Michigan Catholic Organ Disagrees with the Jesuit ‘warning’

The Michigan Catholic, in an editorial entitled “The Jesuits and the Jews, ” commenting on the debate that was aroused over an editorial in the Catholic magazine “America” that was critical of the Jewish position on the Supreme Court decision declaring the reciting of prayers in schools to be unconstitutional, declared in its current issue: “Unjust and false is the supposition that every member of a group can be identified with every opinion of that group. “

Viewing the manner in which Jewish groups responded to the “America” editorial by stating: “As if they had been challenged to a duel at 5:00 in the morning, Jewish leaders picked up the gauntlet by stating that ‘America’ performs a disservice by raising the spectre of anti-Semitism … It is interesting to note that, as the battle continues the word ‘Jesuit’ displaces the magazine ‘America,’ and the ‘American Jewish Committee’ becomes ‘the Jews.’ Before very long, what had begun as a statement of a single publication in reference to a stand made by a small group of people becomes a bitter, if somewhat polite, altercation between all the American Jesuits and all the Jews of America. “

The editorial declares that “this disturbance demonstrates the human tendency to group individuals in a conglomerate mass and make the opinions of a few stand for the convictions of everyone…. Surely not every Jew agrees with the stand taken by the American Jewish Committee and the New York Board of Rabbis no more than all Catholics share a unified opinion over the issue of prayer in public schools. It seems in human experience that it is rare, if indeed ever, that everyone agrees with anything. “