I certainly do NOT blame humanity’s atrocities on the Catholic church which is the body of Christ!! I am saying that ‘we’ (some Catholics and other Christians, and some so-called Christian societies) unfairly persecuted Jews. This is a matter of history. This wasn’t the fault of the Catholic church but Jews can’t be blamed for seeing it that way. When I say ‘we’ I am identifying myself as a sinful person with those sinners of the past who shared my faith and didn’t live up to it.
Gabriel of 12;
Secular History and biblical history records Jews being persecuted, providentially punished, conquered, by many different nations including Muslims and vice versa. I agree with you, that history records different peoples who were of the Christian faith persecuted Jews. But was it by divine design, or human frailty, not the Christian faith itself persecuted Jews.
Claire;
It is certainly not historical fact that the Jews persecuted Christians for 300 years. At the beginning, some Jews(not all) persecuted the Jewish Christians. It appeared to them that these were Jews who were preaching blasphemy. St. Paul was one of these persecutors until God enlightened him on the road to Damascus. I think this early persecution ended even before the fall of Jerusalem in about 70 AD.
Gabriel of 12;
The Jews were very influential to pagan Roman Emperor’s in the persecution of Christians past the 70 AD mark, including excommunication from prayer and synagogue’s, not to mention publicly disgracing Jesus and his followers by trying to prove Jesus a false prophet from 100 AD. But this is not the point, I had hoped to portray. Only that Christianity in the Catholic Church did not, will not ever, persecute her enemies but love them, History of the Catholic Martyrs and Saints already records this; Now peoples of the Christian faith persecuting their enemies is compared to “Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God”
Claire’
I am not Jewish by background or faith. My ethnic background is German and Irish. I don’t have any agenda. I just think that the past behavior of Christians has made it difficult for many Jews to have positive feelings about Christianity and this keeps many of them from even considering the claims of Christianity.