Det utlovade landet och löftets folk enligt katolskt biskopsmöte

Jerusalem Post rapporterar från mötet som de katolska biskoparna från Mellanöstern hållit i Rom den senaste veckan: Vatican synod calls for end to Israel’s ‘occupation’
Några citat från mötet:
"Den Heliga Skriften kan inte användas för att försvara judarnas återvändande till Israel..."
"Vi kristna kan inte tala om "Det utlovade landet" som en exklusiv rätt för ett priviligerat judiskt folk. Löftet upphävdes av Kristus. Det finns inte längre något utvalt folk - alla män och kvinnor av alla nationaliteter har nu blivit det utvalda folket."
"Även om Israels statsöverhuvud är judisk så är framtiden grundad på demokrati. De palestinska flyktingarna kommer småningom att återvända och detta problem måste lösas."(Monsignor Cyril Salim Bustros)

Mordechay Lewy, Israel’s ambassador to the Holy See, told The Jerusalem Post that Bustros, in saying that Jesus nullified God’s covenant with the Jewish people, was “returning to successionist theology, contradicting Second Vatican Council teaching and Pope Benedict himself – who has welcomed the return of Jews to their ancient homeland.”
“Also,” added the ambassador, “by inviting all Palestinian refugees to return and denying Israel’s right to define itself a Jewish state – the only such in the world – he is regressing to hard-line positions that deny Israel’s right to exist.
”During the meeting, several bishops blamed the Israeli- Palestinian conflict for spurring the flight of Christians from the Middle East – a position echoed in their final paper. While the bishops condemned terrorism and anti-Semitism, they laid much of the blame for the conflict squarely on Israel.

Ayalon: 'Vatican Synod is a forum for Arab propaganda'
Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon slammed the Vatican synod after bishops called for an end to the "occupation," in a statement released on Sunday.
In reaction to the Vatican's criticism, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said: "We express our disappointment that this important Synod has become a forum for political attacks on Israel in the best history of Arab propaganda. The Synod was hijacked by an anti-Israel majority.""We are especially appalled at the language used by Archbishop [Cyrille Salim] Bustros during his press conference," Ayalon remarked, referring to the archbishop whose committee drafted the statement. "We call on the Vatican to distant themselves from Archbishop Boutros' comments which are a libel against the Jewish People and the State of Israel and should not be construed as the Vatican's official position. These outrageous comments should not cast a shadow over the important relationship between the Vatican, the State of Israel and the Jewish People."A Foreign Ministry spokesman criticized the bishops' statement that Israel shouldn't use the Bible to justify "injustices" against the Palestinians."This has never been a policy of any government in Israel so this position sounds particularly hollow," Yigal Palmor said Sunday. "Let he who has never sinned cast the fist stone."Palmor also said Israel is the only Mideast country whose Christian population is growing, and called on Christians not to flee the region. "Israel views their presence in the Middle East as a blessing and regrets their decline in Arab countries," he said.According to statistics he provided, there were some 151,700 Christians in Israel last year, compared with 132,000 in 1999 and 107,000 two decades ago.

The Middle East synod: Politics slipped back in
Analysis: The Palestinian-Israeli conflict played prominently on the sidelines of the Vatican’s two-week conference.

The pope must speak up (Jerusalem Post 25.10)

"In the name of radical Islamic-inspired nationalism, Mideast Christians of all denominations, including Catholics, have faced devastating persecution for their religious convictions. From the Gaza Strip and Egypt to Iraq to Turkey, Christians have been murdered, had their churches burned to the ground and their holy books destroyed, and have been demoted to secondclass citizens exposed to libels and exploitation by Muslim neighbors.

Ostensibly with the purpose of addressing these injustices and stemming the tide of a dwindling Christian population in the Mideast, Pope Benedict XVI convened a special Vatican Synod in Rome, composed of about 200 bishops mostly from Muslim countries. Yet these bishops hijacked the synod and issued a statement Saturday that all but ignored the plight of Catholics living in Muslim lands while singling out Israel’s “occupation” for special castigation."


Här kan man höra lite undervisning om Löftets folk: Löftets folk - Sven Reichmann