The premise of the question is flawed, because catching Exception does catch RuntimeException. Demo code:

public class Test { public static void main(String[] args) { try { throw new RuntimeException("Bang"); } catch (Exception e) { System.out.println("I caught: " + e); } } } 

Output:

I caught: java.lang.RuntimeException: Bang 

The premise of the question is flawed, because catching Exception does catch RuntimeException. Demo code:

public class Test { public static void main(String[] args) { try { throw new RuntimeException("Bang"); } catch (Exception e) { System.out.println("I caught: " + e); } } } 

Output:

I caught: java.lang.RuntimeException: Bang 

Your loop will have problems if:

• callbacks is null
• anything modifies callbacks while the loop is executing (if it were a collection rather than an array)

Perhaps that's what you're seeing?