NEVER AGAIN ANTI-SEMITISM IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ‘christian prejudice’ has been a tragic-precursor of Holocaust

This post aims at the self-appropriation of the every catholic to become aware of the inherent anti-Semitism in the History of the Catholic Church. It discusses the Christian anti-Semitism and its brutal effect in the World War II – Holocaust.

Brutality of Nazi Regime

Holocaust, the deliberate killing of the people who Nazis thought had no right to live mostly Jews, is a well known event of the World War II. It sends shivers down our spine as it reminds us of the ‘inhuman’ and ‘brutal’ treatment of human beings like us. Between 1939 and 1945 Nazis evolved multiple methods to exterminate Jews from the earth. It set up special group of police called ‘Einsatzgruppen’ to carry out the ordeal of killing Jews. 

The police usually forced Jews to dig a pit and then shot them into it. Later they built Gas-Vans that killed people as it carried them to the drench. Gassing thereafter was adapted one of the quick solution for the extermination of Jews. Thus, they built six Concentration Camps for the purpose of carrying out mass murders of Jews deported from the ghettos and the other parts of Europe, either by shooting or gassing. All the camps were based in Poland at Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka. Some died due to starvation and exhaustion. Initially the Jews were confined to ‘Ghettos’, a place where Jews and other people who were regarded as parasites, were secluded from other people. It was simply, a habitat of dehumanization. More than a million Jews have died in the ghettos due to lack of food, water, space and sanitation. Babi Yar massacre (September 1941, in Kiev, Ukraine), Iasi massacre (June 1941, in Iasi, Romania) and Odessa massacre (late 1941, in Odessa, Transnistria) which gunned down 33771, 14000, and 40000 Jews respectively within a question of two or more days haunts us as nightmares. At the end of the war, they had killed more than 6 million Jews and half a million Romanians apart from other casualties. 

Anti-Semitism in the Medieval Church

Such an anti-Semitism that brutally vandalized Jews of their dignity and life did not occur overnight. It has a shocking-long-history.  Jews originally lived in the Middle East. When Romans overpowered them in 70 CE, most of them were deported to Rome and others fled to Babylonia and Europe as refugees. They flourished when the major part of the Europe was under Muslim rule. But in the middle ages, (C. 11 century CE) with Christianity gaining popularity the hatred of Jews spread all over Europe. The medieval church taught that Jews were to be blamed for the death of Jesus Christ. It sowed anti-Semitic ideas and provoked undue violence against Jews. In 1096 for example, the crusaders who set off across Europe to reclaim the holy land from Islamic control, viciously attacked the Jewish communities which they passed by.  

Along with Christian belief came the folk ideas of Jews as evil. It pictured Jews with horns and forked tails or as reptiles. It spread the false myth that Jews killed Christian babies for their blood, to make special bread. The Jews therefore were forced to leave the countries, were driven out from city to city, forced to convert to Christianity or be killed and were made outcasts. The fourth Lateran Council passed a decree that the Jews had to wear something distinctive from Christians in 1215. It was either a hat or a star or something similar to it. In Germany, the Jews who were valued as merchants from 4^th C flew to settle in northern, central and Eastern Europe. In Spain, the Jews who enjoyed a Golden age during Islamic rule were expelled under Christian rule in 1492. Throughout the middle ages, the Jews sought to escape outbursts of violence and expulsion from one land or another. Moreover, the medieval Church did not allow Jews to own land. The bishops and lords organized closed-off areas for Jews separating them from Christians. They were later named as Ghettos, an Italian word referring to a metal-casting foundry. Pope Paul IV restricted Jews to ghettos, in 1555-1559. It is around this time the state created the Venice Ghetto. The 16^th century France, had a high wall separating Jews from the rest of the people. In the Eastern Europe or Russia, there arose strong feeling against Jews in Russian cities and so Catherine the Great decided to move them out. In 1791, it created ‘Pale of Settlement’ the place where 90% of Russian Jews were entitled to live. Life in the settlement was one of poverty and hardship. There were also organized massacre of Jews in Russia. It was called as pogrom a Russian word literally meaning ‘devastation’.

The Jews had to wait for the period of enlightenment, to free them from the shackles of false prejudice, suffering and injustice. Towards the end of the 18^th century, many European countries abolished laws that discriminated against Jews. They were free to take part in varied aspects of European Society. Napoleon for example, abolished ghettos; restored the rights of Jews in France and in the other countries, he conquered.  Anti-Semitism however, was not fully abolished the Jews were persecuted in different pockets, 1905 about 3,000 Jews were murdered in some 600 pogroms. It had a major come back with the fascism of Adolf Hitler (1923).

Horror of Christian Prejudice 

The facts thus make plain the active role of Christian prejudice in the making of holocaust. It is more horrifying than the holocaust. Our neutral stance at the face of the Nazism further affirms this terrible truth. It is even more, scandalous to note that the methods and propaganda adapted by Nazi paradigm resemble the anti-Semitic activities of medieval Church.  Though the Church has apologized for its mistakes the simplistic interpretations, popular Christian beliefs and at times the subtle definitions of Christian faith seems to carry this bias to the Post-modern Christian generation. The problem is twofold: most of us fall easy-prey to this traditional anti-Semitic prejudice due to the sin-of-ignorance while few others deliberately stick on to the anti-Semitism blaming the Jews as responsible for the death of Jesus Christ. The former group needs urgent attention, as they unconsciously fall easy-prey to radicals. The cure however happens through the painful process of introducing the faithful into a hermeneutical understanding of the Church and the Sacred Scripture. 

I would form, for example, very much part of the former group as the religious nun ignorantly sowed anti-Semitism, educating me in the belief that the Jews shunned messiah and killed him. Catholic priests, a majority of them further strengthened such erroneous conception through their uninformed interpretation of Scripture, in particular the Gospels. My conversion happened in one of my conversations with my professor of theology who helped me deconstruct the inherent anti-Semitic bias from the New Testament and other interpretations. How unjust and unchristian it is to promote such bias against Jews.

The Church generally tags the latter group as ‘heretical’ with the growing concern for inter-religious dialogue. However, the pro-Jewish stance of the Church is still unconvincing with one or the other offhand remarks by the inner-circle of Vatican.

Let not history repeat itself, let us then correct every form of anti-Semitism, more especially in our reading of Gospels (we tend to forget that they were written nearly 60 years after the death of Jesus, by probably men who tried to please Romans hence blamed Jews for the killing of Jesus Christ) accept responsibility for the blood of our neighbour, and love them as one self.  


Basic Bibliography:
Gluck Wood, Angela. Holocaust: The Events and Their Impact on Real People. London: Dorling Kindersley, 2007.
Moroschan, Jonathan. "Religious Anti-Semitism: Anti-Semitism in the Catholic Church." 
  http://jonathan-moroschan.suite101.com/religious-antisemitism-a56804

animals are conservatives, human beings are no mere animals...

One of the intriguing insights I have received from Yann Martel’s Life of Pi is the psychology of animals. My myth was that the animals are ‘happy’, ‘casual’ because they are fully ‘free’ not bound to one place, one pattern like us - human beings. How foolish I have been! Late have i known that the philosophy of animals is water, food and security. They are stuck to any place that could provide these necessities, mark their territories and defend it. There is no question of freedom; they stick to the same paths season after season. They are conservatives; they perform the same ritual day in and day out. Any thing new around them makes them restless. The smallest change can upset them. They want things to be just so day after day, month after month. Surprises are highly disagreeable. 

Imagine it is 10,000 CE and they are discussing about human beings a species that has become extinct. In a science exhibition the people of the time juxtapose the images of human beings with a note about their specific difference from other animals. But for some exceptions, I am afraid most of us would literally fall into the category of rational animals (in the rigid sense). The description below might carry the note: “Homo sapiens. They have a capacity to justify being conservative and territorial; and are efficient and highly skilled in ensuring the basic necessities: big malls, mighty houses with compound walls, boundaries of nations, religious fundamentalism, powerful destructive weapons, captions ‘strictly private’, high-tech transportation and communication etc.” (You may call this over-generalization, but it is science. This is how we study about other animals.) The nobility of being human however is our potency to be altruistic, to love, to hope, to be free, to loose ego, to embrace surprises, to welcome strangers, to be grateful, to be creative, to take the road less traveled, to listen to others and to be open to changes. How sad it is that we still find human beings more conservative, violent and urinating than animals turning the wild into a zoo! Dare to thing outside the box, to be different, to walk the extra mile we are no mere animals.

It is winter again...: Naked Truths of Life from a Modern Fable

The gradual decrease of the day and prolonged nights signaled the approaching winter in the northern hemisphere of the earth.  In our calendar months, it sets in the mid-November. Animals unlike human beings are intuitive. They perfectly read the language of the nature. Every one of them was busy with their ‘winter-rituals’. Most of them migrate, some hibernate, some go into hidings with the food reserved until spring and handful effect physical changes to adapt to the season. This group of swallows, the long-distant migrant, began their journey. 

An uncompromising bird among them, stayed on unwilling to leave. The winter grew cruel with blizzards, high precipitation and the prolonged dampness. He was alone, with hardly anyone around but snow. It was as if the world had drowned in the sea of snow. Having had lost all his energy and the fear of death, he decides to move warmer places. Alas! His efforts to fly were obstructed by the strong blizzards and high snowfall. Fatigued with hunger, wings heavy with snow, he dropped unconscious losing all his hope. He was also drowned in the sea of snow. A cow, which passed that way, shat on him. Warmed by the heat of the dunk he regained conscience and sang in joy. The cat took notice of him. It cleared the dung and ate him.

SIN: in the paradigm of non-dual faith

In our times one of the concepts wanting deconstruction is ‘sin’. It is no more adequate to simplistically reduce it to mere breaking of one law or the other. People today are suspicious of the duality of God, cosmos and human beings and the testimony based on authourity. This is one of the reasons for the slack in the educated and the first world people towards structured religions. Further it renders an insight into the rise, at times the craze, of ‘modern-man’ about spiritualities and gurus. As we are growing more and more to understand divine as an insider manifesting by working in and through everything, a narrow understanding sin as breaching of the law is unconvincing. Sin is more a negligence of the divine who is bidding us every moment to lead a selfless life that loves ones neighbour as oneself. For example, we sin when we fail to care for the one who is sick, the old, the small, the poor, and the weak. The circle of neighbour includes everything that surrounds us visible and invisible, the whole cosmos.  

Homilies at Random: The Purpose of Our Life

My First Homily

Second Sunday of Ordinary Time of the Liturgical Year B

1Sam 3, 1-10.19

1Cor 6, 13b-15a.17-20

Jn 1, 35-42

Theme: The goal of our Life is to live in union with God/the Other who is manifest in our neighbours.

In the previous Sunday, we celebrated the feast of the baptism of our Lord, an event that marked Jesus’ consent to do the will of God, the goal and meaning of his life. So, the father was happy and pleased with Him. The readings of this Sunday invite us to imitate him. We find meaning and happiness in our life only by fulfilling the purpose of our existence. A life in union with God who is manifest in our neighbours and the Cosmos is the purpose of our existence. This is the subject of the readings of the day. Second reading renders the reasons and the other readings give us examples.

St. Paul writing to the people of Corinth clearly notes that every human being belongs to God as each of us is a ‘gift’ from God. He writes, “You belong no longer to yourselves. Remember at what price you have been bought… make your body (in modern language ‘person’) serve the glory of God” (v. 19b-20). Since we do not merit our existence very less our being in the image and likeness of God, we are obliged to the one who has begotten us into this world and made us in his image and likeness. Our life therefore in simple words is supposed to be one that uninterruptedly discerns the will of God and accomplishes it day in and day out. The problem however is that we fail. We fall. We lead a life that gratifies our selfish desires and forget our ontological indebtedness. We even forget that we are made in the image and likeness of God, ‘the temple of the Holy Spirit’ (v.19a). Thus, we indulge in a sinful life. Sin is not to be reduced to mere breaking of one law or the other but a negligence of holistic response to the call of the divine. In other words, sin is simply a life that neglects the voice of God calling us every moment to lead a selfless life that loves ones neighbour as oneself. An Example of such lives is the content our First and Gospel reading.    

The four men, Samuel, John, Andrew and Simon, mentioned in these readings willingly respond to the call of God. We know their stories. None of them is lost, but today enjoys the blessed sight of God and intercedes for us. From their life, we learn that the reward of one who leads a life in union with God is happiness/meaningfulness here and hereafter. The call of every Christian, I would even say every human being, is no less than what they are. The question however remains ‘how to lead a life in union with God’, as we do not know ‘where God is’ and ‘how to discern his voice’. From the first and gospel readings, it becomes evident that God is present everywhere, he is present in the temple, he walks the streets, he is there in the nature, he is there in the doorsteps of our heart, he is in us. Unlike these four great men, we fail to recognize him as were not tuned to Him, as we are busy with ourselves. God is always knocking at our door… the point is do we recognize and respond to his call to lead a selfless life.

We get some clues from the first and gospel reading about the ‘how to’ of it. Observing the dynamics of the call of Samual, John, Andrew and Simon we learn that first, they were different from others. We see in them an effort to transcend mechanical life for something more fulfilling. This call of the spirit to something beyond is present in everyone. We should try to recognize it. St. Paul rightly calls us as temples of the Holy Spirit. For every activity, our constant search or restlessness is the push of the spirit to attain the complete-happiness in life. One, who therefore becomes aware of it and respond to it, cannot but be different from others.

Second, in their relationship with God a third party invariably guided every one of them to discern the voice of god, the divine. Here comes the role of Scripture, Tradition and Magisterium – the ministerial priests and consecrated members of the church. Small/sinful as we are, we need a spiritual guide who can help us find out in the cacophony of noises the divine melody – the will of God. One, who therefore leads a life in communion with the church, will surely find his way to God. This once again reminds us the members of the universal church, the nobility of our vocation-as-a-community, to be a prophet of God in the world. 

Having, thus discerned the will of God, the next step is to respond to the call. It means to lead a life no less than Christ, fully in communion with the divine and with our neighbours. They are distinct yet interconnected. Great people of wisdom have recongnised it and manifested it in their lives. A good example of this in our era is Mother Teresa. Such a life is difficult but meaningful. Let us then dare to share the adventure of Samuel, John, Andrew, Simon, and Mother Teresa our life would anything but be meaningful and contended radiating life and joy. Amen.