Article

2011-03-04 Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Pope lifts blame from Jews for Christs death

[Ma'an] Pope Benedict XVI exonerates the Jewish people as a whole from responsibility for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in a new book due to be published this month, prompting praise from Jewish groups.
Again? How many times does the Church have to do this? Don't they have pencils and paper so they can remember from one day to the next?
The pope wrote that the condemnations of Jesus Christ came from the "aristocracy of the temple" in Jerusalem and from the "masses" who acclaimed Barabbas instead of Jesus -- not from "the Jewish people as a whole".
Oh. Well. Glad he straightened that out.
Extracts from the book, the second volume of a biography of Jesus Christ, were published by the Vatican's official Osservatore Romano daily on Thursday.
I thought there were already four biographies of Christ?
The World Jewish Congress in a statement praised the pope "for unequivocally rejecting the argument that the Jewish people can be held responsible." Congress head Ronald Lauder said: "2,000 years after the event it really was high time that the head of the Catholic Church made a clear statement on this.
I thought they did that in the 1960s? Remember? John XXIII? Or did I dream the whole thing?
"It sets an important marker against anti-Semitism in the Church," he said.
Perhaps it should be designated a sin...

"Jews suffered from brutal persecution and anti-Semitism because Christians held them collectively responsible for the killing of Jesus Christ, even though he was himself a Jew and was crucified by the Roman rulers," he added.
The Church fathers were Jews as well. It took a little time to come around to the idea that anybody could join, rather than the Church being an hereditary club...
Marco Politi, a Vatican expert at Italian daily Il Fatto,
That'd be Il Fatto Quotidiano, I think, which is "The Daily Fact," not "The Fat Newspaper."
said the pope's words were "a positive signal for the Jewish people, showing that Benedict XVI absolutely does not consider the gospels as a basis for any anti-Judaism."
I don't think anybody's ever found a basis for it in the gospels. I think it comes from the darker reaches of the heart, which then does a little sophist juggling to get the conclusion it wants from the documentation available.
Tensions between Judaism and Catholicism have been high for centuries because of Catholic blame of the Jews for Christ's death.
There's no Protestant pope, so Lutherans and Methodists and such are free to continue sneering. And there's no Moslem pope, so they're free to continue chasing Jews out of their countries after raping their daughters and the occasional son.
A Vatican Council in the 1960s that exonerated the Jews failed to end tensions, which have resurfaced in recent years under Benedict's papacy.
I guess they might have forgotten to write it down, so everybody forgot but me. I was sober at the time...
In 2007, the pope reinstated a "prayer for the conversion of Jews."
Praying for their conversion's not the same thing as anti-Semitism. The Jews are perfectly free to pray that God opens the eyes of the Gentiles and we all get the snip and start wearing hats. The Moslems will, of course, continue to pray to their god to kill us all, so this little kerfuffle seems pretty minor in comparison.

Posted by Fred 2011-03-04 00:00|| || Front Page|| [7 views ] Top

#1 Makes my day.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2011-03-04 01:33|| 2011-03-04 01:33|| Front Page Top

#2 The reporting on this has been horribly inaccurate. Pope Benedict simply reiterated the 1965 document and explained the reasoning behind each point in the original decision.

This "exoneration" does not break any new ground and simply reiterates the doctrine that has already been in place for many decades.

Al

Posted by Frozen Al 2011-03-04 11:30|| 2011-03-04 11:30|| Front Page Top

#3 Jesus's life and death were pre-ordained by a higher power than men & women and anti-semites (and Helen Thomas, but I repeat myself). If you are a Christian, you believe they may have played a minor local power-play role in the setting, but were nothing in the big picture. This is tiresome sh*t

Posted by Frank G 2011-03-04 21:45|| 2011-03-04 21:45|| Front Page Top

#4 I've never gotten the whole Joooos-killed-Jesus schtick.

The Italians killed him. (Well, the Romans, but Rome has always been in Italy.) Then the church proceeded to have Italian Popes for a couple of thousand years, so they obviously weren't too bothered by it.

Anyway, Christians couldn't be saved if Jesus hadn't died and risen again, so where's the beef?

Posted by Barbara Skolaut 2011-03-04 23:18|| 2011-03-04 23:18|| Front Page Top

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