Amid the anguished commemorations of the events of last Oct. 7, Pope Francis issued a letter to Catholics in the Middle East. It lamented the “the fuse of hatred” lit a year ago and urged his followers in the region to “defeat our one true enemy: the spirit of evil that foments war, because it is ’murderous from the beginning,’ and ‘a liar and the father of lies.’”
Most people would perceive those words as anodyne, even praiseworthy. But anyone familiar with the New Testament book of John knows these are words that for centuries have demonized Jews, and have been used as a pretext for attacking them. The Vatican needs to issue a clarification, if not outright apology, for implying the antisemitic sentiment.
Why? Well, first, some background.
It’s a gross understatement to say the Catholic Church has come a long way with regard to its attitude toward the Jewish people. Early Church figures like St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. John Chrysostom were rabidly anti-Jewish. The former called Jews “companions of the devil” and a “race of vipers.” The latter characterized Jews as “no better than hogs and goats.”
The Middle Ages saw a steady stream of violence against Jews by Christians. Across Western Europe were blood libels, forced conversions, anti-Jewish laws, expulsions — not to mention the Crusades.
In pre-World War II Europe, Christian Jew-hatred flourished as well. My late father recounted that, when he was a boy in a Polish town, all the local Jews knew to stay indoors on Easter, when he would peer through a window as local non-Jews marched with torches and sticks, chanting about “Christ killers.”
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But, mere decades later, a sea change took place.
In 1960, Pope John XXIII ordered that the Latin adjective perfidis referring to Jews be removed from church rituals. Two years later, he opened the Second Vatican Council, which closed under his successor Pope Paul VI. The Council issued the declaration Nostra aetate – “In our time” – which condemned antisemitism and recognized what it characterized as the shared heritage of Jews and Christians.
Subsequent years saw continually improving relations between the Vatican – and, consequently, the Catholic laity – and Jews. Jewish leaders, even among the Orthodox community, cultivated healthy personal relations with Catholic prelates, and even worked together with Catholic groups regarding issues of mutual interest.
While theological dialogue between Christians and Jews was largely shunned by Orthodox Jews, the late Cardinal John O’Connor and the late Agudath Israel leader Rabbi Moshe Sherer were famously close.
Which brings us back to the current Pope’s use of the phrases “murderous from the beginning” and “a liar and the father of lies.”
They come from John 8:44 , and their context is an address Jesus aims at the Jews who rejected him. The New American Bible translation of his words:
“You belong to your father the devil, and you willingly carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks in character, because he is a liar and the father of lies.”
Make no mistake. This passage has been weaponized against Jews. Children’s literature in Nazi Germany cited John 8:44 to justify the Reich’s hatred of Jews. Robert Bowers, the gunman who murdered 11 worshippers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life congregation, used a rewording of the passage as an introduction to his Gab profile.
Although Francis issued his letter on Oct. 7 this year, he did not refer to what actually happened on that date: A massacre of Jews of an even greater order than most Middle Ages or pre-war pogroms. And he only referenced “the people of Gaza” as being in his daily prayers, not the people of Israel.
The pontiff is, of course, entitled to call the shots in the Middle East as he sees them, even to criticize Israel if he chooses to see its determination to destroy the forces pledged to its own destruction as somehow wrong.
But if he chooses to use words that – apologists for John’s harsh language notwithstanding – impugn Jews qua Jews, that is another, disturbing, matter.
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More disturbing still is the subsequent silence of Vatican officials, spokesmen and prelates regarding the papal invocation of those ugly phrases.
The real-world implications of what could reasonably be seen as a lamentable step backward in Christian-Jewish relations will probably be minor, if perceptible at all. The Catholic laity and the Jewish community have enjoyed cordial relations for too long to be upset by a pope’s subtle allegation of Jewish perfidy.
But for Jews who don’t mistake subtlety as insignificance, our historical memory is long and fraught.
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