Letter To The Catholic Church Summary

Words: 467
Pages: 2

This article’s purpose serves to address the Catholic Church’s long journey in accepting Judaism. The article conveys the achievements and failures, all of which lead up to the Church’s current views concerning Judaism. The Catholic Church cannot create a cooperative relationship with the Jewish people unless they acknowledge the wrongs they have done in the past. Looking back, the Church’s relationship with the Jews were based on a foundation of persecution, hate, and indifference that all centered on the fact that the Jewish religion did not recognize our Lord. When the Jews needed the Church the most, the Church bluntly rejected them based on that principle. During Adolf Hitler’s persecution of Jews, Theodor Herzl pleaded with Pope Pius X for aid, but he refused with the excuse that since the Jews did not recognize Christ, the Church could not recognize the Jewish people. …show more content…
Taylor asked if the Vatican could fan the flames during the climax of Hitler’s crimes, but in the end, the Vatican provided no help for the Jews. The Vatican was more focused on keeping the Jews out of Palestine, for giving the Jews this land would ultimately interfere with the religious exercise of the Catholics. Even though the Church has had their faults, there are those within the Church that has attempted to correct the mistakes of the past. Beginning in 1938, Pope Pius XI drafted an encyclical on the evils of Hitler’s racism and anti-Semitism, but was failed to be released after his death and successor, Pius XIII. Even though Pius XIII ignored the existence of the encyclical, the Church continued to move forward in their new beginnings with the Jews. Pope John XXIII announced that the Church condemned persecutions and acts of anti-Semitism directed against