For us it is a family matter.

When I first heard of the massacre at the synagogue in Squirrel Hill, I contacted my sister-in-law. Patti is a Jewish woman originally from the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh. For decades, her family lived several blocks from the Tree of Life Synagogue. They occasionally attended services there; other relatives and friends were congregants. We waited to hear the names of the victims announced by the police on Saturday night. No family members had died in this assault, but the names of old neighbors and acquaintances deepened the grief of the Squirrel Hill Jewish community as we faced the most lethal attack on Jews in our nation’s history. Several times I recalled my conversations with Patti’s father, who had long run a pharmacy in his beloved neighborhood and who would proudly describe all the local Jewish organizations to which he belonged.

First, we need to address the very image of God we present in our worship.

As we face this senseless explosion of anti-Jewish hatred, what should be done? Like other people of good will, we should mourn the victims, condemn anti-Jewish bias and educate for tolerance. But as Catholics, we also need to respond to this hatred as a church. I would like to suggest several ecclesial paths of action.

First, we need to address the very image of God we present in our worship, our preaching and our instruction. On a recent retreat, I asked undergraduate students if they had any general questions on the Bible. One student replied: “It seems to me that there are two different gods in the Bible. The Old Testament God is full of violence and vengeance. But the New Testament God is full of love and mercy.” This is an ancient heresy, of course. Its technical name is Marcionism, and it has by no means vanished. At a recent conference on our current obsession—how we deal with the “nones,” the growing number of young people with no religious affiliation—one speaker opined, “The problem with our nones is that think that God is some Old Testament tyrant with lightning rods and holy wars.”

Second, we need to address our attitudes concerning the state of Israel.

Despite our persistent efforts to purify our religious education of anti-Jewish invective, this bias still distorts our very concept of God. Why do we remember so easily “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” (Ex 21:23) but forget the “God of tenderness and compassion” (Joel 2:13)? Why do we inscribe the soft phrases of Jesus, such as “I am meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29), in our stained glass while we confine his harsher sayings, such as “Depart, you accursed, into the eternal fire” (Mt 25:41), to the fine print in the index? This poisonous, duotone cartoon of the biblical God still wreaks its damage.

Second, we need to address our attitudes concerning the state of Israel. It is tempting to cordon off our relationship with the Jewish community from the political reality of Israel, no longer a long-vanished kingdom but a contemporary democratic state. The state of Israel embodies the Jewish dream of a permanent refuge from persecution and of a nation explicitly constructed according to Jewish principles. This dream and promise fulfilled cannot be ignored.

Finally, we should continue with the extraordinary reconciliation between the Catholic and Jewish communities. 

I believe we should contest the increasingly harsh criticism of Israel in certain church quarters. I have viewed with alarm the growing number of organizations on Catholic college campuses that have endorsed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. As a Jesuit, I learned with sadness that our Conference of Major Superiors of Men had endorsed this movement. There is much to criticize in the current Israeli government. But I must ask why these church-based organizations single out Israel with such vehemence. Where are the accompanying resolutions to boycott China for its illegal occupation of Tibet or to disinvest from Iran because of its denials of religious freedom? What motivates such bitter, disproportionate attacks on Israel?

Finally, as a church, we should continue with the extraordinary reconciliation between the Catholic and Jewish communities that has emerged in recent decades. When I offered a blessing at the bar mitzvah of my nephew and at the bat mitzvah of my niece, what was remarkable was that it was not remarkable. At the receptions afterward, older Jewish and Catholic guests approached me and the rabbi to express their gratitude for the greater openness of both religious communities. They knew that such interfaith prayer was unthinkable decades ago. For younger Jewish and Catholic guests, such interfaith gestures of mutual esteem are simply taken for granted. They cannot grasp the history of ignorance, fear and contempt that was overcome to bring us to this new charity. May it grow.

“The souls of the just are in the hands of the Lord” (Wis 3:1).

John J. Conley, S.J., is a Jesuit of the Maryland Province and a regular columnist for America. He is the current Francis J. Knott Chair of Philosophy and Theology at Loyola University, Maryland, with a particular interest in modern French philosophy. Fr. Conley earned a B.A. (Honors) degree in English from the University of Pennsylvania before he entered the Society of Jesus in 1973. His formation as a Jesuit saw him gain an M.A. degree in philosophy from Fordham University, before taking up a post as an instructor in philosophy in Wheeling College, West Virginia. From there, Fr. Conley took advanced French studies in the University of Bordeaux, graduate studies in theology at Centre Sèvres (Paris) and in Weston (Cambridge) and completed his doctoral studies in philosophy in the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.

Since completing his studies, Fr. Conley has taught philosophy in Fordham University (1995-2004), with a period as visiting professor of philosophy in St. Joseph’s University (2000-2001) and Professor of Philosophy in Fordham (2004-2007), again acting as visiting professor in Loyola College (2005-2007). Fr. Conley took up his current Chair in Loyola University in 2007.

Fr. Conley’s work has been recognized with elections to Phi Beta Kappa and Friars Society (1973), Phi Kappa Phi (1996), Alpha Sigma Nu (1997) and the Dramatists Guild of America (2008).