Documents from the Holy See
Vatican documents on relations between the Catholic Church and Judaism
The four documents offered in this collection constitute the entire corpus of universal Roman Catholic teaching on Jews and Judaism since the close of the apostolic period. They represent the definitive utterance of the Magisterium binding on the presentation of Catholic teaching on the subject by catechists and homilists alike. These Church-wide statements have also a wider magisterial context today in papal and local church statements since the Second Vatican Council which in turn can provide most useful insights for interpreting and applying them. Among other things, cumulatively they testify to the Church’s irrevocable course of replacing the ancient negative attitude toward Jews and Judaism with a positive, even fraternal one of mutual respect and solidarity with the Jewish people and even the more ancient faith given them by God. A substantial introduction precedes the texts themselves which are then supplemented by an authoritative bibliography. The collection was compiled and edited, as was the bibliography, by the Study Centre for Christian Jewish Relations (Sisters of Sion),
