On January 2nd of this year, the Roman Rite throughout the world solemnly honored the Most Holy Name of Jesus. The Lesson for Holy Mass on this day is taken from Acts 4:8-12, a text that lays bare the Judeo-apostasy that permeates the conciliar church wherein Our Lord is openly denied.
Before considering the scene depicted in therein, let’s begin by setting the stage (cf. Acts 3).
At 3 pm, the hour at which Our Blessed Lord died on the Cross, Peter and John went into the Temple where they encountered a man who was lame from birth. St. Peter healed the man, saying, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, arise, and walk.”
Those who witnessed the miraculous event were astonished. Peter, no doubt moved by the Holy Ghost as on Pentecost, immediately seized the opportunity to both convict and to invite the unbelieving Jews, urging them to embrace the solitary way of salvation.
He declared that it was not by his own power that the lame man was healed, but by the Most Holy Name of Jesus, “the author of life you killed, whom God hath raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses” (Acts 3:15).
Having spoken this harsh truth, Peter – the Vicar of Christ, in imitation of Our Lord who prayed from the Cross, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34) – softened the blow, saying, “I know that you did it through ignorance, as did also your rulers” (Acts 3:17).
Peter then urged the Jews to repent and be converted, that their sins may be forgiven: “Be penitent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out” (Acts 3:17)
Note the pattern: Condemnation of evil, correction, evangelization.
As word spread about what had happened that afternoon, the Scriptures tell us, some five thousand men came to believe in Christ!
This angered the Jewish leaders greatly and so they apprehended the Apostles, holding them captive overnight. The following day, they brought Peter and John before Anas the high priest and other Temple officials where they were interrogated, “By what power, or by what name, have you done this?” (cf. Acts 4:1-7)
This is where the Lesson for the liturgy begins:
Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said to them: Ye princes of the people, and ancients, hear: If we this day are examined concerning the good deed done to the infirm man, by what means he hath been made whole: Be it known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God hath raised from the dead, even by Him this man standeth here before you whole. This is the stone which was rejected by you the builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved.
Once again: Condemnation, correction, evangelization.
Whether addressing the masses in the Temple or appearing like criminals before the doctors of the law, the circumstances demanded that the Apostles speak the truth, without any regard for the worldly price they might pay for doing so. Likewise, one notes, their testimony culminated in proclaiming the Good News that, in Christ, the prayer of David has at last been answered, “Show us, O Lord, thy mercy; and grant us thy salvation” (Psalm 84:8).
This is what the one true Church of Christ always does; her sacred ministers “preach the word in season and out of season: they reprove, entreat, rebuking in all patience and doctrine” (cf. 2 Tim 4:2).
The Jewish leaders, however, were unmoved.
The Scriptures go on to tell us that Anas and his cohort “wondered,” knowing that Peter and John “were illiterate and ignorant men.” They could see with their own eyes that the man once lame, a man they knew well, had been healed as he too was present standing among them. As such, we are told, “they could say nothing.”
They even plainly acknowledged that “indeed a known miracle hath been done by them, to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem: it is manifest, and we cannot deny it” (Acts 4:16).
They commanded the Apostles to depart from their midst so they might “confer among themselves,” that is, they wished to conspire in crafting a strategic response that would protect their powerful positions. Having done so, the Jewish leaders agreed to “threaten Peter and John that they speak no more in this name to any man” (Acts 4:17).
Note well that the chief priests and ancients were not content to insist that Peter and John stop preaching Christ to the Jews, in the Temple or otherwise, but rather did they insist that they not speak the Holy Name to any man!
In other words, they boldly demanded that the Apostles cease carrying out the Divine Commission that was given to them by Our Lord, “to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever that He had commanded” (cf. Mt. 28:18-20).
Peter and John, however, gave answer, “For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.”
In response, the Jewish leaders very much desired to punish Peter and John, but they decided that doing so was ill advised – not for fear of rousing God’s righteous anger – but “because of the people” who may be stirred to indignation, and so they warned the Apostles to silence and released them.
With Peter at the fore, the Apostles continued their mission, condemning evil; making correction; evangelizing the people in the Most Holy Name of Jesus.
“The multitude of men and women who believed in the Lord was more increased,” as were the miracles done in His name. Before long, persons from neighboring cities flooded into Jerusalem bringing their sick and suffering, laying them before the Apostles, and all were healed. (cf. Acts 5)
Anas and the other Jewish leaders were incensed. “Filled with envy” they once again arrested and imprisoned the Apostles, and forced them to appear before the high priest. He reminded them of their sentence: “Commanding we commanded you, that you should not teach in this name.” (ibid.)
Our first pope and the bishops in union with him stood firm: “But Peter and the Apostles answering, said: We ought to obey God, rather than men” (Acts 5:29).
At this, one might have expected the Apostles to rest their case, but they did not; they were men on a mission, one that was given to them by Christ the King to whom all authority in heaven on earth belongs. So, looking the high priest and his companions in the eye, they declared:
The God of our fathers hath raised up Jesus, whom you put to death, hanging him upon a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right hand, to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins. (Acts 5:30-31)
Note the nature of the crime for which the Apostles convicted the Jews – both leaders and people, not as individuals, but collectively – as repeated in Acts 3-5:
Jesus whom you killed, whom you crucified, whom you put to death.
To this the Catholic Church attests, and she must, because it’s the truth.
Fast forward to “our time,” or as it is said in Latin, Nostra Aetate, which also happens to be the name of the Vatican II document that ostensibly addresses the Church’s relationship with the Jews.
As we proceed to examine the conciliar text and consider how it came to be, bear well in mind the broader lesson for the Most Holy Name of Jesus and what it tells us concerning the one true Church’s authentic relationship with the Jews.
Let’s being with the introduction to Nostra Aetate:
In our time, when day by day mankind is being drawn closer together, and the ties between different peoples are becoming stronger, the Church examines more closely her relationship to non-Christian religions. (NA 1)
So, when the Council speaks in the text about Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Jews, it’s very specifically addressing the Church’s relationship with these peoples such as it is “in our time.” In other words, what follows is a declaration concerning present day circumstances. This is obvious, indeed, but of the utmost importance to keep in mind as we continue.
In Article 4 of the Declaration, the Council begins by stating its specific purpose with respect to the Jews, saying:
As the sacred synod searches into the mystery of the Church, it remembers the bond that spiritually ties the people of the New Covenant to Abraham’s stock. (NA 4)
The Council is making it clear that what follows addresses the relationship between two distinct groups of people; the Baptized, on the one hand, and the Jews on the other, aka those who refuse Baptism (otherwise they too would be people of the New Covenant). The text sums up the state of this relationship, in our day, as follows:
Indeed, the Church believes that by His cross, Christ, Our Peace, reconciled Jews and Gentiles, making both one in Himself. (ibid.)
Now, I ask, is it true that Christ, by His Cross, reconciled the Jews in our time with the people of the New Covenant, “making both one in Himself?”
Of course not! This unity is affected in no other way but through Baptism whereby “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free man” (cf. Galatians 3:28).
Furthermore, this Baptism is the solitary way of salvation, which is why charity requires the Church to convict Abraham’s stock for their role in Our Lord’s crucifixion and to call upon them to “be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, that you may save yourselves from this perverse generation” (cf. Acts 2:36-40).
Now, pay very close attention to the following words of St. Paul:
For He is our peace, who hath made both one, and breaking down the middle wall of partition, the enmities in His flesh: Making void the law of commandments contained in decrees; that He might make the two in Himself into one new man, making peace; And might reconcile both to God in one body by the Cross, killing the enmities in Himself. (Ephesians 2:14-16)
Clearly, St. Paul is referring exclusively to those Gentiles and Jews who accepted the invitation to Baptism when he states that they are “reconciled” and “both one.” This too is entirely obvious, and yet Nostra Aetate cites this very passage (Eph. 2:14-16) in its footnotes as justification for its declaration that the Jews of our time and the Gentiles have been made one in the Cross of Christ.
As every man of good will can plainly see, the Council is teaching a grave error, a flat out lie founded upon a blasphemous twisting of Sacred Scripture.
St. Paul’s words are clear, Our Lord “made void the law of commandments,” and yet the Jews of our time, with the encouragement of the conciliar church, cling to false hope of salvation in the Old Covenant even as they steadfastly refuse Baptism. These are the same commandments of which the Council of Trent declared “but not even the Jews by the very letter itself of the law of Moses, were able to be liberated.”
With this in mind, the impact of the Council’s grave error comes into full view:
You see, if indeed, as the Council audaciously declared, the Jews of our time really are one with the Gentiles by the Cross of Christ, then the unavoidable implication of this false doctrine is that the Jews are presently a party to God’s salvific covenant, even apart from Baptism.
In point of fact, this is exactly what the conciliar church believes and teaches.
For instance, in honor of the 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate in 2015, Cardinal Kurt Koch, head of the Pontifical Council for Relations with the Jews, made it perfectly clear that the conciliar church in no way considers faith in Jesus Christ, much less Baptism, necessary for salvation for “Abraham’s stock,” declaring:
It does not necessarily 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.
This is just one of many such declarations made by the conciliar church.
How did this happen? What moved the Second Vatican Council to issue its patently false teaching on “Abraham’s stock,” one that effectively abandoned the Church’s mission to the Jews as carried out by the Apostles and recorded in Sacred Scripture?
The answer is simple: The Council Fathers under the headship of Paul the Pathetic, unlike the Apostles in union with Peter, acquiesced to the unholy demands of the Jewish leaders.
A 2015 article in America Magazine highlights the role of one Jewish leader in particular, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, lauding him for his influence over the Council.
During the years of the council, Rabbi Heschel met Pope Paul VI and asked him to support Jewish requests against the accusation of deicide and against the mission to the Jews.
Heschel was a theological consultant of the American Jewish Committee. He was also a close friend of Cardinal Augustin Bea, the Jesuit head of the Secretariat for Christian Unity. Together, the two men hammered out what eventually became the Council’s diabolical treatment of the Church’s relationship with the Jews in Nostra Aetate.
America reports:
From the very beginning, Rabbi Heschel worked hard to remove from the teaching of the Catholic Church any anti-Semitic words and any reference to a mission of the church for the conversion of the Jews.
At this, let it be said that the Church has always firmly denounced genuine anti-Semitism. What Heschel and his kind truly desired, and achieved, was a redefinition of the offense to include any suggestion that the Jews had a hand in the killing of Christ, much less that they should repent and be Baptized that they may be saved.
The article continues:
In May 1962 he [Heschel] presented a memorandum in which he asked the council fathers to eliminate once and for all any accusation of deicide on the part of the Jewish people, to acknowledge the integrity and the perpetuity of the election of Jews in the history of salvation and, lastly, to give up proselytizing Jews.
The result is undeniable. The conciliar church has repeatedly made it crystal clear, in obedience to Heschel and his constituents, that it is pleased to promote the false notion that the Jews are presently in a perpetual salvific covenant relationship with God, despite having rejected Christ who said, “He who rejects me rejects Him who sent me” (Luke 10:16).
John Paul the Great Ecumenist, for example, addressed the Jews in 1980 as “the people of God of the Old Covenant, never denounced by God.”
Given that Divine Revelation says otherwise – “Jesus made void the law of commandments” (Eph. 2:15), and “the law is no more of promise” (Gal. 3:18) – Wojtyla’s words are nothing short of a public denial of Christ.
In 1985, the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews published a text “Notes for a Correct Presentation of Jews and Judaism in the preaching and Catechesis of the Catholic Church,” which makes that denial explicit:
We must also accept our responsibility to prepare the world for the coming of the Messiah.
One shudders at the apostasy!
But he that shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 10:33)
More recently, this same Pontifical Commission stated, with the express approval of Francis:
The abiding Christian conviction is that Jesus Christ is the new way of salvation. However, this does not mean that the Torah is diminished or no longer recognized as the ‘way of salvation for Jews.’
In other words, we have our way of salvation, you have yours!
It necessarily follows that the conciliar church, unlike the Holy Roman Catholic Church, has no mission to the Jews. So adamant is this false church on this point that its otherwise man-of-few-words, Benedict XVI, felt compelled to set the record straight from his cloister in 2018, writing, “A mission to the Jews is not foreseen and not necessary.”
As for the charge of deicide, let’s be clear that the Church has never imputed guilt to each and every individual Jew for the killing of Christ. Even so, she cannot divorce herself from the Scriptures which are unambiguous in stating that “the Jews, both killed the Lord Jesus, and the prophets, and have persecuted us, and please not God, and are adversaries to all men” (cf. 1 Thessalonians 2:14-15).
Get that? The Jews killed “Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us” (Matthew 1:23); they persecute His followers, and they are the adversaries of mankind.
Undaunted in their desire to pacify Heschel and his lonsmen, the Council states:
What happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures. (NA 4)
Not accursed? Sacred Scripture states otherwise: “For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse” (Gal. 3:10).
Furthermore, there is but one defining characteristic common to all Jews in our time (save for baptized, self-described, “Messianic Jews”), they reject He who “redeemed us from the curse of the law” (Gal. 3:13). As such “the Jews of today” most certainly are “accursed by God,” and so they shall remain until such time as they convert to Christ.
[NOTE: There is a great deal of confusion, much of it sown by conciliar churchmen even to the top, concerning the phrase “and so all Israel will be saved” from Romans 11. See HERE for a Catholic explanation.]
The Council’s message is unmistakable: The Apostles, the Scriptures, the Saints, the pre-conciliar popes, the Holy Doctors – that is, Holy Mother Church herself – has been just plain wrong about the Jews throughout the centuries leading up to 1965.
Finally, consider the following lest there be any doubt about the degree to which the conciliar church is pleased to serve its Jewish taskmasters over and against the commands of Christ. Recall the demand that was made of the Apostles by Anas and his cohort to “speak no more in this name to any man,” i.e., to abandon the mission that was given by Our Lord to convert the entire world to the one true religion:
It is God’s will that in this aeon there should be diversity in our forms of devotion and commitment to Him. In this age, diversity of religions is the will of God.
If you assumed that the quote above is attributable to the Vatican’s Globalist-in-Chief, Francis, you could hardly be blamed. You would, however, be wrong. Those are the words of the Jewish apostate Abraham Joshua Heschel, co-architect of Nostra Aetate, and they express a dangerous error obediently adopted and reiterated with even greater emphasis by the leader of the conciliar church, Jorge Bergoglio:
The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings. (See Document on Human Fraternity, February 2019)
The contemporary lesson in all of this is clear:
The conciliar church, the religious society presently headquartered in occupied Rome, is quite obviously not the Church of the Apostles. It is a false church that practices a false religion, one that proclaims not the Holy Name of Jesus, but rather labors to serve those who reject Him.
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