In his August 11 general audience on St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians and the Mosaic law, Pope Francis said, “The Law, however, does not give life, it does not offer the fulfillment of the promise because it is not capable of being able to fulfill it. . . . .Those who seek life need to look to the promise and to its fulfillment in Christ.”

Rabbi Rasson Arousi, chair of the Commission of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel for Dialogue with the Holy See, responded, “The Pope presents the Christian faith as not just superseding the Torah; but asserts that the latter no longer gives life, implying that Jewish religious practice in the present era is rendered obsolete. This is in effect part and parcel of the ‘teaching of contempt’ towards Jews and Judaism that we had thought had been fully repudiated by the Church.”