How much of the Catholic Church is stained with Jewish blood?

Question

auto de fes, inquisitions, mass executions, the hollocaust, how much and what are they doing to about it?

Answer 1

A lot fewer than you might think.

+ The Inquisition +

Modern historians have long known that the popular view of the Inquisition is a myth. The Inquisition was actually an attempt by the Catholic Church to stop unjust executions.

Heresy was a capital offense against the state. Rulers of the state, whose authority was believed to come from God, had no patience for heretics. Neither did common people, who saw heretics as dangerous outsiders who would bring down divine wrath.

When someone was accused of heresy in the early Middle Ages, they were brought to the local lord for judgment, just as if they had stolen a pig. It was not to discern whether the accused was really a heretic. The lord needed some basic theological training, very few did. The sad result is that uncounted thousands across Europe were executed by secular authorities without fair trials or a competent judge of the crime.

The Catholic Church's response to this problem was the Inquisition, an attempt to provide fair trials for accused heretics using laws of evidence and presided over by knowledgeable judges.

From the perspective of secular authorities, heretics were traitors to God and the king and therefore deserved death. From the perspective of the Church, however, heretics were lost sheep who had strayed from the flock. As shepherds, the pope and bishops had a duty to bring them back into the fold, just as the Good Shepherd had commanded them. So, while medieval secular leaders were trying to safeguard their kingdoms, the Church was trying to save souls. The Inquisition provided a means for heretics to escape death and return to the community.

Most people tried for heresy by the Inquisition were either acquitted or had their sentences suspended. Those found guilty of grave error were allowed to confess their sin, do penance, and be restored to the Body of Christ. The underlying assumption of the Inquisition was that, like lost sheep, heretics had simply strayed.

If, however, an inquisitor determined that a particular sheep had purposely left the flock, there was nothing more that could be done. Unrepentant or obstinate heretics were excommunicated and given over to secular authorities. Despite popular myth, the Inquisition did not burn heretics. It was the secular authorities that held heresy to be a capital offense, not the Church. The simple fact is that the medieval Inquisition saved uncounted thousands of innocent (and even not-so-innocent) people who would otherwise have been roasted by secular lords or mob rule.

Where did this myth come from? After 1530, the Inquisition began to turn its attention to the new heresy of Lutheranism. It was the Protestant Reformation and the rivalries it spawned that would give birth to the myth. Innumerable books and pamphlets poured from the printing presses of Protestant countries at war with Spain accusing the Spanish Inquisition of inhuman depravity and horrible atrocities in the New World.

For more information, see:
The Real Inquisition, By Thomas F. Madden, National Review (2004) http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/madden200406181026.asp
Inquisition by Edward Peters (1988)
The Spanish Inquisition by Henry Kamen (1997)
The Spanish Inquisition: Fact Versus Fiction, By Marvin R. O'Connell (1996): http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0026.html

+ The Holocaust +

It is only right to place the Jews first on the list of the Nazis' victims. The 6,000,000 murdered Jews (1,500,000 of them were children) represented two-thirds of all Jews in Europe and one-third of all Jews worldwide.

However millions of Catholics and other Christians were also killed. No one knows exactly how many. I've seen claims of up to 42,000,000 but I could not find documentation for this number.

One example, over 6 million Poles perished during WWII. That was 22% of the population of the country. Three million were Jews. Most of the rest were Catholics.

Two of the most famous Catholics who died in the concentration camps are:

Saint (Sister) Teresa Benedicta (Edith Stein) died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz on 9 August 1942. http://www.ewtn.com/faith/edith_stein.htm

Saint (Father) Maximilian Kolbe was a Polish priest who died as prisoner number 16770 in Auschwitz, on August 14, 1941. http://www.auschwitz.dk/Kolbe.htm

Also remember most the the allied military dead were Christians.

A Soviet KGB plot to implicate Pope Pius XII and the Catholic Church with the Nazis in the Holocaust has recently been uncovered. See these articles:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTUzYmJhMGQ5Y2UxOWUzNDUyNWUwODJiOTEzYjY4NzI=
http://www.the-tidings.com/2007/021607/difference.htm

For more information, see: http://www.holycross.edu/departments/history/vlapomar/hiatt/catholic.htm

+ With love in Christ.

Answer 2

In some part, I'm sure, yes, there is blood on people's hands who belonged to the Church. However, you need to realize that in the Middle Ages, kings would use the Church to have power (as it was a powerful ally). More often than not, it would be the governments who would kill heretics b/c they threatened their power.

The holocaust. Wow, everyone has this mixed up. The Church did not help in this, in fact they saved many many lives. The most prominent Jewish leader in Italy ended up converting to Catholicism because of the kindness and generosity bestowed to those it kept safe.

And, since you like to keep your ears closed, you probably don't know about how the late great Pope John Paul II apologized for the faults and failings that have happened in the name of the Church and of God in the past.

Answer 3

Ive never heard of the Catholic Church targetting Jews. They have done many ridiculous things but I wouldnt think they would do things like that. The hollocaust was SURELY not their doing. Hitler defaintely had his own mind about things and there was nothing Christian in origin about it.

Answer 4

Guilt over murder goes to ALL people.Eusebius says the Colliseum was lined with Jews cheering on the killing of Christians as well as Romans and others. It was a horrible sect that did the Inquisitions.How many millions and millions of Russians ,Chinese and So. East Asians were killed in Atheistic holocausts? The whole Lousy friggin' world is guilty of mass murder.So get over yourself.
By the way Nero was not a Catholic he was a Pagan Roman.

Answer 5

And what are you doing about the sins you've committed?

You're not perfect, are you?

The Catholic Church is a divinely established institution, therefore it teaches without error. However, being made up of me, it is also made up of sinners. And since we are sinners, that's exactly why Christ gaves us the Church and the 7 sacraments!

The Catholic Church helped rescue many Jews. Thousands were hid in the Vatican.

The Holocaust was perpetrated by the Nazi regime, which REJECTED Catholicism - and by the way put to death many Catholic people and leaders

Answer 6

More than should be. But to be fair, although the Catholic Church had some complicity in the Holocaust, Germany was and is a protestant country and during the holocaust was being run by atheists and pagans.

Answer 7

Catholicism is Jewish fullfilled. Jesus got here by using fact the prophecies mentioned he could fulfilled the prophecies. we would in all hazard nevertheless be observed as Jews if there have been no longer the Jews who did no longer beleive Jesus replaced into the Messiah.

Answer 8

The Catholic church is indeed drowning in Jewish blood, but they do not seem to be bothered by that fact.
The new pope re-instituted the prayer in which Jews are asked to convert to Catholicism, thus bringing anti Jewish sentiments a full circle...

Answer 9

Dont confuse the sins of men with the Church Herself

Answer 10

they recently apologised... some 40 years later. The Catholic church is a CULT. They do not accept the Bible as God's Inspired Word and they make their own rules which gets bent from time to time for the persuasion of public opinion.

Incidentally; Hitler was a Catholic.