This is a sticky topic for me, as I have several friends who are Catholic and have shown no ill will or judgment against me as a messianic. I believe that the majority of Catholics are not that familiar with church history or what their church actually believes.
That being said, history is history and the roots of antisemitism in the Catholic Church are not hidden; in fact, they are relatively easy to find. One of the points of origin for antisemitism in the Catholic Church – the attitudes of which were by and large never dismissed from protestant Christianity and are still practiced to this day – became documented in A.D. 365, at the Council of Laodicea.
Of the 60 canons of that council, nearly all are still observed in full force in today’s Roman Catholic church and in most protestant, evangelical and charismatic Christian congregations.
Three of the canons leap out as particularly antisemitic. They include:
Canon 29
Christians must not judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honoring the Lord’s Day; and, if they can, resting then as Christians. But if any shall be found to be judaizers, let them be anathema from Christ.
Canon 37
It is not lawful to receive portions sent from the feasts of Jews or heretics, nor to feast together with them.
Canon 38
It is not lawful to receive unleavened bread from the Jews, nor to be partakers of their impiety.
[Source: Canons of the Council of Laodicea, A.D. 365. Emphasis added.]
Regarding Canon 29:
The command of haShem is clear on this. I quote from Sh’mot (Exodus) 20:8-11 from the CJV/Stern edition:
“Remember the day, Shabbat, to set it apart for God. You have six days to labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a shabbat for Adonai your God. On it, you are not to do any kind of work – not you, your son or your daughter, not your male or female slave, not your livestock, and not the foreigner staying with you inside the gates of your property. For in six days, Adonai made heave and earth, the sea and everything in them; but on the seventh day he rested. This is why Adonai blessed the day, Shabbat, and separated it for himself.”
This is backed up in B’resheet (Genesis) 2:2-3, also from the CJV/Stern:
“On the seventh day God was finished with his work which he had made, so he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had made. God blessed the seventh day and separated it as holy; because on that day God rested from all his work which he had created, so that it itself could produce.”
I could produce reams on this topic, but let’s be brief for now. The bottom line is that even the Catholic church agrees that the seventh day is Saturday. The Council of Laodicea even agrees with that much:
Canon 16
The Gospels are to be read on the Sabbath [i.e. Saturday], with the other Scriptures.
While many argue that Sunday is the appropriate day to hold worship, that is not haShem’s opinion. Some will say that it is celebrated because Y’shua rose from the dead on Sunday, making it the new Shabbat. Others will claim the Apostles of Y’shua changed the Shabbat.
None of these arguments are supported in the Torah nor in the Brit haDashah (New Testement). The truth of the matter is that the Coucil of Laodicea made these changes as a way of separating the Christianity movement from its Hebrew roots. There are many other examples, and while honest Christian scholars, Catholic and otherwise, will agree that the Shabbat is on Saturday, not Sunday, no one dares to challenge the practice of dishonoring haShem’s shabbat, but continue with Sunday worship.
This makes Sunday worship on the same moral equivalent as Christmas and Easter, since Sunday worship has its origins in Egyptian Ishtar and Greco-Roman Mithras cultic worship traditions.
Regarding Canons 37 and 38:
These mostly speak for themselves, making it clear that the Jewish community, and Torah-observant messianics by merit of their nonobservance of these canons, are no better in the eyes of the Catholic Church than heretics and other godless people.
This is a deep subject and I’ve only scratched a portion of the surface. More on this another time.
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