The headlines a short while ago announced that the Vatican doesn’t any longer seek to convert Jews.
I read further and found Yoram Hazony’s article on the subject. If you are interested in either of these subjects, Jewish conversion or the Catholic Church, I recommend Hazony’s thoughts.
The issue is whether the creation of Christianity has replaced Jehovah’s covenant with the Jews. The Catholic Church, from its earliest teachings, has claimed that god (other than Jehovah?) sent a living Jew to be killed by the Romans in order to expiate ‘original sin’. It is ironic that the Catholic Church should use the Roman language and the Roman territory as its own language and its own capital.
Hazony has argued effectively that the media headlines are wishful thinking. The Catholic Church could never change its position on such a tentpole of Christian theology. He finds that in the most recent Vatican Commission on the subject there is a desire to make this change but also an acknowledgement that the Vatican can’t change this core theology.
My own personal comment and observation is that Jehovah seems to still have a special covenant with the (we) Jews. Most recently he recreated a homeland, resurrected the Hebrew language and created a nation that has all of its earlier military and moral prowess.
Moreover, since Jews were driven out of Spain and settled in Holland, they have played a central role in creating the modern commercial world, where the tiny population of Jews has gained inordinate benefits and influence.
While the Shoah is a horrific reality, and the ubiquitous nature of Jew hate has not changed, Thomas Sowell has pointed out that all landless peoples are hated. That includes overseas Chinese, overseas Japanese, the Rom people, gays and others including Jews. The Shoah was a unique coalescing of this hatred of landless people and modern German bureaucratic excess.
I don’t expect the Catholic Church to change its core theology but, I personally don’t see evidence that the original covenant between Jehovah and the Jews has been replaced by Christianity.