(GR) Terry Mattingly–That New York Times headline about Catholics witnessing to Jews? Look again

Did you catch the subtle, but very important, difference between the lede and the actual quote from the document?

The lede says that it is wrong for Catholics ”“ which would mean priests, laypeople and other Catholic individuals ”“ to try to win Jewish individuals to Christian faith. But what does the document say? It says that the Catholic Church, as an institution, “neither conducts nor supports any specific institutional mission work directed towards Jews (italics added).”

So evangelism by individual Catholics talking with individual Jews is acceptable, while organized efforts targeting Jews alone ”“ perhaps a Catholic version of Jews for Jesus ”“ are considered out of bounds.

Thus, the headline and the lede need to be corrected to reflect the actual content of the story and the document on which it is based.

Read it all.

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