The Pope, the "time of the Gentiles", and the "mission of Israel"

Mark Brumley, President of Ignatius Press, takes a look at one of the more challenging and (in my mind) intriguing passages in Pope Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week:

Pope Benedict writes nothing new in Jesus of Nazareth: Part 2 when he states that the Jewish people are not collectively responsible for Jesus' death. Readers will be pardoned if they think otherwise, since some media outlets have treated the Holy Father's statements as if they were revelations. Perhaps that's understandable, given the history of the relations between Christians and Jews. But it's still not news.

Likewise, readers may think Pope Benedict has said something novel about a related topic — the conversion (or non-conversion) of Jews to Christianity. According to some reports, Christians shouldn't try to convert Jews, in Benedict's view. Is that so? What does Benedict actually say?

Let's begin with what he doesn't say. He doesn't say that Jews shouldn't become Christians, that Jews shouldn't recognize Jesus as the Messiah. Nor does he say Christians shouldn't try to convert Jews.

Some background should help. In speaking of Jesus' discourse about the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70 and the end of the world, Pope Benedict explains the place of evangelization in the unfolding of history. He quotes St. Bernard of Clairvaux's words to Pope Eugene III that he needn't concern himself with the conversion of the Jewish people; God has left the matter until the time when "the full number of the Gentiles" to become Christians has been reached (pp. 44-45). Benedict then quotes commentator Hildegard Brem, who says that Bernard's comments reflect Roman 11:25, which Brem interprets to mean that "the Church must not concern herself with the conversion of the Jews, since she must wait for the time fixed for this by God, 'until the full number of the Gentiles come in'" (p. 45).

It's clear that Benedict thinks Israel, in some sense, "retains its own mission" (p. 46). The Church's mission, on the other hand, is to focus on the Gentiles. He interprets the Lord's teaching about the destruction of the Temple as linked to the "times of the Gentiles" — an unspecified period between the time of Jesus and the end of the world. During the "times of the Gentiles," "the evangelization of the Gentiles" is "the disciples' particular task — thanks above all to the special commission given to Paul as a duty and a grace" (p. 46). In other words, the age of the Church stresses converting the Gentiles to the message of Jesus, not converting Jews.

Read the entire piece, "Jesus For Jews?", on the National Catholic Register site. Mark is co-author, with Curtis Mitch and Laura Dittus, of the Study Guide for Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week.