Catholic Apologetics Online

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Rejected by modern Jews

177. Why do the Jews today still deny the claims of Christ?

Because they are not sufficiently interested to go into the question. Most of them are content with what their fathers before them have believed. Then, too, the Jews have a most strong national bond identified with their religion, and their very sense of isolation from other peoples even whilst in the midst of them keeps them aloof from the religion of others. Furthermore, the Jews still center their hopes and expectations upon a salvation restricted to this world, devoting little thought to the hereafter and to the supernatural. Finally, I think most Jews have a latent consciousness of the ill-treatment to which they have been subject, often most unjustly, by professing Christians; and this in itself would leave a kind of repugnance for the religion of those who injured them, predisposing them against so much as considering its claims.

178. How do the Jews stand in relation to Christianity today?

Judaism as a religion is no longer acceptable to God. The one true religion in this world is the Christian religion. But the Jewish people, as a whole, are a witness to the Christian religion in spite of themselves. They are dispersed everywhere, yet are one race and a permanent feature of this world. They manifest the very predictions of their own Scriptures, and of Christ, by their very refusal to sec the realization of those predictions. They preserve the very texts and prophecies announcing that they will love the promises, yet reject the fulfillment of those promises. It is a marvelous thing. How far individual Jews are responsible to God for their rejection of Christ must, of course, be left to God. The modern Jew would not be nearly so responsible as those Jews who actually saw and heard Christ in person.

179. Would a good and practicing Jew go to heaven, despite his not being baptized a Christian?

Yes, provided through no fault of his own he did not at any time advert to the truth of Christianity, and to the necessity of actual baptism; and provided he sincerely believed Judaism to be still the true religion, and died truly repentant of all serious violations of conscience during life.

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MORE FROM VOLUME 3

• About the Author
• Preface
  - Msgr Fulton J Sheen
• Author's Foreword
  - Dr Rumble, MSC

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