Antisemitism

The content of the following discussion begs some very serious and sometimes difficult questions. While I cannot presume to answer the questions in a thorough sort of way, I present the following to offer some insight into some of the topics that my classmates and I are encountering in the classroom. Because of the vast implications of this topic, it is likely that this post will be the first of a series that will try to present the questions as we have examined them in the classroom. I hope that my brothers and classmates will assist me in demonstrating the many facets of this question. This first post may seem obvious, but one must start somewhere. The (well-grounded) assumption from which I begin is the principle that hatred of particular races, classes, or groupings of people is not acceptable.

______________________________________________________

I expect that almost anyone can recall the profound controversy that surrounded the production and release of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. The film's detractors accused Gibson, for the most part, of promoting an anti-Jewish agenda inasmuch as the film assigned culpability for Jesus' death to "the Jews."

It is not my aim to suggest that Gibson was or was not guilty of the accusations leveled against him and his film. In fact, I was little interested in the buzz associated with the film. I was some surprised to realize, however, that these accusations are not new nor are they unique to Gibson's Passion. In fact, since the Second Vatican Council, and in a particular way, since the pontificate of our Pope John Paul II of happy memory, there has been a great deal of ink spilled concerning how Christians are to understand themselves in relationship to Judaism. This should come as no shock. The world still struggles in trying to appropriate the atrocities committed against the Jews in the Shoah. Documents on the topic of Christianity and antisemitism abound. The following are only a few of the documents which refer specifically to Jews:

1) Nostra Aetate: Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions

2) Criteria for the Evaluation of Dramatizations of the Passion

3) We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah

4) God's Mercy Endures Forever: Guidelines on the Presentation of Jews and Judaism in Catholic Preaching

Each of these documents presents some very clear principles, at the heart of which are what one might assume are obvious assumptions of Catholicism. First, Jews, indeed all people, are entitled to be treated according to their fundamental human dignity. To treat them otherwise is a sin. Second, Jesus Christ was a practicing Jew. Thus, because Christianity is rooted in Christ, it is also necessarily tied to Judaism. Third, the Jews, as an ethnic group, are not responsible for the death of Christ. We may say that some Jews, long ago, pressed Pilate to have Jesus crucified. However, that they approached Pilate and that Roman soldiers actually carried out the crucifixion necessitates that some Romans were also complicit in the death of Jesus. It is more accurate to understand that it was human sinfulness that sent Jesus to the Cross. We are all responsible in that respect. Finally, Judaism may not simply be dismissed as irrelevant in light of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Like us, the Jews are still bound by the covenant God made with his people as recorded in the Old Testament, and while we believe that Jesus Christ fulfills that same Covenant, he does not annul it.

With these principles in mind, we may then make the following conclusions. Antisemitism is unacceptable in any manifestation. It is a grave sin both personally and socially. Every effort must be made to eradicate it from our society and from our own hearts. This is no easy task when one considers the long history of antisemitism in Western culture. The delicacy of that topic, however, demands its own post.