On June 24, 2013, a group of leaders from World Jewish Congress, International Association of Conservative Rabbis and the Rabbinical Assembly, met Pope Francis at the Vatican. They told the pontiff that the proposed Sainthood of the war-time Pope Pius XII (1939-1958) would create a problem for the Jewish communities around the world.
“The Jewish community continue to be concerned about efforts to canonize Pope Pius XII while innumerable documents pertaining to the history of the Church and the Jewish people during the dark years of Holocaust still remain closed to outside scholarly investigations,” Lawrence Schiffman, leader of the delegation told Francis.
Pope Francis avoided to talk about Pope Pius XII during the meeting – but he repeated the Church’s condemnation of antisemitism.
“Due to our common roots, a Christian cannot be an antisemitic” Francis assured his Jewish admirers. Pope Francis has accepted Zionist president Shimon Peres’ invitation to visit Israel this year.
Pope Pius XII is accused by World Zionist Congress leaders for not stopping the ethnic-cleansing of European Jewry. The Vatican has refused to open its archives to find out the truth behind Jewish allegations.
I’m not interested to defend or accuse Pope Pius XII here. If he sided with the Nazis, so did 150,000 German Jews and Zionist terrorist groups. However, there’re three claims made in the said meeting which need to be discussed – namely; the Holocaust, Jesus’ Jewishness and antisemitism. As usual, I will rely on Jewish sources.
1. Holocaust: Last year, British Jewish writer, Paul Einsen, wrote a post, entitled ‘Why I Call Myself a Holocaust Denier‘.
“Jewish suffering is held to be mysterious, and beyond explanation. Context is rarely examined. The place and role of Jews in society – their historical relationships with the Church and state, landlords and peasantry – is hardly ever to scrutiny, and, whilst non-Jewish attitudes to Jews are the subject of intense interest, Jewish attitudes to non-Jews are rarely mentioned. Attempts to confront these issues are met with suspicion, and sometime hostility, in the fear that explanation may lead to rationalisation, which may lead to exculpation, and then even to justification,” says Einsen.
2. Jesus’ Jewishness: Jewish historian and scholar, Benjamin H. Freedman, claims that Jesus was not a Jew. He claims that Christians have been duped by the Zionist infiltrators (Evangelics) in the churches who teach them that Jesus was a Jew. Christians are told that their Salvation lies in serving Jewish people.
“This ‘big lie’ technique is brainwashing United States Christians into believing that Jesus Christ was ‘King of Jews’, in the sense that the so-called ‘Jews’ today call themselves ’Jews’.This reference was first made in English translation of the Old and New Testaments, centuries before the so-called ‘Jews’ hijacked the word ‘Jew’ in the 18th century AD to palm themselves off the Christian world as having a kinship with Jesus Christ. This alleged kinship comes from the myth of their common ancestry with the so-called ‘Jews’ of the Holy Land in the Old Testament history, a fiction based on fable“.
3. Antisemitism: In the old Europe, hatred toward Jewish communities was called “antisemitism”. However, now anyone who criticizes Zionism or Israel is labeled “antisemitism”.
Norman Finkelstein, an American Jewish academic and author says: “New antisemitism is neither new, nor antisemitism. Jewish groups like ADL has brought forward charges of new antisemitism since the 1970s, not to fight antsemitism, but rather to exploit the historical suffering of Jews in order to immunize Israel from criticism.” Read an interesting article on “antisemitism” at the Bilzerian Report, here.
Lobby against Sainthood of Pope Pius XII | Rehmat's World
“The Jewish community continue to be concerned about efforts to canonize Pope Pius XII while innumerable documents pertaining to the history of the Church and the Jewish people during the dark years of Holocaust still remain closed to outside scholarly investigations,” Lawrence Schiffman, leader of the delegation told Francis.
Pope Francis avoided to talk about Pope Pius XII during the meeting – but he repeated the Church’s condemnation of antisemitism.
“Due to our common roots, a Christian cannot be an antisemitic” Francis assured his Jewish admirers. Pope Francis has accepted Zionist president Shimon Peres’ invitation to visit Israel this year.
Pope Pius XII is accused by World Zionist Congress leaders for not stopping the ethnic-cleansing of European Jewry. The Vatican has refused to open its archives to find out the truth behind Jewish allegations.
I’m not interested to defend or accuse Pope Pius XII here. If he sided with the Nazis, so did 150,000 German Jews and Zionist terrorist groups. However, there’re three claims made in the said meeting which need to be discussed – namely; the Holocaust, Jesus’ Jewishness and antisemitism. As usual, I will rely on Jewish sources.
1. Holocaust: Last year, British Jewish writer, Paul Einsen, wrote a post, entitled ‘Why I Call Myself a Holocaust Denier‘.
“Jewish suffering is held to be mysterious, and beyond explanation. Context is rarely examined. The place and role of Jews in society – their historical relationships with the Church and state, landlords and peasantry – is hardly ever to scrutiny, and, whilst non-Jewish attitudes to Jews are the subject of intense interest, Jewish attitudes to non-Jews are rarely mentioned. Attempts to confront these issues are met with suspicion, and sometime hostility, in the fear that explanation may lead to rationalisation, which may lead to exculpation, and then even to justification,” says Einsen.
2. Jesus’ Jewishness: Jewish historian and scholar, Benjamin H. Freedman, claims that Jesus was not a Jew. He claims that Christians have been duped by the Zionist infiltrators (Evangelics) in the churches who teach them that Jesus was a Jew. Christians are told that their Salvation lies in serving Jewish people.
“This ‘big lie’ technique is brainwashing United States Christians into believing that Jesus Christ was ‘King of Jews’, in the sense that the so-called ‘Jews’ today call themselves ’Jews’.This reference was first made in English translation of the Old and New Testaments, centuries before the so-called ‘Jews’ hijacked the word ‘Jew’ in the 18th century AD to palm themselves off the Christian world as having a kinship with Jesus Christ. This alleged kinship comes from the myth of their common ancestry with the so-called ‘Jews’ of the Holy Land in the Old Testament history, a fiction based on fable“.
3. Antisemitism: In the old Europe, hatred toward Jewish communities was called “antisemitism”. However, now anyone who criticizes Zionism or Israel is labeled “antisemitism”.
Norman Finkelstein, an American Jewish academic and author says: “New antisemitism is neither new, nor antisemitism. Jewish groups like ADL has brought forward charges of new antisemitism since the 1970s, not to fight antsemitism, but rather to exploit the historical suffering of Jews in order to immunize Israel from criticism.” Read an interesting article on “antisemitism” at the Bilzerian Report, here.
Lobby against Sainthood of Pope Pius XII | Rehmat's World