RMJ HAS A much more informed commentary on my posting about John the day before yesterday. As I said, I'm not even a beginner and these issues have a huge body of scholarship with so many points of view it's hard to imagine anyone really mastering it as a topic. Good information of where to go with the topic, too.
It's worth noting that there are Jewish Christians today, it's not something that ended c. the second century or even the forth century. Being sort of Catholic Plus, that's what I'm most familiar with. As I've noted here before, there have been Jewish Popes, certainly Peter and Evaristus would have been considered Jewish. I'm convinced that's how they probably saw themselves. There have been powerful converts in the clergy and even high in the hierarchy, Juan de Torquemada, the uncle of the infamous Grand Inquisitor, Tomas de Torquemada was a Cardinal elector, was from a family of conversos, was something of a Pope maker in several papal elections who used his influence to shield other Jewish converts from discrimination. His nephew obviously had power and used it for other ends.
In the modern period the late Archbishop of Paris, Jean-Marie Lustiger was Jewish, he left instructions to put up an inscription in Notre Dame where his body is in the crypt there along with other Archbishops of Paris:
Je suis né juif. J’ai reçu le nom de mon grand-père paternel, Aron. Devenu chrétien par la foi et le baptême, je suis demeuré juif comme le demeuraient les Apôtres. J’ai pour saints patrons Aron le Grand Prêtre, saint Jean l’Apôtre, sainte Marie pleine de grâce. Nommé 139e archevêque de Paris par Sa Sainteté le pape Jean-Paul II, j’ai été intronisé dans cette cathédrale le 27 février 1981, puis j’y ai exercé tout mon ministère. Passants, priez pour moi.
A translation of the relevant sentences would be.
I was born a Jew. I received the name of my paternal grandfather, Aron. Became a Christian by faith and baptism, I remeain a Jew as the Apostles remained Jews. I have for patrons, Aaron the Great Priest, Saint John the Apostle, Sainte Mary, full of Grace. . .
When he was made an Archbishop he said:
I was born Jewish and so I remain, even if that is unacceptable for many. For me, the vocation of Israel is bringing light to the goyim. That is my hope and I believe that Christianity is the means for achieving it.
The Chief Rabbi of Paris said he went to the Synagogue to recite Kaddish for his mother who was murdered by the Nazis.
He was prominent enough that he was considered a credible candidate to be Pope after JPII died.
Though he was a very conservative Catholic, when he was named Archbishop the vile Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre spoke out against it, antisemitism and even Holocaust denial has found a home in Lefebvre's schismatic sect, The Society of Pius X. Which I like to think means that such people don't find the Post-Vatican II church, even its most conservative part, a comfortable home for them. Even the conservative two most recent popes wanted to leave that as a sin of the past.
I will admit that in church politics and politics in general, I find one of the Bishops Lustiger, JPII and Benedict XVI came down hard on, Jacques Gaillot, to be entirely more admirable. One of a number of liberals he had a hand in sandbagging. He was a conservative and, if you want to consider me a Catholic, I'm on the far left. Though I don't think those labels help much if accurate description is the goal.
There was another recent Jewish Auxiliary Bishop, Jean-Baptiste Gourion, who among other things was assigned to advise the movement of Hebrew Catholics who I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually gain the status as an official Rite of the Catholic Church, with their own distinctive liturgy, tradition and hierarchy.
And there are figures such as the martyr St. Edith Stein whose work I'd like to know more of but there's only so much time to read.
I don't have any right to comment on how Hebrew Catholics view themselves, that's their right and their place to do that. They're Catholics as much as anyone in my family ever was. I don't know much about Protestant messianic Jews so I won't comment on that. I like the idea of Catholics who keep The Law,, or at least take it seriously enough to try to, worship and pray in Hebrew, etc. I like that a lot more than the trad-Catholic stuff with its idolatry of the Tridentine mass- or, rather, their comprehension of it as a talisman of their neo-fascist politics.
Now, aren't you glad you made me say it?
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