Pope John XXIII

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mom_07

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Can anyone confirm or deny that Pope John XXIII said this before he died?
“We realize now that many, many centuries of blindness have dimmed our eyes, so that we no longer see the beauty of Thy Chosen People and no longer recognize in their faces the features of our firstborn brother. We realize that our brows are branded with the mark of Cain. Centuries long has Abel lain in blood and tears, because we had forgotten Thy love. Forgive us the curse which we unjustly laid on the name of the Jews. Forgive us that, with our curse, we crucified Thee a second time.”
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I can’t find anything beyond polemic sources and need to address it.

Thanks

Terri
 
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briand:
I could not seem to find a source other then it being attributed to a prayer of attonement written by Pope John XXIII shortly before his death. Here are some websites I have not read all aspects and links of these sites

mljewish.org/cgi-bin/retrieve.cgi?VOLUME=13&NUMBER=35&FORMAT=html

jewishrednecklibertarian.com/custom.html

hope it helps a bit

brian
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Thank you. I have a friend (I am trying to remain friends anyway) who believes that the Catholic Church is evil and used this qoute as proof. I haven’t been able to validate that Pope John XXIII said it. The only place I can find it repeated is on extremist web sites. Thanks for the help.
 
I don’t know why the prayer would be a bad. It is consistent with Catholic thought on the Jews. They are still God’s chosen people (though we have been grafted on). The Jews have been mistreated, even by Catholics many times. There is a rather long document put out by the Vatican concerning the Jews. I will try find it again. Perhaps someone has a link to it. In answering this I would better understand how the Jews fit in to the Churches teaching.
 
mom 07:
Thank you. I have a friend (I am trying to remain friends anyway) who believes that the Catholic Church is evil and used this qoute as proof. I haven’t been able to validate that Pope John XXIII said it. The only place I can find it repeated is on extremist web sites. Thanks for the help.
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Your semi-friend is an idiot. This prayer is obviously admitting that we have sinned and deserve Gods just punishement. This is nothing new. I guess your friend doesn’t sin and has nothing to attone for. :hmmm:
 
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michaelgazin:
I see nothing wrong with that quote either.
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Maybe there is and maybe there isn’t. The mark of Cain could imply that the Church itself (not individual people) were responsible for the murder and persecution of Jews throughout history. This is in fact the context she puts it in. She believes the Catholic Church was invented by Constantine and has since been on a mission to persecute the true christians (the Jews). That is the reason she says that the Jews don’t accept Christ as their Messiah. I am wary of the way this admission is worded by Pope John XXIII, and like I said, I can’t validate it anywhere.
 
I contacted the Raoul Wallenberg Foundation. They in turn contacted Prof. Alberto Melloni who they said and I quote (actually cut and paste) " “THE” authority in this matter." His response was that this quote COULDN’T be confirmed: Here is his response (keep in mind that English is not his first language):

No: it does not belong to the “written Roncalli”; the language is a post-Vatican II language. The mood of Roncalli was much more subtile: and the Jews (only the Jews!) were able to discern it because they know him from Turkey and from France as a friend. Just as piece of evidence one must recall that the first gesture of friendship of Pope John XXIII was in front of the Great Temple in Rome: on the shabbat he asked the chauffer to stop the car and he blessed the Jews. Of course he blessed them with the Sign of the Cross, that was a gesture very ambiguous for the Jewry. But everybody captured the blessing as such, and they were happy (rav Toaff gives a moving account of this). This explains that Roncalli did not use very outspoken ant-antisemitc language, but small wards and things that made clear his positiion. Alberto Melloni

As far as I can tell from my research is that it was conceived by some dissident Catholics (and anti-Semites) to “prove” that Pope John XXIII was an anti-pope. It then took on a life of it’s own and got passed around the Internet as valid by unsuspecting people (even many reliable, well meaning ones). Much like “Columbus thought the earth was flat”.

I think it’s important because everything a Pope says can be twisted and used against the Church. It is hard enough defending the truth without having to make sense out of misstatements.

Terri
 
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