Replacement Theology or Irrevocable Covenant?

Replacement Theology (or supersessionism) is the view that Christianity has replaced or superseded Judaism.  Although there are ancient texts and writers that might appear to lend support to such an argument, beginning in the 1960s the Catholic Church has made it clear that such a view is unacceptable.   The Church has its roots and continued continuity with Israel; Jews are not to be thought as rejected or accursed by God; the Church rejects hatred, persecution, and anti-Semitism that are targeted at Jews at any time and by anyone (Nostra Aetate 4).   The Jewish people and Israel remain “most dear to God, for God does not repent of the gifts He makes nor of the calls He issues” (Lumen Gentium 16).  Israel remains a chosen people.  They are “the pure olive on which were grafted the branches of the wild olive,” that is the Gentiles (Catholic Church, Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, VI. 1).  More recently Pope Francis has reaffirmed in Evangelii Gaudium that we hold the Jewish people in special regard because their covenant with God has never been revoked, for “the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.”