Anti-semitic Catholic Priest in Buenos Aires Assails Argentine Jews

A Roman Catholic priest in Argentina, who is the author of anti-Semitic books and has been charged by Jewish leaders with being the spiritual leader of the Nazi-style Tacuara youth organization which directs the anti-Jewish atrocities in the country, told the Buenos Aires correspondent of the New York Times that the Jews, and not the anti-Semitic terrorists, are to be blamed for anti-Jewish attacks in Argentina.

The vitriolic anti-Jewish interview given by the priest, Rev. Julio Meinvielle,–which is carried in today’s New York Times–contains ridiculous allegations against Jews, including the allegation that “Jews had provoked the attacks in an attempt to get laws passed against Argentine nationalists.” He also charged that Jews were linked with the Communist movements among students in Buenos Aires University.

He denied any connection with the Tacuara anti-Semitic group and said that it is not true that Tacuara members get military training, ideological indoctrination and instruction in “operational tactics” at Catholic centers. On the other hand, the priest alleged there are 28 groups of armed Jews in the single province of Entre Rios.

The recent widely publicized wave of anti-Semitic attacks was not so serious as it was made out to be by Jews, the priest said. He said a police investigation had shown that a recent case in which a swastika was said to have been slashed on the breast of a Jewish girl student was “another Jewish provocation.”

In his interview with the New York Times correspondent, the priest went out of his way to emphasize several points from his book on Jews. He marked a passage that declared that Jews were striving to take over the riches of all peoples to corrupt them and reduce them to the status of slaves. The theme of the book is that Christians and Jews have been and are in constant conflict because of the determination of Jews to rule the world through capitalism and communism. In his book Meinvielle refers to the Jews as a “cursed race” and as agents and sons of the devil.

The New York Times correspondent stresses the fact that although Meinvielle has been in conflict on occasion with church authorities and is hardly considered representative of the church, he was able to use a Catholic university hall recently for a speech.

The correspondent reports that an important Catholic lay leader described Father Meinvielle as “very small,” with a few readers of his books. This man believes that the priest and his following created “perverted minds with lies” and “provoke violence without fully realizing what they are doing.” An editor of La Prensa, a leading Buenos Aires daily newspaper, described Father Meinvielle as a “goof” who does not represent the church and acts on his own.