Here we go again. Every few years, it seems, a new controversy erupts when Pope John Paul II acts to confer sainthood on yet another historical figure tainted by anti-Semitism.
Apparently oblivious to the effect such moves might have on the already tenuous state of Catholic-Jewish relations, the Vatican goes ahead and celebrates these dubious role models, ignoring the fact that their piety was marred by prejudice.
Rome’s latest honoree is a 19th-century German nun named Anna Katerina Emmerick, who claimed to have had a series of visions about the death of Jesus. Earlier this month the pope decided to beatify her, the final step prior to granting sainthood.
Emmerick’s visions, compiled into a book by a prominent German author, are said to have heavily influenced the screenplay for Mel Gibson’s film ‘The Passion of the Christ.’
Yet even a cursory look at Emmerick’s words reveals a person saturated with hostility for Jews. Throughout she refers to “the cruel Jews” and “wicked Jews,” generalizing, “Pity was, indeed, a feeling unknown in their cruel breasts.”
In a 1976 biography the Rev. C. E. Schmoeger wrote that Emmerick described one vision of an “old Jewess Meyr,” who is said to have admitted “that Jews in our country and elsewhere strangled Christian children and used their blood for all sorts of suspicious and diabolical practices.”
At a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise across the globe it is appalling that the Vatican would even consider paying tribute to such an individual. Whatever Emmerick’s acts of goodness may have been, hate and holiness hardly seem an appropriate match.
This is not the first time John Paul II has elevated an anti-Semite to the Catholic pantheon in recent years.
In October 2002 he canonized Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, a Spanish priest who founded Opus Dei, a Catholic religious group, in 1928. Escriva is said to have harbored little love for the Jews, one English priest asserting that he even defended Adolf Hitler, claiming the Nazi leader had been “badly treated” because “he could never have killed six million Jews. It only could have been four million, at most.”
Another case was the pope’s September 2000 beatification of Pius IX, who was behind the 1858 kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, a six-year-old Italian Jewish child taken from his family and forcibly baptized.
As pontiff, Pius IX insisted on confining the Jews of Rome to the ghetto, or their “hole,” as he mockingly called it; he was the last pope ever to do so. In addition, he forbade Jews to own property, teach in schools or even receive medical care, and called them “dogs.”
Is this what constitutes a “saint”? Other recipients of John Paul’s recognition have included Maximilian Kolbe, who was canonized.
Kolbe, a Polish priest and magazine editor prior to World War II, promoted the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a Czarist Russian forgery which alleges the existence of a Jewish plot to rule the world. Kolbe insisted the Protocols were true and said they had been written by “a cruel, crafty, little-known Jewish clique” that had been “seduced by Satan.”
In October 1998, yet another controversial figure, Alojzjie Stepinac, was beatified by the pope. Stepinac, who served as archbishop of Zagreb in the 1940’s, was a supporter of the pro-Nazi puppet regime in Croatia known as the Ustashe, which massacred Jews and Serbs. As such he failed to forcefully denounce their actions.
Adding insult to injury was John Paul’s insistence at the time on also canonizing Edith Stein, a Jewish convert to Catholicism who died at Auschwitz. In a May 1987 homily, the pope went so far as to equate Stein with the biblical Esther, as if a legitimate comparison can be made between someone who deserts the faith of her forefathers and the heroine of the Purim festival, who helped to save her people.
Obviously, the Catholic Church is free to make its own decisions regarding those it wishes to honor with sainthood. But when it affects the Jewish people, Jews can and must speak out.
After all, for the past 2,000 years we have suffered terribly at the hands of Church-inspired Crusades, Inquisitions, blood libels, forced conversions, massacres and pogroms. Throughout its history, the Catholic Church has repeatedly committed the cardinal sin of propagating anti-Semitism, often with deadly results.
It is precisely because of this dreadful record that the Vatican has a special responsibility to consider the impact of its actions upon the Jews.
To be fair, John Paul II has taken a number of important steps to improve Catholic-Jewish relations, from visiting Rome’s Great Synagogue in 1986 to establishing diplomatic relations between the Vatican and the Jewish state, to meeting with Israel’s two chief rabbis earlier this year.
But that doesn’t minimize the gravity of his actions when it comes to granting sainthood to one anti-Semite after another.
Obviously, none of the individuals involved were honored by the pope because of their anti-Semitism, rather despite it. Nevertheless, the message sent to Catholics and others around the world is still chilling, necessarily implying that the age-old prejudice against Jews is not entirely unacceptable.
For if a person can achieve sainthood even though they hated, or even persecuted the Jewish people, then how bad can anti-Semitism truly be?
If Catholics and Jews are ever to succeed in building a new relationship based on respect, it is incumbent upon this pope, and his successors, to stop glorifying those who espouse bigotry and hatred.
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