THE SPINE DECEMBER 24, 2009
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
On September 3, 2000, Pope John Paul II, the Vicar of Christ beloved even by Jews, beatified Pius IX, one of his predecessors who reigned from 1846-1878. He was a nasty anti-Semite who re-established the ghetto in Rome and was instrumental in the kidnapping of a six-year old Jew boy who had been forcibly converted to Catholicism and whom the church itself kept in the Vatican away from his parents. These are not the least of his sins; nor are they the worst. But they contribute richly to his biography as a Jew-hater. David Kertzer has published a searing contextual history of The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara. James Carroll's encyclopedic and essential Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews devotes useful pages to Pius IX, the longest serving Holy Father in history.
It took decades for the campaign to make him a saint became viable. And its real viability had to wait for John Paul II for whom Pius IX was a hero. It is too complicated to explain here how the idolization of Pius IX for Karol Wojtyla came about. Suffice it to say that it did. But even John Paul realized that he needed cover for this beatification. So he also had John XXIII made "blessed" during the same process and ceremony. And what a progressive pope he was. He violated Pius XII's model of how to behave vis a vis the Nazis: as Apostolic Delegate to Greece and Turkey, he saved many Jews from the slaughter and aided others to go to Palestine. A true saint.
Hey, there are so many popes who hated Jews and were nonetheless--or maybe consequently--elevated to sainthood that one more hardly matters. Anyway, there's another one who has been in the waiting room for some time. And it is Eugenio Pacelli, Pius XII. Much has been written about this holy man's venal hatred of the Jews. Some of it in our pages. You can also read about him in Daniel Goldhagen's A Moral Reckoning. So why would Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, stake so much on the elevation of a truly fascist cleric to sainthood? I do not know.
But, after decades of getting incensed by these indecent actions of the church, I have come to the conclusion that anti-Semitism in its worst and murderous manifestations is, alas, an intrinsic element in Roman Catholic history. They will deal with it as they will, whether Jews bitch or not. Certainly in western countries the relationship between Jews and Catholics is more than cordial, even cooperative and reciprocal. It is harder to say this about eastern Europe. But, then, there are very few Jews living where five million Jews once lived.
Benedict is no anti-Semite, and he has more grasp of the meaning of Israel to the Jewish people than his predecessors. Let him be. He wants to sanctify that ghostly and ghastly man, let him. We, too, have skeletons in our closet synagogue, some of them alive today.
4 comments
anti-Semitism in its worst and murderous manifestations is, alas, an intrinsic element in Roman Catholic history. This is true, but it is not an intrinsic element in Roman Catholic faith. Anyway, Happy Holidays to all.
- blackton
December 25, 2009 at 8:48am
I know this is off thread, but I read this on Drdannyu's blog, a story by a poster: It is a story about my dad and was written by my nephew. I think this says it all. I hope you don't mind as this is a little long I'm going to tell you about my Jewish roots. My grandfather Sullivan was a milkman for H. P. Hood for many years. He told this story, which took place during the days when he did his route on a horse-drawn wagon. His route traveled through the Mattapan section of Boston, which at that time was almost exclusively populated by Jewish families. Now, some of the people to whom he delivered milk thought he was Jewish. They thought his name was Solomon, not Sullivan. I'm not positively sure how this assumption came about, but it's not a stretch to imagine what might have happened. Someone in the neighborhood probably asked what his name was and he (or, more likely, one of his customers with perhaps an Eastern European accent) said, "Sullivan", and whoever had asked the question, with the idea already in mind that he might be Jewish, heard "Solomon". That person told someone else, and so on. It was possible. My grandfather didn't have the map of Ireland on his face like I do. He could have passed. Since he delivered milk in a Jewish neighborhood, his customers might naturally have assumed that he was Jewish, too. I don't suppose he would have had any reason to disabuse them of this notion. He probably figured it wouldn't hurt business to let them keep on thinking it. Anyway, one day while he was doing his route, some of the older Jewish men called for him to come down off of his wagon so that he could help them meet the required numbers for a minyan; that is, so that they could have enough for prayer service, which required at least 10 men. They yelled to him, "Solomon! We need another for a minyan! You got time maybe?" My grandfather was sharp enough to know what they were talking about. He had been delivering milk in that neighborhood for some time, so he was familiar with words and phrases and customs that an Irishman might otherwise not be expected to know. The question was, what should he tell these men? Should he spill the beans and let them know that he wasn't really named Solomon, but Sullivan? That he wasn't Jewish, but Catholic, and that his ancestry was Irish and French? Well, my grandfather figured it this way: Who did it hurt if he helped them out? As long as they thought he was Jewish, God wouldn't be mad at them for including an Irishman in their prayer service, and he also figured that God would probably look kindly on him for doing the old Jews a mitzvah. So, my grandfather parked the wagon and made the minyan for them. He faked his way through by following the lead of the others. Having attended Catholic mass for many years, he knew he could probably get by with indistinct mumbling as long as he did the right body motions, so he kept his voice low and bowed when they did and so forth. Afterwards, the old men thanked him and he got back on his wagon and finished his route. Of course, from that day forward there was little doubt along Blue Hill Avenue that Tom Sullivan (that is, Solomon The Milkman) was Jewish - and a fairly devout Jew, at that. Therefore, if someone calls me "Solly", instead of "Sully", I won't complain. My grandfather wasn't really a Jew, but he played one on his milk route. Barukh atah Adonai, Eloheinu, melekh ha'olam shehecheyanu v'kiyimanu v'higi'anu laz'man hazeh. (Amein) Happy Hanukkah
- blackton
December 25, 2009 at 8:55am
Good Yontiff Pontiff. P.S. Blackton I took a spirited and wholesale whack at you on the thread following Pollack's post.
- basman
December 25, 2009 at 10:18am
"He violated Pius XII's model of how to behave vis a vis the Nazis: " According to this article in Ha'aretz http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/1137670.html Things are not as clear cut as Marty's formulation suggests. Serge Klarsfeld, the Nazi hunter, took issue with the storm that admitted the Vatican's announcement about the beatification of Pius XII. For example, in Rome, the pope did not publicly condemn the arrest of 1,000 Jews in 1943 but discreetly instructed all religious institutions to open their doors to Jewish fugitives thus saving thousands of Jews. Would it have helped more if he had made some open declarations? Apparently not, Says Klarsfeld. Klarsfeld also points to a double standard in the treatment of the Pope as compared, for example, with the treatment of Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle is considered a saint in France, Klarsfeld wonders, yet in 1942, after the action of rounding up Jews in in the Vel' d'Hiv stadium he made no vocal attempt to warn French gendarmes not to arrest Jews. http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2009/12/24/serge-klarsfeld-il-n-y-a-aucune-raison-que-pie-xii-ne-devienne-pas-saint_1284510_3214.html
- noga1
December 25, 2009 at 1:10pm