What The Catholic Church Teaches About The Jews – Part 1

What The Catholic Church Teaches About The Jews – Master Table Of Contents:

Table of Contents

The Catholic Church Teaches The Jews Are The Enemies Of God And The Human Race

Many people will not want to read further because criticizing the Jews has become a modernist “sin”.

(It’s not really a sin).

I encourage you to read this whole thing with an open mind, if you think Jews are friends of Christians.

Also, please control your emotions while doing so, since you likely have been taught the opposite of what I am about to say.

The truth often hurts, but “the truth will set you free” (John 8:32).

This quote from Church Father St. John Chrysostom will set the tone for this article series:

Many, I know, respect the Jews and think that their present way of life is a venerable one. This is why I hasten to uproot and tear out this deadly opinion. I said that the synagogue is no better than a theater and I bring forward a prophet as my witness. Surely the Jews are not more deserving of belief than their prophets. “You had a harlot’s brow; you became shameless before all”. Where a harlot has set herself up, that place is a brothel. But the synagogue is not only a brothel and a theater; it also is a den of robbers and a lodging for wild beasts. Jeremiah said: “Your house has become for me the den of a hyena”. He does not simply say “of wild beast”, but “of a filthy wild beast”, and again: “I have abandoned my house, I have cast off my inheritance”. But when God forsakes a people, what hope of salvation is left? When God forsakes a place, that place becomes the dwelling of demons.
Adversus Judaeos, First Homily

Despite the ignorant people of the world using terms like “Judeo-Christian values”, Christians and the Jews have been at odds since the First Century, when a schism occurred between the Hebrews that accepted Christ and those that reject Him.

We first see this in the Gospels, where Christ was at odds with the Jewish establishment:

You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof.
John 8:44

(Also see Matthew 23, John 8:39-59, and several other passages).

Of course, then the Jews used Judas Iscariot to bring Him before the Jewish high priests, who petitioned Pilate to have Him crucified:

When the chief priests, therefore, and the servants, had seen him, they cried out, saying: Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate saith to them: Take him you, and crucify him: for I find no cause in him.
John 19:6

(Also see the Passion accounts in Matthew 26:30-27:66, Mark 14:26-15:47, Luke 22:39-23:56, John 18:1-19:42).

Then after having Christ crucified, the Jews began persecuting Christians.

St. Paul gives a testimony of his persecution by the Jews:

Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes, save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea.
2 Corinthians 11:24-25

(Also see Acts 4-5, Acts 7, Acts 8:3, and many other passages that show Jewish persecution of Christians).

Moreover, St. Paul explicitly says that the Jews are the enemies of Christians in the Bible:

As concerning the gospel, indeed, they are enemies for your sake
Romans 11:28

Additionally, St. Paul explicitly says that the Jews are the enemies of all men in the Bible:

For you, brethren, are become followers of the churches of God which are in Judea, in Christ Jesus: for you also have suffered the same things from your own countrymen, even as they have from the Jews, Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and the prophets, and have persecuted us, and please not God, and are adversaries to all men;
1 Thessalonians 2:14-15

Thus, the Jews are enemies of both God and men, and follow their father, the devil (John 8:44) which Christ reiterates after His ascension:

I know thy tribulation and thy poverty, but thou art rich: and thou art blasphemed by them that say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.
Apocalypse (Revelation) 2:9

And:

Behold, I will bring of the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie. Behold, I will make them to come and adore before thy feet. And they shall know that I have loved thee.
Apocalypse (Revelation) 3:9