A high-level body in the Polish Catholic Church has prepared a document that condemns anti-Semitism and asks forgiveness from the Jews for anti-Semitic actions in the past, according to church sources here.
The document, a major statement on relations between Jews and Christians in Poland, is to be issued later this year on the 25th anniversary of “Nostra Aetate,” the statement by the Second Vatican Council in 1965 that redefined the Catholic Church’s relations to Jews and Judaism.
“Nostra Aetate” stressed that Jesus, Mary and the Apostles sprang from the Jewish people and that the Jews do not bear collective responsibility for the crucifixion of Jesus. The statement also condemned anti-Semitism and persecution of the Jews in any form.
A draft of the document now being circulated among the bishops of Poland for their review interprets the teachings of Vatican II in the context of Jewish-Christian relations in Poland. The draft was prepared by the Polish church’s Commission for Dialogue with Judaism.
Among other things, the document asks forgiveness for the anti-Semitic teaching of the church in the period between the wars, and for the Kielce pogrom of July 4, 1946.
Father Michael Czajkowski, who teaches Bible at the Catholic Theological Academy of Warsaw, said in an interview that “the teachings of Vatican II are not well known in Poland. Our leaders had bigger problems to deal with,” he noted, referring to the church’s long struggle with the now-defunct Communist regime.
ANTI-SEMITISM OF THE COMMUNISTS
“We saw only the anti-Semitism of the Communists, who persecuted people of all faiths. Indeed, until recently, some of the bishops were of the opinion that there is no anti-Semitism in Poland, because there are virtually no Jews.
“We didn’t see Christian anti-Semitism anti-Semitism then, but now I think we are beginning to see more clearly that anti-Semitism is not dead in Poland,” he said.
Czajkowski, who is a member of the Commission on Dialogue, has for the past four years lectured widely in Poland to lay and clerical audiences about the teachings of Vatican II on the Jews and Judaism. One of his main points in these talks is that “if you hate Jews, you are not a good Christian, and you are a sinner.”
The commission is also preparing a collection of statements by Pope John Paul II on Jews and Judaism for wide distribution in Poland.
“The pope is greatly loved here, but his teachings on Jews and Judaism, which are in the spirit of Vatican II, are not widely known here. In my lectures, I use the pope’s words to show that anti-Semitism is against our faith.”
In the Kielce pogrom, 42 Jews were shot, stoned to death or killed with axes and blunt instruments, including two children, and four teen-agers. The mob was inflamed by rumors that local Jews had killed a Christian boy to use his blood for ritual purposes.
Czajkowski held that “the Kielce pogrom was a Communist provocation, and the church is not responsible.”
But, he said, “it is also true that Polish Catholics who took part in the attacks believed the charge of ritual murder,” which for centuries blamed Jews for killing Christians, particularly children, and using their blood for matzah.
He said that the document would condemn the ritual murder charge, which some Poles still believe, as completely false, along with other outmoded doctrines that have inspired hatred of the Jews.
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