Things Catholics should know about our relationship to the Jews — especially now

I was recently asked to comment on a popular reel circulating in Catholic circles about Israel, the Jews, and the Church. Let me begin with a necessary clarification. The individuals involved are friends, colleagues, and serious Catholics. They are acting in good faith, animated by a genuine desire to defend truth and oppose error. Nothing that follows should be read as an indictment of their intentions.

The difficulty lies elsewhere. Much of the contemporary Catholic conversation about Israel is not so much wrong as it is thin. A subject that belongs properly to theology is too often reduced to apologetics. Apologetics has its place, but it cannot sustain the full weight of this question. When apologetics becomes the dominant — sometimes the only — mode offered to lay Catholics, it forms people who can argue but not contemplate.

Israel is not a position to be defended or refuted. It is a mystery to be received. St. Paul is explicit that a mystery is involved here (Romans 11:25). Mysteries demand formation before they invite explanation.

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