Part 1: Did the Pope Really Reject Church Antisemitism?

Truth vs. Hype: The policies of the Vatican under John Paul II regarding Jews and the Holocaust, Yugoslavia and El Salvador

Part 1: Did the Pope Really Reject Church Antisemitism? Mr. Foxman's Mistake

Two weeks ago I got a phone call from an Australian friend. The Pope had just died, and my friend, who is of Polish-Catholic descent, was in Warsaw. "The response here is incredible," he said. "And not just from Catholics. Jews are mourning too because he did so much to bring Catholics and Jews together. You've got to write about this."

"Perhaps I should," I said. "But you have to understand that while I respect people's grief, I won't necessarily say the same things the newspapers are saying. They're making big claims about this Pope. I've got to find out how much of it is true."

I've spent two weeks studying the way Pope John Paul II handled three challenging issues:

* the wars in Yugoslavia, particularly the secession of Croatia, which Yugoslav Catholic Bishops had endorsed, and the secessionist movement in Kosovo;

* the Church's relationship to the Jewish people in general and the Holocaust in particular in light of the changes made by Vatican II;

* and the murder of Church officials by death squads in El Salvador.

What I have found completely contradicts the claims about John Paul II being put forward by public figures and the media. In this and future articles I'll evaluate those claims based on publicly available evidence. To start, I'll focus on how the Pope dealt with the Catholic Church's policies toward the Jews, especially during the Holocaust.

=======================================================

Quoting Israeli government officials and Jewish public figures, the media has painted a rosy picture of Pope John Paul II who:

* a) supposedly developed Vatican II's rejection of the doctrine that "the Jews killed Jesus," instituting a policy of zero tolerance for antisemitism;

* b) supposedly ordered Vatican statements in 1998 and 2000 apologizing for the Church's role in the Holocaust;

* c) went to Israel and visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, where he supposedly asked forgiveness for Vatican actions which aided the Nazis;

* d) supposedly pressed a note with that message between the stones of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Judaism's most sacred spot; and

* e) supposedly embraced the Jewish State as the ultimate act of reconciliation with Jews.

This all sounded wonderful until I checked the record - what actually happened before and during the Pope's trips to the Middle East, what it actually says in those Vatican statements about the Holocaust, how the Vatican actually handled requests to access its Holocaust-related archives. I found that the claims made by public figures such as Israeli Foreign Minister Sylvan Shalom and Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman, praising John Paul II's supposed reconciliation with the Jewish people, are false.

Perhaps there has been a 'reconciliation,' but if so it has been between the Catholic hierarchy, on the one side, and some Israeli leaders and leaders of organizations perceived as representing Jews, on the other. Not with the Jewish people, past or present. [1]

The evidence that I have uncovered and will present shows that under the late Pope the Vatican:

* a) substantially reversed the good work of Vatican II regarding treatment of Jews (for example, Vatican II's rejection of the slander that "the Jews killed Christ")

* b) while at the same time conducting a dishonest public relations campaign to convince people that the Vatican has honestly confronted its past and changed its policies regarding Jews. This PR campaign, spearheaded by Pope John Paul II, has combined powerful but misleading gestures with false labeling to fool the public.

For example, for many years the Vatican has denied Church complicity in the Nazi rise to power and the Holocaust, stonewalling in the face of overwhelming evidence.[2] As part of the Vatican PR campaign, Papal statements whitewashing the Church's role are now hyped in the media as 'soul-searching attempts to confront the past.'

The Vatican could not get away with such propaganda techniques, reminiscent of George Orwell's book, 1984, were it not for the applause of people like Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, not to mention the Israeli government. How likely are people to suspect that Pope John Paul's Vatican was lying about the Church's past and current policies towards Jews when Israeli Foreign Minister Sylvan Shalom proclaims:

Later I will discuss the reasons behind and consequences of the misportrayal of Pope John Paul II. But first, let us look at the evidence.

False Claim #1: John Paul II mobilized the Church to strengthen the rejection of antisemitism begun by Vatican II

Abraham Foxman is the National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which describes itself as "the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism." It is therefore quite disturbing that in eulogizing Pope John Paul II, Foxman wrote:

First the ADL Director says the Pope needed to make sure that the Vatican II rejection of the slander that 'the Jews killed Christ' had a "major impact on the Catholic world."

But in the second paragraph, instead of telling us how John Paul II supposedly furthered Vatican II's rejection of the "Christ-killer" accusation, Foxman makes a remarkable segue. He tells us that in order to guarantee that Vatican II had a "major impact" on the Church, John Paul II had to change the thinking of the Jewish community. Thus Foxman takes the real problem, that the Vatican has historically persecuted Jews based on doctrine and therefore needs a revolution in thinking and practice, and transforms it into a problem of Jewish perception. He commends the Pope for soothing the "psychological pain and historic mistrust of the Catholic Church that pervaded the Jewish community."

In paragraph three, Foxman continues in the same vein, praising the Pope for winning over "the Jewish community" through symbolic gestures that "spoke volumes" by demonstrating "sensitivity to Jewish mores." One example: the Pope's trip to Israel in 2000, during which he "place[d] a message in the Wall, a custom that Jews all over engage in..."

Putting a note in the Western Wall is not a "custom," as Mr. Foxman puts it, but a religious practice of observant Jews. Aside from that, this kind of carefully staged and much-publicized gesture of "sensitivity to Jewish mores" does not in itself prove that the Vatican has transformed its policies toward Jews. Absent an examination of content - for example, what John Paul II actually wrote in that note - such gestures only prove that under John Paul II the Vatican wanted the general public to believe it had transformed its policies towards Jews.

In just this way, a politician whose administration was under attack because of accusations of racism might embark on an image-building tour, eating fried chicken in black neighborhoods, tortillas in Mexican neighborhoods, and Peking duck in Chinatown.

Jewish "pain and historic mistrust" for the Catholic Church do not stem from paranoia. For 2000 years the Church has preached that "the Jews" bear the mark of Cain for supposedly killing Christ, and Church organizations have used this charge to justify brutal discrimination and murder. A reconciliation which smoothes over this history is shameful. Moreover, until the Church honestly examines its violently anti-Jewish policies and actions, especially during the past century, how can anyone believe these policies and actions have changed?

Let me give you a relatively mild example. As I observed earlier, the Vatican continues to deny that Pope Pius XII aided the Nazis although the evidence of complicity is overwhelming. Case in point: Eugenio Pacelli's speech to a huge Catholic conference in Hungary on May 25, 1938. Pacelli was the Vatican's Cardinal Secretary of State; a year later he would become Pope Pius XII. This was the eve of the Holocaust. Jews were desperately trying to escape Nazi Germany, which had just annexed Austria. In Italy, the Fascists were instituting 'racial' laws based on the German model. And in Hungary, where the conference was taking place, pro-Nazi politicians were pushing for antisemitic legislation. [4]

Did Eugenio Pacelli use his bully pulpit to attack Nazism? Did he at least say something positive about Jews, thus sending a message that the Vatican did not want Catholics to participate in anti-Jewish violence?

He did not. However he was not merely silent. As noted by Catholic historian John Cornwell, in a speech to thousands of Catholics, the soon-to-be Pope Pius XII chose to say:

"As opposed to the foes of Jesus who cried out to his face, 'Crucify him!' we sing him hymns of our loyalty and our love." [4]

"As opposed to the foes of Jesus who cried out to his face, 'Crucify him!'" Think about the effect of those words, said by this man, in that place, at that time. Everyone in Europe was focused on "the Jewish question," with Jews in Hungary coming under increasing attack from Nazis. Pacelli was a top Church leader. Although Pacelli did not attack "the Jews" by name, Christians would easily understand whom he was talking about when he contrasted "we [who] sing him hymns of our loyalty" with "the foes of Jesus who cried out to his face, 'Crucify him!'"

Why would Christians easily get Pacelli's message? Because at that time the Catholic Church and Protestant churches routinely cited religious writings which damned the Jewish people. Thus every practicing Christian knew that "those who cried out to his face, 'Crucify him!'" meant "the Jews":

It was only during Vatican II, which was opened by Pope John XXIII in 1962, that such formulations were rejected as false and encouraging antisemitism:

By making a speech in 1938 where he contrasted (or, as he put it, "opposed") contemporary Catholics to those "foes of Jesus who cried ... 'Crucify him!'" Pacelli was telling Christians to view contemporary Jews as deadly enemies of God, and he was broadcasting this message at a time when Nazis were appealing to Christians including Catholics everywhere to brutalize Jews. [7]

Did the Vatican under Pope John Paul II implement Vatican II's instruction to reject the false charge that "the Jews killed Christ," or did it do the opposite, taking steps to reverse Vatican II?

Abe Foxman argues that John Paul II "changed 2,000 years of history." Foxman extols the "symbolism" of the Pope's visit to Israel in March 2000. In Part 2 we will examine some comments made about the Jewish people in a TV interview with an important adviser to Pope John Paul II, broadcast on the eve of that visit.

Emperor's Clothes relies on our readers for operating expenses. If you find our work useful, please help with a donation. Every donation counts, big or small!

Please forward this text or send the link to a friend.
http://emperor.vwh.net/vatican/pope-1.htm

======================================================

Footnotes and Further Reading

======================================================

[1] I use the phrase "organizations perceived as representing Jews" instead of the usual "Jewish organizations" because the latter a) encourages the false notion that Jews act as a highly organized, unified force and b) gives the false impression that most so-called "Jewish groups" have been democratically chosen. Neither is true. Jews are sharply divided, with a wide range of viewpoints on every issue. Unlike Catholics, Jews do not have a centralized leadership which makes decisions with the force of religious law. And the groups perceived as "Jewish organizations" are generally non-profits answerable only to their own internal structure. Thus when Abe Foxman declared, in January 1993, that Croatian President Franjo Tudjman was an opponent of antisemitism, or when he declared, in 2005, that John Paul II had changed 2000 years of history, he was not in fact speaking for Jews but for his own organization.

[2] John Cornwell's book, "Hitler's Pope," makes the case that the Vatican was complicit in Hitler's rise to power. Cornwell was allowed extensive access to Vatican files relevant to the Holocaust which apparently had not been studied previously by a non-Vatican researcher. He explains that he was planning to write a book defending Pope Pius XII (hence the access) but changed his mind when he saw the data. I have read attacks on the book but most are ad hominem and none effectively refutes his arguments. To read a long excerpt from "Hitler's Pope" please go to
http://emperor.vwh.net/vatican/hitlers.htm

For a photo essay on Vatican-Nazi ties, see "The Pictures Tell the Tale: The Vatican and Nazism in Germany and Croatia" at
http://emperor.vwh.net/vatican/cpix.htm

[3] Remarks by the Israeli Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Discussing the Death of Pope John Paul II (Israel Foreign Ministry, Jerusalem, April 02, 2005), Federal News Service, April 3, 2005 Sunday
http://tinyurl.com/dhah7

[4] Pacelli's remarks are quoted in J. Cornwell, Hitler's Pope (New York, 1999), 185-186. We have posted a long excerpt from this book, which documents Vatican involvement in the rise of Nazism, at
http://emperor.vwh.net/vatican/hitlers.htm

[5] To read the full text of John 19 go to http://tinyurl.com/d7wyb

[6] CBS News | Vatican Advisor Offends Jews | March 22, 2000 16:53:07
http://tinyurl.com/9odtl ]

[7] As I'll discuss later, the Vatican claims that Nazism was a pagan phenomenon, opposed to the Catholic Church. However, dealing with practical matters, we know that a) the Enabling Act that gave Hitler dictatorial powers passed in 1933 with the votes of the Catholic Center Party, which did an about-face and voted for Hitler under pressure from the Vatican; b) Christian Churches in Germany including the Catholic Church cooperated with the Nazi attestation bureaucracy, which decided who should be considered Jewish and c) the Catholic Church hierarchy helped run the Nazi's 'Independent State of Croatia.' We've put up a photo essay illustrating Vatican ties to Nazism. See "The Pictures Tell the Tale: The Vatican and Nazism in Germany and Croatia" at
http://emperor.vwh.net/vatican/cpix.htm