The Christian Churches and its 2000 year history of Anti-Semitism
Discussing the Nazi Holocaust, Hans Küng -- once a leading Catholic theologian, but now banned from teaching by the Church -- wrote that "Nazi anti-Judaism was the work of godless, anti-Christian criminals. But it would not have been possible without the almost two thousand years' pre-history of 'Christian' anti-Judaism..."
Two Church teachings became the foundation stones for centuries of oppression of Jews by the Church:
On Blood Purity invented not by the Nazis but by the Church
1547-" Statute of Toledo called Limpieza De Sangre or Blood Purity according to which no one of Jewish blood could hold office in the cathedral " p. 374 james carroll
1555- Gian Pieto Caraffa became Pope Paul IV
"...he ratified the blood purity statute of Toledo.
He forbade ..( the possession of any )religious book except the Bible.
From now on the Talmud would be on the index of forbidden books . To enforce that proscription he abolished Hebrew printing in Rome... and
" Jews are to own no real estate. Jews are to attend no Christian university .
Jews are to hire no Christian servants.
Jews mercantile roles are to be strictly repudiated. Jews taxes are to be increased. Jews are no longer to ignore the ancient requirement to wear distinctive clothing and badges .
Jews are to refuse to be addressed as ' sir' by Christians." p. 375 James carroll
These writings borrowed from Religious Tolerance.org of Ontario's Department of Education gives a fairly detailed outline of the Christian Churches responsibility for some 2,000 years of Rabid hatred of the Jews and of Judaism-
FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES
So few Christians are willing to accept the historical Role the Church played in its promulgation of Anti-Semitism
The text below was copied from :
Religious Tolerance .org
The ReligiousTolerance.org web site attempts to describe dozens of religions, faith groups, and controversial religious and moral topics in an objective, balanced manner.Transfer of sin:
This is the belief that all Jews, from the first century onwards, are responsible for Jesus' execution circa 30 CE. This includes Jews who lived in the Roman Empire in the first century CE but had never heard of Jesus or of his teachings. It includes Jews who were born in the 19 centuries following Jesus' death.
Current teachings of the Roman Catholic Church:
As stated above, there were two beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church which formed the foundation for centuries of crimes against humanity, directed against the Jewish people. Both foundations have been abandoned:
Supercessionism: This is the concept that, in the first century CE, God had rejected the Jews and revoked his covenants with them. The Church taught that God did this in response to the rejection of the Gospel by most Jews during Jesus' life and after his execution. Although many Jews formed the Jewish Christian movement centered in Jerusalem, most continued to favor the Torah and the religion of their ancestors, that God had called them to honor.
... This was the principle that all Jews, from the first century onwards, share responsible for Jesus' execution. This concept was rejected by the church's Second Vatican Council during the 1960s. The Council's "Declaration on the relation of the Church to non-Christian religions: Nostra Aetate," states: "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."
Unfortunately, this passage is followed by a statement that seems to suggest that belief in supercessionism is not quite dead in the Church: "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." [Emphasis ours].
Nostra Aetae continues with an unconditional denunciation on those who promote Antisemitism and persecutions of Jews, in unusually direct language: "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."
Copyright © 2001 to 2008 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance Originally written: 2001-JUL-25 Latest update: 2008-FEB-06 Author: B.A. Robinson
Part 2:
Judaism/Roman Catholicism/Genocide
Anti-semitism, the Nazi Holocaust,
and the Roman Catholic Church
Quotations:
"The Jews are a nervous people. Nineteen centuries of Christian love have taken a toll." Benjamin Disraeli
"Only in our remembrance and open discussion is there a chance, a hope, that another Holocaust will never happen." Louis Weber, publisher of "The Holocaust Chronicle"
"We would risk causing the victims of the most atrocious deaths to die again if we do not have an ardent desire for justice, if we do not commit ourselves to insure that evil does not prevail over good as it did for millions of children of the Jewish people...Humanity cannot permit all that to happen again." Pope John Paul II.
The roots of the Holocaust:
The Holocaust was built on a foundation of centuries of anti-Jewish hatred mainly promoted by the Roman Catholic Church, by the Protestant Churches, and to a lesser degree by the Eastern Orthodox churches. This religious hatred and intolerance was primarily created and maintained by Christian synods, councils, popes, cardinals, theologians, etc. until the 19th century. Since that time, anti-semitism -- hatred of Jews based on race -- has been a cooperative effort involving some religious, secular and government individuals and institutions.
Hans Küng, a leading Catholic theologian, 3 has written that "Nazi anti-Judaism was the work of godless, anti-Christian criminals. But it would not have been possible without the almost two thousand years' pre-history of 'Christian' anti-Judaism..." 4
Anti-semitism in the Roman Catholic Church
1st to 20th Century CE
During the 1st and 2nd century CE:
Circa 30 CE, the primitive Christian movement was one of about two dozen different Jewish religious/political movements, along with the Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, Zealots, followers of John the Baptist, etc. The immediate followers of Jeshua of Nazareth (Jesus Christ) looked upon themselves as a reform movement within Judaism.
Confrontation between the early Christians and various Jewish groups are recorded in the Christian Scriptures (aka New Testament). There are references to instances of persecution of Jewish Christians and Pauline Christians by Jewish groups. The Gospels, particularly the Gospel of John, contains many passages in which the authors condemn "the Jews" as sons of Satan and accuse them of murdering Jesus.
Justin Martyr (circa 100 to 165 CE) and Irenaeus of Lyon (circa 130 to 200 CE) developed the concept of "supercessionism." This is sometimes called the "theology of displacement" or "replacement theology." They taught that the Jews were partly responsible for Jesus' execution. Through this act, and by rejecting Jesus' teachings, the Jews were seen as losing their favored position as God's chosen people. Christianity replaced Judaism in God's eyes as the chosen people. The Christian Church became regarded as the 'true' or 'spiritual' Israel.4 Later, Milito of Sardis (circa 160) "through his misreading of the gospels still more bluntly than Justin held the Jews responsible for the death of Jesus..." 5
Two Church teachings became the foundation stones for centuries of oppression of Jews by the Church:
Supercessionism: (a.k.a. Replacement Theology): The belief that God had rejected the Jews, unilaterally cancelled his covenants with them, and now favored Christians as the new chosen people.
During the 4th century CE:
From 315 CE, (when the Roman Empire extended freedom of religion to Christians) to 395 (when Christianity had become the state religion) Christians were able to initiate programs of discrimination and oppression against Jews. Some early examples were:
306 CE: The church Synod of Elvira banned marriages, sexual intercourse and community contacts between Christians and Jews.
315: Constantine's Edict of Milan terminated many Jewish rights.
325: The Council of Nicea decided to separate the celebration of Easter from the Jewish Passover. They stated: "let us have nothing in common with this odious people..."
337: The marriage of a Jewish man to a Christian woman ecame punishable by death.
339: Conversion to Judaism became a criminal offense.
367 - 376: St. Hilary of Poitiers referred to Jews as a perverse people who God has cursed forever. St. Ephroem referred to synagogues as brothels.
379-395: Emperor Theodosius the Great permitted the destruction of synagogues if it served a religious purpose.
380: The Bishop of Milan initiated the destruction of a synagogue, which he referred to as "an act pleasing to God."
During the Middle Ages and Renaissance:
During this period, there were dozens of other instances of persecution of Jews by the church, including exiling Jews from cities, dioceses and entire countries; destruction of synagogues; denial of the right to own land or to hold office; and their reduction to serfdom and slavery. Perhaps the worst instances during these centuries were genocides during the Crusades. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered in cold blood by Christian armies on their way to and from Palestine.
Some of the other acts of oppression included:
1205: Pope Innocent III wrote to the archbishops of Sens and Paris that "the Jews, by their own guilt, are consigned to perpetual servitude because they crucified the Lord...As slaves rejected by God, in whose death they wickedly conspire, they shall by the effect of this very action, recognize themselves as the slaves of those whom Christ's death set free..." i.e. they would be slaves of Christians.
1227: The Synod of Narbonne required Jews to wear an oval badge -- reminiscent of the Star of David that the Nazis required Jews to wear.
1478: The Spanish Inquisition was organized by the Church in order to detect insincere conversions of Jews to Christianity.
1516: Venice forced Jews to live only in one parish, called the "Ghetto Novo."
1555: A Roman Catholic Papal bull, "Cum nimis absurdum," required Jews in Vatican controlled lands to wear badges, and be confined to ghettos. Over 3,000 people were crammed into about 8 acres of land. The public health problems were horrendous.
1648-9: Massacres of Jews occurred in Nemirov, Polonnoye, Tulchin, Volhynia, Bar, Lvov, and other cities in Ukraine. About 100,000 Jews were murdered and 300 communities destroyed.
During these centuries, there were a few attempts by various popes to reduce the impact of the church's policies against the Jews. They were largely ignored. None had any lasting impact.
During 19th and first half of the 20th century CE:
In earlier centuries, persecution by church and state was directed at followers of Judaism. The Church believed that some Jews must be allowed to live, because the biblical book of Revelation indicated that they had a role to play in the "end times." However, since the Church at the time believed that all Jews were responsible for Jesus' death -- past, present and future -- then it was acceptable to make Jews' lives quite miserable. Jews could escape oppression by giving up their religion, converting to Christianity, and being baptized.
Subsequent attacks against Jews were mostly racially motivated, and perpetrated by Christian, governmental and secular groups and individuals. The Jewish people were viewed as a separate race more than as followers of a different religion.
1806: A French Jesuit Priest, Abbe Barruel, had written a treatise blaming the Masonic Order for the French Revolution. He later issued a letter alleging that Jews, not the Masons were the guilty party. Beliefs in an international Jewish conspiracy to control the world came from this source; they continue today.
1846 - 1878: Pope Pius IX restored all of the previous restrictions against the Jews within the Vatican state. All Jews under Papal control were confined to Rome's ghetto - the last one in Europe until the Nazis recreated ghettos in the 1930s.
Pius IX was beatified in the year 2000 -- the last step before sainthood.
1881: The assassination of Alexander II of Russia was incorrectly blamed on Jews. About 200 individual pogroms against the Jews followed. ("Pogrom" is a Russian word meaning "devastation" or "riot.")
1894: French Captain Alfred Dreyfus was framed by antisemitic officers, found guilty and was given a life sentence. The church, government and army united to suppress the truth. Ten years later, he was declared totally innocent. The Dreyfus Affair became world-wide news for years.
1903+: Anti-Jewish pogroms continued in Russia, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths during the first two decades of the 20th century.
1905: The Russian secret police wrote a piece of fiction, the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion." A Russian Orthodox priest, Sergius Nilus, published them publicly in 1905. It was promoted as the record of "secret rabbinical conferences whose aim was to subjugate and exterminate the Christians." The forgeries are still being circulated. They appear from time to time in Muslim media. Wal-Mart stocked them in their online bookstore until 2004-SEP.
1930s: Some American clergy used their their radio programs to attack Jews. Father Charles E Coughlin was one of the best known. "In the 1930's, radio audiences heard him rail against the threat of Jews to America's economy and defend Hitler's treatment of Jews as justified in the fight against communism."
1933: Hitler becomes the chancellor of Germany.
1936: The Nazi government passed the anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws, which paralleled earlier Church laws against Jews.
1936: Cardinal Hloud of Poland urged Catholics to boycott Jewish businesses.
1938: Hitler brought back various century-old church regulations, ordering all Jews to wear a yellow Star of David as identification.
1940: The Nazis confined Jews to inner-city ghettos, another technique of the church.
1941 to 1945: The Nazi Holocaust resulted in the execution of over 6 million Jews, a similar number of non-Jews -- such as Soviet prisoners of war, Polish intellectuals -- about a half million Roma (Gypsies). Also killed were a few thousand Jehovah's Witnesses and an unknown number of homosexuals. Of these victims, only the Jews and Roma were marked for total annihilation.
The Roman Catholic Church reversed its theology later in the 20th century and is now a strong supporter of religious tolerance towards Jews.
Also see on Pope Pius Xll article by
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach at Huffington Post ,March 9, 2010.
Moral Cowardice and the Third Reich: The Legacy of Pius XII
He was the Pope who famously refused, amid unmistakable evidence of thousands of Jews being shipped to slaughter in Nazi concentration camps, to ever speak out against the holocaust. This followed Pius' successful efforts to prevent the publication of an encyclical commissioned by his dying predecessor to condemn Nazi Antisemitism. This is also the Pope who sent Hitler birthday greetings every single year and who refused to excommunicate Hitler or any other top Nazis who were on official Catholic rolls (to give this context, the singer Sinead O'Connor was excommunicated).
He ignored the pleas of President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill to denounce the Nazis. He later refused to endorse a joint declaration by Britain, U.S and Russia condemning mass murder of Europe's Jews, claiming that he simply could not condemn "particular" atrocities. The most he ever did was a single pronouncement during the war on the murder "of hundreds of thousands." By then, of course, there were millions, and he did not mention Hitler, Nazi Germany, or the Jews in the statement.
Most infamously, he was silent when the Germans rounded up Rome's Jews in October 1944 for slaughter. They were being processed for extermination in a military school a few hundred yards from his window in St. Peter's. An Italian princess, Enza Pignatelli, forced her way into the Pope's study and warned him about the imminent assault on the city's Jewish citizens. "You must act immediately," she cried. "The Germans are arresting the Jews and taking them away. Only you can stop them." The Pope assured her, "I will do all I can." He made no protest and nearly all were later gassed in Auschwitz. Curiously, amid the Pope's inability to find his voice to condemn the extermination of European Jewry, when the Catholic archbishop of Berlin issued a statement mourning Hitler's death, the Pope did not reprimand him.
Author John Cornwell unearths letters from Pius' early career in Germany which reveals a stubborn, even distasteful disposition toward Jews. While Papal nuncio in Germany, Pius refused to perform favors for the Jewish community on the flimsiest of grounds and describes the Munich chapter of the German Communist Party as being filthy and full of Jews. Pius refers derisively to "a group of young women, of dubious appearance, Jews like all the rest of them" and he describes Communist leader Max Levien as a Jew, "pale, dirty, with drugged eyes, hoarse voice, vulgar, repulsive..."
http://www.memory-hole.blog.co.uk/The Memory Hole
The Protestant Reformation -Martin Luther
As for the Reformation and the Great Schism -The Protestants were just as bigoted against the Jews as were Catholics and the Catholic Church.
as Martin Luther wrote
in his own anti-Semitic tirade of hate The Jews and Their Lies(1543) as we see below:
At the beginning of his career, Luther was apparently sympathetic to Jewish resistance to the Catholic Church. He wrote, early in his career:
The Jews are blood-relations of our Lord; if it were proper to boast of flesh and blood, the Jews belong more to Christ than we. I beg, therefore, my dear Papist, if you become tired of abusing me as a heretic, that you begin to revile me as a Jew.
But Luther expected them to convert to his purified Christianity. When they did not, he turned violently against Jews.
Martin Luther: The Jews and Their Lies
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...I had made up my mind to write no more either about the Jews or against them. But since I learned that these miserable and accursed people do not cease to lure to themselves even us, that is, the Christians, I have published this little book, so that I might be found among those who opposed such poisonous activities of the Jews who warned the Christians to be on their guard against them. I would not have believed that a Christian could be duped by the Jews into taking their exile and wretchedness upon himself. However, the devil is the god of the world, and wherever God's word is absent he has an easy task, not only with the weak but also with the strong. May God help us. Amen.
He did not call them Abraham's children, but a "brood of vipers" [Matt. 3:7]. Oh, that was too insulting for the noble blood and race of Israel, and they declared, "He has a demon' [Matt 11:18]. Our Lord also calls them a "brood of vipers"; furthermore in John 8 [:39,44] he states: "If you were Abraham's children ye would do what Abraham did.... You are of your father the devil. It was intolerable to them to hear that they were not Abraham's but the devil's children, nor can they bear to hear this today.
...Therefore the blind Jews are truly stupid fools...
...Now just behold these miserable, blind, and senseless people.
...their blindness and arrogance are as solid as an iron mountain.
Learn from this, dear Christian, what you are doing if you permit the blind Jews to mislead you. Then the saying will truly apply, "When a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into the pit" [cf. Luke 6:39]. You cannot learn anything from them except how to misunderstand the divine commandments...
***
Therefore be on your guard against the Jews, knowing that wherever they have their synagogues, nothing is found but a den of devils in which sheer selfglory, conceit, lies, blasphemy, and defaming of God and men are practiced most maliciously and veheming his eyes on them.
***
Moreover, they are nothing but thieves and robbers who daily eat no morsel and wear no thread of clothing which they have not stolen and pilfered from us by means of their accursed usury. Thus they live from day to day, together with wife and child, by theft and robbery, as archthieves and robbers, in the most impenitent security.
***
However, they have not acquired a perfect mastery of the art of lying; they lie so clumsily and ineptly that anyone who is just a little observant can easily detect it. But for us Christians they stand as a terrifying example of God's wrath."
In 1144 CE, an unfounded rumor began in eastern England, that Jews had kidnapped a Christian child, tied him to a cross, stabbed his head to simulate Jesus' crown of thorns, killed him, drained his body completely of blood, and mixed the blood into matzos (unleavened bread) at time of Passover. The rumor was started by a former Jew, Theobald, who had become a Christian monk. He said that Jewish representatives gathered each year in Narbonne, France. They decided in which city a Christian child would be sacrificed.
The boy involved in the year 1144 hoax became known as St. William of Norwich. Many people made pilgrimages to his tomb and claimed that miracles had resulted from appeals to St. William. The myth shows a complete lack of understanding of mainline Judaism. Aside from the prohibition of killing innocent persons, the Torah specifically forbids the drinking or eating of any form of blood in any quantity. However, reality never has had much of an impact on blood libel myths. This rumor lasted for many centuries; even today it has not completely disappeared.
Pope Innocent IV ordered a study in 1247 CE. His investigators found that the myth was a Christian invention used to justify persecution of the Jews. At least 4 other popes subsequently vindicated the Jews.
"Holy shrines were erected to honor innocent Christian victims, and well into the twentieth century, churches throughout Europe displayed knives and other instruments that Jews purportedly used for these rituals. Caricatures of hunchbacked Jews with horns and fangs were depicted in works of art and carved into stone decorating bridges."
Nicholl reports that "there are 150 recorded cases of the charge of ritual murder, and many led to massacres of the Jews of the place."
1555- Gian Pieto Caraffa became Pope Paul IV
...he ratified the blood purity statute of Toledo. He forbade ..( the possession of any )religious book except the Bible. From now on the Talmud would be on the index of forbidden books . To enforce that proscription he abolished Hebrew printing in Rome... and " Jews are to own no real estate. Jews are to attend no Christian university . Jews are to hire no Christian servants. Jews mercantile roles are to be strictly repudiated. Jews taxes are to be increased. Jews are no longer to ignore the ancient requirement to wear distinctive clothing and badges . Jews are to refuse to be addressed as ' sir' by Christians." p. 375 carroll...The Inquisition- the systematic legal persecution of heretics by a church court...which enjoyed the support not only of the secular power but also of broad groups among the people, who often eagerly looked forward to the execution of heretics. The Inquisition would become an essential characteristic of the Roman Catholic Church." p. 96 Hans Kung
1542- ...the notorious Sanctum Officium Sanctissimae Inquisitions, today called the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith was founded as the center of the Inquisition of all countries, and a first Index of Prohibited Books was issued ." p. 135 Hans Kung
under " ...Torquemada there were around nine thousand autos-de-fe ( acts of faith ) burnings of heretics and Jews ." p. 132 hans Kung
Pope Pius VI rejected the 1791 Civil Constitution of the French Revolution & rejected the " abominable philosophy of human rights " and especially freedom of religion, conscience ,and the press and the equality of all human beings . " p. 153 Hans Kung
in 1870 - The pope proclaimed papal infallibility that is "The pope possesses the gift of infallibility in his own solemn magisterial decisions. These solemn ( ex cathedra ) decisions are infallible on the basis of special support from the Holy Spirit and are immutable ( irreformable ) intrinsically, not by virtue of the assent of the church " - p.166 Hans Kung
and Hans Kung note on infallibility :
" No one in the whole of the first millennium regarded decisions of the pope as infallible " p. 61 HK
" But historical research has also shown that the popes , particularly from the fifth century on, decisively extended their power with explicit forgeries " ( ie the Donation of Contantine p. 61 HK
A MORAL RECKONING : THE ROLE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE HOLOCAUST AND ITS Unfulfilled DUTY OF REPAIR Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
-----------
The Holocaust History Project
The Holocaust History Project is a free archive of documents, photographs, recordings, and essays regarding the Holocaust, including direct refutation of Holocaust-denial.
Religious Tolerance .Org
a href="http://www.humanitas-international.org/showcase/chronography/documents/luther-jews.htm">On the Jews and Their Lies, 1543 Martin Luther (1483 - 1546)Translated by Martin H. Bertram
The Guilt of Christianity Towards the Jewish People by Sister Pista Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary, Darmstadt / Germany
Commemorating 2000 Years of Christianity by Sister Pista at the Christian Celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles, Jerusalem, Oct. 97.
also see:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/vat_hol11.htm">ANTI-SEMITISM AND ANTI-JUDAISM
WITHIN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH 1st to 20th Century CE
Religious Tolerance .Org
On the Crusades see:
"Crusades" Encyclopedia Britannica
Crusades-History.com
"Medieval Crusades at Medieval.com
& The crusades: a history
By Jonathan Riley-Smith 2005
On the Inquisiton from 1450 to 1700 see Inquisition :The Reign of Fear by Toby Green pub. 2007
On the Witch Hunts see:
"Case Study: The European Witch-Hunts, c. 1450-1750
and Witch-Hunts Today " at Gendercide.org
"What we think of as "the Burning Times" -- the crazes, panics, and mass hysteria -- largely occurred in one century, from 1550-1650."
and: "A Brief History of Witchcraft Persecutions before Salem" by Douglas Linder (2005)
"Witch-Hunting in Early Modern Europe: the End of the 'Bloodbath of the Innocents.' " History Review, March 2007 by Simon Lemieux, Encyclopedia Britannica eb.com
Slavery followed by Jim Crow & the KKK & lynchings see:
African American Holocaust
Black Holocaust Museum of Slavery
"America's Black Holocaust Museum closing after 20 years in Milwaukee" By Sharif Durhams, Journal Sentinel July 30, 2008
The Nazis also targeted Blacks:
The Nazis and the Black Holocaust at About.com
When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1932, the racist policies of the Nazis impacted other groups besides the Jews. The Nazis' racial purity laws also targeted gypsies (Roma), homosexuals, the mentally challenged, and blacks. Precisely how many Afro-Germans died in Nazi concentration camps is not known, but estimates put the figure at between 25,000 and 50,000.
On anti-Semitism see;
Bronner, Stephen Eric : A RUMOR ABOUT THE JEWS: Reflections On Antisemitism and The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, pub. 2000.
Cohen- Sherbok, Dan:The Crucified Jew: Twenty Centuries of Anti-Semitism, pub. 1992.
Cohn, Norman :Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World Conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, pub. 1996.
Dawidowicz, Lucy S. :The War Against the Jews 1933-1945, Pub. 1986
Kertzer, David I.: The Popes Against The Jews: The Vatican's Role in The Rise of Modern Anti‑Semitism, pub. 2001
