Download "CATHOLICS AND JEWS: Confronting the Holocaust Together

"CATHOLICS AND JEWS: Confronting the Holocaust Together"
Judith Hershcopf Banki
Delivered at the Nostra Aetate Commemorative Conference, Sao Paulo, Brazil, October, 1985
Any group with a sense of identity and historical continuity will view the major
patterns of history in the light of how these events have affected the destiny of that
group. Therefore, it is not surprising that Jews tend to view the Holocaust from the
perspective of Jewish history. Most Jews perceive the Holocaust, not as some
nightmarish historical aberration but as the culmination of a long and painful history of
anti-Semitism, the ultimate eruption of Western civilization's persistent pathology of
Jew-hatred.
Certain Christian teachings of hostility and contempt toward Jews and Judaism
contributed to that pathology, and the Church's antipathy to the Jewish people over
many centuries both reflected and prorated popular anti-Semitism.
The Nazi policies were unique in their malevolent cruelty and genocidal scope,
but short of the "final solution," almost every discriminatory or repressive measure
instituted by the Nazis against the Jews -- from book burning, to quotas in
universities, to the mandated wearing of distinctive clothing, to the forcing of Jews
into ghettos -had its precedent in Church legislation. Jews are aware of this
tradition, in broad outline if not in exact detail. They believe that the murder of six
million of their co-religionists would not have been possible without the prior
existence of a pervasive anti-Semitism for which Christian teachings and preaching
of contempt bore a measure of responsibility.
Jews are also aware that there were righteous Christians, both Catholic and
Protestant, who risked and sometimes lost their lives to save Jews; that Jews found
shelter in convents and churches and the homes of Christian resisters; that the same
religion that had branded Jews as accused Christ-killers was capable of motivating
faithful Christians to acts of high moral courage and self-sacrifice to save Jewish
lives.
Most Christians are simply not aware of the record of Christian oppression of
Jews and Judaism over the centuries. Very few have learned this history in their
schools. Fr. Edward Flannery, the first executive secretary of the U.S. Bishops'
Secretariat on Catholic-Jewish Relations and author of The Anguish of the Jews, put it
this way: "We Catholics have torn from our history books the pages the Jews have
memorized." In my experience, Christians -- particularly Christians from cultures and
societies which have been relatively free of popular violence against Jews, and
especially Christians born after World War II-- think about the Holocaust in a basically
different way. They rightfully understand that Nazism was a profoundly anti-Christian
ideology. They know that Hitler hated and feared the churches. Perhaps they have
been taught about the Christian martyrs of Nazism, probably not about the Christian
perpetrators. They therefore tend to perceive Christians and Christian churches as
fellow victims, alongside the Jews, of Hitler's diabolical empire.
There is a reality underlying each of these perceptions, but also a gap between
them -- a gap which allows Christians to sincerely abhor and reject Hitler and Nazism,
yet still not come to grips with the essential and central issue of anti-Semitism and its
roots in Christian tradition.
Bishop James Malone, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops,
called attention to these ambiguities at the National Workshop on Christian-Jewish
Relations in St. Louis, Missouri (Nov. 1984). Bishop Malone declared: "We Catholics
have not yet come to grips with the implications of the Holocaust for ourselves and for
our Jewish neighbors. We are only beginning to learn from Jews about the trauma
which the Holocaust worked on the Jewish community and upon the wider world
community. Part of the Christian tragedy ... is that Christians are numbered both
among the executioners and among the victims."
Let us resolve to bridge the gap in our separate understandings of this critical
event of our century in a spirit of mutual understanding and support. The recently
published Vatican "Notes" have encouraged teaching about the Holocaust as part of
Catholic catechetical instruction.
It is not for Jews to dictate to Catholics how to go about such teaching, but I
would hope that the input of Jewish Holocaust' scholars and survivors will be soughtin planning Holocaust curricula (such is the case in the United States), and I would
offer some guidelines for your consideration:
1)
The universal lessons of the Holocaust must emerge from its particulars
and not replace them. It is not enough to describe the Holocaust as the
greatest example of "man's inhumanity to man." The Holocaust is a
paradigm, but it is a paradigm of a specific process. It illuminates how
ignorance and prejudice can be translated into segregation and
discrimination, how segregation and discrimination can be translated into
hatred and dehumanization, how hatred and dehumanization can be
translated into genocide. The specific historical process must be
examined.
2)Without either ignoring or downplaying the death and suffering of millions of
non-Jews, the uniqueness of the Holocaust for Jews must be remembered.
Just two weeks ago, Cardinal John O'Connor, Archbishop of New York,
emphasized the uniqueness of that experience for the Jewish people at a
Vatican II commemoration in New York City. The Soviet Union, which
insists that Soviet Jews bear the designation "Jew" on their passports, will
not identify them as Jews at Babi Yar. The present Polish government
claims that one Pole in five was killed by the Nazis; the word "Jew" is not
mentioned. Governments and regimes which singled out Jews for
discrimination and humiliation are now denying them the dignity of their own
identity as Nazi victims. We cannot let that happen in our study of the
event.
3)Righteous Christians should be held up as role models. Martyrs play an
important role in Catholic tradition. Resisters to and victims of Nazism
should be located within that sacrificial tradition. The "Notes" also depict
the faithful Jewish witness to God across the centuries as standing within or
parallel to the Catholic understanding of martyrdom. There are rich
catechetical opportunities here.
Let us resolve to pursue such instruction toward the goal of understanding and
combating the pathology of group hatred and persecution, in an atmosphere free of
polemics. We are not responsible for the prejudices of the world into which we were
born, but we are responsible for fighting them. We are not accountable for past
events over which we had no control, but we are accountable for the future. We are
jointly responsible for facing history and for forging new traditions of human and
spiritual solidarity -- for the sake of our children, our world, and the sanctification of the
One who is Holy to all of us.