Becca MahoneyCatholics should reconcile the call to witness to their faith with the lived reality and fear of Jews with regard to Christian evangelism and erasure of Jewish identity through forced conversion with understanding, compassion, and friendship. It is vital for Catholics to educate themselves about the history of forced conversion and Christian/Catholic antisemitism, and view it through the lens of repentance—-acknowledging that this happened, and implementing steps to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. Catholics can remember the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 8:13, where he emphatically states that he would rather never eat meat again than cause another person to stumble. Another appropriate scripture is Romans 9:3, where Paul laments that he would rather be cut off from Christ forever if it would save his Jewish kinsmen.
This is the heart I believe Catholics and Christians should have towards the Jewish religion. Understanding for why our faith might very justly cause apprehension to Jews; an attitude of repentance and working to teach others to read scripture in a way that is not anti-Jewish, as Faydra Shapiro mentions, and most of all, friendship and love.
