My last letter
ought to have convinced you of the inconsistency of Jews. They look down with contempt
upon the convert from the Synagogue to the Church, who continues to cry out, as did his
forebears - "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our
God, is one God";
while they admiringly clasp to their bosoms a Spinoza, Marx, Freud,
and Einstein, who hold the God of Israel to be a myth, and that revealed religion, as set
forth in the Bible, is a mental aberration, and so teach the world.
How can Jews consistently call themselves "the people of the Book,"
when they repudiate Hebrew Christians who look upon that Book as the Word of God, while
lauding in terms of the highest "Jews" who publicly discredit the origin and
content of the Book? Converts do not pass from a God-made to a man-made religion; from a
religion that was true in principle, to a religion that is basically false. What they do
is to pass from a religion that was of God, a religion that had fulfilled its mission, to
a religion that goes forth from where Judaism left off, to a higher spiritual height, by
the will of God. What converts do, is to pass from Judaism in its caterpillar state, to
Judaism metamorphosed into its butterfly stage.
To hold, that if you were convinced of the fact just mentioned, you would
refuse to be true to your understanding on account of your parents, is unethical, to
designate it mildly for which you deserve to be deprived of God's favor. On the other
hand, your parents may not be culpable for opposing your entrance into the Catholic
Church, on account of ignorance of that truth with which we are assuming that God has
illumined your mind, as no one is responsible for actions due to involuntary
misunderstanding.
Assume that your parents are Christian Scientists, instead of Jews, whose God
concept is a denial of the teachings of Moses and Jesus; who deny the reality of matter,
and the actuality of sin. Assume that after an unbiased study and prayerful consideration,
you are firmly convinced of the falsity of these teachings of Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy, the
founder of Christian Science. Suppose you found that the teachings of Judaism or
Christianity alone are the teachings of God, could you justify remaining a Christian
Scientist because entering the Synagogue or the Church would offend your misunderstanding
parents? Certainly not
Again, is not a Jew more justified in going back to things basic to the
Judaism of his forebears, and then on to their fulfillment in Christianity, than going
from Orthodox Judaism to the Reform sect that is Jewish in name, but anti-Jewish in
principle from the standard of Orthodoxy? Certainly he is, if he so believes.
Does not love of parents include leading them from darkness into light, from
error to truth? If they are looking for the Messiah to come, and you know, as do converts
from the Synagogue to the Church, that He came over nineteen centuries ago in the person
of Jesus, are you justified in letting your parents continue their unanswerable prayers,
and tearful presence at the Wailing Wall of Orthodox Judaism for His coming? Certainly
not.
What conscience dictates to be done, that are we morally bound to do.
Strange, indeed, is it, in these times when the battle is on for the maintenance of the
right to worship according to the dictates of conscience, instead of according to the will
of dictators, to claim if convinced of Catholic truth, you would not become a Catholic.
Remember, please, that there is no such a thing. as a right without a correlative duty.
The right of conscience, properly understood, is something more than a right, it is and
obligation to follow that light of conscience in the direction it logically points. I am
assuming, of course, that everything within reason has been done to make sure that you are
not inwardly being prompted to obey an erroneous concept.
Let me draw to a close, by saying that love of parents is a most commendable
thing, which obedience to both Judaism and Christianity commands. Yet both Judaism and
Christianity teaches, that when human love conflicts with divine love, God calls upon us,
not to love our parents less, but to love God more. You and I are responsible to our
parents for but a little while; whereas we are responsible to God for eternity.
As for the bitter hatred of Jews towards converts from the Synagogue to the
Church, only a craven person would permit such an unholy spirit to keep him from going
into the outstretched arms of Israel's Messianic King.