The Attitude of the Catholic Church toward the Jews

Numen 64 (2017) 209–228 brill.com/nu

The Attitude of the Catholic Church toward the Jews: An Outline of a Turbulent History Konrad Szocik

University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszow, Poland, Department of Cognitive Science Sucharskiego 2 Street, 35–225 Rzeszów, Poland [email protected]

Philip L. Walden

Independent Researcher Flat 3, 40 Windmill Road, Headington, Oxford OX3 7BX, United Kingdom [email protected]

Abstract The practice of imprisoning Jews in ghettos and marking them (as was introduced by Pius VI in the Papal States, inter alia, in 1775) is associated more with the Nazism of the Third Reich than with the Roman Catholic Church. Nevertheless, the Church maintained its policy of perfidis Judaeis until the beginning of the 1960s, when it was stopped by Vatican II, probably because of the pressure of social and political factors. This topic is, however, difficult to explain, often very controversial, and subject to many different interpretations. Here we show that some anti-Semitic ideas were present in the Church before Vatican II, and that they have a religious, theological, and philosophical background. We consider those interpretations which, in an ideological sense, connect anti-Semitism in the Church with the genocidal anti-Semitism of the Third Reich. This article underlines the revolutionary change in the Church’s attitude toward Jews in Vatican II, a change caused primarily by the Holocaust.

Keywords anti-Semitism – anti-Judaism – Roman Catholic Church – Jews – the Papal States – Vatican

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The history of the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church toward Jews can be divided into two parts: before and after the Second Vatican Council. This last council radically changed the attitude of the Church not only in this field, but also in many other important social and political matters. One of the changes was the Church’s attitude toward women, whom as late as 1930 Pius XI had urged to prove themselves “superior to all the pains and cares and solicitudes of [their] maternal office with a more just and holy joy than that of the Roman matron, the mother of the Gracchi” (1930: 15). Since Vatican II the Church has accepted in practice the social and political secularization and privatization of religion. Another important change resulting from the same council concerned an acceptance of the importance of both other groups of Christians and nonChristian religions. In conjunction with this change came a radical change in the ideas of the Catholic Church toward Jews. Before the council other forms of Christianity and other religions were considered to be errors. For example, in Ci riesce, an address to the National Convention of Italian Catholic Jurists, Pius XII called these religions “error” and likened them to a “cockle” (1953: 5). In this article we want to underline the revolutionary nature of the reforms made by the Second Vatican Council in the Church’s attitudes toward Jews. In order to explicate this revolution better, we will point to some selected examples from the history of the Church in the period before Vatican II. We assume that this earlier attitude can be characterized as the Church’s antiSemitism. Vatican II rejected all of the anti-Semitic ideas that were found in official Church policy at the time. In this context, it is worth remembering that John Paul II, the Pope from Poland, underlined his Polish roots especially in the context of the historical experience of the Holocaust, which took place mainly in Nazi-occupied Poland. We would expect that the Holocaust was the most important reason for the Church to change its attitude toward Jews. However, we know that this experience did not immediately alter the Church’s approach. Pius XII, who was the last pope before Vatican II, shared the old antiSemitic, or possibly anti-Judaistic, approach. Of course, it is worth remembering that not all parts of the Church are the same worldwide. For instance, in 1946, the Jesuits removed from their statutes the paragraph that, since 1592, had excluded all candidates with Jewish roots extending as far back as the fifth generation. David Israel Kertzer (2005: 243) suggests that this Jesuitical paragraph could have served as a model for the Nazis and the Fascists. We are aware that this topic — the attitude of the Church toward Jews — has been the subject of many studies, but we favor the following procedure. We wish to underline the correctness of the view that before Vatican II the Church usually had a negative approach toward Jews and that its ideas were very often correlated with anti-Semitism. We endorse the results of the study by Kertzer Numen 64 (2017) 209–228


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in which he conducted a chronological analysis of the documents of the Papal States (since 1929 the Vatican) and some Catholic magazines and demonstrated that they contained anti-Semitic ideas. We also agree with Ruggero Taradel and Barbara Raggi, who have demonstrated the anti-Semitic content of La Civiltà Cattolica, a Jesuitical magazine closely related to the Papal States (Taradel and Raggi 2000). The title of their book, Segregazione amichevole [Friendly Segregation], is taken from the words that Leo XIII (pope 1878–1903) used to describe Jewish ghettos in the Papal States. These words were published in the aforementioned La Civiltà Cattolica. It is also worth bearing in mind a study by Steven Beller, who investigated the relationship between antiSemitism and anti-Judaism. He concluded that the former was developed on the basis of religious convictions, especially the concept that the Jews had murdered Jesus (2007: 11). We suggest, then, that the roots of contemporary anti-Semitism can be found in the history of ideas and convictions, specifically in religiously motivated or justified hostility toward Jews. We find the same approach in a study by Ulrike Ehret, who points to some anti-Semitic ideas in the Bible. She suggests that there is no difference between antiJudaism and anti-Semitism, because religious aversion toward the Jews has automatically been transformed into racial hostility (Ehret 2011: 272). In the same way, Robert Michael, in his 2006 book, finds an indirect link between religious ideas in institutionalized Christianity and the carrying out of the Holocaust. Like Beller, he emphasizes the leading role which the accusation that the Jews killed Jesus played in the evolution of anti-Semitism. We suggest that the idea of the Jews as the murderers of Jesus was one of the most effectual tools in the cultural process of demonizing Jews. We want to emphasize the anti-Semitic nature of the Church’s policy toward Jews in the period before Vatican II. To this end we will refer to some important studies and historical examples. Beller notes that in 1215 the Fourth Lateran Council introduced the requirement that Jews wear different clothes than Christians (Beller 2007: 13). We find another example in Anna Łysiak (2007), who wrote about the Church organization, Amici Israel, founded in 1926 to promote love and respect for the Jews. In 1928 Pius XI prohibited the propagation of these pro-Jewish ideas, at the request of the Congregation of the Holy Office, which saw them as contradictory to the teaching of the Church (Łysiak 2007: 28–29). Kertzer found an important article published in the Catholic magazine Pro Christo in 1934 in which we find the term foetor judaicus, “the Jewish stench.” It was in fact a fairly popular idea that Jews had an unpleasant smell, which was not removed even seven generations after baptism (Kertzer 2005: 245). In this context, we can assume that anti-Judaism in some sense was replaced by anti-Semitism because some ideas about Jews which were shared Numen 64 (2017) 209–228


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within a religious worldview did not refer only to religious and theological matters but also to physical features. At almost the same time, homosexuality and physical and mental defects were considered in the Third Reich to be Jewish diseases (Michael 2006: 153). In a sense, it seems comprehensible that a social group which is the object of the social aggression of the rest of society would be strongly dehumanized. We can say with Marvin Perry and Frederick M. Schweitzer that Jews were dehumanized and demonized, first by Christian theology and then by Nazism (2005: 259). Another study, a 2010 book by HansChristian Petersen and Samuel Salzborn, traces the development of antiSemitism in Middle and Eastern Europe. Finally, it is worth bearing in mind that the document, Dabru emet: A Jewish Statement on Christians and Christianity, concluded that the extermination of Jews by the Nazis would not have been possible without the anti-Semitism developed in European Christian societies (Dabru emet 2000). Before we deal with the revolutionary modification of the Church’s policy toward the Jews in Vatican II, we will provide some examples from the preVatican II period in which we find not only anti-Judaistic but also anti-Semitic ideas.

Anti-Semitism in the Church before Vatican II

The tradition of publishing encyclical letters was introduced by Benedict XIV in 1740. In 1751, he issued the encyclical, A quo primum: On Jews and Christians Living in the Same Place. In discussing Catholics and Jews living in Poland, Benedict criticized the economic activity of Jews. He confirmed the decrees of Alexander III (pope 1159–1181) and his successors that had prohibited Christians from working for Jews. He also recalled the warning of Innocent III (pope 1198–1216): Innocent III, after saying that Jews were being received by Christians into their cities, warns that the method and condition of this reception should guard against their repaying the benefit with evildoing. “They, on being admitted to our acquaintance in a spirit of mercy, repay us, the popular proverb says, as the mouse in the wallet, the snake in the lap, and fire in the bosom usually repay their host.” Benedict XIV 1751, sec. 5

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“Let not the sons of the free woman be servants of the sons of the handmaid; but as servants rejected by their lord for whose death they evilly conspired, let them realize that the result of this deed is to make them servants of those whom Christ’s death made free,” as we read in his decree Etsi Judaeos. Benedict XIV 1751, sec. 5

In this encyclical Benedict uses two basic anti-Semitic or anti-Judaistic ideas. One of them is the idea that the Jews killed Jesus. The second is the view that the Jews want to dominate the world. This second idea was especially popular in the Catholic magazine, La Civiltà Cattolica. There we find in the second half of the nineteenth century allegations concerning a global conspiracy of “doppia tirranide, giudaica in economia e massonica in politica” [a double tyranny, Jewish in the economy and masonic in politics]: Corre oggimai un secolo da che nell’Europa si lavora e si nuda a tutto distruggere l’ordinamento sociale cristiano, per surrogarvi un ordinemaneto che muta nome ogni tanto; ma nella sostanza è fondato sopra la servitù dei popoli alla doppia tirannide, giudaica in economia e massonica in politica: sebbene, a dir vero, le due ne faccian poi una, giacchè il monopolio politico della massoneria serve a sustentare l’economico del giudaismo, e questo dà incremento e vigore a quello; essendo ora divenuto chiaro che il massonismo dei cristiani rinnegati altro non è che la maschera del giudaismo imperante. La Civiltà Cattolica 1884: 71

It is worth remembering that in the first half of the twentieth century, Alfred Rosenberg had interpreted Jewish religiosity in a similar way. He claimed that this religiosity was deceptive and was used to justify and promote Jewish economic interests (Rosenberg 1982: 81). The concluding remarks of Benedict XIV’s letter are as follows: he promises the Polish episcopate that “when the situation arises, We will cooperate energetically and effectively with those 1 “This century in Europe is a century of destruction of the Christian social order and its replacement by a new order that sometimes changes its name. However, its core idea is to subordinate the people to the double tyranny, Jewish in the economy and Masonic in politics. In practice they work as one entity, because the political monopoly of masonry serves to sustain the economy of Judaism, and one increases the power and vigor of the other. It has become clear that the masonry of Christian renegades is nothing but the mask of dominant Judaism.” All translations in this article are ours unless otherwise noted.

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whose combined authority and power are appropriate to remove this stain of shame from Poland” (1751, sec. 9). The encyclical, A quo primum, expresses the Church’s attitude toward the Jews, but it is not the only official document in which we can find anti-Judaistic ideas. Another one, which seems to be even more important, is the following prayer, which was obligatory until the Council of Vatican II edition of the Missale Romanum: Orémus, & pro pérfidis Judaeis, ut Deus, & Dóminus noster áuserat vel men de córdibus eórum: ut & ipsi agnóscant Jesum Christum Dóminum nostrum. Amen. Omnipotens sempitern Deus, qui étiam Judáicam perfidiam à tua misericórdia non repéllis: exáudi preces nostras, quas pro illius pópuli obcaecatióne desérimus: ut, ágnita veritátis tuae luce, quae Christus est, à suis ténebris eruántur. Per eúmdem Dóminum, & c. Amen. Missale Romanum 1747: 1962

The Latin word, perfidus, which is used in this prayer, means faithless, treacherous, false, and deceitful. Perfidia can mean faithlessness, treachery, and perfidy. We can find the same kind of description of the Jews in Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Of course, we do not know if Hitler knew of this prayer in the Missale Romanum. However, in the sense of the history of ideas, we can speak of the analogical origin of concepts which were the same in the Missale Romanum and Mein Kampf: Nun wäre aber der Zeitpunkt gekommen gewesen, gegen die ganze betrügerische [deceitful] Genossenschaft dieser jüdischen Volksvergifter vorzugehen. Hitler 1940: 1853

That Catholic prayer is a natural result of anti-Jewish ideas developed in the Church beginning in the twelfth century at the latest. These ideas not only had 2 “Let us pray also for the faithless Jews: that Almighty God may remove the veil from their hearts so that they too may acknowledge Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Almighty and eternal God, who dost not exclude from thy mercy even Jewish faithlessness: hear our prayers, which we offer for the blindness of that people; that acknowledging the light of thy Truth, which is Christ, they may be delivered from their darkness. Amen.” 3 “But now the time has come to act against the entire deceitful collective of these Jewish poisoners of the people [Volk].”

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theoretical, theological consequences, but they also influenced practical decisions, as is clear from L’editto sopra gli Ebrei, proclaimed by Pius VI in 1775. He decreed that Jews in the Papal States should be imprisoned in ghettos and that they should be segregated by using yellow marks. He also repeated the earlier prohibition on Christians working for Jews (Pius VI 1775). Once more in this case we can find a parallel with the practice of the Nazis. In November 1939, Hans Frank ordered that Jews had to be segregated by white marks on their clothes in the territories of the General Government (the Polish areas occupied by the Third Reich). In a sense, he repeated ideologically the point of view that had been developed in the Church starting with the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, at the latest (Frank 1972: 139). One of the most important cultural tools used in the dehumanization of Jews was the practice of accusing them of ritual murders. This accusation appeared as early as the twelfth century, when Jews were accused of crucifying Christians. Starting in the thirteenth century, they were also often accused of drinking Christian blood. Neither the Renaissance nor the Enlightenment eliminated these accusations. In the nineteenth century, Catholic magazines played an important role in the propagation of the idea of the Jew as Murderer. Consider the issue of La Civiltà Cattolica published on 25 October 1883. The editors referred to the Tisza-Eszlar case in which a group of Hungarian Jews was accused of killing a Christian girl to procure her blood. La Civiltà Cattolica adduced this case as evidence for a conscious religious motivation of Jews to murder Christians. The Jews “are required, in view of their piety, religion and rite to kill Christians and take their blood for their own liturgical and sacramental rites” (La Civiltà Cattolica 1883: 353). On 8 January 1884, the magazine protested against “using Christian blood in Jewish rites in contemporary synagogues” (La Civiltà Cattolica 1884: 217). On 23 January 1884, the same magazine recalled this murder and noted that the Jews “ritually extract blood” not only from children but also from adult men and women, and they use their blood to prepare unleavened bread and pandolce cake to distribute among Christians (“per azzimi o pandolce da distribuire a’cristiani”) (La Civiltà Cattolica 1884: 354). On 21 February 1884, the editors wrote that Jews who killed Christians “do not believe in God but in devils” (La Civiltà Cattolica 1884: 615). In the same magazine, we read about the testimonies of three Jewish “killers” in the Diessenhofen case in 1401. One of them said that “ALL JEWS need Christian blood every seven years” (capital letters added by the La Civiltà Cattolica editorial office), another said that a child “should be no older than thirteen years old,” and the third said that “blood is needed for Passover.” At the end of “the chronicle” section of this magazine, we read that the Jews not only have a distinct religion, but, first of all, that they constitute a distinct “Jewish Numen 64 (2017) 209–228


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race” which is an “enemy to the other races.” The author points out that “Jews by religion are also Jews by race and nationality; they will never be Italians, or Spaniards, or Frenchmen but always Jews and nothing else but Jews” (La Civiltà Cattolica 1884: 622). In this anti-Semitic paradigm, the desire for Christian blood was the result of the great Jewish hatred toward Christians, their need for magic acts, and the hidden conviction of the rabbis that Jesus is the true Savior and that drinking Christian blood yields salvation (Kertzer 2005: 108). The Jewish perfidia mentioned in the Missale Romanum was the act of killing Jesus, who supposedly had not fulfilled the economic and political expectations of the Jews. This murder was allegedly reproduced repeatedly — even, again allegedly, up until the 20th century. The practice of taking children as victims supposedly showed Jewish perfidia. It seems that this idea was popular and important among lay Catholics, though not especially in official Church policy. However, in some periods the Church played the leading role in its popularization. Take the case of a two-and-half-year-old boy who was found dead on Easter, 1475, in Italy. This boy was said to have been killed by the Jews and was proclaimed a martyr of the diocese of Trent by Sixtus V in 1588. Thereafter every 24 March the Martyrologium Romanum mentioned “the boy Simon who was executed” (Sorano 1631: 191). Vatican II rejected the cult of Simon because the admission by Jews of “performing ritual murder” had been extracted by torture (Schauber and Schindler 2000: 119). When Sixtus V legalized this cult, he did not follow the strategy of Innocent IV, who, in his letter to the German bishops in 1274, criticized the practice of unjustly accusing Jews of ritual murders in which “they share the heart of [a kidnapped Christian] during an (Easter) celebration” (Fros and Sowa 2004: 390–391). Innocent IV interpreted these practices as false accusations which were used to “take Jewish material goods” (Fros and Sowa 2004: 390–391). However, the editors of La Civiltà Cattolica rejected the strategy developed by Innocent IV. On 8 November 1883, they wrote about a boy named Albert who was allegedly killed by Jews in Poland in 1598, and they named what they considered “the true and basic motive of the killers”: “hatred of Christ and of the Christian” (La Civiltà Cattolica 1883: 488). Jews were probably the group most stigmatized by Roman Catholics. In Poland Jews had extensive rights, but theological and philosophical ideas must have precluded the possibility of respecting Jews from the Catholic worldview. Thomistic metaphysics could be used to strengthen the religious ideas of the Jew as Murderer and the Jew as Perfidus. This metaphysics evokes one, true model of the world and one truth which is purportedly easy enough to discover by natural human cognition. The Church could justify its truthfulness metaphysically and thus reject all non-Catholic approaches. In this context, the Thomism that was restored by Leo XIII served apologetic aims and was Numen 64 (2017) 209–228


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used to combat rationally idealistic, positivist, and materialistic ideas (Leo XIII 2003: 32–33). Thomistic and neo-Thomistic realism was a tool used to legitimate Catholicism. Other religions were a result of malice, perfidy, or error, as Pius XII notes in his address Ci riesce (Pius XII 1953). In this ideological context, the Church’s negative attitude toward Jews was a natural consequence of its metaphysics. It appears, however, that while this metaphysics contributed to a negative attitude toward Jews, it was not by itself sufficient to create it, because in fact it legitimated a negative attitude toward all non-Catholic religions and denominations. It seems likely that the especially negative attitude toward Jews was strengthened by non-metaphysical ideas. The demonization of Jews was supported by theological and religious ideas, for instance, by particular biblical texts. By contrast, a negative attitude toward other religions did not have the same biblical support. The Church could not literally criticize Islam or Protestant denominations by referring to the Bible, as it could in the case of the Jews, since unlike the Jews, these groups are obviously not mentioned in the Bible. Another idea which influenced theology and religion suggested that Jewish social and political problems, especially their global dispersion and their lack of their own state, were just punishments for killing the Savior. Pope Benedict XIV shared this idea when he wrote, “On this account they are scattered through all lands in order that they may be witnesses to our redemption while they pay the just penalties for so great a crime” (1751, sec. 4). We find the same thought also in a text by Leo XIII written in 1890: Let us call to mind what Holy Scripture records concerning the Jewish nation: “As long as they sinned not in the sight of their God, it was well with them: for their God hateth iniquity. And even . . . when they had revolted from the way that God had given them to walk therein, they were destroyed in battles by many nations.” Now, the nation of the Jews bore an inchoate semblance to the Christian people, and the vicissitudes of their history in olden times have often foreshadowed the truth that was to come, saving that God in His goodness has enriched and loaded us with far greater benefits, and on this account the sins of Christians are much greater, and bear the stamp of more shameful and criminal ingratitude. Leo XIII 1890, sec. 38

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and the Holocaust. Before the Holocaust, the Church did not protest against anti-Semitism. On 20 July 1933 the Secretary of State of the Vatican, Eugenio Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII), and the Vice-Chancellor of the Third Reich, Franz von Papen, signed a concordat. Article 16 of this document said that every German bishop, before taking over the management of his diocese, must deliver “an oath of loyalty into the hands of the Reichsstatthalter or the President of the Third Reich” in which “giving the oath and promising before God and his Saints’ Gospels, he will take care, as of his own duty, of the good and the interests of the German State”: I Vescovi, prima di prendere possesso delle loro Diocesi, presteranno nelle mani del Luogotenente (Reichsstatthalter) presso lo Stato competente oppure del Presidente del Reich un giuramento di fedeltà secondo la formula seguente: Davanti a Dio e sui Santi Vangeli, giuro e prometto, come si conviene ad un Vescovo, fedeltà al Reich Germanico e allo Stato . . . Giuro e prometto di rispettare e di far rispettare dal mio clero il Governo stabilito secondo le leggi costituzionali dello Stato. Preoccupandomi, com’è mio dovere, del bene e dell’interesse dello Stato Germanico, cercherò, nell esercizio del sacro ministero affidatomi, di impedire ogni danno che possa minacciarlo. L’osservatore romano 1933: 164

The second reason for the change in the Church’s attitude was, in our opinion, a partial marginalization of neo-Thomistic philosophy in the official teachings of the Church. In certain social and political fields, neo-Thomism was replaced by more idealistic, personalistic, and phenomenological ideas that in some sense accepted pluralism and advocated tolerance for other religions and philosophical theories. Before the Second World War these ideas were condemned by the popes for being associated with liberal and modernistic Catholicism. Social and political secularization, war (including the Holocaust), and the new

4 “Before the bishops take possession of their dioceses they shall take an oath of allegiance either before the Reichsstatthalter of the appropriate province, or the Reich President as follows: ‘I swear and promise before God and on the Holy Gospel, as befits a bishop, loyalty to the German Reich and to the province of . . . I swear and promise to respect, and to have my clergy to respect, the constitutionally constituted government. In dutiful solicitude for the welfare and interest of the German State, I shall try, in the exercise of the spiritual office entrusted to me, to prevent any injury that might threaten it.’ ”

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Cold War popularized a global desire for peace and unity. Vatican II started a program of Aggiornamento that accepted these trends and ideas which had previously been unacceptable under Church teachings.

The Church’s New Attitude toward Jews in the Second Vatican Council

We would now like to give further evidence of the sudden change in Church policy toward Jews in Vatican II. Since 1958, public papal speech referring to the Jews (John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II) has underlined respect and toleration for the Jewish people and religion. Vatican II re-humanized the Jews and accepted ideas and concepts that were previously rejected. The Church introduced ideas of peace, freedom, and unity, which were considered more important, at least in the social arena, than the idea of a unique truth. Before the Council, truth was the dominant idea in Catholic circles, and it had particular social, political, and legal consequences, such as the condemnation of religious freedom, a critique of the concept of the secularized state, and a negative attitude toward non-Catholic confessions. The first important Church document that changed the attitude toward Jews is Nostra aetate: Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, signed on 28 October 1965 by Paul VI. This declaration condemned anti-Semitism, confirmed a spiritual union between Christians and Jews, the latter of whom it described as first in the history of Revelation, underlined the Jewish origin of the apostles who founded the Church, and rejected the accusation that the Jews had killed Jesus. The basis of this new attitude was the commandment to “love your neighbor;” as a result, the Church also removed the statement that Jews were “cursed by God” (perfidis): As the sacred synod searches into the mystery of the Church, it remembers the bond that spiritually ties the people of the New Covenant to Abraham’s stock. Thus the Church of Christ acknowledges that, according to God’s saving design, the beginnings of her faith and her election are found already among the Patriarchs, Moses and the prophets. She professes that all who believe in Christ — Abraham’s sons according to faith — are included in the same Patriarch’s call, and likewise that the salvation of the Church is mysteriously foreshadowed by the chosen people’s exodus from the land of bondage. The Church, therefore, cannot forget that she received the revelation of the Old Testament through the people with whom God in Numen 64 (2017) 209–228


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His inexpressible mercy concluded the Ancient Covenant. Nor can she forget that she draws sustenance from the root of that well-cultivated olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild shoots, the Gentiles. Indeed, the Church believes that by His cross Christ, Our Peace, reconciled Jews and Gentiles, making both one in Himself. The Church keeps ever in mind the words of the Apostle about his kinsmen: “theirs is the sonship and the glory and the covenants and the law and the worship and the promises; theirs are the fathers and from them is the Christ according to the flesh” (Rom. 9.4–5), the Son of the Virgin Mary. She also recalls that the Apostles, the Church’s main-stay and pillars, as well as most of the early disciples who proclaimed Christ’s Gospel to the world, sprang from the Jewish people. As Holy Scripture testifies, Jerusalem did not recognize the time of her visitation, nor did the Jews in large number, accept the Gospel; indeed not a few opposed its spreading. Nevertheless, God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers; He does not repent of the gifts He makes or of the calls He issues — such is the witness of the Apostle. In company with the Prophets and the same Apostle, the Church awaits that day, known to God alone, on which all peoples will address the Lord in a single voice and “serve him shoulder to shoulder” (Soph. 3.9). Since the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews is thus so great, this sacred synod wants to foster and recommend that mutual understanding and respect which is the fruit, above all, of biblical and theological studies as well as of fraternal dialogues. True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ; still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures. All should see to it, then, that in catechetical work or in the preaching of the word of God they do not teach anything that does not conform to the truth of the Gospel and the spirit of Christ. Furthermore, in her rejection of every persecution against any man, the Church, mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel’s spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone. Nostra aetate 1965, sec. 4

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Thus, the Church condemned anti-Semitism and underlined the importance of Judaism for Catholicism. In line with this change, in 1962 a new version of the Missale Romanum was published that did not condemn the Jews as perfidis. This document introduced new ideas into Church doctrine. Some of them were condemned in time before Vatican II. There is no doubt that these new ideas have required a new metaphysical base like the new concept of human dignity that is not correlated with religious affiliation or the concept of ecumenism and religious unity. It seems that old metaphysical ideas that have worked in Church doctrine before Vatican II have excluded any opportunity to apply new approaches even if some of the Catholic clergy supported toleration and respect for non-Catholics. We can illustrate this new attitude with some examples found in the public pronouncements of John Paul II. This policy was the result of the idea, promoted by Vatican II, of the unity of all peoples and the concept of human dignity. However, we also think that John Paul II wanted to show respect for Jews and reconciliation in an especially powerful way, for he underlined the Jewish origin of Jesus (John Paul II 2007a: 511). Although his attitude was a consequence of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, it was not natural and evident in the pre-conciliar ideas mentioned above. Consider the following example. There are in the catechism of Pius X five groups outside of “the true Church: non-believers, the Jews, apostates, schismatics, and the excommunicated” (2006: 60). In the catechism of John Paul II, Judaism is mentioned as the non-Christian religion which is closest to Catholicism in view of “the link of the Church with the Jewish nation” (Katechizm Kościoła Katolickiego 2012: 215). John Paul II condemned antiSemitic ideas associated with Nazism and Christianity, inter alia in a speech delivered in Yad Vashem in Jerusalem: We wish to remember. But we wish to remember for a purpose, namely, to ensure that never again will evil prevail, as it did for the millions of innocent victims of Nazism. As Bishop of Rome and Successor of the Apostle Peter, I assure the Jewish people that the Catholic Church, motivated by the Gospel law of truth and love and by no political considerations, is deeply saddened by the hatred, acts of persecution, and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews by Christians at any time and in any place. The Church rejects racism in any form as a denial of the image of the Creator inherent in every human being. (cf. Gen 1:26) John Paul II 2000a

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During a meeting with the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Riccardo di Segni, the Pope underlined that the Jews are “beloved brothers in faith” — Come ebbi a dire nella menzionata visita, noi vi salutiamo quali nostri “fratelli prediletti” nella fede di Abramo, nostro patriarca, di Isacco e di Giacobbe, di Sara e Rebecca, di Rachele e Lia John Paul II 20045

— and “our older brothers.” In Jerusalem in 2000, he reminded the Chief Rabbis of Israel, Yisrael Meir Lau and Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron, of his words in the Great Synagogue of Rome when he again condemned anti-Semitism: Personally, I have always wanted to be counted among those who work, on both sides, to overcome old prejudices and to secure ever wider and fuller recognition of the spiritual patrimony shared by Jews and Christians. I repeat what I said on the occasion of my visit to the Jewish Community in Rome, that we Christians recognize that the Jewish religious heritage is intrinsic to our own faith: “you are our elder brothers” (cf. John Paul II 1986, sec. 4). We hope that the Jewish people will acknowledge that the Church utterly condemns anti-Semitism and every form of racism as being altogether opposed to the principles of Christianity. We must work together to build a future in which there will be no more anti-Judaism among Christians or anti-Christian sentiment among Jews. John Paul II 2000b

John Paul II recognized Judaism as an “inherent part of our own faith.” Unlike the editors of La Civiltà Cattolica, who wrote in 1884 about “perfidia ebraica” (1884: 738), he did not consider the Jewish religion as perfidia. Instead, he quoted the Apostle Paul to the effect that “from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved” (John Paul II 1986). He further called on the faithful to “combat racism and xenophobia” (John Paul II 2007b: 384). The Pope underlined the importance of neighborly love and the necessity of preparing social relations which could eliminate negative ideas and attitudes toward other religious and national groups: Oswiecim — e tutto ciò che è legato ad esso come la tragica eredità dell’Europa e dell’umanità — rimane sempre come un dovere del 5 “We salute our ‘beloved brothers’ in the faith of Abraham, our patriarch, that of Isaac and Jacob, Sarah and Rebecca, Rachel and Leah.”

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Carmelo. Rimane come dovere in particolare ciò che è legato con il campo di sterminio “Auschwitz-Birkenau” nella memoria dei popoli. John Paul II 19936

John Paul II guaranteed the solidarity of the Church to “[our] dear brother Jews” (John Paul II 1987). Let us consider a further example of the Church’s public policy. Besides the above-mentioned statements of the Pope, we can detect a little inconsistency in the Church’s approach in the writings of Edward Idris Cassidy. Cassidy, the president of both the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue in aliud quinquennium and the Commission of the Holy See for Religious Relations with the Jews, prepared a report about the historical attitude of the Church toward the Jews. In 1998, he wrote, The fact that the Shoah took place in Europe, that is, in countries of long-standing Christian civilization, raises the question of the relation between the Nazi persecution and the attitudes down the centuries of Christians towards the Jews. The history of relations between Jews and Christians is a tormented one. His Holiness Pope John Paul II has recognized this fact in his repeated appeals to Catholics to see where we stand with regard to our relations with the Jewish people. In effect, the balance of these relations over two thousand years has been quite negative. Cassidy made a distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism, and he claimed that in the Church in the past one can find only the latter: Thus we cannot ignore the difference which exists between anti-Semitism, based on theories contrary to the constant teaching of the Church on the unity of the human race and on the equal dignity of all races and peoples, and the long-standing sentiments of mistrust and hostility that we call anti-Judaism, of which, unfortunately, Christians also have been guilty. Cassidy 1998

6 “Oświęcim — and all that is connected with this tragic heritage of Europe and of humanity — will always remain a moral debt for Carmel. Everything that is connected with the extermination camp ‘Auschwitz-Birkenau’ in the memory of the people will remain a particular moral debt.”

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Of course, Cassidy’s report is opposed to the other ecclesiastical texts mentioned above, such as A quo primum from Benedict XIV or Pius XII’s idea that the Jews believe in the “lethal” Old Testament (Pius XII 1945: 33–34). These texts were opposed to the idea of the “equal dignity of all people” mentioned by Cassidy. However, if Cassidy is right when he exonerates the Church from the accusation of anti-Semitism, there seems to be an explanatory puzzle. The above-mentioned examples from the period before Vatican II certainly contain anti-Semitic ideas. When Cassidy fails to see any anti-Semitism in Church doctrine before Vatican II, he makes a dangerous distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism. Another important issue seems to be a lack of awareness of what might result from some ideas in actual practice. We assume that an attempt to distinguish between each approach (anti-Semitism, on the one side, and anti-Judaism, on the other side, as if these were ontologically and ideologically different) can lead to various kinds of justification for contempt and aversion towards Jews, even if someone points out — as Cassidy does — that this contempt and aversion is only religious, not racial and ethnic. We do not believe in such distinctions, because Jewish ethnicity is usually combined with religion, which defines a wide spectrum of social, cultural, and political life. Moreover, such an approach does away with what is currently the greatest stage of our development as a civilization — the idea of the dignity of all human beings. We claim that defending the Church against the charge of anti-Semitism in the way that Cassidy espouses is very attractive to many Catholics, because it justifies past Catholic anti-Semitic ideas by interpreting them as being the result “only” of religious conflict and not of ethnic and cultural aversion. Conclusion Given the above-mentioned texts from the period before Vatican II, it would seem reasonable to interpret the Holocaust as an ideological final step in a long cultural policy of hatred toward Jews. This hatred was developed at different levels of the Church. Cassidy is right when he writes about two thousand years of negative relations between Catholics and Jews. It can be concluded that this policy of hatred helped to bring about laws that were restrictive for Jews but that were not seen by Christians as dangerous or inappropriate. This is a kind of pedagogy of evil, developed by the Church, which identified Jews as the “embodiment of pure evil” and as “emissaries of devils” within the framework of a “Vatican culture of anti-Semitism” (Kertzer 2005: 20, 22–23). This cultural policy shows how great the power of ideas can be, especially the idea of the Jew as a murderer and a villain. Numen 64 (2017) 209–228


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After the deaths of several million Jews during the Second World War this pedagogy of evil was repudiated. Their deaths showed that ideas can have practical consequences, especially ideas that dehumanize and demonize others. Vatican II accepted Nicholas Cusanus’ idea of the coincidentia oppositorum, looking for unity in otherness and in variety. The new base of unity is human nature and the conviction that the life and dignity of every human being have absolute value. By contrast, the preconciliar idea of unity did not accept natural human unity and demanded conversion to Catholicism. Perhaps especially because of his Polish roots and experiences during the war, John Paul II made the ideas of unity, freedom, and equality the new fundamental ideas of the Catholic Church. He underlined the inheritance of faith common to both Jews and Christians. One of the most important implications of this common faith is the justification of human dignity in the concept of the creation of human beings “in the image and in the likeness of God” (John Paul II 2007b: 275). The Pope also developed, in some sense, a more naturalistic, more inter-subjective justification for human dignity by referring to a human nature common to all. Nevertheless, the history of Europe may suggest that basic human rights, especially rights to life and to freedom, are not obvious and so are not in this sense natural. References Beller, Steven. 2007. Antisemitism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Benedict XIV. 1751. A quo primum: On Jews and Christians Living in the Same Place. URL: http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Ben14/b14aquo.htm (accessed 19 May 2014). Cassidy, Edward Idris. 1998. We Remember. A Reflection on the Shoah. URL: http://www .vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_chrstuni _doc_16031998_shoah_en.html (accessed 20 May 2014). Dabru emet: A Jewish Statement on Christians and Christianity. 2000. URL: http:// www.jcrelations.net/Dabru_Emet__A_Jewish_Statement_on_Christians_and _Christianity.2395.0.html (accessed 19 May 2014). “Del tempo che va e del tempo che viene” [The Time Today and the Time Forthcoming]. 1884. La Civiltà Cattolica, Serie XII, Vol. V, Quaderno 805, 5 January. Ehret, Elrike. 2011. Church, Nation and Race: Catholics and Antisemitism in Germany and England, 1918–45. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Frank, Hans. 1972. “Rozporządzenie H. Franka o obowiązku noszenia opasek przez Żydów” [H. Frank’s Regulation Obliging Jews to Wear Armbandsq]. In Okupacja i ruch oporu w Dzienniku Hansa Franka, 1939–1945 [Occupation and Resistance in the Diary of Hans Frank, 1939–1945], vol. 1, Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza. Numen 64 (2017) 209–228


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