SOME READERS HAVE CHALLENGED my statement below about increasing anti-semitism from the Vatican. But the Vatican has consistently taken the side of Palestinians, and Arab Muslims generally, against Israel and Jews, to the point where I can’t really believe any excuses that it’s not about antisemitism. (I think that there have been a few minor condemnations of the increasing anti-semitism in Europe, though I looked and couldn’t find any.) Then there’s this damning picture. (Yeah, he’s French, but he’s also a Cardinal.)
Sorry — readers can defend this sort of thing if they like. But to me it’s just another sign that the Vatican — whose retreat from antisemitism was at any rate recent and shallow — has no moral ground to stand on.
UPDATE: For those seeking context, the original Yahoo story has died, but here is a Guardian story on the meeting, and here’s Craig Schamp’s blog entry. Here’s my original post on the topic.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Several readers have emailed. Reader Peter Hanna emails from New York:
Hey Glenn, long time reader, law student in NYC. I’ll be brief – I’m a Coptic Christian (Egyptian), and I can readily attest to the existence of virulent anti-semitism not just among Arab Muslims, but Christians as well. It’s very bizarre, but an unnaturally high number of Christians are complete bigots- the things I’ve heard at my church (of all places) would make your head spin. I’ve been trying to explain this to myself for a while, and I think I’ve gotten to the bottom of it, or at least one facet of it. The Coptic Pope (Pope Shenouda, aka the Patriarch of Alexandria) has adopted a very, very hardline pro-Palestine stance. Needless to say, this stance has trickled down to the lesser clergy and been adopted by the Coptic community en masse. Furthermore, the way it’s trickled down – without debate, discussion, etc – has obviated the possibility of any real dialogue on the ‘question of Israel’ entirely.
It’s really quite striking (and to me, annoying) hearing my fellow Christians go to such extraordinary lengths to defend not just Palestinians, but any Islamic endeavor at all (e.g., Saddam in Iraq, Taliban in Afghanistan). A number of family members (still in Egypt) have contacted my immediate family (over here) specifically to berate us as if we were responsible for the “American Crusade.” It’s funny (but sad), cuz there’s a well-known saying in Arabic: “In aharda il Yahoud, bokra il Massihian” -which means “Today the Jews, tomorrow the Christians” – and it’s just oddly amusing seeing Christians side with, almost adopt, an ideology bent on their destruction as well as the Jews.
Indeed. Reader John Cross emails:
Being a good Catholic, I have tried to reason the Church’s anti-war stance, but I am afraid that the similarity between its stance now, and the stand it took having to do with the Nazis and Fascists, is too strong to ignore. I won’t renounce my Catholic beliefs, but I renounce the stand the Catholic Church has taken on this matter. If that breaks me with the Church, or I am under excommunication (official or not) then fine. Me and St. Peter can discuss it later.
Reader Joel Merriam adds this:
I am a Roman Catholic and have been for all of my 45 years.I am very active in my church and belong to a lay ministry that takes communion to hospitals and shut ins.
Last year our parish priest came out very strongly against the pedophile priests and received a standing ovation in the church. Recently he has been giving anti war sermons and several of us walked out during a recent service. I have not been back in the last couple of months. Our diocese got into bed with ANSWER for the protests. Now the Vatican is saying the war is unjust and allows the murderer Aziz to visit with the pope. This is the equivalent of Gobbels having a papal visit in mid 1939.
25 years ago a much younger pope helped liberate eastern Europe. Today he wants to keep another area of the world enslaved while lecturing the democracies around the world while my church is repeating the same antisemitic behavior the pope apologized for a couple of years ago.
I am seriously considering a complete break from my church and that pains me a great deal.
Yes, I can imagine that it would. But the Church has disgraced itself immensely over the past year, on a number of fronts, so I sympathize.
Justin Katz, meanwhile, sends this:
I, for one, had only written to see if you had come across something
more recent than that picture with Arafat from last spring. You’re
right, though, that picture is shameful and caused many an angry word among Catholics. As I’ve noted (link), that grinning bishop is the very same Etchegaray who recently met with Hussein (that link also suggests that some French bishops are acting more French than Catholic).
To offset the implication of “readers [who might] defend this sort of
thing,” I thought I’d point out that many Catholics are agonizing over
the issue: Link.
As the tone of that link will convey, it’s a painful situation for Catholics, and I’ve found that many in the blogosphere, big names and small, seem more than willing assume the worst of the Vatican and to condemn the Church and all its followers for the quotations of a few.
At any rate, I found this picture from a couple of weeks ago that might be relevant to questions of the Vatican and hatred of Jews: Link.
Well, I thought that my comments were pretty clearly aimed at the Vatican, not at catholics in general, and I am — obviously — aware that it’s causing a lot of people pain. I’m sorry about the pain, but I am not its author. The Vatican has, in fact, been consistently supportive of Arab tyrants, for reasons best known to itself, as they mystify me. The final photo, of the Pope meeting with a rabbi, is not, to me, enough to offset the photo shown above, or the rest of the Vatican’s shameful record in this area.
Finally, to the one guy who emailed with the old “Arabs can’t be anti-semitic because they’re semites themselves,” — grow up and get a clue.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Took down the big picture — some people with dialup connections were complaining it was slowing the page down too much — but you can still see it by following the link.