[BlueDragon]

Some are; some aren't. It's what they believe; it is part of their religious DNA.

A Catholic Timeline of Events Relating to Jews, Anti-Judaism, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust From the 3rd Century to the Beginning of the Third Millennium Prepared by Jerry Darring

Are Traddie Catholics Anti-Semitic? by Fr. Dwight Longenecker

As you had said previously "The Catholic Catechism, on the other hand, teaches otherwise..."

Here of late. But not all that well -- and certainly not consistently, historically speaking.

"...and I am grateful not to be in an antiSemitic faith community."

[af_vet_1981]

Yes, I have posted Jerry's timeline before. I find Protestantism's standard defense of it's historical and persistent antisemitism is that it is always someone else's fault and I'm not persuaded that is the case. I find that Catholics are the most genuine friends Jews have among Christians, although there are always exceptions to the rule.

Personally, I was especially moved by Pope John Paul II, of blessed memory, as well as particular Catholics. There were particular Protestants whose kindness I treasure.

After his election as pope in October 1978, John Paul often devoted his energy to improving relations between Jews and Catholics. He frequently met with Jewish leaders, repeatedly condemned anti-Semitism, commemorated the Holocaust, and established diplomatic relations with Israel.

One of his first acts toward reconciliation occurred during his visit to Poland in 1979 when he knelt and prayed at Auschwitz. Seven years later, on April 13, 1986, he made an even more dramatic trip, this one just across the Tiber River, to Rome’s Great Synagogue, becoming the first pope to visit a Jewish house of worship. There he warmly embraced Rome’s chief rabbi, Elio Toaff, and described Jews as the “elder brothers” of Christians.

“In his speech, everyone felt his love, his affection,” Toaff recalled. “He made a tie between Judaism and Christianity and, in doing so, he found a way to move us all.’

On the 50th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, Pope John Paul II issued this appeal:

As Christians and Jews, following the example of the faith of Abraham, we are called to be a blessing to the world (cf. Gen. 12:2 ff.). This is the common task awaiting us. It is therefore necessary for us, Christians and Jews, to be first a blessing to one another (L'Osservatore Romano, August 17, 1993).

In 1994, John Paul established full diplomatic ties between the Vatican and Israel. He said, “For the Jewish people who live in the State of Israel and who preserve in that land such precious testimonies to their history and their faith, we must ask for the desired security and the due tranquillity that are the prerogative of every nation . . .”

The Pope also was instrumental in the publication of “We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah,” the 1998 document expressing the Church's “deep sorrow for the failures of her sons and daughters in every age.”

He visited Israel in 2000, publicly apologizing for the persecution of Jews by Catholics over the centuries, including the Holocaust, and depositing a note pleading for forgiveness in a crack in the Western Wall.