Antisemitism is a nasty strand that runs through a lot of Christianity. Luther seems to have thought that his reformation would convince Jews about the truth of Christianity. When it didn’t some of his later works became extremely nasty against them.
Popes and bishops were fairly frequently protectors of Jews against some of the extreme violence of popular Christianity (e.g., blood libel accusations though even there such as with Simon of Trent the accusation was somewhat endorsed by the official church until 1965) even while making sure they knew they weren’t full members of the greater community.
3 Likes
Occasionally the popes did protect Jews from the Christians who observed Good Friday by butchering Jews. And you could have the occasional good pope who didn’t confine Jews to ghettos and restrict the trades they were allowed to practice, etc. But usually they were terrible. The inquisition was started to persecute Christian heretics but expanded to persecute and kill the Jews, especially the Conversos, those Jews who converted to Christianity but secretly practiced the old faith. All in all, it’s a sordid and shameful history.
“Taught…until 1964” is something of an overstatement, though - more precisely, “did not officially take the claim off the books”. Of course, the record of atheists on antisemitism is not great, either - stoking antisemitism was a routine way for the communist authorities in eastern Europe to distract people from what the authorities were doing.
3 Likes
My mother was taught in Catholic school that Christ cursed the Jews.
The old Good Friday RC liturgy had this:
For the conversion of the Jews. Let us pray also for the Jews that the Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they also may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let us pray: Almighty and everlasting God, You do not refuse Your mercy even to the Jews; hear the prayers which we offer for the blindness of that people so that they may acknowledge the light of Your truth, which is Christ, and be delivered from their darkness.
Offensive, right?
It was replaced with this in 1962:
Let us pray for the Jewish people, the first to hear the word of God, that they may continue to grow in the love of his name and in faithfulness to his covenant.
Much better, right?
Vatican II abandoned replacement theology and even offered guidelines for depicting the passion without blood libel, and large crowds chanting for the death of Jesus, etc… But traditionalists (radtrads) like Mel Gibson reject Vatican II. His movie Passion of the Christ contained troubling scenes of anti-Semitism.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed 6 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.