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Let your speech be “Yes, yes: no, no”; whatever is beyond these comes from the evil one. (Mt. 5:37)

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August 2010

Reprint #93

The Catechetical
Teachings of
Pope St. Pius X

PART 2

St. Pius X is justly known for many things: his fight against Modernism,
the lowering of the age of First Communion, and the formulation of the
Code of Canon Law among them. What is perhaps less known today is
his intense catechetical work. This article, written in 1953 by Don Silvio
Riva, provides some insight into this aspect of his life and pontificate.
The Pope of Catechists
The collaboration of laymen in the catechetical
ministry of priests is not recent. St. Charles
Borromeo organized his catechetical edifice–the
Schools of Christian Doctrine–on numerous lay
personnel: “fishermen,” correctors, assistant teachers,
priors and vice-priors, etc., directly subordinate to the
hierarchical authority: the bishop and parish priest.
In confiding to the laity a form of collaboration, the
saint did not go beyond the disciplinary aspect, the
seeking of new pupils for the “schools,” and, at most,
allowing experienced laymen to go over the usual
notions of the catechism, of which only the priest
is the master in the full sense of the word, for he
alone can explain, comment, and illustrate, however
briefly, Christian doctrine as provided for in the rules
of St. Charles Borromeo.
Pope Pius X was intuitive and brave: he
understood that the number of priests was inferior

to the quantity of work, and that the organization
he desired and prescribed in his encyclical on
catechism–a purely academic organization with
classes, professors, courses, curricula, textbooks–
required a well-prepared body of teachers specially
trained to collaborate with pastors of souls.
In the Encyclical Acerbo Nimis of 1905, for the
first time in the Church and from the mouth of the
Sovereign Pontiff, from the See of Peter, an appeal
was made to the Catholic laity for lay helpers in the
catechetical ministry:
In each and every parish the society known as the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine is to be canonically established.
Through this Confraternity, the pastors, especially in places
where there is a scarcity of priests, will have lay helpers in
the teaching of the Catechism, who will take up the work of
imparting knowledge both from a zeal for the glory of God
and in order to gain the numerous Indulgences granted by
the Sovereign Pontiffs.

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In the letter to Cardinal Respighi promulgating
“his” catechism, Pius X wrote:
We pray God that just as today the increasing numbers and
power of the enemies of the Faith propagate error by every
means, so also will arise great numbers of souls desirous of
zealously assisting the pastors, teachers, and Christian parents
in the teaching of the catechism, a work as noble and fruitful
as it is necessary.

Pius X summons the laity to teach Christian
Doctrine. He had the courage to believe in laymen
and in their potential as collaborators subordinate
to the hierarchy. He was the Pontiff who opened
a magnificent horizon and a fruitful apostolate
to laymen, procuring at the same time good
collaborators for priests responsible for souls.
But Pius X reminds us of the two foundations of
their preparation and formation: religious piety
and catechetical culture, adding to these the
recommendation to understand the child’s soul.
He is the one to officially mark the debut and
development of a new militia in the Church: lay
catechists. For them, he will give a form and a new
soul to an outworn catechetical institution which,
from the time of St. Charles Borromeo, experienced
years of vigorous fervor and influential activity: the
Congregation for Christian Doctrine, which was to
become in some way the Parish Catechetical Office in
which lay catechists and other persons devoted to the
cause of catechism would have their place, specific
functions, and activities.
Pius X, in all truth, ought to be remembered
as the Pope of Catechists because he had faith in
laymen, in the teaching mission flowing from their
collaboration in the hierarchical apostolate.
At Venice, when he was Patriarch, he contributed
to the formation of many catechists. In his letters to
the clergy, he insistently reaffirmed the need to train
lay catechists. In the third appendix of his catechism,
he included wise “counsels to parents and Christian
educators” which still today are a fine summary of
catechetical formation worthy of study, meditation,
and application by all teachers of Christian Doctrine,
priests and laymen, parents and catechists.
I consider it a duty in conscience to offer these
rules here, limiting myself to following them with a
few remarks to enable the pontifical instructions to
be placed in the context of today’s catechetical and
scholastic environment.
To teach catechism is to instruct in the faith and morals of
Jesus Christ; it is to give the children of God consciousness
of their origin, their dignity, and their destiny, and also their
duties; it is to place and develop in their minds the principles
and reasons for religion, virtue, and holiness on earth, and
thus of happiness in heaven.

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These are but a few lines, but they contain a
rational treatise of the motivation for the catechetical
apostolate, which specifies first of all the notion of
religious instruction and relates it to its final end,
which is to impart a Christian conscience to men
by means of education and to remind them of their
destiny here below in terms of the hereafter. From
these fundamental notions, the trainers of catechists
can develop a cycle of religious considerations
founded on solid doctrine apt to convey the true
meaning of apostolic collaboration in catechesis.
The teaching of catechism is therefore the most beneficial
and necessary thing for individuals, the Church, and civil
society; it is the fundamental instruction at the basis of
Christian life, and if it is lacking or has been badly imparted,
Christian life is weak, vacillating, and even likely to expire.

Pius X had a global vision of catechesis, not only
in the domain of evangelization, but also in its social
and civic, humane and individual, communitarian
and cultural, functions. In his apostolic conception,
the Catechism is something essential and great.
He does not hesitate to subordinate to it social
and Christian order, which flourishes where the
knowledge of revealed truths is elevated and
enjoys a necessary prestige. This is a warning and
a reminder to today’s educators, priests and laity,
who, overburdened by their concern for pressing
new works, underestimate the function of catechesis,
postponing or even suppressing it in order to leave
room for other initiatives of a contingent and limited
nature. Corporeal charity is certainly a paramount
work in the Church’s strategy for evangelization, but
if it is not immediately and concurrently accompanied
by the intellectual charity of truth, it becomes sterile.
The social apostolate must have the Catechism as its
foundation and code if it is to be able to lay claim to
the name and spirit of Christian.
Just as Christian parents are the first and principal educators of their children, so also ought they to be their first and
principal catechists: the first, because they should instill the
doctrine received from the Church in their children in early
childhood; the principal, because theirs is the duty to make
the children learn by heart at home the rudiments of the
Faith, beginning with their first prayers, and to have them
repeat them every day so that gradually they will permeate
their children’s souls. Should it happen, as is often the case,
that they are obliged to be assisted by others in this education, they should remember their holy duty to choose the
institutions and persons who can and will conscientiously
fulfill for them so grave a duty. Indifference in this matter
has caused the irreparable loss of very many children. What
an accounting one will have to render to God!

In the hierarchy of lay catechists, parents, their
children’s teachers by nature and grace, hold the
first place. Nature has given them specific gifts for
penetrating their children’s minds and reaching into
their little hearts and touching their weak wills.
If one thinks, for example, of the wealth of feeling
enclosed within a mother’s heart; of the ease and

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suppleness of a mother’s language, capable of being
effortlessly understood even by the youngest as if by
a continuation of the identification of the child with
its mother, one can have a fair idea of the efficacy of
this initial catechesis. It is an irreplaceable catechesis
because other persons, even consecrated to the
formation of young children, lack the efficacy of a
mother. Nature and grace make teachers of parents:
the sacrament of marriage gives them the right to
special graces for fulfilling the educative mission with
which God has invested them. Pius X then descends
into the details of this gentle maternal magisterium,
and his rules should be continually repeated to
contemporary parents. This is an important aspect of
pastors of souls’ ministry of forming the new couple
and young parents who feel the responsibility for their
family and the protection of the new lives entrusted to
their care.
To teach fruitfully, it is necessary to know Christian doctrine; it is necessary to expound it and explain it in a way
adapted to the capacity of the pupils, and, since it concerns
practical doctrine, it is especially necessary to live it.
Doctrine must be known well, for how can one instruct
without being instructed? Hence the parents’ and educators’
duty to review the Catechism and to fully sound its truths
with the aid of broader explanations by priests destined for
adults, by asking competent persons, and by reading, if they
can, appropriate books.

It is an act of honesty and justice for whoever
teaches catechism, even in humble rural schools,
to possess the science one teaches. It should even
be known twice: once for oneself and once for the
others, for it is one thing to know, and another to
teach. Teaching requires culture, in particular in the
domain of Christian doctrine, for which incertitude
of knowledge would bring discredit and contempt
upon the most elevated science, since it comes from
God, was revealed by Jesus Christ, and has been
safeguarded and transmitted by the Catholic Church.
Catechetical culture is not something static which
allows one to stop learning, but is dynamic and
consequently demands being revitalized, increased,
and deepened by means of classes, books, and
journals.
Christian doctrine should be taught in a way adapted to
the pupils, that is to say, with intelligence and love, so that the
children will no longer be disgusted and bored by the teacher
and by the doctrine. That its why it is fitting to put it within
their reach, to use common and simple terms, to awaken
their minds by comparisons and appropriate examples, and
to touch the feelings of their hearts; to exercise the utmost
discretion and measure so as not to tire them; to progress
gradually, without wearying of repetition, and, with patience
and gentleness, to be indulgent for the agitations, distractions,
impertinences, and other defects of this age. One should
especially avoid rote learning, which constrains and leaves
the mind stunted, bringing into play the memory only without
appeal to the mind or heart.

This addresses, in summary, the didactic
problem and the pedagogical problem expressed in
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a simple way that even the humblest catechists can
understand. About this problem illustrious names
and top authorities in the domain of education have
written books and treatises, and continue to do so.
St. Pius X expressed the essence of the immense
problem, and with grace and simplicity exposes it
to Catholic catechists so that they can understand
it and resolve it by means of the brief but very wise
rules he suggests. The didactics of catechism, apart
from the scientific definitions that have been given
and which could be given, amounts to this: to make
oneself understood by children when speaking to
them and to understand children when they speak
to us. Today, after discussing pedagogy at length,
it is necessary to render to didactics–which is not
something apart or distinct from pedagogy, but is
rather a constitutive element of pedagogy and linked
to it–its role in catechism class, but without slipping
into “didacticism,” which diminishes the dignity of
school, depriving it of its soul to reduce it to a batch of
formulas and techniques. The success of catechetical
schools today is partly due to a healthy didactic,
serene and active, linked to the value of children’s
language as the instrument of communication for
the science. The rules of pedagogy dictated in these
counsels call to mind St. John Bosco and his ardent yet
gentle spirit.
Finally, live the faith and morals one teaches, or else how
will one have the courage to teach the children the religion
one does not practice, the commandments and precepts one
neglects before their very eyes? In such a case, what fruit
can be hoped for? On the contrary, the parents will discredit
themselves and will accustom their children to indifference
toward contempt of the most necessary principles and the
holiest duties of life.

To teach well, more than knowledge is required;
it demands coherence between knowledge and life,
between school and the teacher’s personal conduct.
The first lesson of the catechism is not “spoken,” but
lived. The first textbook is not between the children’s
hands, but is the person of the catechist who, by his
presence, deportment, life and works, teaches even
before speaking. It scarcely needs to be said that the
catechetical teaching given to children and grown-ups
is not limited to imparting theoretical knowledge of
religious notions, but is only complete when it helps
the catechumens to believe the truths they have learned
and to live them in their daily life. The catechism is
not only culture but knowledge for life, a moral code,
an itinerary of faith, and a directory of graces.
And since today there is a generalized atmosphere of incredulity fatal to the spiritual life and that militates against every
idea of a superior authority, of God, of revelation, of a future
life, of mortification, parents and educators must inculcate the
fundamental truths of the first notions of the catechism with

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apostolates of our time. St. Pius X thought and saw
with the eyes of saints, which are the eyes of Christ.
utmost care. They must inspire the children with the Christian notion of life, the sense of their responsibility for all of
their actions before the supreme Judge, who is everywhere,
who knows all and sees all, and they must infuse in them the
holy fear of God, the love of Christ and the Church, a taste
for charity and solid piety, and esteem for the virtues and
Christian practices. Only then will the education of children
be founded, not on the sand of shifting ideas and human
respect, but on the rock of supernatural convictions that will
not be shaken for their whole life despite the tempests.

The Catechism is a summary of Christian
doctrine; however, Pius X takes pains to specify
which “chapters” must be held to be essential for the
formation of the Christian of our days, and he sets out
a short doctrinal itinerary: 1) the Christian notion of
life; 2) the sense of our responsibility for every one
of our acts before Almighty God, who knows all and
sees all; 3) the fear of God; 4) love of Christ and the
Church; 5) a taste for charity, piety, and esteem for
the virtues and Christian practices.
At nearly a century’s remove from the articulation
of these rules, we are in a position to evaluate their
importance and essential character: generations of
Christians have been formed by the Catechism of
St. Pius X. These are the generations that gave the
impetus to the works of Catholic Action and the
secular religious institutes that miraculously flourished
in the Church, and which provided and still provide
the men and ideas for the social and caritative

For all of this one must have a lively faith, a profound
esteem of the value of souls and spiritual goods, and the wise
love that strives to assure above all the eternal happiness of
the souls of those one holds dear. One must also have a special grace to understand the character of children and to find
the path to their minds and their hearts. Christian parents,
by virtue of the sacrament of marriage well received, have a
right to the graces of their state and thus to those necessary
for the Christian education of their children. Moreover, they
can by humble prayer obtain even more abundant graces for
this same end, for it is a work particularly agreeable to God
that they rear adorers and obedient and pious children. Let
them do so, then, whatever the sacrifices: it is question of the
eternal salvation of their children’s souls and of their own.
God will bless their faith and their love in this work of capital importance, and will reward them by the pre-eminently
desirable gift of holy children eternally happy with them in
heaven.

These rules are addressed firstly to Christian
parents, but they do not exclude the category of
teachers and parish catechists who conceive of their
school as a community and a spiritual family. These
Pius X reminds of their educative responsibility,
but he also reminds them of the graces and divine
assistance, concluding with the thought of heaven,
which is the school’s prize and highest and most
desirable reward.
Translated from the Courrier de Rome, January 2010, pp. 6-8

An Invitation to Return to the Sources:
A Contribution to Interreligious Dialogue
Discussion with non-Catholic
institutions is not an invention
of Vatican II, as a reading of
some passages of the New
Testament shows. The first Pope
to enter a synagogue, after
all, was not John Paul II…
Those who think that before the Council,
Catholicism never experienced debate or opposition

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are mistaken. They are also mistaken who think that
in the past the Church was no match for those who
did not consider themselves to be her children.
Discussion, which is the basic instrument of
intercourse with others, whether individuals or
groups, has always been employed since the dawn of
Christianity, beginning with the Lord Himself, who,
the model of every perfection, is also the model of
relations with the world of His time, with the civil and
religious institutions with which He was in contact
and which He confronted in Palestine two thousand
years ago. What originated with the Council, on the
contrary, is a new and atypical way of establishing
relations with the institutions of our time, whether
religious or not. This change is radical because the
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:

goal of dialogue and relations with contemporary
interlocutors seems to be radically different.
Given that this shift, as all the conciliar shifts,
is presented as a return to the primitive spirit of
Christianity, quite obviously betrayed by medieval,
Tridentine, and post-Tridentine clericalism, we have
interrogated the sources themselves, giving preference
to the most ancient. And as the Tradition of the
Church is sometimes opposed to holy Scripture, of
which it was not always the faithful sister, we have
looked for satisfactory responses to our questions only
in Sacred Scripture, and more precisely in certain
passages of the Gospel according to St. Luke, the
author also of the Acts of the Apostles, the interpreter
and faithful companion of the Apostle to the Gentiles.
Naturally, at the time of the Apostles there
were no Protestants, Orthodox, or Muslims. It was
inevitable that Jesus and the Apostles should be in
contact primarily with the local religion of Palestine
and the communities of the Diaspora. But how was
the confrontation with the Synagogue of the era
envisaged? We have selected three significant passages
in which our Lord, St. Peter, and St. Stephen furnish
us more than satisfactory indications. We shall leave
the reader to draw his own conclusions, limiting
ourselves to a brief commentary.

Jesus’ Visit to the Synagogue of
Nazareth: The Gospel According
to St. Luke, 4:14-30
Let us first remark that, contrary to a widespread
opinion, the first Christian religious leader to enter
a synagogue was not John Paul II in 1986, but Jesus
himself, whose example was followed by the Apostles
and in particular St. Paul.
Let us note also that Jesus enters a synagogue to
announce the Gospel, the New Covenant: He applies
unequivocally to Himself one of the most famous
Messianic passages of the Prophet Isaias. This way
of proceeding contains a very important message:
Jesus shows that the Old Testament spoke of Him,
that it has a meaning in relation to Himself, and that
the prophecies it contains became reality with His
Incarnation. Consequently, after the Incarnation, a
reading of the Old Testament that would prescind
from our Lord would be not only incomplete, but
wayward and injurious, somewhat like a cloak
designed, woven, and made for Christ Himself but
placed on the shoulders of someone else.
The reaction of Jesus’ compatriots is well
described by St. Luke. On the one hand they are
taken aback by His knowledge and wisdom; on
the other hand, they refuse to recognize Him as
the Messias. “While the wisdom shown by Jesus
should have attracted them to the faith, it became
for them, on the contrary, a stumbling block.
Blinded by their prejudices, they did not want to
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acknowledge that the Messias could be a carpenter’s
son; and they argue from Jesus’ obscure birth to the
rejection of His doctrine, saying contemptuously: ‘Is
not this the son of Joseph?’” (Fr. M. Sales, O.P., The
New Testament, I, 234).
Then Jesus openly reproaches them for their lack
of faith (for the demand for new miracles is caused
by incredulity) and the Nazarenes even decide to kill
Him. But He miraculously slips away. A certain initial
enthusiasm is succeeded by a tragic end.
The visits of John Paul II and Benedict XVI to
the Synagogue of Rome certainly have an historical
dimension, but the tenor of the dialogue, the content
of the speeches, and the specific finality of the events
were radically different and, in a certain sense,
diametrically opposed: He who had been the object
of the first evangelization is practically missing from
the official speeches, and the episode resulted in a
general climate of eirenism. The recent visits did
not constitute a new fact, but the spirit and goal that
characterized them were new: the Gospel is no longer
announced, and the validity and irrevocability of the
Old Covenant, the one Jesus replaced in word and
in deed as surely as Jacob supplanted Esau his elder
brother, were reconfirmed.
Unfortunately, we did not hear in the Synagogue
of Rome the gentle, irresistible words with which
Jesus introduced Himself to the Synagogue of
Nazareth: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me.
Wherefore he hath anointed me to preach the gospel
to the poor: he hath sent me to heal the contrite of
heart, to preach deliverance to the captives and sight
to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to
preach the acceptable year of the Lord and the day
of reward…. This day is fulfilled this scripture in your
ears.”
From a theological standpoint, the exclusion
of Jews today from the preaching of the New
Covenant paradoxically stands out as a new form of
discrimination and anti-Semitism. Faced with this
danger, Jesus explicitly imposes on us the duty not to
exclude anyone from the preaching of His Kingdom
and to invite every man, however recalcitrant, to
convert: “Going therefore, teach ye all nations:
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe
all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Mt.
28: 19-20). “He that believeth and is baptized shall be
saved; but he that believeth not shall be condemned”
(Mk. 16:16).
Jesus Himself teaches us in the gospel passage of
St. Luke to carry out this necessary evangelization
even at the risk of our life for our neighbor’s sake.

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Peter Before the Sanhedrin: The
Acts of the Apostles, 4:5-21
This passage of the Acts has considerable
testimonial value. Not only is it a very ancient text
contained in Sacred Scripture, but it contains one of
the first speeches of the first Pope pronounced after
Pentecost. It is a matter of the Petrine magisterium in
the most literal and authentic sense of the term.
The speech is clear, concise, simple, and
unambiguous. It contains an unequivocal invitation to
convert based on the absolute necessity of adhering
to our Lord for salvation. Let us note that St. Peter is
speaking to Jewish doctors; the principle holds for all
and above all for them as the first interlocutors of the
Apostles: the Old Covenant is hence replaced by the
New. Let us note lastly that St. Peter is in a position of
inferiority: he is convoked by the Sanhedrin, which
might not let him go. Confronted by the Sanhedrin’s
threats, he does not back down: It is impossible for
him to keep quiet about what he has seen and heard
without disobeying God. In effect, the proclamation
of the Lord and of the New and Eternal Covenant
to the Jewish people is not an option, but a necessity
because it flows from the need to adhere to it in order
to be saved.

The Judgment and Martyrdom
of St. Stephen: The Acts of the
Apostles, 6:8-10, 7:54-60
We invite the reader to read the debate between
St. Stephen and the Synagogue. In particular, we
point out a very important detail. There is a statement
made by St. Stephen after which the dialogue is
brusquely broken off. It is the crucial affirmation of
the New Testament, the ultimate content of every
Christian affirmation, the first source of all truth: the
assertion of the divinity of Jesus Christ.
Any discussion, dialogue, or debate with any
interlocutor only has meaning if it leads to this crucial
assertion. Without this supreme end, nothing we say
or witness to has any meaning. The Synagogue of the
era grasped very well the centrality and in particular
the implications of this affirmation. Hearing it, the
Jews stopped up their ears; the dialogue was over,
and there were only two options left: conversion or
crime. Unfortunately, they chose the second, but
later, one of theirs, Saul, chose the first, for the calls
of our Lord to conversion and the possibility of
regeneration by His grace never cease.
This is what we would also like to remind every
man on earth, whatever religion he may have, and–if
needs be–churchmen, too.

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But rather than accept the error that anyone–
whatever nation he may belong to–can be saved
without entering into the New and Eternal Covenant
established by Jesus, sealed by His blood and marked
by His cross, we prefer martyrdom: “Extra Ecclesiam
nulla salus.”

The Validity of the Old Covenant
in Light of Contemporary
Official Documents
On this vexed question (which in reality did not
become vexed until the Council), we decided to
interrogate a very recent source: the [new] Catechism
of the Catholic Church, which provides us some
indications in paragraphs 839-840. Since it concerns a
current topic about which some interest is expressed
by Catholics as well as by Jews, it seemed necessary
to us to make an effort to understand what the official
line today is on this crucial point. To begin with, the
matter is neither simple nor clear. For, on the one
hand it is reaffirmed that the Old Covenant is an
irrevocable gift and thus still valid; and on the other,
it is often reiterated today–for example, in official
speeches–that Jesus Christ is the only Savior for all
men; reminders of this in the Encyclical Dominus
Jesus occur frequently. We find ourselves before one
of these paradoxes from which, in an authentically
Hegelian vision, is supposed to surge the dynamism
of truth–a “living” truth for which contradictions are
not an obstacle and which is constantly measured
against them so as to outstrip them and confront new
ones in a dialectical process that will terminate only
at the end of History.
Let us examine this fundamental text:

The Church and non-Christians
839. “Those who have not yet received the Gospel are
related to the People of God in various ways” [Lumen Gentium 16].
The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People. When
she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of
God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish
People [cf. Nostra Aetate 4], “the first to hear the Word of God”
[Roman Missal, Good Friday, General Intercessions, VI]. The
Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already
a response to God’s revelation in the Old Covenant. To the
Jews “belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving
of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong
the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the
Christ” [Rom. 9:4-5], “for the gifts and the call of God are
irrevocable” [Rom. 11:29].
840. And when one considers the future, God’s People of
the Old Covenant and the new People of God tend towards
similar goals: expectation of the coming (or the return) of
the Messiah. But one awaits the return of the Messiah who
died and rose from the dead and is recognized as Lord and
Son of God; the other awaits the coming of a Messiah, whose
features remain hidden till the end of time; and the latter
waiting is accompanied by the drama of not knowing or of
misunderstanding Christ Jesus.

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In this official text we find satisfactory responses
to our questions, especially in light of the second
paragraph. Let us begin with the irrevocability of the
gifts made by God to Israel.
The Old Covenant would still be valid at present
in its salvific function, for it is considered as an
irrevocable gift by the Jewish people independently of
the kind of response historically given it by the latter.
Consequently, the fact that it had been established by
God with Israel to prepare the coming of the Savior
Jesus, who was not recognized, would not annul its
salvific worth today. It would seem to be the only pact
in history that remains valid even though one of the
parties does not respect the terms of the pact.
The traditional interpretation, with particular
reference to Romans 11:29, is completely different:
God will not abandon His people, for one day He will
also convert it to Christ and thus save it, but this will
not happen by virtue of a still-valid Old Covenant, but
thanks to the tardy integration of the Jewish people
into the New and Eternal Covenant.
Here is how a learned exegete explained it:
God will not abandon his people, enriched by so many
gifts and privileges, but one day He will show them mercy
and He will convert them en masse to the faith….The Apostle
particularly calls it a vocation not only because it is the first
privilege, but also because in it are contained all the others.
These gifts are without repentance because God has sworn it
to the Patriarchs, so that, though by its infidelity Israel is now
rejected so that in the mean time the Gentiles may enter the
Church, God will not fail in His promise, and one day He will
convert it and show that He has not abandoned His people.
(Fr. M. Sales, O.P., New Testament, II, 79)

The two perspectives are opposite and irreducible,
and their divergence is not the result of a homo­
geneous development of dogma but of a break with
Tradition: Here the hermeneutic of continuity compels
us to refuse the new doctrine.
As regards the contradiction between the
necessity of adhering to Christ for salvation and the
current validity of the Old Covenant, paragraph 840
is masterly: while the Christians await the second
coming of the Messias whom they have already
recognized in the person of Jesus, the Jewish people
await him for the first time because currently “his
features remain hidden,” he is still not known to them
and they are in a state of ignorance. Thus Christians
and Jews “tend toward similar goals”; even though
they believe in different things, they converge
toward the same goal. In other words, the Jews are
also currently waiting for Christ without knowing it;
consequently, they are also saved, but–unlike the rest
of common mortals–by doing without the Church, the
society of those who have already recognized Him.
The ingeniousness is only apparent.
First, Jesus made Himself known universally, and
He began to do so in the midst of the Jewish people
to whom the Messias had first been promised: That is
why the shepherds of Bethlehem and the first Apostles
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and disciples were all Jews without exception; it was
in the midst of His own people that Jesus met with the
first acceptances as well as the first refusals.
Secondly, it does not seem fair to the Jews to
qualify them as ignorant about this point. They know
very well the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth, and
it is precisely for that reason that they refuse to descry
in Him the traits of the Messias. This is because,
quite simply, the historical figure of Jesus does not
correspond to the messianic canons proper to the
Judaism of today nor to those of official Judaism two
thousand years ago.
From an historical view point, there is no people
in the world that has been so closely in contact with
Christ and Christianity over the last two thousand
years as the Jewish people. This contact has allowed
the Jews a sufficiently developed knowledge of
Jesus and of Catholicism, and has given them the
opportunity to elaborate and expound conscious
motivations for non-adherence to Jesus Christ.
There could be an unconscious expectation of
Christ where real ignorance exists (something like
what occurs in Virgil’s famous Eclogue IV), but there
cannot be expectation of someone where there subsists an
explicit refusal of that person. The root of the error is
logical even before being theological. For example,
it can happen that a girl is waiting for the ideal man
of her life whom she does not yet know and whom
she hopes to meet one day; but it is unthinkable that
she should both await and reject the same man (who
obviously is known, in order to be rejected).
Finally, to describe the Jews as ignorant risks
betraying a touch of hypocrisy for a simple reason:
When someone’s ignorance is recognized, the moral
duty remains to instruct that person in the thing of
which he is ignorant, especially if the knowledge
lacking is fairly important. If churchmen today were
sincere and consistent, they would do all they could
to try to evangelize and convert those who do not
yet know Christ, whosoever they might be, in order
to lead them to His Church. Contrariwise, on the
one hand they characterize the Jews as ignorant,
and on the other they declare that “there is not, in
the strongest terms, any change in the attitude the
Catholic Church has developed toward Jews, above
all beginning with the Second Vatican Council,” and
“it is not the intention of the Catholic Church to
operate actively for the conversion of Jews” (Cardinal
Bagnasco, September 22, 2009, Zenit.org).
All the related affirmations, and the contradictions
linked to them, are instruments serving to justify
the new theology and the new attitude inherent to
the vexed question. We shall only cite one, which is

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25

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quoted by the text we have examined. It is question
of the famous Good Friday prayer contained in
the Missal of Paul VI: for the Jews, conversion to
Catholicism is not sought, but rather progress in
fidelity to a covenant (the old one) which Catholic
doctrine considers to have ended since the day the
Church, the new Israel, was born: “That they may
continue to grow in the love of his name and in
faithfulness to his covenant.” Clearly, the prayer
makes reference to the covenant to which the Jews
lay claim today.
It may seem to be a quibble, but such a view is
tantamount to recognition that the Synagogue has
a legitimate, complete, and efficacious mission for
the salvation of souls: precisely what churchmen do
not recognize the Society of St. Pius X to have. This
paradox perfectly explains the unease the Jewish
world experiences over the eventuality of discussing
some parts of Vatican II to which it shows itself very
attached; this surprising attachment of the Jewish
world to the teachings of an Ecumenical Council has
no precedent in the Church’s history.
To return to paragraph 840, the theory of
“convergent bimessianism”–if we may call it thus–is
a theological alteration that links together and makes
coincide a thing and its negation, being and nonbeing, Christ and the Negation of Christ.
Assuredly, the Jewish people will also recognize
Jesus at the end of time, but this will happen thanks
to a genuine conversion and not to an unconsciously
convergent dynamism toward Christ already at work:
this dynamism only exists in the minds of those who
desire an idealist unity that no longer adheres to the
Truth, the Gospel, or Reality.
The theory of “convergent bimessianism”
is absurd and does not correspond to any

26

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authentically Catholic thought, nor authentically
Jewish thought, nor authentically logical thought.
It cannot function as a solid platform for a
serious and dispassionate confrontation with
Judaism. To present it as a Catholic doctrine
does not seem to us to be fair to Catholics or
Jews or, above all, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Don David Pagliarani
Translated from the Courrier de Rome, April 2010, pp. 1-6. The article was first
published in La Tradizione Cattolica, No. 1, 2010.

THE ANGELUS • August 2010 www.angeluspress.org