The Holocaust, Vatican II, and the Crisis in the Catholic Church



Rabbi Heschel and Cardinal Bea look at a Yiddish newspaper in the offices of the American Jewish Committee in 1963.

Quote:“Now that the Ecumenical Council is coming to an end and the declaration on relations with the Jewish people has been approved with such a resounding majority, I feel the need to express to you both personally and in the name of the organizations I represent our gratitude for the wise yet also courageous manner in which you and your secretariat have brought this far-from-easy declaration to success. I am sure that Your Eminence knows that we are not happy about several changes in respect to the previous draft, but in this sinful world nobody ever gets everything he wants . . .” (p. 524)

Quote:“How ironic that the primary catalyst in connection with the reorientation of the Catholic Church's attitudes toward Jews and Judaism should have been a Jew. Having lost his wife, daughter and son-in-law in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, septuagenarian French Jewish historian Jules Isaac emerged from the Second World War to wage a single-handed campaign, in words and in deeds, for the rectification of Roman Catholic teachings about Jews and Judaism, contemptuous teachings, argued Isaac, that over-reached the bounds of scriptural and historical accuracy, contemptuous teachings, contended Isaac, that had sustained and nourished other varieties of anti-semitism for nearly two millennia. We now know that it did not occur to John XXIII to add to the agenda of Vatican II the relationship between the Church and the Jews until one week after the close of the pre-preparatory phase of Vatican II when John XXIII met one-on-one with Jules Isaac.”

Quote:“I then explained my request regarding [Christian] teaching and its historical grounding. But how, in a few minutes, could I explain this spiritual ghetto in which the Church had ultimately confined old Israel — along with the physical ghetto? I described the bookends which sandwiched the Christian epoch, at one end a pagan antisemitism, incoherent and preposterous in its accusations and at the other end, racial antisemitism, Hitlerian, the most virulent of our day, though no less incoherent and preposterous. But between the two, the only variety [of antisemitism] that was coherent and by which one could be taken in, is that which has engendered a certain Christian theology, by force of circumstances, since the Jewish negation constituted the primary impediment to Christian proselytizing in the gentile world.” (p. 187)

Quote:“‘Freemasons, what do you want? What do you ask of us?’ Such is the question that Cardinal Bea went to ask the B’nai B’rith before the beginning of the Council. The interview was announced by all the papers of New York, where it took place. And the Freemasons answered that what they wanted was ‘religious liberty!’ — that is to say, all the religions put on the same footing. The Church must no longer be called the only true religion, the sole path of salvation, the only one accepted by the State. Let us finish with these inadmissible privileges. And so, declare religious liberty. Well, they got it: it was Dignitatis humanae.” (p. 214)

Quote:“In March 1964 a B'nai B'rith delegation of three met with Pope Paul VI and communicated the ‘profound interest’ of the Jewish community in the proposed declaration on religious freedom and Catholic-Jewish relations.”

Quote:“There were prelates indifferent to the Jewish question, but strongly opposed to the statement on religious liberty for fear it would be used to undermine the authority of the church and encourage indifferentism or Communism. The ultra-conservatives were opposed to both.”

Quote:“Thus, it is our sincere hope that the Ecumenical Council would acknowledge the integrity and permanent preciousness of Jews and Judaism.”

Quote:“Another difficulty I have often encountered in contacts with Jews is the fear that our only desire is to ‘convert’ them — a word which all too often brings back very painful memories, and that whatever the Church does is ultimately directed to this hidden purpose. And by ‘convert’ is understood, if not use of actual force and pressure, at least the intention of seducing men by subtle argument and astute manipulation to betray their own conscience. However, on this count also the Church has nothing to hide. In the conciliar document she explicitly and openly declares that it is both her duty and her desire to preach Christ who is ‘the way, the truth and the life,’ in whom God has reconciled all things to himself. From the beginning it is pointed out that the aim of the document is to investigate all that men have in common and which encourages them to live together and fulfill their common destiny; not, therefore, to dwell upon what divides and differentiates them.” (pp. 19-20)

Quote:“In addition, in the conciliar document on religious liberty, the Church solemnly declares as her own teaching the duty and the right of every man to pursue truth and justice according to the dictates of his own conscience, unimpeded and untrammeled. In the Declaration with which this commentary deals, she exhorts her own members to recognize, preserve and promote whatever is spiritually, morally, socially or culturally valuable in different religions from their own.” (p. 20)

Quote:“‘Passages in the New Testament say that those who believe and are baptized will be saved, and those who refuse to believe will be damned. Some passages also say that the hard-heartedness of the Jews leaves them in darkness, deserted by God,’ according to Catholic theologian Gregory Baum, another of those who drafted Nostra aetate (No. 4). ‘They say that salvation is in Jesus and in no other name, and that the Gospel is the single offer of redemption for the sinful world. (Of course, there are also passages with a different message.) On the basis of the exclusivist biblical texts, the Church began to teach extra ecclesiam nulla salus,’ (outside the Church there is no salvation.) After the Holocaust, the Church, recognizing, not without shame, the cultural impact of its anti-Jewish discourse and the implications this discourse had in legitimizing antisemitism, was to read Paul’s letter to the Romans in a new way.” (p. xviii)

Quote:“He wrote that he considered resigning from the priesthood but did not go through with the formality. He later married a divorced ex-nun who he says ‘did not mind that, when we moved to Montreal in 1986, I met Normand, a former priest, with whom I fell in love.’”

Quote:“For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul? For the Son of man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels: and then will He render to every man according to his works.” (Matthew 16: 26-27)

The Last Letter of Garcia Moreno



Gabriel Garcia Moreno 1821-1875

Garcia Moreno signs the Concordat between Pope Pius IX & the Republic of Ecuador, 1862

Quote:“Senators and Representatives. Of all the great gifts which God has vouchsafed our Republic from the inexhaustible treasure of His mercy, I consider that the greatest is to see you reunited, through His protecting support, beneath the shadow of the peace that He grants to us and preserves in us, although we are nothing, capable of nothing, and know not how to reply to His paternal goodness except by an inexcusable and shameful ingratitude.

Carrying a large cross down the streets of Quito during Holy Week

“But a few years ago, Ecuador was daily experiencing those sad words, first uttered by the ‘liberator’ Bolivar in his last message to the Congress of 1830: 'I blush to confess it, independence is the only good we have acquired, and that at the cost of every other.'

“Since that time, however, placing all our hope in God, we have distanced ourselves from the torrent of impiety and apostasy that storms the world in this age of errors, and today have reorganized into a truly Catholic nation. And we see that everything has turned out to the good and prosperity of our dear country.

“Ecuador was a corpse, from which life had fled; like a carcass it laid, preyed upon by the multitude of horrible insects that liberty or putrefaction was continually breeding in the darkness of the sepulchre. But today, at the command of that supreme Voice which bade Lazarus rise from his fetid tomb, our country also has returned to life, though it still retains the bands and winding-sheet of death, that is, the remains or the wretchedness and corruption in which we were buried.

“To prove the truth of my words, I need but give a brief account or the advances made by us in the two last years, just as I find them recorded in greater detail in the documents and particular reports of each minister. And in order to ascertain more exactly how far we have proceeded during this period of regeneration, I shall compare the present state of affairs with the one from which we took our start; not, indeed, with a view to our own praise, but in order to glorify Him to whom we owe all, and whom we adore as our Redeemer and Father, as our Protector and God.” (Here follows an enumeration or all the advantages obtained, which he summarizes).

Garcia Moreno with Jesuits, whom he returned to the country after they were expelled by a previous Masonic government

“To the full liberty which the Church possesses among us and to the apostolic zeal of our virtuous pastors are due the reform of the clergy, the improvement in morals and the diminution of crime, which is so striking that in a population of more than one million, there is not to be found a sufficient number of criminals to people our penitentiary.

“To the Church again are we obliged for those religious congregations that produce such an abundance of good fruits by the instruction they give to children and youth, and the help they extend towards the sick and abandoned. We are their debtors for the renewal of the religious spirit in this year of jubilee and sanctification, and for the conversion of 9,000 savages on our eastern province to a Christian and civilized life.

“On account of the vast tract of country there is urgent need in this province of a second Vicariate. If you authorize me to treat this matter with the Holy See, I will see to its establishment. I intend, moreover, to further its commerce by rooting out the speculations and violent exactions to which the poor inhabitants have long been subject on the part of inhuman traders. Yet laborers are wanting; and, to form these, we must yearly come to the aid of our venerable and most zealous Archbishop in the building of a large seminary, which he has not hesitated to commence, relying on the protection of Heaven and our own efficacious cooperation.

“Do not lose sight of the fact that our small successes would be short-lived and useless had we not founded the social order of our Republic on the ever-assailed and ever-victorious rock of the Catholic Church. Her divine teaching, which neither individuals nor nations can reject without losing themselves, is the rule of our institutions and the law of our legislation.

“As faithful and docile children of that venerable, august and infallible Pontiff, whom all the powers of earth have abandoned as a vile and cowardly impiety besets him, we have continued to send him every month our small pecuniary succor, set aside by you for him in 1863. Since our want of strength obliges us to remain passive spectators of his slow martyrdom, may this poor gift be at least a proof of our good will and affection, and a pledge to him of our obedience and fidelity.

“In a few days my present term of office will expire. The Republic has enjoyed six years of peace, interrupted only by a momentary rising in 1879 of the natives of Riobamba against the white population. During these six years we have marched forward with rapid strides on the way to true progress under the visible protection of Providence. The results would certainly have been far more magnificent had I possessed the qualities for governing, which unfortunately I lack, or endeavored to be more fervent about the accomplishment of good.

“If I have committed defects, I ask your pardon a thousand times, and with sincere sorrow do I implore forgiveness of all my fellow-citizens, being persuaded that my will had no part in them. If, however, you think that I have succeeded in anything, attribute it to God first and to the Immaculate Dispensatrix of the inexhaustible treasures of His mercy, and next to yourselves, the people, the army, and to all who have assisted me with their advice and fidelity in the fulfillment of my arduous duties.

Signed, Gabriel Garcia Moreno
Quito, August 1865

The Catacombs is gratefully sharing The Catholic Trumpet's revisiting and summarizing of Sean Johnson's Catalog of Compromise, Change, and Contradiction in the SSPX, first written in 2019: