What are you currently reading?

[Bernadette]

I understand where you're coming from now, Bernadette.  You are taking, more or less, the "John Paul II stance." 
I would rather the stance didn't carry the unpleasant connotation that so many people seem to give it. Especially when that connotation is connected so...immediately with my name. People are often unable to make fine distinctions in things like this, as I think has been evident over the forum and in the world at large.

Essentially you are saying that the thread of hostility, distrust, and hatred aimed at the Jews by the Church was a gross collective error, full of unwarranted excess and unvirtuous prejudice. 

Yes. This approach seems reasonable and logical to me. 

One wonders whether the other side has a point, though, when they say that maybe an isolated incident or two could be excused as an aberration.  But when they notice that the attitude was hallowed by time and nearly ubiquitous, they are wont to question whether this is something that can or ought to be disowned in a single latter-day swoop—in much the same way, basically, that Vatican II equivocated on certain "uncomfortable" theological points. 
This is why it's so important to distinguish between virtue and vice, (objective) and their packages (subjective). It's logical thinking and conclusions, in a nutshell.  And it's a mistake to think that time hallows, of itself. One needs to examine whether the subject (a particular action/practice) is objectively good: if it is, then the amount of time spent doing it is spent reinforcing virtue, the highest good that man is capable of in this world, and is a positive influence. If it isn't, then the time spent doing it is spent reinforcing vice and imperfection, and becomes a negative influence.

What they are saying, to be fair, is that the traditional Catholic attitude toward the Jews is the traditional Catholic attitude.
Then that's where they're wrong. Things aren't good, of themselves, just because they've been done for a long time. That's a common error, and is dangerous for the very reason that it lends itself to conclusions like the one that these people come to. Not everything is Catholic because it's traditional: Catholicism can only be fundamentally tied to objective good. Because of its very essence as a Divine institution/teaching.

[Mono no aware]

I understand where you're coming from now, Bernadette.  You are taking, more or less, the "John Paul II stance."

I would rather the stance didn't carry the unpleasant connotation that so many people seem to give it. Especially when that connotation is connected so...immediately with my name.

That's a fair point.  I only decided to call it that because JP2 was the one who issued the official apology, so in that sense he stands in personally for all those who agree with him.  But I concede that his name would tend to taint it on a traditional Catholic forum.  I hesitate to call it the "philo-semitic* stance" (as that seems to overstate the case), but I'll try to think of an alternative the next time I refer to it.

What they are saying, to be fair, is that the traditional Catholic attitude toward the Jews is the traditional Catholic attitude.

Then that's where they're wrong. Things aren't good, of themselves, just because they've been done for a long time. That's a common error, and is dangerous for the very reason that it lends itself to conclusions like the one that these people come to. Not everything is Catholic because it's traditional: Catholicism can only be fundamentally tied to objective good. Because of its very essence as a Divine institution/teaching.

Hmm.  I don't think anyone is claiming that merely being "hallowed by time" is a sufficient justification for anything.  That's why I included examples of the attitude being hallowed by the institutional Church itself: in official decrees by popes, in ecclesial artwork, and in the Roman martyrology.  But perhaps I should've been more specific.  The charter for the attitude is contained in the New Testament itself, in places such as when the Jews are perpetually accursed of their own accord at Jesus' sentencing by Pilate (Matthew 27:24-25), and where Christ refers to them as children of Satan (John 8:44).  I apologize for the earlier omission; these passages are notorious enough that I took it for granted they were already in evidence. 

Now these are just words, of course, and they can be taken in a variety of ways, but the salient point is that the Church Fathers who did do exegesis on them were inclined to take them straight.  I believe St. John Chrysostom's commentary was the most influential.  I remember taking a "bible study" course at a Novus Ordo parish many years ago, and this topic was covered in the course material.  I seem to recall that they claimed St. John, when he used the term "the Jews," had actually meant "Judaizers"—indicating early Christian heretics who believed the Old Testament law was still in force.  I'm not sure this holds up, though.  I asked why St. John hadn't just used the word "Judaizer."  It seems absurd that he would've used a word denoting a community outside Christianity to refer to a certain strain of Christian.  (I don't remember getting a good answer).

So the issue is not just that Catholics had this attitude for a long time, independently of anything Catholic, but rather that the attitude itself was already bound up intrinsically with the Catholic religion.  It would be easy to condemn it otherwise.  But if you come at the issue after two thousand years, as JP2 did, and say "I find this whole history to have been in the wrong," then the problem is that you call into question aspects of the religion itself.  It's a position that essentially says there's some objective moral position outside of Christianity by which past Christians can be judged, even when they were appealing to the bible, the Church Fathers, the popes, &c. 

I think you will find some pushback against your position for this reason.  It's not like the custom of cat-burning in France, for example, which was something that Catholics did and even became a tradition for a time.  But there was nothing in the bible that said "cats are the familiars of the devil, let them be accursed," nor were there any staunchly anti-feline Church Fathers, nor popes who ordered their burning†.  It was something you could condemn out of hand, and you wouldn't have to worry about contradicting anything that was already tied into the Catholic religion.  Hopefully this illustrates the difference in the situations.


* Which reminds me, since this a book thread, of an interesting-looking essay about my favorite author, Vladimir Nabokov: Nabokov's Minyan: A Study in Philo-Semitism.  Unfortunately the site tells me "you must be logged in through an institution that subscribes to this journal or book to access the full text."  It's a shot in the dark, but if anyone reading this piece of minutiae has a Project Muse login that I could use, please let me know.

† With the possible exception of the (likely apocryphal) bull Vox in Rama, issued by Pope Gregory IX.  "Some historians have claimed that Vox in Rama is the first official church document that condemns the black cat as an incarnation of Satan.  In the bull the cat is addressed as 'master' and the incarnate devil is half-man half-feline in nature. Engels claims that Vox in Rama was 'a death warrant for the animal, which would be continued to be slaughtered without mercy until the early 19th century.' It is said that very few all-black cats survive in western Europe as a result."

[Bernadette]

Well, I've said my say, and that's about all I have to say on it, at least at the moment. I've got considerably bigger (and more important, both personally and spiritually to me) fish to fry.  My mind has already moved onto more...nutritious pastures, in which to stop, dwell, and repose while nourishing itself. Like a sheep. Baaa. I love how the mind and soul are so intimately connected. Isn't it wonderful?

[Hat And Beard]

I mean, do Jews not dominate the media and entertainment industry?  Is it somehow "anti Semitic" to point out their gross over representation in these positions? 

I keep reading that we have too many white males in varying industries.  No one ever is permitted to say we have too many Jews leading corporations, etc, though.  If you do, as you said yourself, you're just a short skip away from hook noses, and so on and so forth.  Why is that?  What makes the Jews so special as to be immune from any and all criticism, much less notice/attention?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

If the people who gain positions of influence and responsibility, gain them unjustly, then hate the injustice. Why go any further?

Maybe they're getting the positions from Jewish privilege?

I don't think this forum can call them out on it. If you look at the Jobs subforum, there are many places where someone wants to hire a Catholic for the position at their company.

[Mono no aware]

That sounds delightful for you, Bernadette.  And if you ever want to come back to the subject, I'm sure there will be no shortage of pertinent threads on this forum in the future on which we can return to it (and more pertinent threads, certainly, than "What are you currently reading?").

[Graham]

I've been listening to Mein Kampf and The Turner Diaries on audiobook during REM sleep.

[MilesChristi]

I've been listening to Mein Kampf and The Turner Diaries on audiobook during REM sleep.

Have you started to find sandwiches in the oddest of places?

[Mono no aware]

I've been listening to Mein Kampf and The Turner Diaries on audiobook during REM sleep.

[martin88nyc]

Just picked up 3 books, 1$ each, at my local book store.
The death of Ivan Ilyich by tolstoy and two titles by Greene.
Good deal huh

[MARCH]

The Art of Loving God by St. Frances De Sales
Deliverance Prayers by Fr. Chad Ripperger
Divine Intimacy by Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D.
Spirit of Penance - Path to God by Dom Hubert Van Zeller
A Doctor at Calvary by Pierre Barbet, M.D.

It's no wonder I don't get any housework done! 

[maryslittlegarden]

The Art of Loving God by St. Frances De Sales
Deliverance Prayers by Fr. Chad Ripperger
Divine Intimacy by Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D.
Spirit of Penance - Path to God by Dom Hubert Van Zeller
A Doctor at Calvary by Pierre Barbet, M.D.

It's no wonder I don't get any housework done! 

Good selection

[LausTibiChriste]

[Prayerful]

Still with Sinu Jesu but got The War of Spanish Succession, 1701-14 for 99c also Tommy Robinson, and his best selling Enemy of the State, who recounts standing up to radical Islam has earned continual police/leftist harassment.

[red solo cup]

The Shadow of His Wings: The True Story of Fr. Gereon Goldman OFM. As a seminary student Goldman was drafted into the SS. He was openly anti-Nazi and a couple of times came within hours of being executed. He would attend Mass in his SS uniform and jaws would drop. A man of extraordinary courage.

[LausTibiChriste]

Still with Sinu Jesu but got The War of Spanish Succession, 1701-14 for 99c also Tommy Robinson, and his best selling Enemy of the State, who recounts standing up to radical Islam has earned continual police/leftist harassment.

In Sinu Jesu is amazing.