Here is something the Vatican issued in 1998:
>>The Catholic Church and the Holocaust
Copyright (c) 1998 First Things 83 (May 1998): 39-43.
On March 16, 1998, the Holy See released a long-awaited statement on
the Church and the Holocaust, "We Remember: A Reflection on the
Shoah." ("Shoah," which in its original Hebrew usage referred to
destruction or ruin, is preferred by some over "Holocaust," which
means burnt offering.) The statement was prepared by the Vatican’s
Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, whose president is
Edward Idris Cardinal Cassidy. Herewith the text of the statement,
together with a cover letter from Pope John Paul II.
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 prepare 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 neighbor. 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, March 12, 1998
Pope John Paul II
I. The Tragedy of the Shoah and the Duty of Remembrance
The twentieth 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 counterwitness and scandal."1
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.2 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."3 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.4 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,"5 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
for 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.6 In effect, the balance
of these relations over 2,000 years has been quite negative.7
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."8 Such interpretations of the
New Testament have been totally and definitively rejected by the Second Vatican
Council.9
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, until the end of the eighteenth 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 eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth 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 nineteenth 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 twentieth century, National Socialism in
Germany used these ideas as a pseudoscientific 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.10 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."11 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,12 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 September 6,1938, Pius XI asserted: "Anti-Semitism is
unacceptable. Spiritually, we are all Semites."13 Pius XII, in his very first encyclical,
Summi Pontificatus,14 of October 20, 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."15
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 [observers] 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.16 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.17
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."18
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."19 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."20
V. Looking Together to a Common Future
Looking to the future of relations between Jews and Christians, 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."21
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."22
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 warning
it entails: the spoiled seeds of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism must never again be allowed
to take root in any human heart.<<
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