The Vatican and the Holocaust

On March 16, the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews released a long-awaited statement, “We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah,” examining the Catholic Church and the Holocaust. Well, not exactly the the Catholic church, as Lenny Bruce used to say. For the Vatican statement very carefully distanced “the church as such,” from the sins of her sons and daughters; yes, Catholics have sinned, but the Catholic Church is sinless. This theological distinction is lost on most non-Catholics, but it is hotly contested territory within the church. The statement also defined anti-Semitism as a modern and pagan phenomenon distinct from anti-Judaism—Christian theological objections to Judaism that go back to the f...