Enabling the Holocaust - Constantine's Sword

(Pope Benedict XVI at Auschwitz) Once a Catholic priest, author James Carroll's faith in authority was broken by the Vietnam War. He left the church and began a rigorous study of the history of the relationship between Christianity and Judaism, distinguishing an extraordinary story that deepens the understanding of the forces that made the seemingly incomprehensible Holocaust comprehensible.

(Constantine) Prior to 342, Christianity used many of the life affirming symbols including the fish, peacock, Chi-Rho, and other pagan like symbols. They didn't use the crucifix. That changed when Roman leader Constantine I had a vision of the cross on the eve of battle. The vision inspired him to victory, converted him to Christianity, and with his consolidation of power, cemented the establishment of the Catholic Church at the root of power. The Cross, the Roman instrument of execution, became the central image of the religion, and it had a byproduct, antisemitism and an increase in the emphasis of the false assertion that Jews were responsible for the execution of Christ. Many still believe this. Mel Gibson (who has been caught making anti-semitic statements) presents this view in his film The Passion of the Christ.

Skipping how this assertion was born (see the history of New Testament), it persisted, and the crusades made sure Jewish towns and villages were included on the list of those to be slaughtered and burned. Seeking to legitimize their new religion with conversions, Christians were outraged with the Jews, God's chosen insiders most ripe for inclusion into the new religion, that remained content with their given Judaism. Bad turned dramatically to worse when reformer Martin Luther poured fuel onto the "Jews killed Jesus" fire. A respectable high school education covers Luther's famous posting of the 95 Theses at a Wittenburg church in 1517, the development that gave birth to Protestantism. However, high school kids are not taught about Luther's rabid hatred of the Jews. Evidence exists that Luther initially had no hostile sentiments, but like his Christian predecessors of 50-200 AD, he grew outraged when Jews did not embrace his Protestantism. Furious, in 1543 Luther published On the Jews and their Lies. Consider the sentiments behind what happened in Rome 12 years later.

1. Jews are to own no real estate.
2. Jews are to attend no Christian university.
3. Jews are to hire no Christian servants.
4. Jews' mercantile roles are to be strictly regulated.
5. Jews taxes are to be increased.
6. Jews are no longer to ignore the ancient requirement to wear distinction clothing and badges.
7. Jews are to refuse to be addressed as "sir" by Christians.
8. Jews are to live on a single street, or in a distinctive quarter cut off from other sections of the town or city. This quarter is to have only one entrance.

Cum Nimis Absurdum Pope Paul IV, July 1555.

Rome created a ghetto for Jews in 1555, 400 years before the Nazis created the infamous ghetto in Warsaw. Why? What remains insufficiently distinguished is the profound role Christianity played in establishing the precedents necessary to enable the Holocaust. In 1933, Edith Stein, the brilliant German Jewish philosopher who converted to Christianity and became a nun, wrote Pope Pius XII a letter warning of the brutal anti-Semitism of the Nazis and the impending violence. All of her predictions came true (and then some). The Pope never responded to her letter. Stein fled Germany, but was arrested in the Netherlands and killed at Auschwitz in 1942.

In March 2000, Pope John Paul II made a truly momentous visit to Jerusalem, visiting the Wailing Wall and submitting a published letter into one of its crevices.

In May 2009, Pope Benedict XVI visited Israel and gave an address acknowledging the Holocaust where "Jews were exterminated under a godless regime." He said nothing about Christianity's culpability, Edith Stein, the silence of Pope Pius XII at the time, or the church's 1939 invitation to Hitler himself to see the seamless robe of Christ (falsely believed at the time to have been worn by Christ) at the Cathedral of Trier.

Hitler declined the invitation.