Showing posts with label Judaism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Judaism. Show all posts

Tuesday 23 August 2016

Mean voices on the Internet and free speech

"Free Speech Doesn't Mean Careless Talk&q...
"Free Speech Doesn't Mean Careless Talk" - NARA - 513606 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
At Islam is Nazism with a God I gave an answer to the question on what I thought of her concern for freedom of speech.

A video is presented on that site and like on may sites we can find several remarks and find lots of sayings of which we can agree with or not. On the internet is a lot to find by which we can or do not want to interact with people face to face. In most instances people get to see and react to texts of people we don’t see and in most cases even don’t know them.

The danger of such encounters is that such visits to different websites as well as message boards may give the visitor not the feeling they really are talking with other human beings who have their feelings like we do have ours.

N.S. Palmer who has degrees in mathematics, economics, philosophy, and biology and is currently affiliated with Hebrew College, blogs for The Jerusalem Post and The Jewish Journal as well as his own blog where he writes
 the people we encounter on the Internet seem less real to us than those we meet in person. As a result, we tend to take them less seriously as human beings. We are less inclined to worry about hurting their feelings or treating them unjustly. Quite realistically, we are also less likely to worry about arguments leading to physical confrontation or retribution.
Perhaps it is that knowledge of not having to face that person and of being sure that we shall not encounter that person in real life, that gives for some the permission to do impermissible acts.
Often it is that anonymity which lets forget many that they should be talking decently and act politely to the other on the other end of the line.

It is like the professor says, that we
We are sitting in our homes where nobody can see us. We are less inclined to feel shame if we do something hurtful.{Why Are People So Mean on the Internet?}
It is that non-seen other, which makes so many chatters or internet users, to forget all decency and respect for the other.
Occasional anger and frustration make take on appropriate forms. Bottled up rage many let their steam go off when they get on the computer.
 Then, some of us have a rage-fest.{Why Are People So Mean on the Internet?}
Internet-Rage
When we had the MSN Groups it started already to go the wrong way, people forgetting any decency, norm and values. Today it did not change for the better. The opposite, it became even worse, and many seem to take certain words or language for normal.

We seem to find more and more people who resort to insults, name-calling, and other kinds of online vitriol. In a way they sometimes go so far we feel pity with them because they can not control their feelings nor their anger, which shows us how frustrated they are. Luckily we know they are either venting anger that has nothing to do with us, or they are deliberately trying to goad us into a screaming match.
Ignore them. A long-standing bit of Internet wisdom applies: “Please do not feed the trolls.” {Why Are People So Mean on the Internet?}
When we look at what is said on the internet, and see how many lies are told or how many are raging about, without any blush on the cheeks, we could wonder how much we should allow and how far Free speech may go.


Here you may find my remarks I made on the video Islam is Nazism with a God and on the presentation of it on America: The Good and the Bad
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Brooke Godlstein looks at those people who shout they are Hamas. Their actions may have us wonder how far Free Speech goes. Can we allow negation of the Holocaust? Can we allow people to cry for hatred against one or another nation or race? the same could be asked about the allowance of money entering a coutnry for funding of certain organisations, be it right wing (Nazi, extreme Jewish/Christian or Muslim fundamentalism) or extreme left wing (extreme Marxism or Communism).

How far wants one to go to allow free speech when it is known that those speakers are funded by terrorist organisations and also steer to terrorist acts?

I think when a organisation wants to dominate and not allow an other to have the right to speak it should be counter acted. They should be able to have their say but others should have the right to react to them as well. But here the State or Government has a duty to fulfil to have everything under control and to watch those who want to dominate others and could endanger our society. As soon as the secret intelligence encounters dangerous elements they should make them public and show all in the nation who those ‘preachers’ or ‘speakers’ are and what they do plus what the danger of them for the nation is.

Pamella Geller is right to say we need to talk about this. Everything should be considered and spoken off. It would be wrong to allow only one party a voice and to censure an other.
A State have to assure all its citizens that they all have the right to look at something, to study something, but also to criticise something. As such Judaism, Christianity but also Islam should be able to judged and criticised by the citizens of the nation, being them atheists, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindu, Buddhists or from other religions. all sorts of religions and nor religious group should be able to be put under the magnifying glasses.

Though we do have to be careful not to call all religious people or non-religious people savages. At the moment there is a tendency to declare all religions awful and the cause of evil. In Europe, and probably also in many parts of America, many think religion is the cause of evil, and everything has to be done to stop religious awareness. In North America the many Christians would cry high from their tower, but by their heavy actions against other religions they could cause the same reactions as we now have to undergo in Europe.

The interviewer of Geller shows she understood the Quran and the meaning of Jihad = struggle. Geller her perspective of that Jihad or her view of holy war is not the view of the bible nor the quaran wich both speak about the holy war which has already gone on for ages (spoken of in the Torah, Prophets, Hebrew Writings, Greek Writings, Quranic verses).

Geller telling that christians would not behead others in the name of Christ does not seem to know her history nor the present Asian situation where still such things happen today. Even in the States of America we can find people like the Westboro Baptist Church who shout hate and hurt other people a lot. In the States there have been also Christians who said they were against killing the unborn but did not mind killing doctors who worked at abortion clinics. That are also Christians who bring damage to others in the name of their religion. The same we can find fundamentalist Jews who kill others, so called in the name of their religion. Look at what happens in Israel and how certain fundamentalists take in the land of others and protect their settlements with violence.

But please do not forget that politician violence and non-religious related violence is still the most common violence. The majority of terrorist acts have nothing to do with religion. The majority of believers in the different religions, pagan or not pagan, preach for self-development in a peaceful atmosphere.

We do not have to abridge or stop our free speech for not offending any body, be it savages or even civilised human beings who think differently. When not having the same idea it will always be possible to have a conflict of ideas and can there be the possibility to offend some one. That is part of the consequences of free speech, we have to endure or to allow.

When Geller talks about savages and savagery would she consider the native American as savages, like her ancestors did or would she recognise that many Europeans who came to conquer the country of those natives behaved as savages? Did she ever thought of the fact that certain Muslims may consider those white people who live there in the North American halfround, who fornicate and have no good morals, could also be considered savages today by other nations or peoples?
The indigenous people of America had also their own civilised rules of conduct and way of life, which came disturbed by the colonial intruders. the same for the white Europeans who conquered spaces in the Southern halfround of this globe. In the name of Christ they also oppressed many peoples and pushed their own believes and faith into their throat. Many so called Christians even did not mind to take people captive and rape and sell them, not even interested if they would die in bad circumstances or not.

Perhaps it would not be bad to reflect on the similarity of the early crusades and collonialisation with the present crusade of certain Muslims or Arabic peoples.

It is true that we have a problem today which many try to avoid or to go out of the way, thinking it would go away by not talking about it. Not talking about it is wrong. We just should do everything to have it possible to talk about those issues and to have clear voices showing all the issues and how certain people could be a danger for the community.

Though each person who wants to bring something in debate and wants to talk against something, like being against a book or movie, should have knowledge of that book or move. Not like Geller not having seen the trailer nor the movie. And a trailer can not even say it all. When one wants to be against something the person has to know what he or she is against, and as such should have had contact with it, read or seen it. today we do find too many christians who are against the Quran because they think certain things are standing in that book, because they only heard the false preachers misusing that book and twisting verses. The same about several Christians who do not know their own Scriptures, often never having read the full Bible, from A to Z, but in the ban of false teachers who only present verses taken out of context and looked at from human doctrine.
the interviewer has good reason to say that when Geller wants to take on this issue we would expect to have her taken interest in that issue and having studied it. She telling it does not mater and she did not need to know … proofs she only wants to take her own idea and wants others to go for her restricted ideas only, not needing to have the real truth of what is all behind it or how it really is and who is really spoken about.

She is right to say we do not have to like what is said, because that is freedom of speech, but than she too should allow others the same right to have that freedom, to talk like she does about things they seem not to know so well. It is for others then to come in to the circle of debate and show both parties that they might have it at the wrong end of the stick.

Personally I thing, and certainly for politicians, those who have a higher position in society or have a special role in a community, should take up their responsibility and to look at things in a honourable and humble way, trying to stay correct to the matter, having looked at it seriously, in honour and conscience. It is the task of a politician to know the subject, to have studied it before speaking about it. She has to take care that she or he is honest to both parties involved and try to enlighten all, with showing what can be known and trying to uncover what is hidden for the public.

Geller considers herself as the messenger, but she forgets or does not want to see she herself is excluding the freedom of speech for those who do not agree with her or have an other view. She also seems not willing to see that the media have an important role to play in show both sides of the medal. The media also has to bring the voices of all parties involved. That is also part of the freedom of speech, and giving the public the right to come to their own conclusions, without imposing their own views (hopefully – though all media stations are naturally influenced in a certain way or have a certain starting view).

Nobody may be couched in silencing the voice of freedom of speech.

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Tuesday 2 February 2016

Jewish and Christian traditions of elders

How can a Christian book possibly write":
"nowhere in the old testament is there one single word about 'GOD, THE FATHER,' and yet, that phrase dominates the New Testament and Christs teachings."
Also strange to find written
Christ also, according to scientists who were finally able to extract blood from the shroud of Turin, had AB negative blood which is stated to be the original blood of humans, on the planet.  
Michael A. Hoffman II was educated at the University of New York and is a former reporter for the New York Bureau of the Associated Press. He is the author of several books, including the well known, Judaism's Strange in which we may find very strange remarks.
According to  but being based on the "Oral Law.".
He says
The New Testament speaks of this as the "traditions of the elders." Jesus Christ denounced and condemned the "traditions of the elders" in the Gospel of John Chapter 5 and in the Gospel of Mark Chapter 7.
It is known that the rabbis teach that the revelation granted to Moses had been delivered in two forms, a smaller revelation in writing, and the larger one kept oral.
The rabbis claim that the so-called "oral revelation" had been transmitted by the leaders of each generation to their successors — by Moses to Joshua; and then to the elders; to the prophets; to the men of the Sanhedrin; to the leaders of the Pharisees; and finally to the earliest rabbis who saw themselves as heirs of the Pharisees.
It is because having so much accent been given to the oral tradition that lots of human doctrines entered mankind's teaching. Also in Christendom we can find such an evolution, having lots of people preferring to follow the human doctrines instead of the Biblical doctrines.

According to Michael A. Hoffman the oral tradition of the Jews is not consonant with the Old Testament. He says


The spurious claim of an "oral tradition of the elders" bequeathed by God to Moses is anti-Biblical, just as Jesus asserted. Christ very simply illuminated the fact that if the Pharisees' tradition had indeed been from Moses, then they would have become Christians. For Christ rebuked them saying, "Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me, for he wrote of Me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe My words?"
Here Jesus annihilated in one stroke the basis for the religion of Judaism and its conceit of an oral tradition given to it by Moses. For had such a tradition existed it would have testified of Jesus the Messiah. Instead, Christ tells them point blank that they don't follow Moses!

We must be aware that in Judaism as in Christendom we do have the same problem that many do not know their Holy Scriptures. Michael A. Hoffman says:
 When presenting Old Testament proofs of the Messiahship of Jesus to the rabbis and their followers - one must penetrate the iron-clad grid of the Talmudic mind-set which according to Christ’s assertion makes the Scriptures "of none effect."
From the outset, the Christian must realize that the rabbis and their followers do not know their own Scriptures, and for that matter, do not care to know them. For they view the Talmud as superceding the Scriptures. Much patience is required when bringing the Gospel message to them, and perhaps at times, stern reproofs are necessary.

The same as we do have to have much patience to try to convince those who call themselves Christian we do need lots of time to bring Jews to come to see what it is about the Messiah and why Jesus really can be seen as that promised sent one from God

We do not agree with those people who say Jews have their own God and Muslims have their own God. It is very easy to come with such accusation as excuse for promoting their own teachings which are often also based more on human or church doctrines instead of Biblical doctrines.

Unlike the writer of the boos says, the main tenet of Judaism is not Jewish self-worship. Judaism has not as its "god," another God than the one of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We can more say that lots of Christians do have an other god than the God Who is worshipped by the Jewish people. The People of God never worshipped a trintiarian god. They all knew and know very well that there is only One true God of gods according to the infallible Word of God.

for the author Jewish self-worship is at the core of the Talmud.
The secularist amongst them shares in this self-worship. For the Talmud teaches that the Gentile is a lower form of humanity.
 Michael A. Hoffman says.
He also finds that the Talmud blasphemes Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary.
Tractate Sanhedrin 106a says that Jesus’ mother was a harlot: "She who was a descendant of princes and governors played the harlot with carpenters." Also in Tractate Shabbath 104b of the Talmud, it is stated: "Miriam the hairdresser had sex with many men."
As regard the Talmud's treatment of Jesus Christ, Tractates Sanhedrin 107b and Sotah 47a say: "Jesus was sexually immoral, worshipped statues of stone and brick, was cut off from the Jewish people for his wickedness, and refused to repent." And even a more vile blasphemy is written in Tractate Gitten 57: "Jesus is in hell, being boiled in hot excrement."
 The Jews know that in the Scriptures is written that Jesus was three days in hell, something lots of Christians do seem to overlook. But naturally the sheol or hell from the bible is not such a place of torment as many Christians and Muslims understand it. there does not exist a place of hellfire where people would be tortured for ever. The Creator God is not such an awful sadistic Being which would enjoy such torment for His creatures. For Him when a person dies he or she has paid for his or her sins and everything ends with it.

Michael A. Hoffman is totally wrong in saying:
Christians must understand that the religion of Judaism is anti-Biblical. The true religion of the God of Israel is Christianity not Judaism. Judaism is simply a perversion of God’s original revelation to the Hebrew nation. It is the very religion of nullification of the Old Testament.
All Christians should know that the Jews are God His chosen people. They always shall have a preferred place in God's Plan. The heathen or gentiles may not expect that they would get a higher place than the Jews. they should be happy that , when they agree to follow Christ Jesus, have their sins washed away by baptism, can also enter the Kingdom of God, when from their conversion onwards they are willing to follow the commandments of Christ and the commandments of God.

Mr Hoffman with so many Christians do seem to forget that whatever happens God shall keep His promises He made centuries ago to Abraham. The seed of Abraham is in first instance the Jewish people and in second instance those who have become the new children of the patriarch Abraham, the reborn people in Christ or the Christians then new sons of Abraham

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Please also do find to read:
  1. Bible Word of God, inspired and infallible
  2. God-breathed prophetic words written torah and the mitzvot to teach us
  3. The very very beginning 2 The Word and words
  4. Creator and Blogger God 7 A Blog of a Book 1 Believing the Blogger
  5. Missional hermeneutics 1/5
  6. Missional hermeneutics 2/5
  7. Missional hermeneutics 3/5
  8. Missional hermeneutics 4/5
  9. Missional hermeneutics 5/5 
  10. Jesus begotten Son of God #3 Messiah or Anointed one
  11. Jesus’ answers about our Creator
  12. Believing what Jesus says
  13. Many forgot how Christ should be our anchor and our focus 
  14. Not bounded by labels but liberated in Christ
  15.  Our relationship with God, Jesus and with each other
  16. People are turning their back on Christianity
  17.  Manifests for believers #5 Christian Union
  18. Necessity of a revelation of creation 1 Works of God and works of man
  19. Necessity of a revelation of creation 3 Getting understanding by Word of God 1
  20. Necessity of a revelation of creation 4 Getting understanding by Word of God 2
  21. Religion and spirituality
  22. Faith related boycotts
  23. Built on or Belonging to Jewish tradition #4 Mozaic and Noachide laws
  24. After the Sabbath after Passover, the resurrection of Jesus Christ
  25. Disobedient man and God’s promises
  26. Position and power
  27. Truth, doubt or blindness
  28. Being Religious and Spiritual 1 Immateriality and Spiritual experience
  29. Statutes given unto us 
  30. Why is it that Christians don’t understand Muslims and Muslims do not understand Christians? 
  31. Luther’s misunderstanding
  32. January 27, 417, Pope Innocent I condemning Pelagius about Faith and Works
  33. Our life depending on faith
  34. Romans 4 and the Sacraments
  35. Is Justification a process?
  36. Letter to the Romans, chapter 3
  37. Letter to the Romans, chapter 4
  38. Additional comments to the 3rd Letter to the Romans
  39. Additional comments to the Letter to the Romans 4
  40. Comments to James remarks about Faith and works
  41. A god who gave his people commandments and laws he knew they never could keep to it
  42. Necessity of a revelation of creation 8 By no means unintelligible or mysterious to people
  43. Creation of the earth and man #8 Of the Sabbath day #6 If it be necessary to keep Sunday
  44. Were Gentiles excluded from entering the synagogue?
  45. Blinded crying blue murder having being made afraid by a bugaboo
  46. Belonging to or being judged by
  47. Israeli leaders delight in Europe’s cruelty toward refugees
  48. Daring to speak in multicultural environment
  49. A Synod to speak freely and to listen without reservations
     
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Tuesday 15 December 2015

25 Orthodox rabbis issued a statement on Christianity

The moral introspection generated by the Holocaust was further stimulated by the campaign of some Jewish intellectuals, notably Jules Isaac, who urged the Catholic Church to undo the “teaching of contempt” that had characterized its approach to Jews through the ages.
However, exclusive attention to this dimension obscures the larger forces transforming the moral and intellectual landscape of the 1960s. The egalitarian impulse that produced the civil rights movement in the United States and de-colonization worldwide did not sit well with traditions of religious exclusivism and triumphalism, let alone the condemnation of the other to discrimination and damnation.

There have been commemorations celebrating the 50th anniversary of the “Declaration on the Relation of the Church to non-Christian Religions” titled “Nostra Aetate,” whose fourth section deals with Judaism and marks a genuinely significant moment.

Jewish reactions were for the most part highly favourable, though various objections were raised that strike me as expressions of hypersensitivity. Thus, the document should have “condemned” anti-Semitism rather than merely “decrying” it; the final version should have retained the term “deicide” in characterizing the offence for which the Jews bear no guilt.

The declaration was seen as too little, too late, and the notion that Jews were being exonerated for crucifying Jesus was seen as at least marginally insulting. Thus, some Jews whose long-standing bill of particulars against the Church featured the guilt that it assigned to the Jewish people for the Crucifixion nonetheless dismissed the historic revocation of this theology as an event that should have no consequences for their own resentful stance.

To implement the new relationship, the Church established a Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, which issued its first official document (“Guidelines and Suggestions for Implementing the Conciliar Declaration Nostra Aetate (No.4)”) in 1974. In 1985, it issued “Notes on the Correct Way to Present the Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesis in the Roman Catholic Church.” And in 1998, it issued a document on the Holocaust titled “We Remember.” Despite occasional formulations that some Jews, rightly or wrongly, found inadequate or objectionable, these documents fleshed out “Nostra Aetate” in a direction that reflected advances achieved by ongoing dialogues and even dealt with some of the specific concerns that Jews had expressed regarding the original declaration.

In “Nostra Aetate” itself, and much more so in subsequent Church documents and papal utterances, the abiding value of Judaism has been affirmed and even emphasized. In theological language, the covenant between God and the original Israel remains in effect. What precisely that covenant is—the Abrahamic and/or the Mosaic—is not quite settled, and some Jews have virtually demanded that Christians declare that the Mosaic covenant remains in full force. I have argued that this demand is unwise. It raises intractable questions about the parameters of the Jewish need to observe that covenant and constitutes a telling example of the inappropriate dictation to others of what their own religion must teach.

> Please do read more about this subject:

Vatican II at 50; Assessing the impact of ‘Nostra Aetate’ on Jewish-Christian relations By David Berger

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Tuesday 31 March 2015

More looking for similarities

English: Moses Isserles (or Moshe Isserlis) (1...
Moses Isserles (or Moshe Isserlis) (1530 - 1572) - a Rabbi and Talmudist, renowned for his fundamental work of Halakha (Jewish law), titled the Mapah (HaMapah), a component of the Shulkhan Arukh. He is also well known for Darkhei Moshe, a commentary on the Tur. Isserles is also "the ReMA" (or "the RAMA") רמ״א, the Hebrew acronym for Rabbi Moses Isserles. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In Christianity we do find the same problem as in Judaism having different faith groups all claiming that they are the right Jews or right Christians.

Rabbi Eliezer Silver who visited a displaced persons camp after the war, encountered a Jew who told him he no longer wanted anything to do with Judaism.

He explained that there was a Jew in the camps with a siddur that he would share only with those who were willing to give up their daily slice of bread.
 “If that’s what Judaism is all about, I want nothing more to do with it.”
Rabbi Silver asked him gently:
 “And what did most people do?”
 “They gave up their bread and took the siddur. They starved!”
Rabbi Silver asked
“Why,” “do you look at the one Jew who could behave so dastardly? Why not reflect on the many more Jews who were willing to starve in exchange for a few minutes of precious prayer?”
Rabbi Yaniv says the same to an Ashkenazi whose wife is Sephardi
 
Why are you looking at one disparity in the difference of custom between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews rather than the astounding number of similarities they share?
The differences are so negligible that they just prove the rule – we are one people with one Torah. Jews are forbidden by the Torah to eat or even own leavened products on Passover.
We should remember that God took His People out of Egypt to make them one nation, united by the Torah. The Jews should take this at heart and should know their common history and their common goal.
 Some eat rice, some don’t, and it matters not. We are one family, the children of Israel.
explains Yaniv.

Also the Christians living all over the earth should know that there are differences depending on where they live and what season it is. Most important is that they do not take part in pagan traditions, like the Easter bunnies a.o..

Please do read the interesting exhortation of rabbi Yaniv:

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Wednesday 18 June 2014

Renewed Catholic-Jewish relations still with a blemish

It is a good sign we may find some trials of the new pope, Francis I, to bring the monotheist faithgroups Jews Christians and Muslims closer to each other again.


The Jews of Antwerpen
The Jews of Antwerpen (Photo credit: CharlesFred)
Catholic-Jewish relations for sure need some boost now we can see many fundamentalist groups trying to undermine such relations and trying to bring more extreme right-wing thoughts in the forefront. In Western Europe we might see again a growing anti-Semitism and a growing hate against Muslims. That hate is mostly triggered by fundamentalist faith-groups giving their 'religion' a bad name.

The world should always remember that the minority faith where people only wanted to honour Only One God Who created heaven and earth, suffered centuries of persecution. The world was warned already in the old days, many centuries before Jesus was born, that those people were the chosen people of God, but would also have to suffer much because of their choice. Also Jeshua, the Nazarene Jew warned his followers they should know when they would like to follow him, they would be a target of spot and bullying. Followers of Christ would in case they originally did not belong to the People Israel, also be taken up in the Family of God. But that would mean they also as part of the Body of Christ, would be part of God's people and would have to suffer likewise. though they may become protected more than those who did not accept the Messiah.

The Jews would have to live in ghettos and face the horrors of the Holocaust. Christians were persecuted but Jews were more and still are persecuted and shunned.

It is a pity the Jews have one distorted picture of the Christians, because they always see the majority of them being Trinitarians often raging against Jews. It is true when they say Christianity began as an offshoot of Judaism, because Jeshua (Jesus Christ) was a Jew, who never intended to make an other religion. After the church leaders of followers of that Jew made a bond with the men in power they took on the Greek-roman cultur with its many gods and holy days. they made Jeshua part of a three-une god like in the pagan cultures and as one bigger group they formed Christendom that became the main religion across Europe. It was that group which treated the tiny minority that did not follow Jesus as a tri-une god with persecution, exclusion and expulsion. Many Christians and Jews found their death as other people who did not want to confirm to the doctrines of that church.

Archbishop Angelo Roncalliin Worl War II was using his wartime post as Vatican ambassador in Istanbul to run a network of nuns, diplomats and other people to issue forged visas and baptismal and immigration certificates to Jews from the Balkans to get them to Turkey and then to British-mandate Palestine.
Later as Pope John XXIII he modernised the Roman Catholic Church at the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), whose landmark document "Nostra Aetate" (In Our Times) repudiated the 2,000-year-old concept of collective Jewish guilt for the death of Jesus.

Rabbi David Rosen, International Director of Inter-religious Affairs of American Jewish Committee, said:
"Nostra Aetate ushered in amazing changes in Catholic-Jewish relations around the world, even if the degree to which it was internalized depended on whether Catholics and Jews lived side by side." 
Today we can see a lesser nice site of that Roman Catholic Church which got several of its members really helping Jews out of love for the children of God. But some of them also could have taken action and used the situation to 'win more souls' for the 'good faith'.


A great many individual Catholics, priests, nuns, bishops, and others acted heroically to save Jews and to oppose Hitler. To pick one example among many, Archbishop Jean-Geraud Saliege of Toulouse bluntly declared that ”the Jews are our brothers, like so many others, and no Christian can forget this fact.” The Archbishop said this from the pulpit, in 1942, in the middle of occupied Europe. He was not alone in such heroism.
Unfortunately, as an institution the Catholic Church, particularly Pope Pius XII, spectacularly failed. The Church bears general responsibility and (in many cases) specific guilt both its failure to intervene and for particular actions taken against Jews.
Not many Catholics shamed themselves for certain actions taken by their church against people of other faiths. Several Roman Catholics became right wing fighters against those who did not want to come to the real faith of the god son Jesus. All others where considered blasphemous, and the Jews traitors to God. Many in charge of that Roman Catholic Church did not want to react against the way some of their flock were thinking. For years the West could see what was going on in Germany, but not many reacted against the genocide taking place.


Pope Pius XII called Pastor Angelicus, was the...
Pope Pius XII called Pastor Angelicus, was the most Marian Pope in Church history. Bäumer, Marienlexikon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As head of the Chruch you would think Popes Pius XI and Pius XII could do something against the Nazi doctrine, but they failed to plainly condemn Nazism and specific genocide against Jews (and others). From historical sources we know that diplomats representing France, Poland, Brazil, the United States, and Britain approached the Vatican more than once with the request that the Pope specifically denounce Nazi crimes against Jews. British diplomat Francis D’Arcy Osborne, wrote:
A policy of silence in regard to such offences against the conscience of the world must necessarily involve a renunciation of moral leadership and a consequent atrophy of the influence and authority of the Vatican…
Terrible was it when after the war the Catholic Church did not enough to bring the Jewish kids back to their family or did not allow them to keep their faith. Instead they tried to keep them away from their faith.

  in his article The Pope at Yad Vashem writes:
Some misdeeds continued beyond the war. Jewish children were hidden in Catholic homes or religious institutions during the war. When children were baptized, the Church sometimes deliberately obstructed their return to surviving Jewish relatives. As one notorious 1946 memorandum directed:
1) Avoid, as much as possible, responding in writing to Jewish authorities, but rather do it orally.
2) Each time a response is necessary, it is necessary to say that the Church must conduct investigations in order to study each case individually.
3) Children who have been baptized must not be entrusted to institutions that would not be in a position to guarantee their Christian upbringing.
4) For children who no longer have their parents, given the fact that the Church has responsibility for them, it is not acceptable for them to be abandoned by the Church or entrusted to any persons who have no rights over them, at least until they are in a position to choose themselves. This, evidently, is for children who would not have been baptized.
5) If the children have been turned over by their parents, and if the parents reclaim them now, providing that the children have not received baptism they can be given back.
It is to be noted that this decision of the Holy Congregation of the Holy Office has been approved by the Holy Father.


He bears no personal stain for actions undertaken almost seventy years ago.

Some Christians do not seem to like what he is doing the last few weeks, which shows how there are still too many Christians who do not want to see their connection with the Jews, and how many still consider a whole people guilty for what some of their folks did. It would be the same as the Jews would consider all Christians guilty for killing so many Jews. The same with the Muslims, too many Christian are generalising the Islamic community, equalising them all with those lunatic fundamentalists. You also could say it would be the same if we all would consider the Christians on the same line as some freaky fundamentalist Christians like the Westboro Church a.o.

We should welcome Pope Francis I his efforts to helpfully mediate the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis even at a time when still a debt remains unacknowledged and unpaid.

Rabbi David Rosen, the American Jewish Committee’s director of international interreligious affairs and former head of the IJCIC, welcomed the Pope’s speech as conciliatory.
“Pope Francis is a very good friend of the Jewish people, and we rejoice in the fact that he will continue to advance the path of his predecessors in deepening the Catholic-Jewish relationship.”