Contemporary Catholic Approaches to the People, Land, and State of Israel

"The importance of this volume lies in its engagement of an open and current theological question, in breadth and depth from multiple perspectives. The authors are all recognized experts in the field of Catholic-Jewish studies. The breadth of the study comes from the multiple contexts which the authors faithfully represent. I am not aware of another volume which brings such competent and diverse voices together. The question is significant, and the contribution of the volume will be significant."

~Very Reverend Thomas A. Baima, Provost, University of St. Mary on the Lake, IL

"Shapiro and D‘Costa have edited an important theological work exploring the directions of Catholic theology toward the Holy Land. Seeking to move beyond the older anti-Jewish theologies that condemned Jews to be wanderers without a country to an acceptance of the legitimate claim of Jews to live in the land of Israel, the book offers a broad spectrum of authors from those celebrating Jewish life in the land of Israel as theologically significant and an important next step in Jewish -Catholic dialogue to those who argue that from a Catholic perspective living in the Holy Land cannot come at the expense of the Palestinians or to create a culture of war. With comprehensive erudition, the essays mine Catholic sources from patristics to Aquinas to modern thought, and they especially plumbs recent statements of the Catholic Church. This book needs to be read by everyone involved in contemporary Jewish-Catholic dialogue and belongs in every interfaith library."

~Alan Brill, Seton Hall University

"This impressive collection of essays will help readers both to grasp the central issues and to glimpse paths along which resolutions for what have proven to be almost intractably divisive disagreements might eventually be found. Principally Catholic in its orientation, but it does not neglect Jewish or Muslim Palestinian viewpoints. An enormously significant contribution to Catholic theology and religious dialogue."

~Archbishop J. Augustine Di Noia, OP, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

"With its wide range of perspectives, this book marks an extraordinary first step toward resolving the most important question for contemporary Jewish-Catholic dialogue. Highly recommended!"

~Matthew Levering, author of Engaging the Doctrine of Israel: A Christian Israelology in Dialogue with Ongoing Judaism

"This truly remarkable book confronts head-on a topic quite conspicuously absent from Catholic thinking about the Jews and Judaism since Vatican II: the land. The excellent essays gathered here offer far more questions than answers, and identify deep disagreements—first of all among Catholics themselves—about how to understand the relationship of the Jewish people and Jewish faith to the land God gave to Abraham and to the modern state of Israel. But these disagreements must be faced if the Church is to think through, and live out, her commitment to the irrevocable gifts and call of God."

~Bruce D. Marshall, Southern Methodist University

" Contemporary Responses to the People, Land, and State of Israel is to be welcomed as an important addition to Jewish-Catholic dialogue, especially on one of its most complicated issues. The fact that the Catholic authors here are both conversant with the Jewish tradition, and they are in touch with some of the leading Jewish theologians dealing with the same issues vi-a-vis the Catholic tradition, makes this book indispensable for the continuation of the dialogue itself."

~David Novak, University of Tornoto

"This well-balanced, highly informative work provides a roadmap to understand the biblical dictum that Israel is the Chosen People, possessing the Holy Land, and whose divine calling, le'or goyim/"a light unto the nations" (Is. 49:6) is advanced by a democratically elected quasi-religio State of Israel. critically surveys select scholarship and documents and raises important exegetical and sociological questions relevant to the objective to empathize and to accept and/or reject standard Jewish teachings regarding the centuries-old Tanakh promise regarding the Jewish people's return, resettlement, and rebuilding the Third Jewish Commonwealth."

~Journal of Ecumenical Studies