In the previous post, we took a look at Timothy Dolan’s recent editorial in The Freepress wherein he unapologetically proclaimed the following conciliar-Judeo heresy:
Jesus brought about a New Covenant that exists side-by-side with the Old Covenant between God and the Jewish people.
In order to demonstrate the falsity of the above heresy, we referred to a limited number of Scripture passages that unequivocally contradict Dolan’s statement, e.g., Hebrews 8:13, wherein St. Paul cites Jeremiah 31:31-34.
As noted, Dolan wasn’t exactly breaking new ground, rather, he was merely professing a fundamental belief of the false conciliar religion. Readers may recall that the Anti-Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews published a 10,000-word treatment on Nostra Aetate in 2015 that stated:
From the Christian confession there can be only one path to salvation, however, it does not in any way follow that the Jews are excluded from God’s salvation because they do not believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah of Israel and the Son of God.
So much for he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me!
Two years earlier, Francis reaffirmed the conciliar belief in the 2013 Apostolic [sic] Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, stating:
We hold the Jewish people in special regard because their covenant with God has never been revoked. (cf Art. 247)
As discussed in our last post, the Old Covenant most certainly has been revoked, not by God, but by the Jews who continue to reject Christ and therefore the Almighty with whom they were once in a covenant relationship.
What’s more, as stated in Hebrews 8:13, the Old Law has become “obsolete.”
Before we continue, it is necessary to consider this chapter of St. Paul’s Epistle in its fullness:
1 The main point of what has been said is this: we have such a high priest, who has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2 a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle that the Lord, not man, set up. 3 Now every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus the necessity for this one also to have something to offer.
4 If then he were on earth, he would not be a priest, since there are those who offer gifts according to the law. 5 They worship in a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary, as Moses was warned when he was about to erect the tabernacle. For he says, “See that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”
6 Now he has obtained so much more excellent a ministry as he is mediator of a better covenant, enacted on better promises. 7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, no place would have been sought for a second one. 8 But he finds fault with them and says: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will conclude a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 9 It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers the day I took them by the hand to lead them forth from the land of Egypt; for they did not stand by my covenant and I ignored them, says the Lord. 10 But this is the covenant I will establish with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their minds and I will write them upon their hearts. I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 11 And they shall not teach, each one his fellow citizen and kinsman, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know me, from least to greatest. 12 For I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sins no more.”
13 When he speaks of a “new” covenant, he declares the first one obsolete. And what has become obsolete and has grown old is close to disappearing.
The above is taken from the New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE), the same translation used for the Novus Ordo lectionary in the United States.
It’s also the version that one finds on the website for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, along with commentary ostensibly offered for the benefit of the faithful. You know, so they don’t get the wrong impression.
One notes that the first verse of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews, Chapter 8, identifies the “he” who is referenced throughout that text: It is Our Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal High Priest.
Verse eight begins, “But he finds fault with them and says…” At this point, continuing through verse twelve, St. Paul quotes Jeremiah 31:31-34.
NB: The prophet Jeremiah is himself quoting Almighty God. Interestingly, however, St. Paul is letting us know that it is Christ, the eternal High Priest, who is speaking in a particular way. This makes sense insofar as only Jesus Christ can say “I will conclude a new covenant with the house of Israel,” an act that was accomplished by His passion, death, and resurrection.
In the concluding verse, number thirteen, St. Paul – writing before the temple was destroyed in 70 AD – tells us that Our Lord thus declares the Old Covenant “obsolete” and it is “close to disappearing.”
This presents a problem for the USCCB given that the counterfeit church of which they are members believes and professes the exact opposite.
So, what’s an apostate conference of conciliar prelates to do?
The answer is simple: They merely have to suggest that both the New, and the Old, Testaments are mistaken.
The USCCB commentary for Hebrews 8:13 states:
Close to disappearing: from the prophet’s perspective, not that of the author of Hebrews.
The offenses against Our Lord (and reason itself) in this statement are egregious and manifold.
For one, it implies that Jeremiah was merely giving his opinion and, secondly, it dares to suggest that St. Paul disagreed with the prophet (and ultimately Christ), despite the fact that he obviously did not. Lastly, and perhaps worse still, it’s tantamount to a denial of the Divine inspiration that moved the human authors to submit God’s word to writing. In other words, the USCCB is effectively calling the entirety of Sacred Scripture into question.
You can just imagine the spin they put on 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16:
For you, brethren, are become followers of the churches of God which are in Judea, in Christ Jesus: for you also have suffered the same things from your own countrymen, even as they have from the Jews: Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and the prophets, and have persecuted us, and please not God, and are adversaries to all men. (Douay Rheims)
According to the conciliar exegetes at USCCB: Paul … speaks here of persecution by their (pagan) compatriots rather than by Jews.
This is the very steep price one has to pay in order to embrace the conciliar faith: Not only is one required to abandon reason, denying what is obvious, truly, one has to sell their very soul to the Jews.
