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To
my venerable brother Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy,
On
numerous occasions during my Pontificate I have recalled with a
sense of deep sorrow the sufferings of the Jewish people during the
Second World War. The crime which has become known as the Shoah
remains an indelible stain on the history of the century that is
coming to a close.
As
we pepare for the beginning of the Third Millennium of Christianity,
the church is aware that the joy of a Jubilee is above all the joy
that is based on the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God
and neighbour. Therefore she encourages her sons and daughters to
purify their hearts, through repentance of past errors and
infidelities. She calls them to place themselves humbly before
the Lord and examine themselves on the responsibility which
they too have for the evils of our time.
It
is my fervent hope that the document: We Remember: A Reflection on
the Shoah, which the Commission for Religious Relations with the
Jews has prepared under your direction, will indeed help to heal the
wounds of past misunderstandings and injustices. May it enable
memory to play its necessary part in the process of shaping a future
in which the unspeakable iniquity of the Shoah will never again be
possible. May the Lord of history guide the efforts of Catholics and
Jews and all men and women of good will as they work together for a
world of true respect for the life and dignity of every human being,
for all have been created in the image and likeness of God.
From
the Vatican, 12, March,
1998
John
Paul II
WE
REMEMBER: A REFLECTION ON THE SHOAH
Holy
See: Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews
I.
THE TRAGEDY OF THE SHOAH AND THE DUTY OF REMEMBRANCE
The
20th century is fast coming to a close and a new Millennium of the
Christian era is about to dawn. The 2,000th anniversary of
the Birth of
Jesus Christ calls all Christians, and indeed invites all men
and
women, to seek to discern in the passage of history the signs
of divine
Providence at work, as well as the ways in which the image of
the
Creator in man has been offended and disfigured.
This
reflection concerns one of the main areas in which Catholics can
seriously take to heart the summons which Pope John Paul II
has
addressed to them in his apostolic letter "Tertio
Millennio
Adveniente": "It is appropriate that, as the Second
Millennium of
Christianity draws to a close, the Church should become more
fully
conscious of the sinfulness of her children, recalling all
those times
in history when they departed from the spirit of Christ and
his Gospel
and, instead of offering to the world the witness of a life
inspired by
the values of faith, indulged in ways of thinking and acting
which were
truly forms of counter-witness and scandal."
This
century has witnessed an unspeakable tragedy, which can never be
forgotten: the attempt by the Nazi regime to exterminate the
Jewish
people, with the consequent killing of millions of Jews.
Women and men,
old and young, children and infants, for the sole reason of
their
Jewish origin, were persecuted and deported. Some were killed
immediately, while others were degraded, ill-treated,
tortured and
utterly robbed of their human dignity, and then murdered.
Very few of
those who entered the Camps survived, and those who did
remained
scarred for life. This was the Shoah. It is a major fact of
the history
of this century, a fact which still concerns us today.
Before
this horrible genocide, which the leaders of nations and Jewish
communities themselves found hard to believe at the very
moment when it
was mercilessly being put into effect, no one can remain
indifferent,
least of all the Church, by reason of her very close bonds of
spiritual
kinship with the Jewish people and her remembrance of the
injustices of
the past. The Church's relationship to the Jewish people is
unlike the
one she shares with any other religion. However, it is not
only a
question of recalling the past. The common future of Jews and
Christians demands that we remember, for "there is no
future without
memory." History itself is memoria futuri.
In
addressing this reflection to our brothers and sisters of the
Catholic Church throughout the world, we ask all Christians
to join us
in meditating on the catastrophe which befell the Jewish
people, and on
the moral imperative to insure that never again will
selfishness and
hatred grow to the point of sowing such suffering and death.
Most
especially, we ask our Jewish friends, "whose terrible
fate has become
a symbol of the aberrations of which man is capable when he
turns
against God," to hear us with open hearts.
II.
WHAT WE MUST REMEMBER
While
bearing their unique witness to the Holy One of Israel and to the
Torah, the Jewish people have suffered much at different
times and in
many places. But the Shoah was certainly the worst suffering
of all.
The inhumanity with which the Jews were persecuted and
massacred during
this century is beyond the capacity of words to convey. All
this was
done to them for the sole reason that they were Jews.
The
very magnitude of the crime raises many questions. Historians,
sociologists, political philosophers, psychologists and
theologians are
all trying to learn more about the reality of the Shoah and
its causes.
Much scholarly study still remains to be done. But such an
event cannot
be fully measured by the ordinary criteria of historical
research
alone. It calls more a "moral and religious memory"
and, particularly
among Christians, a very serious reflection on what gave rise
to it.
The
fact that the Shoah took place in Europe, that is, in countries of
long-standing Christian civilization, raises the question of
the
relation between the Nazi persecution and the attitudes down
the
centuries of Christians toward the Jews.
III.
RELATIONS BETWEEN JEWS AND CHRISTIANS
The history of
relations between Jews and Christians is a tormented
one. His Holiness Pope John Paul II has recognized this fact
in his
repeated appeals to Catholics to see where we stand with
regard to our
relations with the Jewish people. In effect, the balance of
these
relations over 2,000 years has been quite negative.
At
the dawn of Christianity, after the crucifixion of Jesus, there
arose disputes between the early Church and the Jewish
leaders and
people who, in their devotion to the Law, on occasion
violently opposed
the preachers of the Gospel and the first Christians. In the
pagan
Roman Empire, Jews were legally protected by the privileges
granted by
the Emperor and the authorities at first made no distinction
between
Jewish and Christian communities. Soon, however, Christians
incurred
the persecution of the state. Later, when the Emperors
themselves
converted to Christianity, they at first continued to
guarantee Jewish
privileges. But Christian mobs who attacked pagan temples
sometimes did
the same to synagogues, not without being influenced by
certain
interpretations of the New Testament regarding the Jewish
people as a
whole. "In the Christian world -- I do not say on the
part of the
Church as such -- erroneous and unjust interpretations of the
New
Testament regarding the Jewish people and their alleged
culpability
have circulated for too long, engendering feelings of
hostility toward
this people." Such interpretations of the New Testament
have been
totally and definitively rejected by the Second Vatican
Council.
Despite
the Christian preaching of love for all, even for one's
enemies, the prevailing mentality down the centuries
penalized
minorities and those who were in any way
"different." Sentiments of
anti-Judaism in some Christian quarters, and the gap which
existed
between the Church and the Jewish people, led to a
generalized
discrimination, which ended at times in expulsions or
attempts at
forced conversions. In a large part of the
"Christian" world, at the
end of the 18th century, those who were not Christian did not
always
enjoy a fully guaranteed juridical status. Despite that fact,
Jews
throughout Christendom held on to their religious traditions
and
communal customs. They were therefore looked upon with a
certain
suspicion and mistrust. In times of crisis such as famine,
war,
pestilence or social tensions, the Jewish minority was
sometimes taken
as a scapegoat and became the victim of violence, looting,
even
massacres.
By
the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century,
Jews generally had achieved an equal standing with other
citizens in
most states and a certain number of them held influential
positions in
society. But in that same historical context, notably in the
19th
century, a false and exacerbated nationalism took hold.
In a climate of
eventful social change, Jews were often accused of exercising
an
influence disproportionate to their numbers. Thus there began
to spread
in varying degrees throughout most of Europe an anti-Judaism
that was
essentially more sociological and political than religious.
At
the same time, theories began to appear which denied the unity of
the human race, affirming an original diversity of races. In
the 20th
century, National Socialism in Germany used these ideas as a
pseudo-
scientific basis for a distinction between so-called
Nordic-Aryan races
and supposedly inferior races. Furthermore, an extremist form
of
nationalism was heightened in Germany by the defeat of 1918
and the
demanding conditions imposed by the victors, with the
consequence that
many saw in National Socialism a solution to their
country's problems
and cooperated politically with this movement.
The
Church in Germany replied by condemning racism. The condemnation
first appeared in the preaching of some of the clergy, in
the public
teaching of the Catholic Bishops, and in the writings of lay
Catholic
journalists. Already in February and March 1931, Cardinal
Bertram of
Breslau, Cardinal Faulhaber and the Bishops of Bavaria, the
Bishops of
the Province of Cologne and those of the Province of Freiburg
published
pastoral letters condemning National Socialism, with its
idolatry of
race and of the state. The well-known Advent sermons of
Cardinal
Faulhaber in 1933, the very year in which National Socialism
came to
power, at which not just Catholics but also Protestants and Jews
were
present, clearly expressed rejection of the Nazi anti-Semitic
propaganda. In the wake of the Kristallnacht, Bernard
Lichtenberg,
provost of Berlin Cathedral, offered public prayers for the
Jews. He
was later to die at Dachau and has been declared Blessed.
Pope Pius XI too
condemned Nazi racism in a solemn way in his
encyclical letter "Mit brennender Sorge," which was
read in German
churches on Passion Sunday 1937, a step which resulted in
attacks and
sanctions against members of the clergy. Addressing a group
of Belgian
pilgrims on 6 September 1938, Pius XI asserted:
"Anti-Semitism is
unacceptable. Spiritually, we are all Semites." Pius
XII, in his very
first Encyclical, "Summi Pontificatus," of 20
October 1939, warned
against theories which denied the unity of the human race and
against
the deification of the state, all of which he saw as leading
to a real
"hour of darkness."
IV.
NAZI ANTI-SEMITISM AND THE SHOAH
Thus
we cannot ignore the difference which exists between anti-Semitism
based on theories contrary to the constant teaching of the
Church on
the unity of the human race and on the equal dignity of all
races and
peoples, and the long-standing sentiments of mistrust and
hostility
that we call anti-Judaism, of which unfortunately, Christians
also have
been guilty.
The
National Socialist ideology went even further, in the sense that it
refused to acknowledge any transcendent reality as the source
of life
and the criterion of moral good. Consequently, a human group,
and the
state with which it was identified, arrogated to itself an
absolute
status and determined to remove the very existence of the
Jewish
people, a people called to witness to the one God and the Law
of the
Covenant. At the level of theological reflection we cannot
ignore the
fact that not a few in the Nazi party not only showed
aversion to the
idea of divine Providence at work in human affairs, but gave
proof of a
definite hatred directed at God himself. Logically, such an
attitude
also led to a rejection of Christianity, and a desire to see
the Church
destroyed or at least subjected to the interests of the Nazi
state.
It
was this extreme ideology which became the basis of the measures
taken, first to drive the Jews from their homes and then to
exterminate
them. The Shoah was the work of a thoroughly modern neo-pagan
regime.
Its anti-Semitism had its roots outside of Christianity and,
in
pursuing its aims, it did not hesitate to oppose the Church
and
persecute her members also.
But
it may be asked whether the Nazi persecution of the Jews was not
made easier by the anti-Jewish prejudices imbedded in some
Christian
minds and hearts. Did anti-Jewish sentiment among Christians
make them
less sensitive, or even indifferent, to the persecution
launched
against the Jews by National Socialism when it reached power?
Any
response to this question must take into account that we are
dealing with the history of people's attitudes and ways of
thinking,
subject to multiple influences. Moreover, many people were
altogether
unaware of the "final solution" that was being put
into effect against
a whole people; others were afraid for themselves and those
near to
them; some took advantage of the situation; and still others
were moved
by envy. A response would need to be given case by case.
To do this,
however, it is necessary to know what precisely
motivated people in a
particular situation.
At
first the leaders of the Third Reich sought to expel the Jews.
Unfortunately, the governments of some Western countries of
Christian
tradition, including some in North and South America, were
more than
hesitant to open their borders to the persecuted Jews.
Although they
could not foresee how far the Nazi hierarchs would go in
their criminal
intentions, the leaders of those nations were aware of the
hardships
and dangers to which Jews living in the territories of the
Third Reich
were exposed. The closing of borders to Jewish emigration in
those
circumstances, whether due to any anti-Jewish hostility or
suspicion,
political cowardice or shortsightedness, or national
selfishness, lays
a heavy burden of conscience on the authorities in question.
In the lands where the Nazis undertook mass deportations, the
brutality
which surrounded these forced movements of helpless people
should have
led to suspect the worst. Did Christians give every possible
assistance
to those being persecuted, and in particular to the
persecuted Jews?
Many
did, but others did not. Those who did help to save Jewish lives
as much as was in their power, even to the point of placing
their own
lives in danger, must not be forgotten. During and after the
war,
Jewish communities and Jewish leaders expressed their thanks
for all
that had been done for them, including what Pope Pius
XII did
personally or through his representatives to save
hundreds of thousands
of Jewish lives. Many Catholic bishops, priests,
religious and laity
have been honored for this reason by the State of Israel.
Nevertheless,
as Pope John Paul II has recognized, alongside such
courageous men and women, the spiritual resistance and
concrete action
of other Christians was not that which might have been expected
from
Christ's followers. We cannot know how many Christians
in countries
occupied or ruled by the Nazi powers or their allies
were horrified at
the disappearance of their Jewish neighbors and yet were
not strong
enough to raise their voices in protest. For Christians, this
heavy
burden of conscience of their brothers and sisters
during the Second
World War must be a call to penitence.
We
deeply regret the errors and failures of those sons and daughters of
the Church. We make our own what is said in the Second
Vatican
Council's declaration "Nostra Aetate," which
unequivocally affirms:
"The Church ... mindful of her common patrimony with the
Jews, and
motivated by the Gospel's spiritual love and by no political
considerations, deplores the hatred, persecutions and
displays of anti-
Semitism directed against the Jews at any time and from any
source."
We
recall and abide by what Pope John Paul II, addressing the leaders
of the Jewish community in Strasbourg in 1988, stated:
"I repeat again
with you the strongest condemnation of anti-Semitism and
racism, which
are opposed to the principles of Christianity." The
Catholic Church
therefore repudiates every persecution against a people or
human group
anywhere, at any time. She absolutely condemns all forms of
genocide,
as well as the racist ideologies that give rise to them.
Looking back
over this century, we are deeply saddened by the violence
that has
enveloped whole groups of peoples and nations. We recall in
particular
the massacre of the Armenians, the countless victims in
Ukraine in the
1930s, the genocide of the Gypsies, which was also the result
of racist
ideas, and similar tragedies which have occurred in America,
Africa and
the Balkans. Nor do we forget the millions of victims of
totalitarian
ideology in the Soviet Union, in China, Cambodia and
elsewhere. Nor can
we forget the drama of the Middle East, the elements of which
are well
known. Even as we make this reflection, "many human
beings are still
their brothers' victims."
V.
LOOKING TOGETHER TO A COMMON FUTURE
Looking
to the future of relations between Christians and Jews, in the
first place we appeal to our Catholic brothers and sisters to
renew the
awareness of the Hebrew roots of their faith. We ask them to
keep in
mind that Jesus was a descendant of David; that the Virgin
Mary and the
Apostles belonged to the Jewish people; that the Church draws
sustenance from the root of that good olive tree onto which
have been
grafted the wild olive branches of the gentiles (cf. Romans
11:17-24);
that the Jews are our dearly beloved brothers, indeed in a
certain
sense they are "our elder brothers."
At
the end of this Millennium the Catholic Church desires to express
her deep sorrow for the failures of her sons and daughters in
every
age. This is an act of repentance (teshuva), since, as
members of the
Church, we are linked to the sins as well as the merits of
all her
children. The Church approaches with deep respect and great
compassion
the experience of extermination, the Shoah, suffered by the
Jewish
people during World War II. It is not a matter of mere words,
but
indeed of binding commitment. "We would risk causing the
victims of the
most atrocious deaths to die again if we do not have an
ardent desire
for justice, if we do not commit ourselves to insure that
evil does not
prevail over good as it did for millions of children of the
Jewish
people. ... Humanity cannot permit all that to happen
again."
We
pray that our sorrow for the tragedy which the Jewish people has
suffered in our century will lead to a new relationship with
the Jewish
people. We wish to turn awareness of past sins into a firm
resolve to
build a new future in which there will be no more
anti-Judaism among
Christians or anti-Christian sentiment among Jews, but rather
a shared
mutual respect, as befits those who adore the one Creator and
Lord and
have a common father in faith, Abraham.
Finally,
we invite all men and women of good will to reflect deeply on
the significance of the Shoah. The victims from their graves,
and the
survivors through the vivid testimony of what they have
suffered, have
become a loud voice calling the attention of all of humanity.
To
remember this terrible experience is to become fully
conscious of the
salutary waning it entails: the spoiled seeds of anti-Judaism
and anti-
Semitism must never again be allowed to take root in any
human heart.
16
March 1998
Edward
Idris Cardinal Cassidy
President
The
Most Reverend Pierre Duprey
Vice President
The
Reverend Remi Hoeckman, O.P.
Secretary
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