For the Church, a Purely Neutral Approach to the Existence of Israel is Theologically Unsustainable

This essay is a response to “The New Catholic Zionism,” which was published in Mosaic.

In his essay “Confrontation,” the great Talmudist and philosopher Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik responded to the mid-1960s advent of the Second Vatican Council by emphasizing that certain root theological concepts—like, for instance, “covenant” and “election”—are approached by different faiths through the lens and language of their respective religious experience. Therefore, he wrote, while Christians and Jews should discuss certain matters of vital concern to both communities, no good could come of their debating or entering into “public dialogue” about core theological issues.

For the same reason, I would certainly not undertake to instruct Gavin D’Costa, or Catholics in general, on how they should think theologically. Instead, drawing on D’Costa’s eloquent essay in Mosaic on Catholic Zionism, I hope in what follows to reflect upon where, from my own perspective, Catholic theology presently finds itself on the subject of the state of Israel, and where it might find itself in the future.