The Vatican has issued a new document rejecting the concept of changing one’s biological sex. This is a setback for transgender people who had hoped Pope Francis might be setting the stage for a more welcoming approach from the Catholic Church. World Religions Around the world, major religions have diverse approaches to gender identity, and Read more
Every Christian should have a deep respect for Judaism. When we consider that our Lord Jesus, our Blessed Mother Mary, St. Joseph, the twelve apostles, and the very first disciples were practicing religious Jews. We also need to consider that the Christian New Testament is firmly rooted in the Jewish Scriptures of the Old Testament. Read more
To understand the Eucharist, we must remember that Jesus and his first disciples were all Jews. We might even say the first Christians were Jewish heretics because, unlike their fellow Jews, they believed Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah. After Pentecost, the Jewish Christians continued to go to the temple to pray. If they were Read more
A papal knighthood is a rare honour. Even more so is being honoured as a Papal Knight of St Gregory. Jewish Papal Knights of St Gregory are even rarer. The order, established in 1831, recognises personal service or unusual labour in support of the Catholic Church. Rabbi A. James Rudin, the longtime interreligious affairs director Read more
Before he converted to Judaism Abraham, Carmel had served as a Catholic priest for 10 years. And the Catholic Church was not his first spiritual home. He had grown up in London in an Anglican family and turned to Catholicism in his 20s. Read more
Collecting and exhibiting hundreds of artefacts is a huge task – and when the person doing the work’s only aim is to share their culture and religion with no thought to making a profit, it’s a labour of love. That’s the sort of exhibition Michael Clements, president of the New Zealand Jewish Archives has just Read more
The Catholic and Jewish communities in Rome have collaborated to create an exhibition of menorah, the seven-candled Hebrew lamp. The menorah is an ancient symbol of faith. Rome’s Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni said the unprecedented joint exhibition, more than three years in the making, showed the “evolution in the dialogue between Jews and Catholics”. The exhibition Read more
247. We hold the Jewish people in special regard because their covenant with God has never been revoked, for “the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” (Rom 11:29). The Church, which shares with Jews an important part of the sacred Scriptures, looks upon the people of the covenant and their faith as one Read more
During the final day of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Pope Francis made an emotional visit to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. On May 26, the Pope kissed the hands of half a dozen Holocaust survivors and heard their stories of persecution by the Nazis. He left an inscription in the Yad Read more
In a few weeks, at the end of this month, Pope Francis will follow in the footsteps of his immediate two papal predecessors, by making a religious/diplomatic pilgrimage to the Holy Land to visit Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Pope John Paul II did so in March 2000, and Pope Benedict visited in 2009. Read more