Blood Libel: Christians Responsible for Holocausts
As millions of Americans consider whether Mel Gibson’s latest film, The Passion, is anti-Semitic for spreading the “blood libel” that the Jews are responsible for murdering Jesus, we believe that it may be time for the world’s Christian community to accept responsibility for the death of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust 60 years ago.
For example, consider the following evidence against the Catholic Church.
1. Although informed of the massive Nazi attacks of synagogues and Jewish business in on Kristallnacht 1938-NOV, Pope Pius XII issued no public criticism.
2. Although informed during 1940 to 1943 of Nazi atrocities in at least Austria, Lithuania, Poland, Spain, and the Ukraine, (including deportations to death camps) he made no public comments.
3. Pope Pius XII never explicitly spoke out against Hitler until the war was over, condemning Hitler in a speech to the College of Cardinals one month after the war ended.
4. He refused to join a resolution of the Allies condemning the Nazi crimes.
5. He never excommunicated any Nazi, although he did excommunicate some German Catholics who supported cremation as an alternative to burial.
6. He never declared it a sin for Catholics to participate in the slaughter.
7. In 1941 when asked about proposed anti-Jewish laws in Vichy France, Pius XII answered that the church condemned racism, but did not repudiate every rule against the Jews. (source)
The Protestant community can also be held accountable for the following reasons:
“Catholics and Protestants at first embraced the new German order. Germany was regaining international prestige, the economy improving thanks to growing overseas support.36 Industrialists like Henry Ford invested heavily in the new Reich. German Christians also looked to the Nazis for a revival of “Christian” values to help counter the rise of nontheism. Most welcomed the Nazis’ elimination of chronic public strife by terrorizing, imprisoning, and killing the fast-shrinking German Left. The leftists had long been despised by traditionalists, who composed four fifths of the population. The state purged a far higher proportion of atheists than traditional Christians. In newspapers and newsreels the Nazis proudly publicized their new concentration camps. Reports sanitized the camps’ true nature, but no one could mistake that they were part of a new police state—to which most German followers of Jesus raised no objection. The very high rate of “legal” executions reported in the press also met with mass indifference or positive approval.
Far from being hapless victims, the great bulk of German Christians joined, eagerly supported, collaborated with, or accommodated to a greater or lesser degree, the new tyranny.” (source)
If Christian zealots are putting up signs that say this…
Maybe Jews should consider making a movie about Pope Pius XII.
We support the right of Mel Gibson to make his movie, but we also support the right of Jews to make a movie in response. For if Jews are indeed responsible for the Passion, then by that line of reasoning the Christians bear responsibility for the Holocaust.
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