True Israel and False Judaism

Until Paul VI, in the liturgical rite of the newly elected Pope taking possession of the Basilica of St. John Lateran, during the procession that followed the coronation, there was a pause near Monte Giordano, not far from the ghetto, where the city’s Jewish community and its leaders would meet the Pope, kneel before him, and offer him the scroll of the Law. The Pope’s response was strictly ritualistic: “We praise and venerate the holy Law, O Hebrew men, inasmuch as it was given by Almighty God through the hands of Moses to your fathers; but we condemn and reject your observance and your vain interpretation of the Law, because the Apostolic Faith teaches and preaches that the Savior, whom you still await in vain, has already come — our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns as God forever and ever.”