[Question:]{.underline} What did Bishop Fellay mean when he called the Jews our “older brothers”?
[Answer:]{.underline} This expression was used by a journalist, who wrongly presumed that this expression came from the Second Vatican Council, whereas it was Pope John Paul II, who was the first to use it. The Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X, in an interview that he gave to a French magazine by the name of Famille chrétienne on February 14, 2008, responded by commenting on the expression in itself, separated from the context in which it was used by Pope John Paul II. The interviewer’s direct question was as follows: “With respect to Judaism, do you accept the formula that came from the Council, and that presents the Jews as ‘our older brothers’?”
The issue has become important because Bishop Fellay has been attacked by some as if he had gone soft and compromised with Rome. He is consequently falsely accused of saying that the Jews are “our older brothers in the faith” and that they “share the covenant with us”.
Here is a literal translation of Bishop Fellay’s response to the question above: “The expression (our older brothers) can be understood in two ways. It is ambiguous. The first way of understanding it is correct, and the other incorrect. Sacred Scripture contains both the Old and the New Testament. Everything that God passed on to the chosen people is found in the first Covenant. But it has been replaced by the New Covenant, the Good News, that is the Gospel. We, Catholics, have everything, both the Old and the New. The Jews are faithful to the Old Testament with respect to the letter. But something new happened afterwards and Judaism stopped there. Something essential happened: the coming of the Messias. The Jews are our older brothers inasmuch as we have something in common with them. However, for as much as that, this does not suffice to be saved.”
Note that Bishop Fellay does not say that the Jews are our older brothers in the Faith, nor that they have the Faith, nor even that they are faithful to the Old Testament. All of these opinions are a part of the incorrect understanding, to which he alludes. Much to the contrary, he affirms that refusing the Messias announced by Abraham, the Jews no longer have the Faith of Abraham. Nor does he say that they share a covenant, for he clearly states that they refuse the New Testament. All that is common is the Old Testament, and this “with respect to the letter” only, that is in a purely material sense, and not in reality, in its spiritual and real meaning. Hence, understood in the correct sense, all that this expression, “our older brothers”, means, is that the Jews have the literal text of the Old Testament as we Catholics do; yet this is entirely insufficient for salvation or for supernatural Faith, on account of their blindness to the real meaning of the Scriptures, as St. Paul points out: “Because of unbelief they were broken off. But thou standest by faith…blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles should come in” (Rm 11:20 & 25).
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.