by Spadafora in His Exegetical Works)
“The [Jewish] leaders of Jerusalem, far from proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah, ‘conspired together to put Him to death’ (cf. Mt. 26:3–4; John 11:47–53). The Talmud itself — a text central to post-biblical Judaism — records in Sanhedrin 43a that Jesus was executed on the eve of the Passover ‘because he practiced sorcery and led Israel into apostasy.’ This datum confirms the consistent Gospel account and demolishes the claim that the Jewish rejection of Christ was simply the act of an isolated clique.”
— Pilato (Rovigo, 1973), and Dizionario Biblico (Studium, Rome, 1963)
X. Against the Notion of a Continuing Salvific Role for Unbelieving Israel
“This [prayer] — ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do’ — maintains in all justice that their fathers ‘did’ something evil and that they have need of ‘forgiveness.’ This forgiveness will consist for them in rediscovering, through the mercy of the Father, that very grace of the true Messiah Jesus which they refused when it was offered to them.“
— Cristianesimo e Giudaismo, pp. 20–23, citing Fr. Pierre Benoit, O.P., Revue Biblique 56 (1949), p. 613, approvingly
Sources
- Francesco Spadafora, Cristianesimo e Giudaismo (Krinon, Caltanissetta, 1987; repr. Amicizia Cristiana, Chieti, 2012). Available from Edizioni Amicizia Cristiana and Edizioni Piane.
- Francesco Spadafora, Pilato (Istituto Padano di Arti Grafiche, Rovigo, 1973). Referenced in Matteo Castagna, “Pillole di dottrina cattolica tra Cristianesimo e Giudaismo”, Agerecontra.it, 14 August 2025.
- Francesco Spadafora, Dizionario Biblico, directed by Spadafora (Studium, Rome, 1963). Partial text available at Frati Minori Osimo.
- Francesco Spadafora, Collettivismo e Individualismo nel Vecchio Testamento (Istituto Padano di Arti Grafiche, Rovigo, 1953). Referenced throughout Cristianesimo e Giudaismo.
- Francesco Spadafora, La “Nuova” Esegesi: Il trionfo del modernismo sull’Esegesi Cattolica (Les Amis de Saint François de Sales, Sion, 1996; repr. Edizioni Piane, 2022). Product page: Edizioni Piane.
- Extended excerpts from Cristianesimo e Giudaismo reproduced at UnaVox.it.
- Bio-bibliography of Msgr. Spadafora: Edizioni Amicizia Cristiana.
- “La responsabilità ebraica nella morte di Gesù spiegata da Mons. Spadafora”, Radio Spada, April 2019.
- Profile of Msgr. Spadafora at Preterist Archives.
- Francesco Spadafora entry at EverybodyWiki.