Posted on 03/11/2004 6:32:22 PM PST by ultima ratio
Pope says Jesus film isn't anti-Semitic
Rome, Italy
11 March 2004 13:55
Pope John Paul II does not consider Mel Gibson's controversial movie The Passion of the Christ anti-Semitic, Vatican spokesperson Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in an interview published on Thursday.
In the interview by the Rome-based daily Il Messaggero, Navarro-Valls said the Vatican would not issue an official statement distancing itself from the biblical epic about Christ's crucifixion.
"The pope has seen the film and has not commented on it," Navarro- Valls said. "The subsequent silence by the [Vatican] hierarchy is eloquent," he added.
Jewish groups throughout the world have strongly criticised the film about the last days of Jesus Christ on earth as being anti- Semitic.
Both the Italian Jewish community and the Anti Defamation League (ADL), an international Jewish group that seeks to stop the defamation of the Jewish people, have issued protest notes against the movie.
They argue that its interpretation of the gospels may lead to a charge that the Jews killed Jesus. This, the ADL holds, may incite animosity towards Jews and even murder.
According to Navarro-Valls, however, the movie is merely a "cinematographic transcription" of the gospels.
"If the film were to be considered anti-Semitic, then the gospels would also have to be considered so," Navarro-Valls said.
In 1965, the Roman Catholic Church acknowledged that the Jews should not be held responsible for Jesus's death in guidelines set out by the II Vatican Council.
ADL argues that Gibson is a "traditionalist" Catholic and his film "does not adhere" to its guidelines.
Gibson's movie has become a major box-office success in the United States, where it has already earned more than $50-million. -- Sapa-DPA
Two things need to be said about this misleading statement.
First, it is not true, as is often reported in the secular press, that Vatican II stated anything new. It merely once again repeated the Church's perennial teaching. The Church had always insisted the Jews bore no collective guilt for Christ's death and that all mankind was in fact responsible. The Council of Trent did so back in the sixteenth century and condemned anyone who taught otherwise, so that Gibson's alleged rejection of Vatican II has no bearing on this particular matter. As a traditionalist, Gibson would certainly not have blamed the Jews collectively, since it would have violated a traditionally-held Catholic teaching to have done so.
By repeatedly mentioning Vatican II in this way, however, the ADL and others have implied this is somehow a new teaching that has reversed centuries of prejudice and hatred directed by the Church toward the Jews. This simply isn't true and is part of the general misinformation being bruited about regarding this subject.
Second, saying the Jews bore no responsibility collectively does not mean that the Jewish leadership in 33A.D. did not scheme to have Jesus executed as the Gospels say. What the ADL and other Jewish groups are doing is collapsing two separate ideas--collective guilt, which the Church has always rejected; and the guilt of those Jews depicted in the Gospels, which the Church has always affirmed. The two are not the same. It is by refusing to make this distinction that so many Jews take umbrage with "The Passion" as a film. They see Gibson's fidelity to the Gospels as an attack on all Jews everywhere--which is a false reading of the film and of Catholic theology generally.
It is only by blurring the distinction between these two separate notions of particular guilt and collective guilt that Gibson can be charged with anti-Semitism. Such a charge is grossly unfair. In fact, he only has tried to represent on the screen what the Gospels have told us were true historical events.
You must be overusing Catholic encyclopedia. Just tell me were were the condemnations for several dozen expulsions of Jews from almost every country in Europe? Where were the condemnations of Crusaiders for wiping out Jewish villages on the Rhine? Or the condemnation of Isabella for expelling Jews and Roma (Gypsies) from Spain --- instead, she acquired the name Isabella the Catholic.
Or what did the Pope mean when one of the Zionists asked him for help said, "You PEOPLE rejected Jesus Chrtist. I cannot help you people"? He apparently did not mind when church was helping millions in Africa, who apparently also rejected Jesus for Muhammad.
I respect your religion and your personal beliefs. But that is different from being an apologist for the Church which is a social institution. As all institutions, it is very much interested in self-preservation, which includes positing all these images of it being so righteous when it comes to the "Jewish question."
This is very largely due to the decades-long work of radical Catholics who have evangelized the world with the notion that Vatican II created a new Church. If you didn't like the old one, you can like us now. Any old predjudice or dislike was claimed to have been resolved (or even "changed") by Vatican II.
A world not terribly versed in the Church believed it. It certainly looked like a new Church to an outsider, so why shouldn't it be true?
What the ADL and other Jewish groups are doing is collapsing two separate ideas--collective guilt, which the Church has always rejected; and the guilt of those Jews depicted in the Gospels, which the Church has always affirmed.
True. And the disturbing thing is - certain manipulative spokesmen aside - this is a position which seems to be honestly held by a number of Jews AND Christians, as evidenced by their commentaries on the film. Either every Jew is an innocent or every one is guilty. We're only allowed to pick one of those options, apparently. It defies both Christian theology and common sense, but some terribly bright people seem to be spouting it these days, and that's quite disturbing.
Good summary.
One could certainly point to anti-Christian acts of individual Jews through the centuries. But to take those individual acts and pretend they were a true representation of the beliefs of Judaism would be the very definition of Anti-Semitism.
Yet that seems to be the formula by which you judge Catholics.
The primary two groups which were expelled from Spain were Muslims and Jews. The reason was the fear that the Muslim rule in Spain could be re-established (Jews were in the very good relationship with Muslim ruling minority).
I do not recall what was the attitude of the Catholic Church to this policy. It is hard to judge from such distance, the expulsion were quite frequent in the history and applied to many people - like Indian tribes in North America. Jews also expelled other peoples.
Very good point!
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The ADL DOES consider the gospels to be anti-Semitic.
It never ceases to amaze me how the reporters always find a way to belittle the succes of "The Passion". Even when they report a positive they must get their little dig. What would it hurt to admit that it has surpassed $200 million.
Heck it passed $50 million on it's first weekend.
Which pope said this, and could you provide a citation?
...and behaved heroically like people do everywhere.
That was my take on Gibson's movie. There was a spectrum of human behavior from the worst to the best, among the Jews and the Romans, and presumably by implication among all people. That's how people are, as you observed. We choose where on the spectrum we are to be.
Or what did the Pope mean when one of the Zionists asked him for help said, "You PEOPLE rejected Jesus Chrtist. I cannot help you people"? He apparently did not mind when church was helping millions in Africa, who apparently also rejected Jesus for Muhammad.
It would also be nice if 50% of americans didn't vote for Democrats.
I do not think you can. You will be hard pressed to find a single beating or killing by a Jew of someone simply because that person was Christian. And you will not find any acts of kidnapping a Christian child with an intern to convert him to Judaism. Nor will you find a single act where a Jewish gang would hold someone at gun- or knife-point and offer that person life if he rejects Jesus Christ.
You will most certainly not find a single expulsion of Christian families from a predominantly Jewish town.
Most importantly, if some single Jew committed an act of revenge, it was, is, and will be immediately condemned by every single rabbi and declared abomination. That would not even require the chief rabbi.
Do you yourself not see that you substituted one issue with another? Was I referring to individuals sins of specific persons? Of course Jews sin and make mistakes --- especially when they abandon Judaism and become communists like in Russia or leftist like here. But that was not an issue. If you want to compare acts at the individual level, I would immediately bring up Polish Catholics hiding and protecting their Jewish fellow citizens from the Nazis --- 5,000 of them gave their lives doing so. These were real Poles, real Catholics, and real human beings in my book. And I never fail to impart that on my daughter. At the individual level we are all imperfect on the one hand, and on the other have as many heros on both sides.
There are no rabbis, however, who advovated to burn churches --- as did Martin Luther with respect to the sinagogies. No Jewish general ever said about "the Christian" what Patton said about "the Jew" (that Jews are worse than animals, essentially). Some old lady in Long Island may say some smart-alecky remark, for which she will not be celebrated at all. That's about it, and that's what you'll find over centuries.
You should know also that most Jews, over centuries, have never seen the blood of a chicken, let alone that of a juman being.
Somehow I think you have capacity to see that you are saying something just to say something back. As I said earleir, if you stand on position of principle -- and let it be Christian principle --- then do so. What you do instead is protecting prestige of a social institution at any leghth --- including serving as false witness.
It's people like you that make Jews nervous.
I agree with you, that since XVI century things started to get better for the Jews --- by comparison. Much of it has to do with the emergence of significant intra-Christian differences.
However, since you asked, I'll list a few expulsions (some were accompanied by killing, all by loss of property, of course).
With respect to the list below, tell me which of these were ever condemned by the Church. Also, explain to me how the Church turned away from anti-Semitism at the Council of Trent and then expelled all Jews a few years later.
1919 - from Bavaria
1866 - Galatz, Romania
1862 - Area under Gen. Grant's jurisdiction (U.S. Civil war)
1843 - Russian border with Austria and Prussia
1815 - Cities in Franconia, Schwabia and Bavaria
1815 - Lubeck and Bremen
1808 - Villages in Russia
1804 - Villages in Russia
1789 - Alsace
1775 - Warsaw
1772 - Deported to the Pale of Settlement in Russia
1761 - Bordeux
1753 - Kivad, Lithuania
1745 - Moravia
1744 - Livonia
1744 - Bohemia
1738 - Wurtemburg
1712- Sandomir
1670 - Vienna 1656- Lithuania
1649 - Hamburg
1649 - Parts of Ukraine
1619 - Kiev
1615 - Worms
1614 - Frankfourt
1597 - Cremona, Lodi
1593 - Brandenburg
1569 - Papal states
1567 - Wurtzburg
1561- Prague
1559 - Prague
1551- Bavaria
---------
Council of Trent: 13 December, 1545.
"Primary" groups to which you refer were all non-Catholics. And, I do find it signigicant --- becasue this is anoter and only group in existence that endured persecution similar to the Jews --- not only Muslims, who could've been viewed as concurres, in which case it is a war of liberation, but also Jew and Roma were all kicked out. The Jews you are referring to are Biblical ones: that was about territory and NEVER about religious purity. Isabella did not make any secret about why she expelled the infidels and that is why the people (remaining, that is) gave her the name "the Catholic." In size, her expulsion would be equivalent to kicking out 25-30 million people from U.S. today.
St. Stephan.
You did ask for a "single killing". St. Paul was one of many who regularly killed Christians before his conversion.
the Church has always rejected
I replied to it, quoting these very words so that there is no confusion.
I never attacked Christianity: in fact, I've always expressed respect to it and my private wish that this country goes back to its Christian roots.
The church, however, is a social institution, with a great deal of mistakes committed at various time.
This is the story of humankind whenever there are religious cultural tensions. Do you think the Jews are alone in this?
Of course Jews do not a monopoly on suffering. Whole nations were wiped out from the face of the earth in the past. And, the suffering of a single Catholic priest persecuted by the Protestants is no less painful to him whether there are one or one million more in his position. The fire of auto-da-fe is no less painful for a Protestant, or Jew, or Giordano Bruno, whose fault was to believe that the earth was round -- not matter how many other people share in that fate. Pain is pain; suffering is suffering.
However, you will not find a single living people that was persecuted so methodically, so extensively, and so universally as the Jews. Your criterion may help you to sleep better at night but it is not fair. Fairness requires one to apply the same judgement to all in the same circumstances. Once you posit that the circumstances of the Jews were not much different than other now-living people --- of course your conclusion follows at once. The assumption is at variance with the facts, however.
The only people (now living) whose suffering is comparable in scale and extent are Roma. They suffered as much as Jews: I can list an equally long compilation of the expulsions of Gypsies from various places, as I did in an earlier post with regard to the Jews. They were killed, mutilated, murdered (on orders of French dukes, for instance), and legally enslaved in Romania until 1880 (plus or minus a few years, I do not recall now). And my heart goes to them as much. Ironically, they were kicked out by Isabella in the same year as the Jews (as the Jews, the Roma remember because it was a tragedy on a great scale), and Hitler hunted them down with the same viciousness as the Jews; they perished in great numbers in the Holocaust.
The only difference is that for the Jews it started about 1500 years earlier; that's all. But besides the Roma and Jews you will not find another people so universally persecuted and still in existence.
I believe I learned this fact from the documentary The Long Way Home.
You may not like what I say, even though it is true. I may say something which is not true by committing a mistake --- that is of course possible. However, you have imputed to me ill motives by calling my post a smear and, moreover, a campaign, as if I started this discussion.
You have no shred of evidence for my supposedly ill motives and insulted me by your allegation. I will not honor you with further reply.
You showed, however, little regard for Christianity, considering how easily you serve as false witness.
Fact: I have not seen the movie myself.
Fact: I do not know exactly what Pope said (altogh I read some newspaper account of what allegedly some cardinal said about an alleged comment by the Pope about the movie).
Fact: there is nothing more prone to error than attributing motives, and I do not know what motives Gibson had. Since raising an accusing finger without evidence is a sin, I grant Gibson not only the benefit of the doubt but the absencve of doubt altogether.
What CAN tell you is that I do not believe it will create anti-Semitism in this country (I would not be so confident about Europe, by the way). The existing anti-Semites will read into it --- maybe, maybe --- a justification of their preexisting prejudice. I do not believe for a minute, as unfortunately some of the Jews said, that a serious Christian will be inflicted by anti-Semitism after watching this movie --- or any movie, as a matter of fact. I think such allegations are garbage.
Since I have not seen the movie, I cannot comment on its specifics. However, I am delighted to see the reaction of the public to it. As I said earlier on other threads, it would be GREAT if it envigorates Christianity in this coutnry. We all very much need it: this country is great becasue of its Christian roots and Judeo-Christian values. And if return more closely to those roots -- so much the better. I am a Jew. I not only do not fear Christians in this country --- I view them as my kindred souls. Whom I fear is the leftists, and those come from all sorts of homes, Christian as well as Jewish. These people have abandoned their core beliefs and are no longer Christian or Jewish. Theis impact on this country I do fear indeed.
Hope that answers your question.
Forgive me, but at the time, that was fighting between the Jews. Not that it was any easier for the victims, of course.
Yes, it more than answers my question. Thank you for your thoughtful reply, which I find to be eminently reasonable and positive.
They were killings that happened because the victims professed their Christianity. That they were ethnically Jews hardly matters. In particular, if the victims had been ethnically Greek (I cannot say for sure that any were not), then the killings would have been more excusable, not less. This is because other socio-political factors may come into play.
But Jew-on-Christian-Jew is worse because the only variable involved is the religion.
Oh, I know that Jews who actively participated in Communist movements and regimes were not acting within Judaism. I'm sure there was plenty of denouncement of their actions by other Jews. But you ought to at least be able to acknowledge that certain Jews have persecuted Christianity, and you don't have to go back to the stoning of the early Church martyrs to find it.
So why even bring it up? These weren't practicing rabbis or even religious Jews after all.
For one reason only, that ties it closely to your own concern. Fear. Communists actively persecuted Christians just because they were Christians. Christians responded in a way not unlike your own attitude toward Christians. It caused mistrust of Jews, which was put to use by a number of demagogues, and not just in Europe. But I think especially in Europe we got a horrifying example of where that sort of demagoguery can lead.
So how can that be similar? Because modern Christians feel persecuted by the modern secular state. So when they see Jews or anyone else demanding special attention to everything negative and evil Christians have done in history, they have a hard time believing this is a disinterested intellectual exploration.
Somehow I think you have capacity to see that you are saying something just to say something back. As I said earleir, if you stand on position of principle -- and let it be Christian principle --- then do so. What you do instead is protecting prestige of a social institution at any leghth --- including serving as false witness.
Awfully full of ourself this evening, aren't we. I was very clear in the terms I stated that I did NOT equate Judaism itself with every Jew who ever attacked a Christian. You apparently find it annoying that I won't engage you on that ground. I'm happy to frustrate that impulse.
Christian "institutions" are not capable of sin. Only the people who occupy them can do that. Part of Christian theology teaches us to expect sin at the highest levels of every human institution. You cite examples of high level Christians acting sinfully toward Jews. I'm not here to excuse them, but I'm also not going to let you pretend that "proves" those institutions are inherently anti-Semitic. They're inherently human. That's all.
One of the reasons you can cite so many examples of institutional anti-Semitism is that Jews have lived in nations where they were a minority. It's not like looking through history you can find plentiful examples of Jewish controlled nations being kind to Christians, while Christian nations couldn't do the same in return. Until modern Israel, Jews were a perpetual minority. Minorities get unfairly treated. It's not right, but that brings me back to the Christian notion of sinful human nature again.
You clearly have very negative feelings (if not hatred, not far removed), for Christianity. That's your right, but you haven't created the situation you seem to believe - that one must either renounce Christian "institutions" or embrace anti-Semitism. The Christian response is to condemn the sin. Not the sinner. And certainly not the "institution."
It's people like you that make Jews nervous.
Ignorance breeds fear.
You misunderstood my point, and did not refer to ethnicity as well. At the time, the Christian church did not exist as such in the eyes of many Jews: Christians were Jews people who lost their way, not a separate religion to be respected and viewed as such. Do not forget also, that Christians were proselythizing, which caused anger as a reaction, perhaps even violence. That is, upon seeing a Christian advocating accpetance of Jesus Christ to a son, I can see a father coming out of the house and pehaps fighting that man in anger.
That is different from someone starting unprovoked violence, which is what I was referrring to.
I know, I know, it would feel better if it where otherwise, but it is not.
You are seriously confused, my friend: the quote above is a stew.
Oh, I know that Jews who actively participated in Communist movements and regimes were not acting within Judaism.
You are correct: many Jews became corrupted by the promise of the long-awated equality and embraced communist ideas in Russia and Eastern Europe. You are also correct that they were no longer Jews. You are correct of course that they persecuted Christians.
What you did not say is that they persecuted Jews with equal fervor. Just as they burned the churches, they burned the synagogues. And whent they did not burn, they turned both into libraries, clubs ("Houses of Culture"), etc. They did the same with respect to Muslims. And speaking of burning, communist KGB burned alive Chechens; if I remember correctly those accounts, some of these people were raised in Jewish homes.
That is exactly the point: they were raised in Jewish homes, and they were no longer Jews. Besides them --- in Russia, Ukrain, Poland -- stood people that were raised in Orthodox and Catholic homes and who were no longer Christian. These people persecuted Christians --- what is the diference here? These ex-Christians persecuted Christians. And Jews. And Muslims. And people who had a cow for being a capitalist.
It would never occur to me to refer at Nazism as Christian persecution of the Jews --- in fact, I think that would be an insult to Christianity. Nazis were pagan thugs. Some of them were raised in Christian homes but they themselves were pagan thugs. Who persecuted Jews. And Christians. And Gypsies.
I does not even occur to me to think of Nazis, just because they were raised in Christian homes, as Christians. Now, why does it occur to YOU to think of the same pagan Russian thugs who were raised in Jewish homes as Jews? And, why do you single them out?
you don't have to go back to the stoning of the early Church martyrs to find it.
I have addressed this point in an earlier post to AmishDude; read it if you care.
Again, you are confused: at the time, it was in the eyes of Jews a matter between the Jews. Much like if I, a Jew, wwere to drive on a sabath through certain neighborhoods of Jerusalem, thereby offending the local population, my car is likely to be stoned. It is violence, but it is not anti-Jewish. In the very early years, Christians were viewed as confused Jews but Jews nontheless. And they were proselythizing, which caused a reaction, quite possibly violent. Once Christianity became a truly separate sustained belief with its separate church, there was not violence of that kind.
TQ: It's people like you that make Jews nervous.
Snuffington: Ignorance breeds fear. Your words appear to be a joke on your own self. The original point was that you are very confused, and it shows: you are irritated by history and don't accept it; you want it to go away and declare wrong those who do not follow. We know that it is those who do not embrace history that are bound to repeat it -- and that is what I said. People like you make Jews nervous.
I have said all I could, and will not be writing to you again. The only thing I would like to add is that, of all people, you should be the last one to lecture on ignorance: bringing this up so forcefully only turns tables on you and shows you as one thoroghly confused puppy.
Have a good night.
Aside from your odd attempt to portray me as singling out Jews, after commenting on your statement about Jews being associated with communists (and missing point of that comment by a wide margin); aside from your total dodge of the issue of stirring up hatred against another religion which you seem to happliy engage in as long as that religion isn't Jewish; aside from your continued attempt to ignore Christian persecution unless it is phrased in some sort of "Christians versus Jews" battle royale; aside from all of that, you've made it pretty clear that you only want to talk about all the evil things Christians have done to Jews. It's an unhealthy obsession, but you'll surely have lots of company.
So run along and use your "victimhood" to attack Christianity on another thread. Your game has grown tired on this one.
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