The resignation of Pope Benedict XVI elicited all sorts of praise of his papacy from
Jewish community leaders; the election of Pope Francis and his subsequent
meetings with Jewish leaders equal declarations of hope for a bright
future for Catholic-Jewish relations.
But the focus on the Catholic Church at a time of transition also raises
serious, time-sensitive questions for Jews. Specifically, why won’t the
Vatican open its archives that cover the years of the Shoah and its
immediate aftermath? It’s not only the wartime and post-war record of
Pius XII and the Vatican that we should be concerned with, we still don't
know what happened to hundreds, maybe thousands of children left for
safekeeping in monasteries, convents, and Catholic homes whose parents and
other relatives never came back to retrieve them at war's end.
What is the Vatican hiding?
Not only was the Vatican complicit in the mass murder of European Jews,
but their policies saw to it that there would be fewer Jews in surviving
generations by making sure at least some became and remained Catholic.
It's not as though the Church doesn't have a long history of baptizing
Jewish children and keeping them. Indeed documents have come to light in
recent years indicating that this practice continued during, and after the
Shoah.
This is what makes the Jewish accolades showered upon Benedict XVI and his
post-Shoah predecessors, including the much admired John XXIII, so
troubling. Regardless of what any of these men did to better
Catholic-Jewish relations, and I don't deny they are better because of
those efforts, there are still critical unanswered questions.
The Vatican has the answers, but they won’t give them to us. This renders
olive branches to the Jews by post-Shoah popes virtually meaningless.
Why is this issue so noticeably absent from Jewish praise of these and
previous popes? Why the reluctance to push the issue? Why do we permit
the Catholic Church to have any control at all over our lives? We are
past the era when we lived at the sufferance of the Church. Yet we
continue to behave as though little has changed.
There is some evidence that Pope Francis thinks the archives should be
open, but we cannot afford to be silent. Our leaders must demand the
archives be opened and that the Vatican immediately be forthcoming with
the names and birthplaces of the children who were given to them for
safekeeping during World War II.
Their families deserve the comfort of closure in their remaining years and
time is running out.
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Jewish community leaders; the election of Pope Francis and his subsequent
meetings with Jewish leaders equal declarations of hope for a bright
future for Catholic-Jewish relations.
But the focus on the Catholic Church at a time of transition also raises
serious, time-sensitive questions for Jews. Specifically, why won’t the
Vatican open its archives that cover the years of the Shoah and its
immediate aftermath? It’s not only the wartime and post-war record of
Pius XII and the Vatican that we should be concerned with, we still don't
know what happened to hundreds, maybe thousands of children left for
safekeeping in monasteries, convents, and Catholic homes whose parents and
other relatives never came back to retrieve them at war's end.
What is the Vatican hiding?
Not only was the Vatican complicit in the mass murder of European Jews,
but their policies saw to it that there would be fewer Jews in surviving
generations by making sure at least some became and remained Catholic.
It's not as though the Church doesn't have a long history of baptizing
Jewish children and keeping them. Indeed documents have come to light in
recent years indicating that this practice continued during, and after the
Shoah.
This is what makes the Jewish accolades showered upon Benedict XVI and his
post-Shoah predecessors, including the much admired John XXIII, so
troubling. Regardless of what any of these men did to better
Catholic-Jewish relations, and I don't deny they are better because of
those efforts, there are still critical unanswered questions.
The Vatican has the answers, but they won’t give them to us. This renders
olive branches to the Jews by post-Shoah popes virtually meaningless.
Why is this issue so noticeably absent from Jewish praise of these and
previous popes? Why the reluctance to push the issue? Why do we permit
the Catholic Church to have any control at all over our lives? We are
past the era when we lived at the sufferance of the Church. Yet we
continue to behave as though little has changed.
There is some evidence that Pope Francis thinks the archives should be
open, but we cannot afford to be silent. Our leaders must demand the
archives be opened and that the Vatican immediately be forthcoming with
the names and birthplaces of the children who were given to them for
safekeeping during World War II.
Their families deserve the comfort of closure in their remaining years and
time is running out.
Read More