Appendix A: Anti-Semitism – ii. Recent anti-Semitism
high-ranking priests, especially in Central America and Poland, have leveled similar antiSemitic accusations against the Jews and Israel. These blood libels demonstrate that the Vatican still has a problem with anti-Semitism at the top levels of its hierarchy, even after Vatican II declared anti-Semitism to be "a sin." There has been no known censure by the Vatican of these leaders in its hierarchy. In 1994, the German and Polish bishops issued a statement saying that “the Church as a whole offered no effective resistance to Nazi persecution and extermination.” In 1998, Pope John Paul II made an apology of sorts for the failure of Catholics to have done more during the holocaust. “Anti-Semitism,” he exhorted, “must never again be allowed to take root in any human heart.” The Pope vigorously defended the role of Pope Pius XII during the Holocaust, crediting him with saving “hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives.” Then, in his Good Friday address of that same year, he made an unprecedented statement that the Jewish people “has been crucified by us for too long. ... Not they, but we” are responsible for his death, “because we are all murderers of love.” Another priest, Father Cantalamessa, addressing the same event stated that, “anti-Semitism is born not of fidelity to the Scriptures but of infidelity to them.” The timing of the statement for Easter, a traditional time for anti343 Semitic outbursts, added weight to the statement. On December 8, 1999, the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal John O’Connor expressed his “abject sorrow” for harm committed by the Catholic Church against the Jews, in a letter 344 reprinted as a full-page ad in Sunday’s New York Times. “I ask this Yom Kippur that you understand my own abject sorrow for any member of the Catholic Church, high or low, who may have harmed you or your forebears in any way,” John Cardinal O’Connor wrote in the letter, which was dated September 8.
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Other milestones in the Catholic turnaround were as follows: In 1986, the pope made his historic visit to the Great Synagogue in Rome and emphasized Christianity's unique link and debt to Judaism. In 1990, he reiterated an earlier declaration made in Prague by Cardinal Cassidy and the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews by saying that the fact that anti-Semitism had found a place in Christian thought and teaching demanded an act of teshuvah (repentance) on its part. 344
The full text reads as follows: “My dearest friends: The Jewish High Holy Days come once again, reminding our world of who created it, who blesses it with life and who judges it in his merciful justice. G-d who gives all humanity the dignity of being made in his image, has chosen Israel as his particular people that they may be an example of faithfulness for all the nations of the earth. With sincere love and true admiration for your fidelity to the Covenant, I am happy once again to send my greetings for a blessed New Year. This Sabbath evening, as the celebration of Rosh Hashanah commences, a new decade will began. During the year of 5760 we Christians will start a new era of the year 2000, the turn of another millennium in our history. Our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, has asked all Christians to enter this new millennium in the spirit of the Jubilee. Part of the process of Jubilee is a call for teshuvah, or repentance. Ash Wednesday, March 8th, has been specially set aside as a day for Catholics to reflect upon the pain inflicted on the Jewish people by many of our members over the last millennium. We most sincerely want to start a new era. I pray that as you begin a new decade, and as we begin another millennium in our Jewish-Christian relationship, we will refresh our encounter with a new respect and even love for one another as children of G-d. Working in our own ways, but also working together, let us both remain committed to the fulfillment of G-d’s reign. I ask this Yom Kippur that you understand my own abject sorrow for any member of the Catholic Church, high and low, including myself, who may have harmed you or your forebears in any way. Be assured of my prayers and friendship. L’shana tovah tikotevu! Faithfully, John Cardinal O’Connor, Archbishop of New York.
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