I don't understand how some of my trad. latin mass going friends are anti-semitic!

[TMC]

Jews were prepared for the Messiah much more than the Gentiles. Much is required from one whom much is given. “Missing the hour of their visitation” exacts a high penalty.

That’s not the SSPX’s teaching. That’s the SSPX relating the Catholic Church’s teaching. Which is what they’ve always done. Just as Pharoah’s heart was hardened by his own obstinance, that is why jews of today who are not Christian are going down a dark path. Away from the light of Christ. God doesn’t force himself on people.

No, that is not the Church’s teaching. The Catholic Church does not teach that Jews carry a curse that prevents them from discerning good from evil. This is what the Church teaches:

597 The historical complexity of Jesus’ trial is apparent in the Gospel accounts. The personal sin of the participants (Judas, the Sanhedrin, Pilate) is known to God alone. Hence we cannot lay responsibility for the trial on the Jews in Jerusalem as a whole, despite the outcry of a manipulated crowd and the global reproaches contained in the apostles’ calls to conversion after Pentecost.385 Jesus himself, in forgiving them on the cross, and Peter in following suit, both accept “the ignorance” of the Jews of Jerusalem and even of their leaders.386 Still less can we extend responsibility to other Jews of different times and places, based merely on the crowd’s cry: “His blood be on us and on our children!”, a formula for ratifying a judicial sentence.387 As the Church declared at the Second Vatican Council:

. . . [N]either all Jews indiscriminately at that time, nor Jews today, can be charged with the crimes committed during his Passion. . . [T]he Jews should not be spoken of as rejected or accursed as if this followed from holy Scripture. CCC 597 quoting Nostra Aetate

The SSPX position is directly contradictory to the Church’s teachings, no amount of spin can change that.

I firmly believe that labeling an entire people as cursed and incapable of moral discernment is wrong, both morally and theologically, whether you call it “anti-semitism” or not. You obviously believe differently. I don’t see any middle ground of agreement so perhaps we should let it go while the conversation is still relatively charitable.

 

[latinmasslover]

well I can’t find any such quote via the internet.

If the book is still in the chapel here I’ll give a direct reference Saturday night/Sunday morning.

 

[GerardP]

No, that is not the Church’s teaching. The Catholic Church does not teach that Jews carry a curse that prevents them from discerning good from evil. This is what the Church teaches:

That’s not a Church “teaching.” That’s an ecumenical/inter-religious policy that is first making a straw man out of previous Church teaching and avoiding for political reasons what the Church has always taught.

The SSPX position is directly contradictory to the Church’s teachings, no amount of spin can change that.

No it isn’t. You’re the one spinning the SSPX’s position.

I firmly believe that labeling an entire people as cursed and incapable of moral discernment is wrong, both morally and theologically, whether you call it “anti-semitism” or not.

That’s irrelevant since that is not the SSPX’s position. No matter how many times you want to misrepresent it.

You obviously believe differently.

No. You are wrong to speak on my behalf and misrepresenting me as well as the SSPX and the Church.

I don’t see any middle ground of agreement so perhaps we should let it go while the conversation is still relatively charitable.

I’d recommend that you actually deal with the facts and not manipulate them to bolster a false argument.

 

[chosen_people]

Yet any reference to an unhealthy or malevolent element within the jewish community is labeled “anti-semitism.”

I believe the concept of “the Jews” as an entity comitting acts as a collective group and bearing collective responsibility for such acts is found in your “New Testament” and subsequent Catholic writings by church leaders. Originaly The “Jew” was viewed as an person who is cursed not only for direct and indirect complicity in deicide but also for the very rejection of the Christian god and messiah. St. John Chrysostom even went so far as to write that the Jews were as animals fit only for slaughter (the concept of the Jew as subhuman deserving of slaughter would appear to the modern reader to be right out of mein kampf).

The Jew and Judaisim were viewed ipso facto as anti Catholic where any social contact could have detrimental effect on the Christian and his beliefs. This led to the complete social seperation between Jews and Christians under Papal Church law. Jews were not allowed to work with or to hire Christians, study with them or even to dine with them. The Jew was forced to live in a seperate ghetto but made to wear a special insignia on leaving the confines of the ghetto in order that the Christian might be able to identify that he was a Jew (please remember this process began a millenium and a half before the Nuremberg laws).

As a result the Jew lived in virtually complete autonomy which led to the flowering and development of Jewish law (halachah) and Jewish intellectual thought. The Jew lived under Jewish law and took his legal disputes to a Jewish tribunal. Jews everywhere in the world no matter where they lived were united in their belief in the Torah and Jewish law. It is easy to understand how under these autonomous conditions the Jewish nation and religion survived the diaspora.

That is not to say that there was absolutely no contact between the Jew and his Christian neighbour. There were of course the expulsions, the murderous riots against the Jews and the forced conversions. This was only to be expected as the Jews apparently poisoned wells, caused the black plague, killed little Christian children to use their blood to make matzah and other dispicable acts. Sylvester (Jan. 1), St Valentines day, Easter and Hallowe’en were traditional days where the local priest could whip up the locals to defend Christianity against these anti-Christ’s in their midsts.

Things changed with Napolean and the age of enlightenment where Jews for the first time gradually began to be granted citienship in their respective countries and to integrate more and more with the local non Jewish population. This led to the reinforcement of social antisemitism as well as placing the emphasis more on hate for the Jew as a “race” as opposed to classic Christian religious antisemitism which was less effective with the increasing seperation of Church and state.

Despite limiting Jewish participation in the work place, placing limitations and quotas on the number of Jews accepted to Universities (Jews only became “white” with affirmative action once again being subjected to quotas) and social osterization, Jews despite there very small numbers have had a tremendous impact in almost every aspect of human intellectual endeavour (the major exception is Darwin). Apparently following a highly intellectual religon based on the study of law has its benifits.

However, the Jewish contributions to humanity and knowledge has led to the antisemitism of “Jewish naturalism”. Since Marx was born Jewish, communism, is a Jewish invention against Christianity. Never mind that Jews and Judaism suffered terribly under communism. Since Freud was Jewish his theories too are Jewish and were made to undermine good Christian values, Jews it turns out invented sex and abortions and sex education and promiscuity. “Jewish liberalism” and their Jewish liberal organizations are apparently at war with Christianity. Those groups that long for a “Christian America” (Christian supremacists) view all things Jewish (even scientific and intellectual thought by Jews) as indicative of “Jewish domination” and ironically speak of “Jewish Supremacy” and “Jewish domination”. Jews are accused of making war on Christmas by the same people who hum their favourite christmas songs written by Jews and watch their favourite christmas movies made by Jews.

People may be liberal or conservative in their beliefs. However a Jew expressing liberal beliefs is a “Jewish” liberal with an insiduous agenda against Christianity. A Jew expressing conservative views is a “neo con” with a different but equally insiduous agenda. How “the Jews” as a group could be producing “Jewish” diametrically opposed viewpoints demands a form of logic understood only by the antisemite.

 

[chosen_people]

While it is true that not every anti Zionist is an antisemite it is equally true that every antisemite is also an anti Zionist. The Jewish state which arguably has more of a moral historical and legal right to exist alone among all nations finds itself the center of debate on whether it should be exterminated.

Antisemites have even promulgated that the target of the their hate, “the Jews” are in fact not “the Jews” but that Ashkenazic Jews are a Turkish tribe that converted to Judaism. Modern DNA and genetic testing has shown that there is no truth in this claim, that Jews around the world share unique similar genes traceable back to the middle east. Cohanim can be traced back to a single father 3300 years ago. In other words, your Jewish neighbour forefathers actually went out with Moses from Egypt.

Which of course has led to the latest in modern antisemitic theories that of Professor Kevin MacDonald. According to his theories Jews manipulated their genes for domination over their gentile neighbours and act in concert as a group to further that domination (for instance by supporting liberal immigration laws).

Of course I could go on but I wouldn’t want to be labeled as part of the “unhealthy or malevolent element in the Jewish community” as you put it.

 

[jj2011]

However, the Jewish contributions to humanity and knowledge has led to the antisemitism of “Jewish naturalism”. Since Marx was born Jewish, communism, is a Jewish invention against Christianity. Never mind that Jews and Judaism suffered terribly under communism.

I would argue that this thread, if anything, shows how minimal anti-Semitism is among most Catholics, particularly if one goes back and reads the comments of the OP.

I would not deny that there is some anti-Semitism among traditional Catholics, because I have heard two trad Catholics, who were obviously ignorant of Church teaching, call themselves anti-Semitic. Both of them had been influenced by Shoah denial literature.

I must however deny the idea that Catholics such as Fr Fahey or SSPX invented the notion of Judeo-Masonry, meaning Jewish leadership of Communist,Illuminist and Freemasonic secret societies.

This notion was expressed by writers like Benjamin Disraeli, who was himself of Jewish origin, long before SSPX existed. In Coningsby Disraeli puts Jewish finance at the head of the secret societies, and correctly predicts the Revolution of 1848. Disraeli most probably was talking about the Rothschilds, with whom he had close ties. This work of course was fiction, but Disraeli said the same thing in his nonfictional works, for example in The Life of Lord George Bentinck:

“The influence of the Jews may be traced in the last outbreak of the destructive principle in Europe. An insurrection takes place against tradition and aristocracy, against religion and property. Destruction of the Semitic principle, extirpation of the Jewish religion, whether in the Mosaic or the Christian form, the natural equality of men and the abrogation of property are proclaimed by the Secret Societies which form Provisional Governments and men of Jewish Race are found at the head of every one of them. The people of God co-operate with atheists; the most skilful accumulators of property ally themselves with Communists; the peculiar and chosen Race touch the hand of all the scum and low castes of Europe; and all this because they wish to destroy that ungrateful Christendom which owes to them even its name, and whose tyranny they can no longer endure.”

 

[GerardP]

While it is true that not every anti Zionist is an antisemite it is equally true that every antisemite is also an anti Zionist.

Not necessarily true. An ‘anti-semite’ may have no knowledge nor interest in politics as his hatred would be based on race.

The Jewish state which arguably has more of a moral historical and legal right to exist alone among all nations finds itself the center of debate on whether it should be exterminated.

I’m sure plenty of Cherokee or Navajo would disagree with you.

So follows the claim to the “Divine Right of Existence” no different than the “Manifest Destiny” or “Reich that will last a thousand years.” Terrorist tactics and Theodor Herzl’s immoral strategies notwithstanding. The British (who caused most of the world’s troubles) certainly tried to accomodate a peaceful coexistence but various bombings by the “back to Palestine” movement put an end to that.

Antisemites have even promulgated that the target of the their hate, “the Jews” are in fact not “the Jews” but that Ashkenazic Jews are a Turkish tribe that converted to Judaism.

Who cares? They’re racists. Traditional Catholics care about the religion, not the race.

Modern DNA and genetic testing has shown that there is no truth in this claim, that Jews around the world share unique similar genes traceable back to the middle east.

Did they use Calipers as well? Your claims are motivated by a perverted identification with racial purity. And you wonder where Nazis ideas came from? I personally believe that eventually we will all trace ourselves back to Noah. “who’s generations were pure.”

Cohanim can be traced back to a single father 3300 years ago. In other words, your Jewish neighbour forefathers actually went out with Moses from Egypt.

And how did the Catholic Church deny this?

Which of course has led to the latest in modern antisemitic theories that of Professor Kevin MacDonald. According to his theories Jews manipulated their genes for domination over their gentile neighbours and act in concert as a group to further that domination (for instance by supporting liberal immigration laws).

And who does Kevin MacDonald speak for? What besides a dodge has this to do with in the context of the discussion?

Of course I could go on but I wouldn’t want to be labeled as part of the “unhealthy or malevolent element in the Jewish community” as you put it.

Obviously you wouldn’t want to be labeled as an unhealthy element. That would mean that you’d be able to be denounced by jews that disagree with your racist remarks. What unhealthy element does want to be identified? And you’d be open to criticism from non-jews without the safety of pulling out the “anti-semite” card.

Through all the smoke and propaganda, You refuse to make the simple self-evidently human assertion and admit that there are any differences among jews. Some positive and some negative. Good jews and bad jews, no different than Italians, Greeks, Germans, Irish, Spanish, Arabs, Chinese, Watutsi etc. etc.

The tribal cloak must be maintained it seems. You probably don’t even see it, but from your posts you come off every bit as racist in your pro-semitism as any anti-semite could be.

 

[chosen_people]

I would argue that this thread, if anything, shows how minimal anti-Semitism is among most Catholics, particularly if one goes back and reads the comments of the OP.

I would not deny that there is some anti-Semitism among traditional Catholics, because I have heard two trad Catholics, who were obviously ignorant of Church teaching, call themselves anti-Semitic. Both of them had been influenced by Shoah denial literature.

I must however deny the idea that Catholics such as Fr Fahey or SSPX invented the notion of Judeo-Masonry, meaning Jewish leadership of Communist,Illuminist and Freemasonic secret societies.

This notion was expressed by writers like Benjamin Disraeli, who was himself of Jewish origin, long before SSPX existed. In Coningsby Disraeli puts Jewish finance at the head of the secret societies, and correctly predicts the Revolution of 1848. Disraeli most probably was talking about the Rothschilds, with whom he had close ties. This work of course was fiction, but Disraeli said the same thing in his nonfictional works, for example in The Life of Lord George Bentinck:

“The influence of the Jews may be traced in the last outbreak of the destructive principle in Europe. An insurrection takes place against tradition and aristocracy, against religion and property. Destruction of the Semitic principle, extirpation of the Jewish religion, whether in the Mosaic or the Christian form, the natural equality of men and the abrogation of property are proclaimed by the Secret Societies which form Provisional Governments and men of Jewish Race are found at the head of every one of them. The people of God co-operate with atheists; the most skilful accumulators of property ally themselves with Communists; the peculiar and chosen Race touch the hand of all the scum and low castes of Europe; and all this because they wish to destroy that ungrateful Christendom which owes to them even its name, and whose tyranny they can no longer endure.”

You do both Disraeli and his writing a disservice. He was lavish in his praise for the Jews in his book.
See: gwb.com.au/2000/myers/100300.htm

"But having made this full admission of the partial degradation of the Jewish race, we are not prepared to agree that this limited degeneracy is any justification of the prejudices and persecution which originated in barbarous or medieval superstitions. On the contrary, viewing the influence of the Jewish race upon the modern communities, without any reference to the past history or the future promises of Israel, dismissing from our minds and memories, if indeed that be possible, all that the Hebrews have done in the olden time for man, and all which it may be their destiny yet to fulfil, we hold that instead of being an object of aversion, they should receive all that honour and favour from the northern and western races which, in civilised and refined nations, should be the lot of those who charm the public taste and elevate the public feeling. We hesitate not to say that there is no race at this present, and following in this only the example of a long period, that so much delights, and fascinates, and ennobles Europe, as the Jewish.

(this is but one small example from the book you quoted)

 

[GerardP]

I believe the concept of “the Jews” as an entity comitting acts as a collective group and bearing collective responsibility for such acts is found in your “New Testament” and subsequent Catholic writings by church leaders.

I doubt the accuracy of your statement but more importantly the contradiction is apparent.

You claim the use of the “broad brush” in the term “the jews” (which is all over the Old Testament as well. ) is a perjorative.

Yet simutaneously any effort to avoid that broad brush and narrow the focus to specific types within the jewish community in order to prevent the innocent from being lumped in with the guilty is disparaged. Why is that?

“Italian” does not mean “mobster.” So it’s a good thing to have a word like “Mafia” in order to make the distinction.

Why are there none for the bad elements within the jewish community? Why do they hide among the good and why don’t the noble jews ferret them out?

Or are you claiming that jews are the only ethnic group in the world free from having corrupt elements within?

 

[chosen_people]

Italians have had mafioso distinct from all Italians, the Germans have had nazis, distinct from all Germans the Irish have “tinkers” and “shanty-Irish” along with the more radical elements from the IRA days.

Yet any reference to an unhealthy or malevolent element within the jewish community is labeled “anti-semitism.”

My problem with your above statement is that I’m not sure whether just some or all Jews in your opinion are similar or comparable to blood thirsty terrorists or Nazi’s or criminals.

 

[jj2011]

You do both Disraeli and his writing a disservice. He was lavish in his praise for the Jews in his book.
See: gwb.com.au/2000/myers/100300.htm

"But having made this full admission of the partial degradation of the Jewish race, we are not prepared to agree that this limited degeneracy is any justification of the prejudices and persecution which originated in barbarous or medieval superstitions. On the contrary, viewing the influence of the Jewish race upon the modern communities, without any reference to the past history or the future promises of Israel, dismissing from our minds and memories, if indeed that be possible, all that the Hebrews have done in the olden time for man, and all which it may be their destiny yet to fulfil, we hold that instead of being an object of aversion, they should receive all that honour and favour from the northern and western races which, in civilised and refined nations, should be the lot of those who charm the public taste and elevate the public feeling. We hesitate not to say that there is no race at this present, and following in this only the example of a long period, that so much delights, and fascinates, and ennobles Europe, as the Jewish.

(this is but one small example from the book you quoted)

It wasn’t my intention to deny in any way that Disraeli remained a philosemite even after he was baptized.

 

[GerardP]

Originaly The “Jew” was viewed as an person who is cursed not only for direct and indirect complicity in deicide but also for the very rejection of the Christian god and messiah. St. John Chrysostom even went so far as to write that the Jews were as animals fit only for slaughter (the concept of the Jew as subhuman deserving of slaughter would appear to the modern reader to be right out of mein kampf).

How about if you source this?

The Jew and Judaisim were viewed ipso facto as anti Catholic where any social contact could have detrimental effect on the Christian and his beliefs.

Are you saying that theologically judaism is pro-Catholic?

Who is it that has a word for “not one of us”?

This led to the complete social seperation between Jews and Christians under Papal Church law. Jews were not allowed to work with or to hire Christians, study with them or even to dine with them.

Didn’t jews have social separation in that they were not allowed to enter Roman houses?

The Jew was forced to live in a seperate ghetto but made to wear a special insignia on leaving the confines of the ghetto in order that the Christian might be able to identify that he was a Jew (please remember this process began a millenium and a half before the Nuremberg laws).

Hysterical propaganda. Jews were protected by Christians.

crisismagazine.com/january2003/feature4.htm

As a result the Jew lived in virtually complete autonomy which led to the flowering and development of Jewish law (halachah) and Jewish intellectual thought. The Jew lived under Jewish law and took his legal disputes to a Jewish tribunal. Jews everywhere in the world no matter where they lived were united in their belief in the Torah and Jewish law. It is easy to understand how under these autonomous conditions the Jewish nation and religion survived the diaspora.

Given to them by the Church.

Pope Gregory I as cited in the linked article:

“Just as the Jews should not in their synagogues be free to do anything not permitted by law, so also in those things granted them they should have no infringement of their rights.” During his pontificate, he put these words into practice, intervening to protect Jews from violence and insisting that Jewish rituals be tolerated. Yet he had no power to force faraway barbarian lords, many of whom were not Catholic, to heed his commands. In his own domains, however, Gregory rigorously defended the Jews. Indeed, throughout the thousand years of the Middle Ages, Rome and the papal states were the only places in western Europe where the Jews were at all times free from attacks or expulsions. The medieval papacy’s unfailing defense of the Jews was not lost on the Jews themselves, who frequently came to the throne of St. Peter for justice and support against their enemies.

That is not to say that there was absolutely no contact between the Jew and his Christian neighbour. There were of course the expulsions, the murderous riots against the Jews and the forced conversions.

As if all Christians were unified against all jews. What kind of silliness are you selling? I admit there were and are evil Christians doing wrong things. Do you admit there are evil jews doing wrong things or is it all one-sided?

You mention no papal condemnations of anti-semitism or the saints like Bernard who protected jews from abuse.

This was only to be expected as the Jews apparently poisoned wells, caused the black plague, killed little Christian children to use their blood to make matzah and other dispicable acts.

Sounds like the accusations against the Nazis. “Soap and lampshades” etc.

Sylvester (Jan. 1), St Valentines day, Easter and Hallowe’en were traditional days where the local priest could whip up the locals to defend Christianity against these anti-Christ’s in their midsts.

Good times for the jewish anti-Christians to pimp up some persecution stories I bet as well.

Things changed with Napolean and the age of enlightenment where Jews for the first time gradually began to be granted citienship in their respective countries and to integrate more and more with the local non Jewish population

.

False. Golden Liberty in Catholic Poland was a flowering of jewish tolerance and participation.

This led to the reinforcement of social antisemitism as well as placing the emphasis more on hate for the Jew as a “race” as opposed to classic Christian religious antisemitism which was less effective with the increasing seperation of Church and state.

By who? You’re engaging in conspiracy theories now.

 

[chosen_people]

How about if you source this?

The Jews and collective deicide

Pilate therefore, willing to release Jesus … said unto them the third time, ‘Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him: I will therefore chasten him, and let him go.’ And they were instant with loud voices, requiring that he might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed. And Pilate seeing that he prevailed nothing, but that rather a tumult was made; taking water washed his hands before the people, saying: ‘I am innocent of the blood of this just man; look you to it.’ Then cried all the people, and said, ‘His blood be on us, and on our children.’" [Luke 23:20-23; Mat 27:25]
“Ye men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth … you, by the hands of wicked men have crucified and slain.” [Acts 2:22-23]

“Therefore, let all the House of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.” [Acts 2:36]

“Be it known unto you all, even to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand before you whole.” [Acts 4:10]

“And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, ‘Ye men of Israel … Jesus, whom ye delivered up, and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; and killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses.’” [Acts 3:12-15]

“And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree.” [Acts 10:39]

The Fathers of the Church understood these texts in that way. This is made clear in many of their writings:
“Their rejection of Jesus has resulted in their present calamity and exile. We say with confidence that they will never be restored to their former condition. For they committed a crime of the most unhallowed kind, in conspiring against the saviour.” [Origen]
“The blood of Jesus falls not only on the Jews of that time, but on all generations of Jews up to the end of the world.” [Origen]

“Judas betrayed Me, the Jews persecuted and crucified Me … In particular, this is the story of Judas; in general it is that of the Jews … Judas is cursed, that in Judas the Jews may be accursed.” [St Jerome]

To the objection that it was the Romans and not the Jews who killed Christ it was argued that Pilate told the Jews that he had found no fault in Christ and therefore would not pass sentence.
“And so all who cried out with impious voices for the crucifixion of Christ slew Him, not, indeed, directly with their own hands, but personally through him who was compelled to such a crime by their clamour … They were implicated in the crime from which they tried to hold themselves aloof; for Pilate would have done no such thing, save to implement what he perceived to be their fixed desire.” [St Augustine: On the Gospel of Saint John 114, 115]
“Let not the Jews say, ‘We have not crucified Christ.’ For to this end they gave Him to Pilate the judge, in order that they themselves might seem as if they were guiltless of His death … But if he is guilty because he did it against his will, are they innocent who compelled him to do it? By no means. But he gave sentence against him, and commanded him to be crucified: and in a manner himself killed him; you also, O you Jews, killed him. Whence did you kill Him? With the sword of the tongue: for ye did whet your tongues. And when did ye smite, except when ye cried out, ‘Crucify, crucify’? … This is the whole of the Jews sagacity, this is that which they sought as some great matter. Let us kill and let us not kill: so let us kill, as that we may not ourselves be judged to have killed.”
[St Augustine: On the Psalms 63:4,5; Roman Breviary, Matins of Good Friday]

“For as though they were afraid lest they should seem to fall short at all in the crime, having killed the prophets with their own hands, but this man with the sentence of a judge, so they do in every deed; and make it the work of their own hands, and condemn and sentence both among themselves and before Pilate, saying: ‘His blood be on us and on our children,’ and insult Him, and do despite unto Him themselves, binding Him, leading Him away, and render themselves authors of the spiteful acts done by the soldiers, and nail Him to the cross, and revile Him, and spit at Him, and deride Him. For Pilate contributed nothing in this matter, but they themselves did everything, becoming accusers, and judges, and executioners, and all.”
[St John Chrysostom: On the Gospel of Saint Matthew]

 

[chosen_people]

The idea that only the rulers of the Jews were implicated in the murder of Our Lord was rejected on the basis that these only secured Jesus’ murder by first securing the same intention from the Jewish people as a whole. Pilate and the Romans wanted to let Jesus go, and even Herod wanted no part in His death. It was said to be the mass of the Jews that secured His murder at the festival of the Passover, when Jews were congregated in Jerusalem from all over the world. The Fathers of the Church insisted that this was “the entire nation”.
The Jews are all guilty of deicide.
Because it was thought that the Jews corporately killed Christ; it was concluded that all Jews bore the guilt of his murder. This was seen as a parallel with the fall. Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, and therein we all sinned, too, “in Adam”. So it was with the Jews: “through their fathers”, Judas and the rest, they were believed to have murdered God. All of them.
“Judaism, since Christ, is a corruption; indeed, Judas is the image of the Jewish people: their understanding of Scripture is carnal; they bear the guilt for the death of the Saviour, for through their fathers they have killed Christ.” [St Augustine]
“The Jews, therefore, not only made themselves strangers to the covenants, but also dishonoured the Father and killed the Son in envy.” [St Ephraim the Syrian]

“The Jews are murderers of the Lord … They are guilty of shouting: ‘Away with him, away with him! Crucify him!’ He who was God in the flesh!” [St Gregory of Nyssa: Oration on the Resurrection of Christ]

“Nor is it sufficient that we call Him who is in Heaven ‘Father.’ We must add to the name ‘Our Father.’ This name rebukes and condemns the Jews who not only spurned Christ faithlessly, but also cruelly executed Him Who was announced to them by the prophets, and sent first to their nation. No longer may they call God their Father, because the Lord confounds and refutes them, saying: ‘your father is the devil’ [John 8:44]. O sinful nation, O people weighed down with guilt, breed of evil-doers, lawless children, you have turned your backs on the Lord and have provoked the Holy One of Israel.” [St Cyprian: On The Lord’s Prayer]

“If someone should kill the beloved son of a man, and then stretch forth their hands still stained with blood to the afflicted father, asking for fellowship, would not the blood of his son, still visible on the hand of his murderer, provoke him to just anger instead? And such are the prayers of the Jews, for when they stretch forth their hands in prayer, they only remind God the Father of their sin against His Son. And at every stretching forth of their hands, they only make it obvious that they are stained with the blood of Christ.”
[St Basil: On Prayer, Sermon Nine]

“… from that time seditions and wars and mischievous plots followed each other in quick succession, and never ceased in the city and in all Judea until finally the siege of Vespasian overwhelmed them. Thus the divine vengeance overtook the Jews for the crimes which they dared to commit against Christ.”
[Eusebius of Caesarea, Church History: Book II, Chapter 6]

The Catholic laity in Slovakia was taught by their clergy that the Nazis were doing the will of Jesus Christ in exterminating the Jews. In 1942 before Passover, Rabbi Michael Dov-Ber Weissmandel begged Archbishop Kametko to intervene with President Tisso, to prevent the expulsion of the Jewish population from Slovakia. The archbishop replied:
“This is no mere expulsion. There you will not die of hunger and pestilence; there they will slaughter you all, young and old, women and children, in one day. This is your punishment for the death of our Redeemer. There is only one hope for you, to convert to our religion. Then I shall effect the annulling of this decree.”
“Faith After the Holocaust”, Eliezer Berkovits, Ktav, 1973, pp. 16-17.]
In the autumn of 1945 Rabbi Weissmandel escaped from a deportation to Auschwitz. He approached the papal nuncio for help in stopping the extermination of Slovakian Jews. The official response was “This, being a Sunday, is a holy day for us. Neither I nor Father Tisso occupy ourselves with profane matters on this day.” When asked how the murder of innocent men and women, children and babies could be considered “profane” by Christians, the nuncio replied:
“There is no innocent blood of Jewish children in the world. All Jewish blood is guilty. You have to die. This is the punishment that has been awaiting you because of that sin.”
“Faith After the Holocaust”, Eliezer Berkovits, Ktav, 1973, pp. 16-17.]

 

[chosen_people]

The Jews are all damned.
Because the Jews were all judged to be guilty of Christ’s murder, they were considered to be damned.
“By this alone the Jews can receive pardon of their sins, if they wash away the blood of Christ slain, in His baptism, and, passing over into His Church, obey His precepts. In Isaiah the Lord says: ‘Now I will not release your sins. When ye stretch forth your hands, I will turn away my face from you; and if ye multiply prayers, I will not hear you: for your hands are full of blood.’” [St Cyprian: Against the Jews]
“The ceremonies of the Jews are both baneful and deadly to Christians and whoever keeps them is doomed to the abyss of the devil.” [St Augustine: Epistle 82]

“On account of their unbelief, and the other insults which they heaped upon Jesus, the Jews will … suffer more than others in that judgement which is believed to be impending over the world.” [Origen: Against Celsus 2:8]

“Poor Jews! You invoked a dreadful curse upon your own heads in saying: ‘His blood be on us and our children’; and that curse, miserable race, you carry upon you to this day, and to the end of time you shall endure the chastisement of that innocent blood.” [St. Alphonsus Maria Liguouri, The Passion and death of Jesus Christ.]

“Pilate took water in accordance with that, ‘I will wash my hands in innocency’, in a manner testifying and saying, I indeed have sought to deliver this innocent man, but since a tumult is rising, and the charge of treason to Caesar is urged against me, I am innocent of the blood of this just man … Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us and on our children. This imprecation rests at the present day upon the Jews: the Lord’s blood is not removed from them.” [St Thomas Aquinas : Catena Aurea]

“I knew in my faith that the Jews were accursed and condemned without end, except those who were converted.” [Blessed Juliana of Norwich: Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love]

“… all those who are outside the catholic church, not only pagans but also Jews or heretics and schismatics, cannot share in eternal life and will go into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless they are joined to the catholic church before the end of their lives …”
[Pope Eugenius IV, at the Oecumenical Union Council of Florence]

The Jews are morally degenerate
St John Chrysostom was especially keen to establish that the Jewish Nation was rapacious, depraved and degenerate:
“I know that many people hold a high regard for the Jews and consider their way of life worthy of respect at the present time. This is why I am hurrying to pull up this fatal notion by the roots … the synagogue is not only a whorehouse and a theatre: it is also a den of thieves and a haunt of wild animals … not the cave of a wild animal merely, but of an unclean wild animal.” [St John Chrysostom]
“How dare Christians have the slightest doings with Jews, those most miserable of all men! They are lustful, rapacious, greedy, perfidious bandits, pests of the universe. Indeed, an entire day would not suffice to tell of all their rapine, their avarice, their deception of the poor, their thievery, and their huckstering. Are they not inveterate murderers, destroyers, men possessed by the devil? Jews are impure and impious, and their synagogue is a house of prostitution, a lair of beasts, a place of shame and ridicule, the domicile of the devil, as is also the soul of the Jew. As a matter of fact, Jews worship the devil: their rites are criminal and unchaste; their religion a disease; their synagogue an assembly of crooks, a den of thieves, a cavern of devils, an abyss of perdition! Why are the Jews degenerate? Because of their hateful assassination of Christ. This supreme crime lies at the root of their degradation and woes. The rejection and the dispersion of the Jews was the work of God and because of His absolute abandonment of the Jews. Thus, the Jew will live under the yoke of slavery without end. God hates the Jews, and on Judgement Day He will say to those who sympathise with them: “Depart from me, for you have had doings with My murderers!” Flee, then, from their assemblies, fly from their houses, and, far from venerating the synagogue, hold it in hatred and aversion.”
[St John Chrysostom: “Six Homilies Against the Jews”]

He seems to say that they are incapable of repentance:
“Israel, since the deicide, has been given over to commerce with demons; the Jews have all the vices of beasts and are good for nothing but slaughter; gluttons, drunkards, sensualists living for their belly … they behave no better than pigs and goats in their lewd vulgarities. Their crime leaves them no hope of mending their ways of being pardoned. The synagogue is a brothel, a den of thieves, a lair of wild beasts.”
[St John Chrysostom]

 

[chosen_people]

Moreover, prefiguring the worst of Nazism, it would appear that he thought them to be sub-human:
"When animals are unfit for work, they are marked for slaughter, and this is the very thing which the Jews have experienced. By making themselves unfit for work, they have become ready for slaughter. This is why Christ said, ‘as for my enemies, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them before me.’ " [St John Chrysostom]
Of course, Chrysostom’s shrill condemnations testify to the fact that his view were not universally held within the Church in his day. Unfortunately, largely due to his influence, such views did gain sway.
“When Jews are admitted out of pity into familiar intercourse with Christians, they repay their hosts, according to the popular proverb, after the fashion of the rat hidden in the sack, or the snake in the bosom, or of the burning brand in one’s lap.” [Pope Innocent III]
“Furthermore, by means of their particular practice of commerce, they amass a great store of money and then by an exorbitant rate of interest utterly destroy the wealth and inheritance of Christians.”
[Pope Benedict XIV: “A Quo Primum”]

“With great sorrow and mortal anxiety, We have heard that the Jews have in a Christian land the same rights as Christians, that Christian men and women live under the same roof with these traitors and defile their souls day and night with blasphemies.” [Pope Stephen III: Epistle to the Bishop of Norbonne]

“The Jewish people fell from the heights because of their faithlessness and condemned their Redeemer to a shameful death. Their godlessness has assumed such forms that, for the salvation of our own people, it becomes necessary to prevent their disease. Besides usury, through which Jews everywhere have sucked dry the property of impoverished Christians, they are accomplices of thieves and robbers; and the most damaging aspect of the matter is that they allure the unsuspecting through magical incantations, superstition, and witchcraft to the Synagogue of Satan and boast of being able to predict the future. We have carefully investigated how this revolting sect abuses the name of Christ and how harmful they are to those whose life is threatened by their deceit. On account of these and other serious matters, and because of the gravity of their crimes which increase day to day more and more, We order that, within 90 days, all Jews in our entire earthly realm … must depart these regions.”
[Pope St. Pius V: “The Jewish Race” 1569]

“As for what you say: that you desire to dispute with Jews, so as to convert them and turn them to the faith, I commend you the less for that: for you beat the air, exhausting yourself with foolish and vain zeal … It seems to me wiser for our Faith to conceal the injury done to it for the time rather than enter into discussion with a people stiff necked and of a stubbornness truly bestial.”
[Peter de Blois: “Against the Perfidy of the Jews”]

 

[chosen_people]

In 1751 the first pope to issue encyclical letters addressed the issue of Jews and Catholics living together in Poland. The result was a call for the ghettoization of Polish Jews. Here are some extracts from the Encyclical …
“…Another threat to Christians has been the influence of Jewish faithlessness; this influence was strong because Christians and Jews were living in the same cities and towns … the number of Jews … has greatly increased … The Jews have so replaced the Christians that some parishes are about to lose their ministers because their revenue has dwindled so drastically. Because the Jews control businesses selling liquor and even wine, they are therefore allowed to supervise the collection of public revenues. They have also gained control of inns, bankrupt estates, villages and public land by means of which they have subjugated poor Christian farmers. The Jews are cruel taskmasters, not only working the farmers harshly and forcing them to carry excessive loads, but also whipping them for punishment. So it has come about that those poor farmers are the subjects of the Jews, submissive to their will and power. Furthermore, although the power to punish lies with the Christian official, he must comply with the commands of the Jews and inflict the punishments they desire. If he doesn’t, he would lose his post. Therefore the tyrannical orders of the Jews have to be carried out … some households of the great have employed a Jew as ‘Superintendent of the Household’; in this capacity, they not only administer domestic and economic matters, but they also ceaselessly exhibit and flaunt authority over the Christians they are living with. It is now even commonplace for Christians and Jews to intermingle anywhere. But what is even less comprehensible is that Jews fearlessly keep Christians of both sexes in their houses as their domestics, bound to their service. Furthermore, by means of their particular practice of commerce, they amass a great store of money and then by an exorbitant rate of interest utterly destroy the wealth and inheritance of Christians. Even if they borrow money from Christians at heavy and undue interest with their synagogues as surety, it is obvious to anyone who thinks about it that they do so to employ the money borrowed from Christians in their commercial dealings; this enables them to make enough profit to pay the agreed interest and simultaneously increase their own store. At the same time, they gain as many defenders of their synagogues and themselves as they have creditors … if it is asked what matters the Apostolic See forbids to Jews living in the same cities as Christians, We will say that all those activities which are now allowed in Poland are forbidden; these We recounted above.”
[Pope Benedict IV : “A Quo Primum”.]

 

[chosen_people]

The Jews are cursed to be outcasts.
So, it was taught that all Jews were guilty of Christ’s death, and were therefore cursed. It was further believed that the curse was of a particular character: namely that it rendered them social pariahs and outcasts. From this, a suitable social policy towards the Jews was deduced.
The type of Cain was thought to illustrate Jewish reality. Certainly, some of the Fathers applied the story of Cain and Able to the Jews. As the envious murder by Cain was more grievous because it was of his own brother; so, the Jews killed their own: even their own kinsman, Messiah and God. “He came unto His own, but His own received Him not.” [John 1:11]

“Abel, the younger brother, is killed by the elder brother; Christ the head of the younger people, is killed by the elder people of the Jews. Abel dies in the field; Christ dies on Calvary.
God asks Cain where his brother is, not as if He did not know, but as a judge asks a guilty criminal. Cain replies that he knows not, and that he is not his brother’s keeper. And what answer can the Jews give at this day, when we ask them with the voice of God, that is, of the Sacred Scriptures, about Christ, except that they do not know the Christ we speak of? Cain’s ignorance was pretended, and the Jews are deceived in their refusal of Christ … Then God says to Cain, ‘What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.’ So the voice of God in the Holy Scriptures accuses the Jews. For the blood of Christ has a loud voice on the earth, when the responsive Amen of those who believe in Him comes from all nations. This is the voice of Christ’s blood, because the clear voice of the Faithful redeemed by His blood is the voice of the blood itself.
Then God says to Cain: ‘Thou art cursed from the earth, which hath opened its mouth to receive thy brother’s blood at thy hand.’ … So the unbelieving people of the Jews is cursed from the earth, that is, from the Church, which in the confession of sins has opened its mouth to receive the blood shed for the remission of sins by the hand of the people who would not be under grace, but under the law. And this murderer is cursed by the Church; that is, the Church admits and avows the curse pronounced by the Apostle: ‘Whoever are of the works of the law are under the curse of the law.’” [St Augustine: Reply to Faustinus the Manichaean XII:10-11]
“But Israel despised and would not render, for their will was not right, nay moreover they killed those that were sent, and not even before the Lord of the vineyard were they ashamed, but even He was slain by them. Verily, when he came and found no fruit in them, He cursed them through the fig tree, saying, ‘Let there be henceforth no fruit from thee;’ and the fig tree was dead and fruitless, so that even the disciples wondered when it withered away. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by the prophet; ‘I will take away from them the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the scent of myrrh, and the light of a lamp, and the whole land shall be destroyed.’ [Jer 25:10] For the whole service of the law has been abolished from them, and henceforth and forever they remain without a feast. And they observe not the Passover; for how can they? They have no abiding place, but they wander everywhere … But in every place they transgress the law, and as the judgements of God require; they keep days of grief instead of gladness. Now the cause of this to them was the slaying of the Lord, and that they did not reverence the Only Begotten … Therefore the Lord cursed them under the figure of the fig tree.” [St Athanasius: Letter 6, Easter 334]
“The Lord made Cain a wanderer and a fugitive over the earth, but set a mark upon him, making his head to shake, lest anyone finding him should slay him. Thus the Jews, against whom the blood of Christ calls out, although they ought not to be killed, nevertheless, as wanderers they must remain upon the earth until their faces are filled with shame and they seek the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
[Pope Innocent III: Epistle to the Count of Nevers.]

“We read in the Psalm a new kind of prophecy concerning the Jews: ‘God has shown me’, says the Church, ‘on the subject of my enemies’, to ‘slay them not in case my people should ever forget.’ Alive, however, they are eminent reminders for us of the Lord’s suffering. On this account they are scattered through all lands in order that they may be witnesses to our redemption while they pay the just penalties for so great a crime.” [St Bernard: Epistle 363]

 

[chosen_people]

St Justin goes so far as to argue that circumcision was no longer a covenant sign, but a curse sign:
“‘Because they have transgressed against Me, and despised Me, and because they have walked contrary to Me, I also walked contrary to them, and I shall cut them off in the land of their enemies.’ For the circumcision, according to the flesh, which is from Abraham, was given for a sign; that you may be separated from other nations, and from us; and that you alone may suffer that which you now justly suffer; and that your land may be desolate, and your cities burned with fire; and that strangers may eat your fruit in your presence, and not one of you may go up to Jerusalem. For you are not recognized among the rest of men by any other mark than your fleshly circumcision. Accordingly, these things have happened to you in fairness and justice, for you have slain the Just One, and His prophets before Him.” [St Justin Martyr: Dialogue with Trypho the Jew 16]
It was generally held that the Jew’s fate: dispossession of Jerusalem; exile from Judaea and dispersion throughout the world were as a direct result of their deicide:
“Since, therefore, the Jews were predicted as destined to suffer these calamities on Christ’s account, and we find that they have suffered them, and see them sent into dispersion and abiding in it, it is manifest that it is on Christ’s account that these things have befallen the Jews, the sense of the Scriptures harmonizing with the issue of events and of the order of the times.” [Tertullian: An Answer to the Jews 13]
“What nation is an exile from their own city, and from the place sacred to the worship of their fathers, save the Jews alone? And these calamities they have suffered, because they were a most wicked nation, which, although guilty of many other sins, yet has been punished so severely for none, as for those that were committed against our Jesus.” [Origen: Against Celsus II:8]

 

[chosen_people]

“But the Jew totally rejects this testimony. He refuses to admit what Christ said. What does the Jew say? ‘The man who said this is my foe. I crucified him. So how am I to accept his testimony?’ But this is the marvel of it. You Jews did crucify Him. But after He died on the cross, He then destroyed your city; it was then that He dispersed your people; it was then that He scattered your nation over the face of the earth. In doing this, He teaches us that He is risen, alive, and in heaven. Because you were not willing to recognize His power through His benefactions, He taught you by his punishment and vengeance that no one can struggle with or prevail against His might and strength.” [St John Chrysostom: Fifth Homily Against the Jews]
The Jews were therefore to be segregated away from Christians:
“Indeed, if anyone of the clergy or faithful has taken a meal with the Jews, it is determined that, as a corrective punishment, he is to abstain from Communion so that he may be reformed.”
[Council of Elvira: Canon 50 (300AD)]
“Concerning the prohibition of usury and base gain by the clergy; and concerning the prohibition against conversing or eating with the Jews. No priest shall set money out at interest or take unfair profit or be friendly or sociable with Jews; nor should anyone take food or drink with the Jews; for if this was decreed by the holy apostles, it is incumbent upon the faithful to obey their command; and the synod shall excommunicate any one who does not comply with this order.” [Oecumenical Council of Nicaea]

“Let no one in the priestly order nor any layman eat the unleavened bread of the Jews, nor have any familiar doings with them, nor summon them in illness, nor receive medicines from them, nor bathe with them; but if anyone shall take in hand to do so, if he is a cleric, let him be deposed, but if a layman, let him be cut off.”
[Council of Quinisext (692 AD)]

“We decree and order that from now on, and for all time, Christians shall not eat or drink with the Jews, nor admit them to feasts, nor cohabit with them, nor bathe with them. They cannot live among Christians, but in a certain street, separated and segregated from Christians, and outside which they cannot under any pretext have houses.” [Pope Eugene IV (1447 AD)]

“They were allowed to live only in certain wards of the larger towns, which were known as ‘Jewries.’ They were required also to wear a special dress or a badge of yellow cloth on the breast. They were considered to be living in the country not by common right but by special consent of the king and under his protection. They were subject, therefore, not to the common law but to special regulations made for them by the king or his officers.”
[Edward P. Cheyney, A Short History of England]