Catholic Bishop Addresses Dr. Butler on Christian-jewish Relations

A copy of a letter addressed to Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University, by Bishop John F. Noll, editor of “Our Sunday Visitor,” was made public by the N. C. W. C. News Service, Catholic news service, with headquarters here.

Bishop Noll, declaring that the Catholic Church has never been hostile to the Jews, relates that when the Catholic clergy speaks on the crucifixion they usually make it clear that for the most part the Jewish people of Palestine were not to be blamed for the event. Bishop Noll’s letter read:

“The meeting which is to be held at Columbia University at your invitation, is, I assume, intended for the pur-post of creating a better feeling as between different religious and racial groups of America’s citizens. The Jews and the Catholics have been the common enemy of different very un-American groups, while many a Jew harbors the impression that the Catholic Church has been and is his enemy.

“Outside of isolated instances, I am certain that the Catholic Church, as a Church, never lacked sympathy for the Jews, and in the city of Rome, they were always treated in the most humane manner by the Popes. If there have been anti-Semitic outbreaks in Vienna, or in Bavaria, or in Hungary, it does not mean that the Church was in sympathy with them. While Austria and Bavaria have been regarded as Catholic countries, they have also been hotbeds of socialists, who have never been amenable to any control of the clergy or of the Bishops. These same people persecuted Cardinal Faulhauber, of Munich, for having said a kind word about the Jews. Catholics hold that the Israelitie religion was God’s own, through which the people were buided and benefited supernaturally, and prepared for the promised Messiahs. If today she holds that their national religion has been superseded by an international one, also of divine origin, it does not mean that she entertains the slightest animosity towards the Jewish race. Of that race was born the very Founder of Christianity, as well as His blessed Mother and every one of the original Apostles, who are regarded as the most glorious saints in our Church.

NO HOSTILITY TOWARD JEWS

“When we tell the story of the rejection of Christ and of His murder on Good Friday, we usually make it clear that the Jewish people of Palestine, for the most part, were greatly attached to Christ and so loved Him that He was tried by night ‘for fear of the Jews.’ Jealous leaders in the nation demanded His death, and pagan soldiers, serving under the Roman Empire, were the executioners. In any case, believing that it was in accordance with a provision of God’s providence that Christ’s life story ended as it did, the Catholic clergy never have cultivated the slightest hostility among her people toward the Jews. Have Jews been more tolerant towards Catholics? Many influential men among them, laboring under the false impression that the Catholic Church has been a sort of traditional enemy, have been frank to admit that they have sympathized with the campaign against her.

“Without any desire to make a comparison between the Catholic and Protestant groups, it will not be out of place to remark that Catholics neither publish nor support a single anti-Protestant paper; that they would never give encouragement to a professional anti-Protestant speaker; that their Church papers would never oppose a Protestant for high office because of his religion.

“I am certain that it never enters into the mind of the most orthodox Catholic that in his civic relations with others he must even try to know what their religion is, or whether they have any. The Catholic Church, as a Church, grooms no candidate for office, or any individual to hold high places in any sphere. Her people do no think of inquiring about the religious affiliations of the ones with whom they trade, or whom they employ in their business.

“This plea of ‘not guilty’ may sound strange to those who have been trained to believe that Catholics are always thinking of their Church, but your very experience must confirm it.

AMERICAN AIMS UPHELD

“As long as the editors of the big newspapers will cater to the existing prejudices of people, the old misunderstandings will continue to prevail. Since the masses receive practically all their information from the papers and magazines which they read it will devolve on publishers and editors to begin to serve the truth as it is in their power to learn it. They are the ones who can make Americans one nationally. If the one hundred and more parts of Protestantism prefer to retain their identity, it cannot be hoped that Catholics, Protestants and Jews will be united religiously. But the adherents of all, citizens of a common country, can say ‘credo’ and ‘approbo’ in relation to our form of government, and each should do his duty to bring about in practice what we profess in theory-‘E pluribus unum’. We can all be true to conscience, to God and to Country.

“I am not making a bid for better treatment of the Catholic group, but I am declaring the doctrine which all Catholics are taught. In their schools and from their pulpits, the Catholic clergy strive to cultivate in every heart a warm love for God, and a warm love for neighbor, whether he be Jew, Protestant, or pagan; and in their effort to bring this about they are only following their Master’s teaching in relation to the two great Commandments of the Law. Christ commended the friendliness of the Samaritan towards the Jew, and from it drew a lesson for His followers for all time ‘Go and do thou in like manner.’ “