"Springtime of Vatican II"
Update

Vatican Appoints First Jewish Bishop of Jerusalem Since St. James the Apostle

by Christopher A. Ferrara

        Cardinal Ciappi, the Pope’s personal theologian, once said that the Third Secret of Fatima (which he had read) predicts that "the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top." (This is not to say that the Church will fail, for She can never fail, but rather that many of Her members will succumb to apostasy as the world approaches the Last Times.) That is not, of course, what the Vatican apparatus of Cardinal Sodano tells us. But why would those involved in the great apostasy reveal their own role in it?

        As Pope John Paul II loses whatever grip he had on the governance of the Church, the situation becomes ever more bizarre and frightening. Now the news reaches us that the Vatican has appointed the first Jewish Bishop of Jerusalem since the martyrdom of St. James the Lesser (one of the two Apostles named James) nearly 2,000 years ago.

        The new bishop’s name is Jean-Baptiste Gourion. A recent article in Israel Today reveals that Gourion’s superior, Archbishop Michal Sabbah, the Catholic Patriarch of Jerusalem, "opposed Gourion’s appointment; nevertheless, Sabbah had to participate in his ordination." To read Gourion’s statements after his elevation is to understand why Patriarch Sabbah opposed the appointment. In the interview with Israel Today that is part of the same article, Gourion said the following:

"For me, Christianity and Judaism are the same. I didn’t have to leave Judaism to come to Christianity. The Jew and the Christian form the same body."

"… The Catholic Church has no intention of converting Jews to Christianity. Therefore, the Pope advocated a Jewish bishop in Israel." 

"… 40 years ago in the Second Vatican Council, the Church adopted a new theological position toward Israel as God’s chosen people. The Catholic Church does not replace the Jewish people with whom God made an eternal covenant …" 

"I knew then [in the 1950s] that the Church’s theology was wrong concerning the Jewish people. But what was worse for me was being disowned by my Jewish family and friends for joining the Church." 

        James the Lesser, the first Bishop of Jerusalem, was martyred by the Pharisees, who had him thrown from a pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem in 62 A.D. When the fall did not kill him, he was stoned and beaten to death with clubs, as he prayed for his attackers. James was killed for seeking to make converts of the Jews. Seven years later the Temple was destroyed (never to rise again) as a sign of the passing of the Old Covenant in favor of the New Covenant in the Blood of Jesus.

        Now, nearly 2,000 years later, as John Paul II cedes the governance of the Church to others who claim to act in his name, the Vatican installs as the first Jewish bishop of Jerusalem since St. James a man who repudiates Jewish conversion, heretically declares that the Old Covenant still in force, and dares to proclaim that the Church’s entire theology with respect to the Jews was wrong for 2,000 years.

        Only a fool could fail to see the symbolism of this appointment and the message it sends. To those who prattle on about Vatican’s II’s call to "read the signs of the times", I say: Well, read them. The apostasy in the Church has indeed begun at the top. Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.