Letters to the Editor
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But we don't want you apologies
Less still your explanations. I understand fully the human urge to elevate the survivors you can't look in the eye. But we're not really waiting for it and we don't care. And in 20-30 years the entire Shoah generation will be dead.
This isn't meant as a sardonic comment. It's meant as a bald statement of fact. Jews aren't all that interested in whether or not or when or how or if Catholics come to terms with the history of their Church. A history that goes back more than a thousand years of persecutions, pogroms, exterminations, relocations, forced conversions, torture, the taking of children from their parents and such.
That the Pope couldn't find but a single Jewish camp survivor doesn't shock. How many do you think there are? Eastern European Jewry was 'solutioned' to the tune of 85% in Poland to upwards of nearly 100% in places like Lithuania. And was on the heels as it were, of a mass migration of more than 3 million Jews who fled Europe from 1881-1910. Not including England and France, there are today about 50-70,000 Jews in all of Europe, Eastern Europe and the Balkans. England is home to about 300,000 and France about twice that give or take.
So trust me when I say we're not worried how you feel about that. But to the Christians credit, the total reduction in the population of Jews in Europe, on a percentage basis is quite a bit less severe than what occurred in North Africa, the mideast, west Asia and Persia in the period from 1945-54. Those 9 years saw the reduction of their own Jewish population to near zero. With the exception of Tunisia (5000), Morocco (5000) and Iran (25000) there are, essentially zero Jews in the Mideast, the Maghreb and Mizrahi, outside of Israel. Zero. So at least the Christians in Europe can hang on to that. Sure most of the Ashkenaz died but you didn't cleanse the land of us to the extent the Arabs and Persians did.
I almost feel sorry for Europeans and Christians who feel a need for atonement and salvation. We're not the people who should hear it. The people who should, are, unfortunately all dead.
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Interesting
He remains a Catholic for the same reason he remains an American. I've never heard it expressed in those terms, and I find it difficult to fault. Which is *huge* for me.
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Nonsens
Carroll finds it shocking that the Pope insists that the Catholic Church is the preferred, superior method of reaching God?
Listen, if the Pope isn't going to be the strongest advocate of Catholicism in the world, who exactly did you expect would be? I doubt that many imams or rabbis express milquetoast sympathies for their own religions; calling out the Pope seems pretty hypocritical.
The Pope is a vocal critic of the war in Iraq, of global poverty, and of the death penalty. I expect a discussion of at least the first two of these during the Pope's week long visit in America, hardly sparing the feelings of President Bush. So what exactly is Carroll's problem here?
I'm not a fan of the Church's teaching on human sexuality, and I think its continuing deferral of the reckoning about the pedophiles in its priestly ranks is unforgivable. But attacking the Pope for advocating Catholicism and for pandering to Bush - which ain't happening - is bigoted nonsense.
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O'Hehir not Carroll
"John Paul II ... was known to have helped Jews seeking refuge." he didn't. later, however, he apologized.
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Golden Boy, the point is not that he's advancing Catholicism
The point is that he is refusing to admit that the Church had some fairly serious problems in its past, including some Nazi problems in its past. It's one thing to advance your own religion. It's quite another to so vocally desire to exterminate someone else's, and to do so much to further that end. Just the Nazi connection is quite unpleasant - but there were so many other unpleasant anti-Semitic incidents in the history of the Church. I do think that the Church owes us an apology. Will I hold my breath waiting for it? I don't think so.
And meanwhile, my Catholic roommate - who knows that I'm Jewish - has just yesterday told me that she thinks the Jews killed Jesus. Oh, not directly, oh, maybe just by facilitating it, but yes, the guilt is still on the Jews. (somehow she did not think I'd be offended by that) No, I don't think that this is something the Pope needs to be apologizing for, but I think it's indicative.
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@ Electro Robot
Your statements about the number of Jew in Europe are totally wrong. There are 118,000 Jews in Germany alone, 50,000 more in Hungary, 30,000 in Italy, etc. The numbers aren't huge but way more than the 50-70,000 you state.
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Oh ok then
50,000 makes all the difference when 6 million were killed. Thank you for playing David Irving today.
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this business of mentioning the pope in the same breath
as antisemitism really has to stop. It is so simplistic that it can be very misleading to people who have neither the time nor the inclination to delve further into it, or to persons who already have a justifiable animus against the church. Carefully worded Al Qaeda references with Saddam Hussein by this administration in the selling of the war seems like an awfully similar rhetorical device.
For those who do have the desire and inclination, rather than parry this false claim with a hasty and inadequate reply, I would just refer anyone to read a good book recently published, "Benedict of Bavaria" by Brennan Purcell. After that, you might want to take a look at Benedict's own writings, devoid of the cutting and pasting which reduces his thoughts to the so many soundbites which plague our elections. There are also a plethora of well researched history books concerning the Church's actions in World War II. Carroll is right to urge caution on this point, just as he is right to raise questions where he sees appropriate.
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@Electro Robot.
I'm a Jew and I know precisely what happened. Up yours you disgusting bigot.
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Source
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/jewpop.html
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Projection and Authority
There are other "high profile" reflective Catholics like Carroll who have stuck with it. I give them credit and respect, the same as I do relatives who haven't said "enough".
In the end it's a personal decision in which tolerance is the key. It's petty enforcers like Donohue (I think that's his name) at the Catholic League who raise my hackles. They're like dogs that only know how to attack.
I'd have liked to know Carroll's take on celebacy and the ordination of women, though his actions speak clearly. My sympathy is with those who were abused. Pawning off the responsibility on the backs of the countries hierarchy is a cop-out.
If priests could marry and homosexuality wasn't sinning that would be taking responsibility. There could be some assurance it won't happen again. The denial builds hypocracy into the organization and into the faithful who don't know better. Watching Benedict and Bush at the White House I couldn't help shaking my head. How is it they got to the top?
What is the lesson they have to teach that isn't just propaganda?
But more than that: what is it about "us" (humanity) that projects onto them so much authority and hope when they have shown themselves to be so ruthless and insensitive?