Officail Catholic Organ in San Francisco Exonerates Jews of Deicide

A strongly worded editorial declaring that “the Jews as a people are in no way responsible for the killing of Christ” is published in the current issue of The Monitor, official publication of the San Francisco Roman Catholic Archdiocese. It stresses the fact that the session of the Ecumenical Council, last year, overwhelmingly voted that “Jews, neither at the time of Christ, nor subsequently, were in any sense collectively culpable of the death of Christ.”

The editorial reads:

“The Catholic position about Jews should be perfectly clear. The Jews as a people are, of course, in no way responsible for the killing of Christ.

“At a point in history some Jewish people had a part in the crucifixion of Christ. But they had that part as members of the human race. It might just as well have been Romans. Syrians, Chinese, Englishmen or Americans if they had existed at the time.

“The schema which was overwhelmingly voted at the third session of the council explicitly stated that Jews, neither at the time of Christ nor subsequently, were in any sense collectively culpable of the death of Christ. It does not even enter the mind of the Holy Father or any person grounded in clear, traditionally established Catholic teaching that anything offensive to the Jews as a people should be taken from the historical facts of Holy Week.

“There were some Jewish people at the time of the crucifixion who were wrong. There were some Roman people wrong at the same time. In other points of history, some German people have been very wrong, as during World War II. Some Catholic people have been very wrong as during the excesses of the Inquisition. Some American people have been very wrong as during questionable episodes in the Spanish-American War. No specific nationality or race has a monopoly on evil. Or a monopoly on virtue.

“It should go without saying that the Jewish people are people. They are our brothers. As human persons they are absolutely no different from any one of us. They have feelings like everyone else, make mistakes like everyone else, do heroic good like everyone else, are hungry like everyone else, get tired like everyone else, are good like everyone else. Shakespeare says it better.

“It should be recalled that many Jews probably most–certainly most of the Diaspora Jews–at the time of Christ did not even know of Him. The historical fact is Christ is God and some Jews took part in putting Him to death. Other people in Jerusalem at the time, apart from Jews, also took part. You and I possibly would have taken part if we were in Jerusalem at the time.

“We do something of the same thing every time we deliberately hurt another human being, since every other human being is made in the image and likeness of God. We do the same thing every time we backbite, discriminate against or other wise hurt another human being, since every human soul has a spark of God.”