Israeli settlers illegally occupy Christian village near Bethlehem, 
force residents out at gunpoint Historian William Dalrymple writes: "The Israelis are eliminating one of the last Christian Palestinians strongholds in the West Bank and the place I chose to stay when I was researching the Palestinian Christians in From the Holy Mountain. It is a place with an incredibly ancient history, a cradle of Christianity, and its people have some of the closest DNA matches to the people of the time of Christ. Why is no one reporting this?"
On X (Twitter ) he writes: "Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich officially announces building a new settlement in Jabal al-Makhrur in the town of Beit Jala near Bethlehem. The settlers and the army have begun expelling the citizens and declaring it a closed military zone. Many of its residents are holding a sit-in in a tent and refuse to leave despite all the attacks. This is one of the last Christian Palestinian villages."
And this is also in the same week that Christian prayer services have been banned on Mount Tabor:
Within the last year attacks on Israeli Christians have also increased:
The findings are part of a report by the Jerusalem-based Rossing Center, called Attacks on Christians in Israel and East Jerusalem, which examined the increase in hostilities towards Churches and their members in 2023.
This included "a worrying increase in severe property and physical assaults" affecting communities in Jerusalem's Old City.
Speaking to Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Hana Bendcowsky from the Rossing Center divided up the problems faced by Christians in the region into 'smash' and 'squeeze', terms used by human rights observers.
"The 'smash' describes incidents such as the attack on the Church of the Flagellation, where a statue was smashed with a hammer", she explained.
These violent attacks are mostly carried out by marginalised young ultra-Orthodox Jewish men with hardline-nationalist views, she added, stressing however that "even among the ultra-Orthodox such behaviour is not normative, the majority would not go into a church and smash a statue of Jesus."
"And the 'squeeze' pushes members of the community away, it is incidents like priests being spat at or a nun being told to take off her cross when she goes to the hospital.
Figured I'd provide a counterweight to @911roofer.
I support neither side. 
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what's your take on supersessionism / modern
judaism as the synagogue of satan?
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St. Pope Paul VI wrote about it most recently in Nostra aetate:
So the official Church position is one of "soft" supersessionism and I would say that referring to Rabbinic Judaism as the "synagogue of Satan" apart from a general condemnation of all other religious traditions would be genuinely antisemitic.
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also, so that I don't ignore what you've posted, this to me just seems like more of the dancing around the issue that I mentioned in my other comment. It seems like people intentionally conflate the jews from the bible, jews the ethnic group, and modern judaism to push whatever agenda is convenient to them. If it weren't for Christians deciding to go by Christians rather than continue calling themselves jews, modern jews wouldn't even be calling themselves jewish. They'd have switched to some other name especially given how much of modern judaism is based on explicit rejection of christianity
rambling again. More to the point:
can't help but read Matt 27:25
All the people answered, "His blood is on us and on our children!"as a direct contradiction of thisI don't think these were ever in question. Like I know that people justified antisemitism through things like matt 27:25, but none of this is really an explicit refutation of supersessionism or of modern jews being the synagogue of satan. It's just "don't use the bible as justification for bad things" which has always been the case? Unless you broaden anti-semitism to include things like citation of bible verses that are politically incorrect nowadays
like, again this is me diving back into /pol/, but one of the big issues I have with Vatican II (that's kinda kept me away from officially becoming Catholic) is the whole "actually because of the holocaust we've decided that jews can go to heaven too" thing. I know saying it makes me sound ridiculously antisemitic but when John 14:6 says
No one comes to the Father except through me.(plus other verses that say the same thing) how can you say that a group of people who have based their whole religion on rejection of Jesus - rejection to the extent that their main racial slur originates from their refusal to write a fucking X on a sheet of paper, and also this - can go to heaven when you look at that verse?I don't want to be a jew-hating pol schizo, but it seems like it's sometimes the objectively correct position if you take the bible seriously?
God help me
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Yeah I agree, but I'm not especially
politically and I only made this topic because 
@911roofer is always frothing about Palestinians but now you have me defending our Jewbros.
That's not all Jews past and present even in context, that's the Jews present before Pontius Pilate. Ezekiel 18:20, John 9:1-12 off the top of my head refute the idea that sins function like this, anyway.
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I edited my previous comment
to include this. I just don't see how you can argue that someone who hates Jesus 
so much that they refuse 
to use FRICKING PLUS SIGNS 
because they look like a cross 
isn't one of the synagogue of satan. Like I know in your other comment 
you said that it was more likely to be referring to a contemporary event and people who had rejected 
Jesus 
way back when, but like
satan -> opposite of, or rejection
of jesus 
seems like a pretty 
clear connection to me
refusing to use a plus sign because it looks like a cross
and you hate jesus 
so much that you won't use a plus sign
satan plus the fricking
plus sign weirdos who go to a synagogue
SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN
AAAAAAAAAAAARGH 
I feel like I would
be more coherent if I were drunk. Also I should 
probably talk to a priest 
about this or something
I'm afraid
I'll accidentally reveal my power 
level and they'll call the cops on me, or kick me out for trying to talk to them for 8 hours straight or some shit though
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The relevant point of moral theology to consider would be invincible ignorance, a concept far predating the Council (you can look at the Church Fathers and what they had to say about "virtuous pagans" and "anonymous believers") and a modern softer hand towards Jews after the Holocaust. In a nutshell, if you're raised believing in the truth of something and are never presented with a strong counterargument, are you morally culpable for that ignorance? Are those judgment calls for us to make, or do we do our best and trust in Christ's mercy?
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honestly I don't even know what point I'm trying to make here. I always make this mistake when I'm talking about religion online - I've collected too much information without categorizing it into useful knowledge so all I can do is ramble about nothing
in this case it's mostly just a vibes/autism thing, I guess. I see the puzzle pieces (synagogue, satan) and I want to put them together and it feels like i'm not allowed to do it so I'm neurodivergentally lashing out and punching holes in the drywall
I should say that in my other comment I guess I make it sound like my main issue with V2 was the whole jew thing, but really my main issue is that while the church is supposed to be a rock, I see V2 as the church bending to the whims of popular opinion to an extent that it never had in the past, mostly through softening its teachings which we now see have been a disaster, mostly. At least in the west.
I'm a fricking internet tradcath who won't become catholic because I feel like the chvrch has fallen and I'm not even baptized and I haven't set foot in a church (for religious purposes) in my entire life
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https://melkite.org/faith/faith-worship/introduction
I'm reading this right now and it is a good refutation of most internet Trad conspiracies regarding what took place specifically, or at least from what direction it came (not a bunch of Prots/a rogue archbishop like they say). It's also worth keeping in mind that Vatican I got cut short due to war and was intended to encompass much of what was discussed at V2.
The general counterargument to the framing you provide is that with the rise of Liberalism and the limited success of the Counterreformation the Church suffered loss after loss in terms of influence and reach and instead of engaging with the new world at scale it shuttered its doors and doubled down on a rigid Thomistic theology paired to the moral views of St. Liguori as holding supremacy when the entire Eastern Tradition and the early Church Fathers held only parts of this and the broader world outside the Church rejected all of it. The hierarchy then happily paired itself to Franco and Mussolini and moved further away from an authentic expression of Christianity and towards an authoritarian reaction against the very people it ostensibly wanted to save.
These ideas and social formations known to the Church all lost, and aren't going to come back in the near future. We developed weapons capable of obliterating entire populations, airplanes, mass communication, etc etc etc. Something had to change. Where we are now isn't desirable but building Christendom took centuries the first go-round, too.
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Didnt read
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Funnily enough, I don't actually
buy into the conspiracies 
about v2. I believe 
that they were well intentioned but misguided. I also understand why they felt change was necessary, but I think 
they overreacted and ended up going 
about it the wrong 
way. Obviously the church 
has to change with the times and tell people whether watching 
a Mass Livestream counts or whatever, but nuclear 
bombs and telephones don't mean that you have to completely change the way Mass is held.
Honestly I'm most likely to become the stereotypical terminally online
Orthodox 
schizo, twitching 
and muttering to anyone who makes the mistake 
of getting too close 
to the containment zone. They're all screwed up too but it's been hundreds of years since they've held an ecumenical council to formalize their frick ups...
We're all doomed
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just become Catholic anyway
there are plenty of chudthlics out there and some of them are even actual faithful instead of internet LARPers. V2 didn't introduce any actual heterodoxy, just poor decisions and a misstep in presentation that led to individual heterodoxies through poor formation of priest and laity both. It happens. We don't even have an antipope, so things aren't that bad yet. You have to take a longer view when considering the world's oldest institution and its purpose as a means to the end of eternity with God.
You can still go to a Latin Mass depending on your area, though prefer parish churches and avoid the SSPX (even if not technically schismatic their community is schizophrenic and constantly toeing the line). FSSP or Institute of Christ the King are fine, FSSP people are a little strange and Institute priests are fops, but they're in solid communion and are a valid option if there are no parish TLMs nearby. (Do note that parishes sometimes aren't allowed to advertise their TLMs so you might have to do a bit of digging)
And if there's no TLM nearby, the Novus Ordo isn't an invalid Mass. The songs may suck, there may be female altar servers or extraordinary ministers or stringed instruments used, but it still imparts graces, you can still receive Communion, and as long as you pay attention to which priest you attend or are in a good diocese, the sermons will be edifying and the community will have people eager to grow in the Lord.
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yeah but have you considered that I could become a bvsed and rvdpvlled orthodvx larper instead?
it's been a while since I was spending a lot of thought
about this, but things like the filioque and pope francis constantly making nearly heretical statements and then walking 
them back after people freak 
out has soured me on Catholicism. Obviously pr*ts are wrong, which leaves 
me with the Orthodox. But they have their own issues
maybe the copts or byzantine catholics are the right
choice 
or maybe the only true church 
is some tiny sect with 17 people deep in the mountains of afghanistan
there are too many choices man why is this so hard
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no way
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Let's talk about this in DM especially marsified on an active thread this is hard to keep up with.
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lol hold on, I'll just turn off marsification and re-edit my comments
DMs won't help the other polbrained chudlets here
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Ezekiel 18:20
John 9:1-12
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Matthew 27:25
Ezekiel 18:20
John 9:1-12
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Matthew 27:25
Matthew 27:25
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I asked for your views not the pope's
honestly though I try to not fall too deep into the schizo rightoid rabbit hole but this and the synagogue of satan thing seem to me to be something where an unbiased investigation ends up with you in full on /pol/ territory and everyone just dances around the issue and downplays it because of
like the SoS thing doesn't really apply to other religions - the verses specifically say
it doesn't really apply to hindus or buddhists or whatever. You could kinda sorta argue that it applies to muslims since they have their own version of pseudo-supersessionism, but they don't call themselves jews. but just reading what the bible says basically just points me straight to the chud nether realm. The only people who call themselves jews are jews, and no one from biblical times would recognize modern judaism as judaism, so what else am I left to conclude here??
idk I'm rambling
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Ok I think it's worth contextualizing the Epistles and Revelation as being written at a time when the Church's existence was genuinely threatened and people were martyred/jailed en masse. These sections use language that is simultaneously true but also written with a literary flair and exaggeration to serve as polemics against those rejecting the teaching of the Apostles and to strengthen believers in the face of these trials.
As for Revelation and the "synagogue of Satan", read it in full context and you'll find something very similar:
Jesus appeared to St. John after the destruction of the Temple when tensions were inevitably extremely high, promising that those who held strong through their persecution would be rewarded and was speaking against those who rejected Him in that specific time and place. The early Christians had day to day contact with the Jewish community in a way that's completely lost in the modern context.
Normally whatever the Church teaches becomes my opinion after checking, I'm not a theologian or a prophet... But there's my answer without going and revisiting any commentaries on the passage.
Unlike 
@BWC and some of you other guys I'm not even aware of what /pol/ has to say on religious stuff. !Catholics !Christians
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Can you people stop having so many words pls? I can't keep up.
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It's also called replacement theology, essentially just the idea that the Church and the Gospel replaced the Jews and the Law as God's chosen people/practice.
To varying degrees all traditional small-o orthodox Christians still hold to this other than the kinda schizophrenic Baptist/Evangelical offshoots that decided for a reading of Revelation that includes putting all the Jews in Israel so that God ends the world.
@seal_cel
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I'm no biblical scholar so help me out, Jesus straight up says this in the Gospels, right? Is this just weirdo Protestants wanting to pick and choose stuff out of the OT so they can tell other people what to do?
One of my ancestors moved to some pioneer area out in the west in the late 1800s. He writes back to home and says, well... let me look it up...
He says there's two churches in town, Swedish Lutheran or Baptist. He's trying to learn Swedish (bb pls don't bite off more than you can chew, no wonder I ended up this way
). He says he's planning to go to the English church in a neighboring town "but it never got beyond the intention". I really do have this guy's DNA! But this is the line I always have stuck in my head:
I gotta remember to post the one from WW2. My neighbor escaped slavery in Germany by hiding under the floorboards on a train. Literal Great Escape stuff.
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