Roman Catholics and antisemitism in the 21st century

According to historians, many Christians have had some antisemitic ideas since early Christianity. For instance, the Church used to teach that all Jews were to blame for Jesus' death. In 1965, Pope Paul VI declared that these ideas were wrong. 

  However, in the 21st century, antisemitism still exists in some Roman Catholic communities.

Background

Classical antiquity

In 380 AD the Roman Empire made Christianity its state religion. 

  The Catholic Church also became its state church. 
 James Parkes, Prelude to Dialogue (London: 1969) p. 153; cited in Wilken, p. xv.

  These antisemitic ideas became common in many European kingdoms during the first millennium:
 All Jews are responsible for the Crucifixion of Jesus
 Because the Jews killed Jesus, they aren't God's chosen people any more; Catholics are
 When the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, God was punishing Jews for murdering Jesus and rejecting Christianity

Some European kingdoms created government policies based on these ideas, according to many historians. 



   These policies caused over a thousand years of persecution towards Jews, according to these historians, including:

 The Inquisition (c. 1229 – 1834) 
 Genocides, including the Holocaust
 Deportations from regions across Europe

20 years after the Holocaust ended, the Catholic Church went through a reform to address this issue, though antisemitism still exists among some Catholic communities.

20th century

Second Vatican Council (Vatican II)

In 1965, Pope Paul VI wrote a document called the Nostra aetate. It rejected the Church's old antisemitic ideas.  For example, it said that Jews were not to blame for Jesus' death:

The Pope also said that Catholics should respect Jews, and the Church should reconcile with them. Vatican II caused division within the Roman Catholic Church. 





  Some conservative Catholics believed the Church's traditional ways should not be changed. Radical traditionalist Catholics were formed to oppose the Vatican II reforms. Most of these groups are still active in the 21st century.

2000 apology

On behalf of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II made a brief apology on March 12, 2000 for the "errors" and "violence" that some Catholics committed towards Jews throughout history. 

  Academics are uncertain whether John Paul II was talking about the Crusades, the Inquisition, the burning of alleged heretics, or forced conversions to Christianity. Israel's Chief Rabbi Meir Lau said he felt "deeply frustrated" because the Church never mentioned the Holocaust by name.

Radical traditionalist Catholics


The American civil rights group Southern Poverty Law Center identified 13 radical traditionalist Catholic organizations active in the English-speaking world: The Fidelity Press, the Remnant, St. Joseph Forum, Tradition in Action, Legion of St. Louis, St. Michael's Parish, Society of St. Pius X, Catholic Counterpoint, Catholic Family Ministries, Omni Christian Book Club, Catholic Apologetics International, International Fatima Rosary Crusade and Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Antisemitism is a key part of these organizations' belief systems, according to the SPLC.

Some radical traditionalist Catholics are considered Holocaust deniers. 





According to the SPLC, Traditional Catholics believe that:

 Catholics cannot trust Jews
 Jews are the "perpetual enemy" of Christ
 Jews have "infiltrated" the Catholic Church to make changes for themselves
 Jews are responsible for Jesus' death, and this broke their covenant with God

Influential radical traditionalist Catholic groups

Society of St. Pius X

Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) is one of the largest radical traditionalist Catholic organizations in the world. French archbishop Marcel-François Lefebvre founded it in Ecône, Switzerland in 1970 to resist the liberalized Roman Catholic Church. Lefebvre was a supporter of the Nazi puppet state Vichy France. He said that the liberation of France was the "victory of Freemasonry against the Catholic order of Petain."

In 1992, E. Michael Jones wrote an article in his magazine Fidelity about an SSPX leader in Kansas City. He said the leader worshiped Adolf Hitler and promoted Nazism to his students.   

The Vatican tried to mediate with the SSPX over their different beliefs, but the SSPX refused. The Catholic Church excommunicated them in 1988, but reversed their excommunication in 2009.  

The SSPX has become the biggest Catholic publisher of Holocaust-denying materials. Some countries, including Canada, ban SSPX publications. 

Scholars estimated that in 2016, the SSPX had 103 chapels, 25 private schools, and up to 30,000 followers. As of October 2024, the organization had 700 priests worldwide. Of these priests, 180 were based in France; they operated 250 places of worship and hosted at least 35,000 attendees.

Richard Williamson

Richard Williamson (March 8, 1940 – January 25, 2025) is an SSPX bishop who publicly denied the Holocaust several times. He said there were no gas chambers in the Auschwitz concentration camp. He also claimed that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were true and insisted that fewer than 300,000 Jews had died in the Holocaust in a Swedish TV interview. As a result, he was fined €10,000 in Germany for Holocaust denial. 

At first, the Catholic Church excommunicated Williamson. However, they later cancelled the excommunication and made Williamson a bishop again. This created controversy over the influence of radical traditionalist Catholics within the Church hierarchy.

Influence on U.S. politics
In 2022 – 57 years after Pope Paul VI's Nostra aetate)  – 11% of American Catholics still blamed Jews for the Crucifixion of Jesus, according to a poll by the Institute for Jewish-Catholic Relations. The poll also found that 13.3% of these Catholics thought Jews are "cursed by God". Additionally, 15.8% believed that God's covenant with Jews had ended.

FBI memo incident

In April 2024, the FBI was forced to withdraw an internal memo on antisemitic violence committed by radical traditionalist Catholics. This happened because some conservative Republican Congress members publicly opposed the memo and misrepresented the FBI's moves as "persecution of Catholics". 

In one case the FBI had handled, a young SSPX member was arrested for the illegal possession of 6 smoke bombs; 8 molotov cocktails; parts of a Glock 19 pistol; a lower parts kit for the pistol; a 3D-printed Glock 19 frame; a magazine; and 9mm ammunition. This individual claimed to be "anti-Zionist" and "anti-progressive". 

Later, a 120-day congressional review found no evidence that the FBI was biased against Catholics.

Expansion

A rising number of American Catholic churches have drifted towards radical traditionalist Catholicism, rejecting the Vatican II that renounced antisemitism. Radical traditionalist Catholic organizations, like the FOCUS and Newman Centers, have also seen a massive spike in youth membership and viewership of their allied cable TV networks (like EWTN).

Academics

Some scholars with Catholic backgrounds promote antisemitic ideas.

Marek Jan Chodakiewicz

Marek Jan Chodakiewicz (born July 15, 1962) is an American historian who identified himself as Catholic. Chodakiewicz has promoted controversial views about the Holocaust, including:

 "Many Jews collaborat[ed] with Soviet Communists"
 "Jews [are] more likely to kill Poles after World War II"
 For these "reasons", the murder of Jewish survivors returning to their homeland 


  was "not antisemitic"

Many historians, including Princeton University history professor Jan T. Gross and University of Toronto Polish history professor Piotr Wróbel, criticized Chodakiewicz. They said that Chodakiewicz had written several pieces that trivialized the Holocaust and the violent antisemitism of many Polish Catholics. In his 2003 book After the Holocaust: Polish Jewish Relations in the Wake of World War II, he underestimated the number of Jews that Polish Catholics had killed in post-war pogroms. 




  He also accused many of the victims of being "Jewish Communists".

Chodakiewicz also appeared in traditionalist Catholic media, such as Radio Maryja, promoting conspiracy theories about Jews. In a 2001 interview by this radio, he accused "Jewish memoirists" of "bragging about" the shooting of hundreds of Poles by "Jewish partisans". Despite Chodakiewicz's record of antisemitic writings, US President George W. Bush made him a member of the oversight board of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington, D.C. He served on the board until 2010.

Inquisition denial

Background

In 1229, Dominicans in Rome set up the permanent Inquisition to persecute heretics and non-Christians, especially Jews. Meanwhile, the Spanish Inquisition was founded in 1478 and run until 1834, during which the Catholic Spanish Empire unleashed a systematic campaign of persecution of Jews, 

  due to its racist belief that Jews who converted to Catholicism (conversos) were mostly faking as Christians, including those forcibly converted following the Alhambra Decree, or the Edict of Expulsion. As many as 300,000 Jews under Catholic Spanish rule were killed over false charges of "crypto-Judaism," a charge slapped on Jews who were forcibly converted.

The Vatican

In 2004, the Roman Catholic Church claimed that the judges of the Inquisition were "not as brutal as previously believed" and that most trials "were not carried out by Catholic courts". 

  The church that , They also added that the victims on trial were often "tortured for only 15 minutes in the presence of doctors".

Spain

For the past decade, Catholic-led movements within Spain (67.4% Catholic in 2018) have emerged to rewrite the history of the Spanish Inquisition. Members of the movements released a series of books, films, TV programs and mobile exhibitions to beautify the Inquisition-associated Spanish history. Meanwhile, a 2023 ADL poll found that 26% of Spain's population held extensive antisemitic beliefs,
followed by Belgium (24%), France (17%), Germany (12%) and the UK (10%).

In 2024, Spanish Jews make up 0.093% of Spain's population of 48,370,000. In April, the Observatory for Religious Freedom and Conscience found that at least 36 attacks had happened to Spanish Jews between 7 October 2023 and 19 April 2024, about six attacks per month. In July, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights found that 78% of Spanish Jews saw antisemitism as a big problem in Spain.

Responses

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)

On December 11, 2024, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop (USCCB) announced the adoption of the Translate Hate: The Catholic Edition drafted together with the American Jewish Committee (AJC) in response to worsening antisemitism in America since 7 October 2023.

As of December 30, 2024, the 1985 revision of the USCCB Guidelines for Catholic-Jewish Relations is still in place. The General Principles of the Guidelines include but not limited to
 Prayer in common with Jews should be encouraged when mutually acceptable
 Proselytism, which does not respect human freedom, is carefully to be avoided
 Catholic–Jewish meetings are dedicated to fostering mutual respect and eliminating misunderstandings
 A commission or secretariat is recommended to be assigned to Catholic–Jewish relations in each diocese
Meanwhile, the Recommended Programs under the Guidelines encourage the
 Advancement of Catholic–Jewish relations on all levels
 Removal of content from catechesis and homilies that blames all Jews for the Crucifixion of Jesus
 Rejection of the historically inaccurate notion that Judaism was a "decadent formalism and hypocrisy"
 Further analysis of such phrases as "the Jews" by St. John in modern context to erase negative undertones about Jews

References

Category:Catholicism
Category:Antisemitism