I feel protective of religiously inclined people with Jewish lineage who would not meet the definition under Halachic Religious Law as Jewish. Although by technicality I somehow religiously qualify as Jewish, my wife, who has known distant Jewish ancestry, and my children, would not. Admittedly I had little appreciation for my Jewish background until I turned 40 and struggled with the problem of raising children with good values in a fallen secular world. When I did explore Jewishness I found all the beauty and depth of what it means to be a Jew to be entirely informed by Judaism.
Now I am Catholic. My family is Hebrew Catholic (among a few other wonderful Ethnic-Catholic identifiers). Yet I am still the only qualified Jew in my household. For both Orthodox Catholics and Orthodox Jews it is incredibly important to get the terminology and definitions right. Thus I’m thankful for the Hebrew Catholic proper identifier to connect my non-Halachic family members to the Jewish people without confusion. For practical reasons the children should identify as Secular Jews. Religiously they are Catholic and not Jewish. Somehow I am both religiously Catholic and still Jewish (even with no or little discernible Jewish praxis).
The message I want Catholics of Jewish extraction who are not technically Jewish to hear is that you are called to a very special love for the Jewish people. You are Hebrews. You are Israelites. Spiritually you are Jews. It does not feel good to be “cut off” from your own flesh and blood. But think now of our Lord and how he too was cut off, yet he loves his brethren literally to death.
Remember how Joseph, a typology of Jesus, was also cut off. He loved his brothers and provided for them. He forgave them. (I do not mean to suggest a non-Halachic Jew was wronged. This is not the case. It’s simply a matter of Torah. Jews cannot break it any more than lay Catholics can alter the catechism.)
Remember Esther became as a non-Jew to redeem the entire Nation of Israel.
We should not underestimate the effect of the love Hebrew Catholics, whether “Jewish” or not (technically), show for the Jewish people. In the case of Esther it was the salvation of Israel. The love for Israel exemplified by Joseph and facilitated the redemption of the ancient world.
