By Thomas V. Mirus ( bio – articles – email ) | Mar 18, 2025
Cardinal Timothy Dolan has written an opinion piece for The Free Press, “The Evils of Antisemitism”, in which he speaks out against the proliferation of anti-Jewish hatred in some quarters today. Such a moral stand well befits a prince of the Church. It should be a no-brainer for Catholics that hatred and violence against Jews (or anyone else) is evil.
There is a danger, though, when, in their zeal to combat antisemitism, Church leaders obscure the Church’s doctrine on the role of the Jews in salvation history. This is very common today. Even many otherwise orthodox Catholics, who would otherwise reject the idea that Vatican II changed Church teaching, mistakenly believe that the Council overturned the Church’s traditional teaching on the Jews.
So while Cardinal Dolan’s reiteration of Catholic moral teaching against antisemitism is welcome, I am troubled by his one paragraph focused on theology:
The Church’s stance on antisemitism is unequivocal. Our Savior was a faithful Jew killed by the Roman occupiers of Judea. He died for the sins of all mankind. According to our faith, Jesus brought about a New Covenant that exists side-by-side with the Old Covenant between God and the Jewish people. As Pope Saint John Paul II often observed, “God’s covenant with the Jews is unbreakable.”
I do not know the Cardinal’s mind, and I owe filial respect to him as my bishop. So I write with the assumption that he did not actually intend to say anything heretical. But unfortunately, these words taken in themselves not only badly misrepresent Church teaching, but unwittingly undermine the very basis of Christian respect for the Jewish heritage. Since these words were written by a Catholic bishop in a secular publication, they will be particularly scandalous to Jewish readers who come away misinformed about their own status in the eyes of the Church.
Dual covenant theology
Most problematic is the statement that the New Covenant “exists side-by-side with the Old Covenant.” It is true, as perhaps Cardinal Dolan is trying to say, that the covenant God made with Abraham has never been revoked. But to specify that the “Old Covenant” continues to exist side-by-side with the New strongly implies dual covenant theology, the idea that the Jews still have a separate covenant that remains valid for them. This view is condemned by the Church. The old covenants—for as Pope Benedict pointed out, there was not just one, but multiple stages—were consummated in the New, the one ultimate Covenant in Jesus Christ. Therefore, the only way the Jews can be faithful to the irrevocable covenant and receive the blessings God promised them so long ago is to become part of the Catholic Church, the new Israel.
The Church remains bound by the unbreakable decree of the ecumenical council of Florence in 1441, declaring that the old Mosaic law no longer has salvific power (quite the opposite):
The Holy Roman Church… firmly believes, professes and teaches that the matter pertaining to the law of the Old Testament, of the Mosaic law… after our Lord’s coming had been signified by them, ceased, and the sacraments of the New Testament began;… after the promulgation of the Gospel it asserts that they cannot be observed without the loss of eternal salvation. All, therefore, who after that time observe circumcision and the Sabbath and the other requirements of the law, the holy Roman Church declares alien to the Christian faith and not in the least fit to participate in eternal salvation.
As to Pope St. John Paul II, I cannot find any place where he said that the covenant is simply “unbreakable”. He did, however, refer to “the Ancient Covenant never broken by God and never to be broken.” First of all, this does not refer to some separate, parallel covenant, but to that covenant, gift, and promise which is fulfilled only in Christ. Secondly, note that he said the covenant will never be broken “by God”—but it takes two to keep a covenant.
In an essential essay written after his resignation, Pope Benedict wrote that the phrase “never-revoked covenant” is ultimately inadequate:
This formula does not bring to the fore the real drama of the story between God and man. Yes, God’s love is indestructible. But the covenant history between God and man also includes human failure, the breaking of the covenant and its internal consequences: the destruction of temple, the scattering of Israel, and the call to repentance, which restores man’s capacity for the covenant. The love of God cannot simply ignore man’s no. It wounds God himself and thus necessarily man too.
Ironically, dual covenant theology, while attempting to preserve good relations between Christians and Jews, actually destroys the fundamental basis of those relations, which is that the Old Covenant was fulfilled in Jesus Christ, a Jew, who extended the gifts and promise of God to the Gentiles. If the two covenants remain “side-by-side” rather than converging in Christ, then we Christians truly have nothing to do with Jews and they have nothing to do with us, for they are not called to be grafted back into the tree. The reality is that if Joseph’s brothers did not go to Joseph in their hour of need, but instead refused to depend on him, they would never have been forgiven and saved by their rejected brother.
“He who delivered me to you has the greater sin”
There is another, more subtle way in which Cardinal Dolan’s paragraph undermines the connection between Jews and Christians in the very attempt to achieve friendly relations. Perhaps surprisingly, I find it in his statement that “Our Savior was a faithful Jew killed by the Roman occupiers of Judea.”
Cardinal Dolan is, of course, trying to counter the lie that all Jews were to blame for the death of Jesus and that their descendants even today uniquely carry that guilt. Thus, he rightly adds, “He died for the sins of all mankind.” This is the position not only of Vatican II’s Nostra aetate but even, for that matter, of the Catechism of the Council of Trent four hundred years earlier.
However, this glib summary ends up falsifying by omission not only the basic facts about our Lord’s death, but the vital role of the Jews in salvation history.
It is essential that Jesus was handed over to die by His own people, whom indeed He held guilty of the blood of the prophets spilled by their ancestors. Not only was this prophesied in the Old Testament and in our Lord’s parables, but Jesus and the New Testament authors made it explicit many times. As just one example, here is our Lord speaking to the Pharisees and scholars of the Law in Luke 11:47-51 (see also Matthew 23:29-37, Acts 7:51-53, 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16):
Woe to you! for you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. So you are witnesses and consent to the deeds of your fathers; for they killed them, and you build their tombs. Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechari′ah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it shall be required of this generation.
By contrast, Jesus did not foretell the role of the Romans, while Acts and the epistles barely mention them in assigning guilt for Jesus’ death. Moderns take offense at St. John’s frequent reference to “the Jews” as Christ’s enemies—yes, of course he did not mean all Jews, even of his own time—but my point is, how often does John refer to “the Romans”? Indeed, those who emphasize the guilt of the Romans while completely omitting that of the Jews directly contradict our Lord’s words to Pilate in John 19:11: “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above; therefore he who delivered me to you has the greater sin.”
Now, why do I say that the denial of this, so far from saving Christian-Jewish relations, actually severs them? Aside from the explicit narrative of the New Testament, much of Old Testament prophecy and typology become meaningless if we pretend it was only Romans who killed Jesus.
If Joseph’s brothers had never sold him into slavery, he would never have been in a position to save them from famine. Likewise (to mention only one aspect), while Jesus is ultimately the priest offering His own sacrifice, it is highly significant that the priestly people appointed by God took part in this, and that it was not just any Jews but the chief priests who handed Him over, because “it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish” (John 11:50).
Thus the role of the Jewish leaders in killing the unblemished Lamb was a (literally) crucial, if not flattering, moment in the Jewish people’s providential participation in the redemption of mankind, including the Jews themselves at the end of the world, as St. Paul prophesied. In this respect, the part played by the Romans was relatively incidental, although also providential given Rome’s future importance to the Catholic Church. Summing the event up as “a faithful Jew killed by the Roman occupiers of Judea” makes it sound like Jesus was killed because the Romans were antisemites!
Truth cannot lead to hatred
I am not claiming that Cardinal Dolan actually holds the heretical beliefs that the old Jewish law is still salvific, or that Jesus was not handed over to death by His own people. In the former case, he may not have thought through the implications of his statement, and in the latter, he is deliberately omitting an important fact for rhetorical expediency. But aside from the danger dual covenant theology poses to the souls of Jews in making them think they do not need Jesus, there is also a danger in rhetorically suppressing truth for fear that it may be abused. The danger is this:
If all the mainstream voices who oppose antisemitism do so by misrepresenting Catholic doctrine, or if they try to refute the lie that all Jews killed Jesus by pretending that no Jews did, or if antisemitism itself is defined so broadly as to censor Catholic teaching, then young people who detect dishonesty in this will inevitably look to more radical voices. Let the respectable authorities who failed them not then complain.
Catholics need secure doctrinal footing on which to stand against hatred, not glib half-truths and catchphrases. Perfect love of the Truth casts out the fear that truth will lead to evil. And it casts out the fear of being hated for proclaiming that there is no other name by which we must be saved than that of Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.
Thomas V. Mirus is President of Trinity Communications and Director of Podcasts for CatholicCulture.org, hosts The Catholic Culture Podcast, and co-hosts Criteria: The Catholic Film Podcast. See full bio.
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