Jewish Catholics Are Hurting, The Church Should Listen

We share an excerpt from a blog post by Jessica Baustian. We encourage you to read the entire piece at Juicy Ecumenism. The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of CMJ USA. However, like A letter to my non Jewish friends by Jonah Platt, we believe it gives us a glimpse into what many American Jews are experiencing right now. Even more, Jessica is a sister in Christ. We are certain that Protestant Jewish Christians are experiencing things like this too, because some of you have told us. We must listen. We must hear. We must act and speak against antisemitism within the Body of Christ.

We are watching. And we are hurting.

Some of us entered the Catholic Church believing that we had found a home. We believed Catholicism would allow us to embrace Christ without being asked to despise the people from whom we came. We value our heritage, and we see ourselves in the earliest Christians.

I know this because I am one of them.

Sixteen years ago, I became Catholic. I came from a Jewish background, and when I entered the Church, I was welcomed with open arms. I never felt that I had to be ashamed of where I came from in order to belong. Instead, I came to understand more deeply how profoundly Jewish the roots of my Catholic faith are.

I remember sitting in the Immaculate Conception Chapel at Mount St. Mary’s University, overwhelmed by the realization that the God who split the sea before my ancestors was now coming to me in the Holy Eucharist. The prayers I had learned in Hebrew school suddenly seemed to make sense as I encountered my Savior before me.

Jesus was Jewish. Mary was Jewish. The Apostles were Jewish. The Scriptures we call the Old Testament are the Scriptures of Israel.

For me, becoming Catholic did not mean turning my back on my Jewish heritage. It meant seeing that heritage through Christ.

After becoming Catholic, I gave myself wholeheartedly to the Church, teaching theology to hundreds of students. It was one of the greatest joys of my life to teach salvation history and Church history—to see the fulfillment of my Jewish faith in Catholicism and share that understanding with my students.

That is why what I am seeing now has been so painful.

I have watched antisemitic rhetoric increasingly enter Catholic spaces: Holocaust denial, conspiracy theories, collective blame, and language treating Jewish people as inherently evil or uniquely responsible for the world’s problems.

And I have experienced it personally.

I am a Catholic homeschooling mother of four and a member of an online Catholic homeschool moms’ group. I expected it to be a place where we could encourage one another in our faith and in the difficult work of raising our children.

Instead, Catholic women told me that my people were responsible for the death of Christ and that I should abandon my Judaism. One woman told me she homeschools in order to teach her children the “truth” about the Holocaust. In that same context, she expressed empathy for Hitler.

I cannot describe what it is like to read those words as a Jewish Catholic.

These are not abstract historical debates. These are words spoken to me—a Catholic mother—by other Catholic mothers.

I also have family in Israel. The Jewish people are not an abstract political category to me. They are my family and my heritage.

That does not mean Israel, its government, or any political ideology is beyond criticism. Catholics can have serious disagreements about Israel, Gaza, Zionism, war, and the actions of governments. But there is a difference between political disagreement and hatred of Jews.

Holocaust denial is not political disagreement.

Blaming an entire people for the death of Christ is not political disagreement.

Conspiracy theories about Jews are not political disagreement.

And telling a Jewish Catholic that she must abandon her Jewish heritage is not Catholic teaching.

The Church has already given us a framework. Nostra Aetate rejected the idea that Jews as a people are responsible for Christ’s Passion and condemned hatred and antisemitism directed against Jews. St. John Paul II repeatedly called Christians to reject antisemitism and recognized the profound spiritual bond between Christianity and Judaism.

This is not a political position. It is part of our Catholic inheritance.

Read the rest at Juicy Ecumenism.