A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair

Entering the world of the Holocuast is walking into a dark realm. I'd imagine many other students of the Shoah are like me - you dive into the study but after a while must leave it because of its pure evil. Genocide is beyond comprehension, yet it is part of human history. Throughout time, people have crushed and eliminated others - often whole villages, whole ethnic groups, whole native peoples. I believe Mark Twain once remarked, "There is not a square yard of earth in the possession of its orginal owners." The Holocaust of the 1940's stands out from this tragic fact of human life because so much of it is documented and because it is in living memory. It should never be forgotten and deserves all the scrutiny we can give it. Never again? We can only hope and pray. But to help live against genocide, it must be understood. It is a sad, sad fact that there is no correlation between being a Chirstian, and standing against the slaughter of the Jews, and the other innocents of the Holocaust. There were Christians who helped and rescued Jews. But there were far more who not only ignored it, but by virtue of their anti-Semitism also allowed for it and abetted it. This book examines the culpability of the Roman Catholic Church and the pope in those years in the Holocaust. Goldhagen's assertions are frightening and sobering. He believes the church could at least have saved some and slowed the slaughter by the questioning and criticism of Hitler's policies by the church's hierarchy. Goldhagen calls for an honest inquiry into the churches reactions to what it knew was happening to the Jews, and admission of guilt, and lastly of some restorative justice. Thus in the book's title the word "reckoning." Whatever one thinks of the the book's slant - it is doggedly accusatory and absolutely certain in assigning guilt to the Roman Catholic Church - it is a book which evokes the deepest reflection. I am a Protestant minister. I found myself deep in shame as I turned the pages of this book. No matter what else can be said, this much is certain - the church failed to reflect the love of God. And it was not only the Roman Catholic Church - Protestants also share guilt. And Christians are not only tried and found wanting for the Shoah, but for centuries of brutal anti-Semitism taht paved the way for the path of evil which was trod in this unbelievable chpater of human history. Goldhagen's book makes us who follow Christ think. To me, there is no greater irony than that the church, which says it was started by the Jew, Jesus, hates Jews - the very peope to whom Jesus came. Goldhagen paints the Bible stories of the persecution and death of Jesus Christ as a huge part of the problem. With that I patently disagree. It takes but a modicum of intelligence to understand that when the Bible says "Jews" - it means those Jewish leaders who made themselves Jesus' enemies, not all the people! For example, Jesus' own disciples were Jews - they did not

Hitler's Willing Executioners by Goldhagen caused an uproar. In Hitler and the Holocaust, Robert Wistrich does not entirely agree with him but reveals the extent to which all ordinary continental Europeans were involved, with the noble exception of particularly Bulgarians, Danes, Finns and Swedes. To an admirable degree, Italians also sabotaged the Nazi effort. Here the author addresses culpability & morality and their political & social implications through an empirical focus on the Catholic Church & clergy, not lay Catholics. Much of this analysis could be applied to Protestant churches, clergy & lay members too but this study intends to be exemplary rather than comprehensive. It also serves as a general framework on how to conduct a moral reckoning. Moral investigation is carried out in Parts 1 & 2 whilst Part 3 considers moral repair & restitution. The introduction includes critiques of Hannah Arendt's and Sartre's opinions. Starting at the source, the foundational documents of Christianity, Goldhagen mentions the absurdity of the accusation that all Jews of that time, some millions spread throughout the Mediterranean area, could be held responsible for killing Christ. Even more ludicrous is the notion that all of them, in unison, assumed such guilt, simultaneously declaring all their descendants culpable. These New Testament books contain further outrageous slanders as explored in more detail by Jules Isaac in The Teaching of Contempt & Lillian C Freudmann in Antisemitism in the New Testament. Goldhagen explores the suicidal pathology of antisemitism in Europe with its legacy of oppression, expulsion and murder. The 1st recorded instance of mass murder occurred in Alexandria in 414 whilst the First Crusade of 1096 established a pattern of periodic massacres that culminated in the Shoah/Holocaust and continued even after the end of World War II. The Reformation made little difference as Martin Luther was amongst the worst of antisemites. This record of horror was mostly absent from the history books until last century when James Carroll, Edward Flannery, David Kertzer, Franklin Littell and others started revealing the nasty secret. The attitudes & actions of Pius XI & XII are scrutinized, followed by a dissection of the defenders of Pius XII's strategies of exculpation. The evidence is plentiful & painful to read. For example, in 1937 the Vatican journal 'Civiltá Cattolica' openly discussed the annihilation of Jews. Part 2 deals with culpability, outlining the matrix of the Church's failures compared to the exemplary conduct of the Danish Lutheran Church. It proceeds with the moral reckoning predicated upon the notions that individuals are responsible for their actions, that it is proper to do so, that clear & fair criteria must be applied and that judgments must be transparent in their reasoning. The author covers various types of culpability, affirmative offenses, offenses of omission & postwar offenses. It emerge

In his controversial Hitler's Willing Executioners, Goldhagen examined the issues Who did what & Why did they do it? causing uproar by revealing the extent to which ordinary continental Europeans were involved, with the noble exception of particularly Bulgarians, Danes, Finns and Swedes. To an admirable degree, Italians also successfully sabotaged the Nazi effort. Here the author addresses culpability & morality and their political & social implications through an empirical emphasis on the Catholic Church & clergy, not lay Catholics. Much of this analysis could be applied to European Protestant churches, clergy & lay members too but this study intends to be exemplary rather than comprehensive. It also serves as a general framework on how to conduct a moral reckoning. Moral investigation is carried out in Part 1: Clarifying the Conduct & Part 2: Judging the Capability, whilst Part 3: Repairing the Harm looks at moral repair & restitution. The introduction includes critiques of Hannah Arndt's and Sartre's opinions. Starting at the source, the foundational documents of Christianity, Goldhagen mentions the absurdity of the accusation that all Jews of that time, some millions spread throughout the Mediterranean area, could be held responsible for killing Christ. Even more ludicrous is the notion that all of them, in unison, assumed such guilt, simultaneously declaring all their descendants culpable too. These New Testament books contain further outrageous slanders as explored in more detail by William Nicholls in Christian Antisemitism and Jules Isaac in The Teaching of Contempt. Goldhagen first explores the suicidal pathology of antisemitism in Europe & its legacy of oppression, expulsion and murder. The 1st recorded instance of mass murder occurred in Alexandria in 414 whilst the First Crusade of 1096 established a pattern of periodic massacres that culminated in the Shoah/Holocaust and continued even after the end of World War II. The Reformation made little difference as Martin Luther was amongst the worst of antisemites. This record of horror was mostly absent from the history books until last century when James Carroll, Edward Flannery, David Kertzer, Franklin Littell, Malcolm Hay and others started revealing the nasty secret. The attitudes & actions of Pius XI & XII are scrutinized, followed by a dissection of the defenders of Pius XII's strategies of exculpation. Then Goldhagen looks at the behavior of various countries' national Catholic churches. The evidence is plentiful & painful to read. For example, in 1937 the Vatican journal `Civiltá Cattolica' openly discussed the annihilation of Jews as an option. Part 2 deals with culpability, outlining the matrix of the Church's failures compared to the exemplary conduct of the Danish Lutheran Church. It proceeds with the moral reckoning predicated upon the notions that individuals are responsible for their actions, that it is proper to do so, that clear & fair criteria m

"A Moral Reckoning : The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair",by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, is the second best book about european antisemitism history, of all times. To know it and to not forget the birth of european historical holocaust against Israel People. A book for Low and High Schools students, I hope, in Italy too, now, in these doom times.Nicola FaccioliniJournalist TeramoItaly

The issue studied here is not new to me, but I must admit that upon picking up the book and viewing some of the photographs filled me with horror and revulsion. Seeing photographs of ranks of Roman Catholic nuns marching in unison on parade together with Nazi troops and lines of Roman Catholic priests giving the Nazi salute was a sobering experience.Here we have a penetrating investigation by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen (author of "Hitler's Willing Executioners"), into the full extent of the Catholic Church's involvement in the Nazi Holocaust which resulted in the murder of some six million innocent Jews.Goldhagen's book reveals that, despite recent professions and declarations to the contrary, the complicity of Pope Pius XII and the Roman Catholic Church was much deeper and more widespread than originally thought.The author delves into the archives and reveals how deceitful and distorted that the defence of the Catholic Church with reference to the Jews has been. Demonstrated articulately is their tainted endeavour to transmit and portray a deluded & meaningful difference between the blatant, traditional religious contempt for the Jews and the modern racial hatred for them that is used as the surrogate justification for the wholesale slaughter now part of history.The basic denigration of the Jews, a process taught, accepted & practiced by the Catholic Church, is shown to have prepared the way and indeed created a climate that facilitated the operation of the Nazi plan for Jewish genocide. The complicity of individuals and groups within the Church is examined together with the unfulfilled duty of reparation and reconciliation which is part and parcel of the Catholic Church's own doctrine.This is a very disturbing, yet necessary book on this subject. Unless the Catholic Church, indeed the whole Christian faith itself, comes to terms with it's inherent, historic anti-Semitism and utterly renounces, condemns and repents of this outrage, then the Jewish people will continue to hold suspicions and fears about the real and true agendas of the Church in these latter days. The repugnant doctrine of replacement theology needs to be cast aside for the lie that it is and the Jewish roots of Christianity need to be embraced firmly and passionately. It has been too easily forgotten that Jesus Christ Himself was a Jew and that the very founders of the Christian faith, indeed all the members of the early Church, were themselves Jews.Might I respectfully suggest some further reading those with an interest in this subject, in highlighting three other books;-"The Popes Against The Jews" by David Kertzer,"The Anguish Of The Jews" by Edward H. Flannery & "Hitler's Cross: The Revealing Story of How the Cross of Christ Was Used As a Symbol of the Nazi Agenda" by Erwin Lutzer.