Dialogue Press Release
USCC News Release: U.S. Catholic Official Hails New Vatican Document as Breaking Down Catholic Stereotypes about Jews (1985)
USCC News Release: U.S. Catholic Official Hails New Vatican Document as Breaking Down Catholic Stereotypes about Jews by Rev. Kenneth J. Doyle, June 24, 1985
WASHINGTON--An official of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) has called the Vatican's new document on Jews and Judaism "a welcome one, which will help to break down some of the stereotypes many Catholics have grown up with in their under- standing of Jews and Judaism".
The document, called "Notes on the correct way to present Jews and Judaism in preaching and catechesis in the Roman Catholic Church" was issued June 24 by the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and was printed in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano on that same day.
Dr. Eugene Fisher, director of the NCCB's Secretariat for Catholic-Jewish Relations, listed some stereotypical Catholic attitudes which the document will help to counteract: seeing Jews as collectively guilty of the death of Jesus; seeing the Pharisees universally as hypocrites; positing Christianity as a religion of love, mercy and forgiveness over against Judaism as a religion of legalism, justice and strictness; and viewing the Jewish role as God' chosen people as having ended with the coming of Christ.