Fact Sheets: Representations of Jews and Judaism in Catholic Exegesis, Homiletics, and Catechesis

In 1997, Pope Saint John Paul II lamented that “erroneous and unjust interpretations of the New Testament [about] the Jewish people and their presumed guilt [have] circulated for too long, engendering sentiments of hostility toward this people.”¹ Indeed, as French bishops stated the previous month, “it is a well-proven fact that for centuries … an anti-Jewish tradition stamped its mark in differing ways on Christian doctrine and teaching .… It was on such ground that the venomous plant of hatred for the Jews was able to flourish.”²

In these FACT SHEETS, members of the Catholic Biblical Association of America briefly explain common misrepresentations of Jews when reading the New Testament and offer several remedies, drawing upon current biblical scholarship and Catholic hermeneutical principles. It is hoped that authors, editors, teachers, and preachers will take cognizance of them when writing and speaking about New Testament texts. In this way, they will constructively impart to the Catholic community “an exact knowledge of the wholly unique ‘bond’ (Nostra Aetate, no. 4) which joins us as a Church to the Jews and to Judaism.”³

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1. “Address to Participants in the Vatican Symposium on ‘The Roots of Anti-Judaism in the Christian Milieu,’” October 31, 1997, §1.
2. “Declaration of Repentance,” September 30, 1997 (Read in Drancy, France on the 75th anniversary of the passage of antisemitic laws by the collaborationist Vichy government during the Nazi occupation of France.)
3. Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, “Notes on the Correct Way to Present Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesis in the Roman Catholic Church,” June 24, 1985, §8.