Some popes were anti-Jewish yes. Did they ever call for the mass murder of Jews? No.
Which was also, quite recently in the previous century, still kidnapping jewish children to be brought up catholic in foreign lands,
In the 20th Century? Name one instance.
legally requiring jews to live in fenced ghettos,
All the forced Ghettos were in Germany were abolished by the mid 19th century.
Even before that, not all Jews were forced into ghettos. In many cities they were allowed to live where they pleased.
Then there were the voluntary shtetls, like those of the Hasidim in Poland, where Rabbis encouraged self-seggregation to avoid assimilation.
and proscribing them to second class citizenship in terms of sufferage, jobs, educational opportunities, and legal redress.
Sure, that happened in some Catholic locales in some periods. It's a far cry from mass murder, though.
There were other times and places in Catholic Europe where Jews prospered. Claiming that the past 1400 years was nothing more than a conitnuous strech of oppression is absurd.
I suppose you think Hitler invented the yellow star of David so that all jews were easily identifiable, whenever pogrom time arrived.
I think it was the Moslems, actually.
At any rate, in medieval times, the star was supported by both Jewish and Christian leaders. The Rabbis didn't want their people assimilating, and the Christians didn't want their people intermarrying with Jews.
That is not remotely true. The first crusade practically cleared jews from it's path on the way to the Holy Land, and that's just a minor entry in the genocide sweepstakes.
. Yeah that was bad, albeit it took place 1,000 years ago. A minor entry though? I don't think so. This one was about as bad as it got before Hitler. Can you name an incident that was worse?
In the 20th Century? Name one instance.
We were talking about the 20th century, so the previous century would be the 19th, and I believe the last time the Catholic hierarchy kidnapped a jewish child was 1857, if memory serves me. There's a whole huge building that was dedicated to kidnapping jewish children built at the Vatican.
Yeah that was bad, albeit it took place 1,000 years ago. A minor entry though? I don't think so. This one was about as bad as it got before Hitler. Can you name an incident that was worse?
Is this your big defense? That there wasn't anything worse than the wide-spread slaughter of jews throughout southern Germany, France and Italy?
. 240 Origen of Alexandria writes that the Jews "have committed the most abominable of crimes" in conspiring against Christ, and for that reason "the Jewish nation was driven from its country, and another people was called by God to the blessed election".
248 St. Cyprian writes that the Jews have fallen under the heavy wrath of God, because they have departed from the Lord, and have followed idols.
306 The Council of Elvira decrees that Christians and Jews cannot intermarry, have sexual intercourse, or even eat together.
325 Conversation and fellowship with Jews is forbidden to the clergy by the Council of Nicea.
4th century Christian emperors of Rome decree that Christians converting to Judaism, and Jews obstructing the conversion of other Jews to Christianity, will incur the death penalty; Jews can not marry Christians, or hold public office, or own slaves.
c. 380 St. Gregory of Nyssa refers to the Jews as "murderers of the Lord, assassins of the prophets, rebels and detesters of God,. . . companions of the devil, race of vipers, informers, calumniators, darkeners of the mind, pharisaic leaven, Sanhedrin of demons, accursed, detested,. . . enemies of all that is beautiful".
388 A mob of Christians, at the instigation of their bishop, looted and burned the synagogue in Callinicum, a town on the Euphrates. The Emperor Theodosius wants those responsible punished and the synagogue rebuilt at the expense of the bishop, but St. Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, pressures him to relent and condone the action.
400 St. Augustine writes: "the Church admits and avows the Jewish people to be cursed, because after killing Christ they continue . . . in impiety and unbelief".
c. 400 Calling the synagogue "brothel and theater" and "a cave of pirates and the lair of wild beasts," St. John Chrysostom writes that "the Jews behave no better than hogs and goats in their lewd grossness and the excesses of their gluttony".
413 A group of monks sweep through Palestine, destroying synagogues and massacring Jews at the Western Wall.
414 St. Cyril of Alexandria expels Jews from his city.
681 The Synod of Toledo orders the burning of the Talmud and other books.
c. 937 Pope Leo VII encourages his newly appointed archbishop of Mainz to expel all Jews who refuse to be baptized.
c. 1010-1020 In Rouen, Orléans, Limoges, Mainz, and probably also in Rome, Jews are converted by force, massacred, or expelled.
1081 Pope Gregory VII writes to King Alphonso of Spain telling him that if he allows Jews to be lords over Christians, he is oppressing the Church and exalting "the Synagogue of Satan".
1096 Massacres of Jews takes place in the First Crusade, destroying entire Jewish communities in Mainz, Speyer, Worms, Cologne and other cities. The Jewish chronicler reports: "The enemies stripped them naked and dragged them off, granting quarter to none, save those few who accepted baptism. The number of the slain was eight hundred in these two days." The chronicler Guibert de Nogent reports that the Rouen Crusaders said: "We desire to go and fight God's enemies in the East; but we have before our eyes certain Jews, a race more inimical to God than any other".
1182 Jews are expelled from France, all their property is confiscated, and Christians' debts to them are cancelled with the payment of one-fifth of their value to the treasury.
1235 Thirty-four Jews are burned to death in Fulda (Germany) on a blood-libel charge.
1267 The Synod of Breslau decrees compulsory ghettos for Jews.
c. 1270 St. Thomas Aquinas writes that the Jews sin more in their unbelief than do pagans because they have abandoned the way of justice "after knowing it in some way".
1190 The Third Crusade, led by Richard the Lion-Hearted, stirs anti-Jewish fervor and results in the mass suicide of the York Jews in Clifford's Tower on March 16.
1247 Pope Innocent IV writes a wonderful defence of the Jews: "they are wrongly accused of partaking of the heart of a murdered child at the Passover. . . Whenever a corpse is found somewhere, it is to the Jews that the murder is wickedly imputed. They are persecuted on the pretext of such fables. . . they are deprived of trial and of regular judgment; in mockery of all justice, they are stripped of their belongings, starved, imprisoned and tortured". But subsequent history shows what little impact his words had on the church.
In 1227, 1234, 1246, 1254, 1260, 1284, 1289, 1326, and 1368 a series of Councils at Narbonne, Arles, Béziers, Albi , Arles, Nîmes, Vienna, Avignon, and Vabres all require the wearing of a round patch by Jews.
In 1290 and 1294 Jews are expelled from England and southern Italy, then from Bern, in Switzerland.
1294 Jews in France are restricted to special quarters of the cities.
1298 The Jews of Röttingen, charged with profaning the Host, are massacred and burned down to the last one.
1347-1350 During the Black Death, Jews are accused of poisoning wells in order to overthrow Christendom, and many thousands of Jews are killed.
In 1350, 1367 and 1381 Jews are expelled from many parts of Germany, Hungary and then Strasbourg.
1394 The expulsion of Jews from France, begun in
1306, is completed with an edict promulgated on the Jewish Day of Atonement.
1420 - 1432 Jews are expelled from Austria, Mainz, Fribourg, Zurich, Cologne and Saxony,
1434 The Council of Basel decrees that Jews cannot obtain academic degrees.
1435 King Alfonso orders the Jews of Sicily to attach a round patch to their clothing and display one over their shops.
In 1439,1453 and then 1454 Jews are expelled from Augsburg, Wurzburg, and Breslau.
1456 Pope Callistus III bans all social communication between Christians and Jews.
1462 Jews are expelled from Mainz following a conflict between two candidates for the arch-episcopal seat.
In 1467 and 1471 Jews are expelled from Tlemcen, Algeria, then from Mainz again (by the archbishop).
1475 The entire Jewish community in Trent, northern Italy, is put to death on the allegation that it had murdered a boy for religious purposes.
1492 After forcing many Jews to be baptized and then referring to them as "marranos" (i.e. swine), and after an Inquisition in which some 700 marranos were burnt at the stake for showing signs of "Jewish" taint, Spain expels all Jews from the country.
1485, 1497 and 1519 Jews are expelled from Warsaw and Cracow (Poland), then Portugal, then Regensburg (Germany).
1555-1559 Pope Paul IV restricts Jews to ghettos and decrees that they are to wear distinctive headgear.
1566-1572 Pope St. Pius V expels Jews from the Papal States, allowing some to remain in Rome's ghettos and in Ancona for commercial reasons.
1592-1605 Pope Clement VIII includes a ban on all Jewish books in the expanded Index of Forbidden Books.
1826 Pope Leo XII decrees that Jews are to be confined to ghettos and their property is to be confiscated.
1806 A French Jesuit Priest, Abbe Barruel, had written a treatise blaming the Masonic Order for the French Revolution. He later issued a letter alleging that Jews, not the Masons were the guilty party. Beliefs in an international Jewish conspiracy to control the world came from this source; they continue today.
1846 - 1878 : Pope Pius IX restored all of the previous restrictions against the Jews within the Vatican state. All Jews under Papal control were confined to Rome's ghetto - the last one in Europe until the Nazis recreated ghettos in the 1930s. Pius IX was beautified in the year 2000 -- the last step before sainthood.
1881 The assassination of Alexander II of Russia was incorrectly blamed on Jews. About 200 individual pogroms against the Jews followed. ("Pogrom" is a Russian word meaning "devastation" or "riot.")
1894 French Captain Alfred Dreyfus was framed by antisemitic officers, found guilty and was given a life sentence. The church, government and army united to suppress the truth. Ten years later, he was declared totally innocent. The Dreyfus Affair became world-wide news for years.
1903+ Anti-Jewish pogroms continued in Russia, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths during the first two decades of the 20th century.
1905 The Russian secret police wrote a piece of fiction, the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion." A Russian Orthodox priest, Sergius Nilus, published them publicly in 1905. It was promoted as the record of "secret rabbinical conferences whose aim was to subjugate and exterminate the Christians." The forgeries are still being circulated. They appear from time to time in Muslim media. Wal-Mart stocked them in their online bookstore until 2004-SEP.
1930s Some American clergy used their their radio programs to attack Jews. Father Charles E Coughlin was one of the best known. "In the 1930's, radio audiences heard him rail against the threat of Jews to America's economy and defend Hitler's treatment of Jews as justified in the fight against communism." This history is what the French Jewish scholar, Jules Isaac, was referring to when he wrote, "Without centuries of Christian catechism, preaching and vituperation, the Hitlerian teachings, propaganda and vituperation would not have been possible." ( Jésus et Israel - Paris 1948, page 508, )
1933 In 1939 by Roberto Farinacci, a member of Mussolini's Fascist Grand Council, while speaking on "The Church and the Jews" says: "We fascist Catholics consider the Jewish problem from a strictly political point of view. . . But it comforts our souls to know that if, as Catholics, we became anti-Semites, we owe it to the teachings that the Church has promulgated over the past twenty centuries."
1933 The Catholic Chancellor of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler justifies his anti-semitic policies to the German Catholic hierarchy on the grounds that he is only treating the Jews the way their church has treated them for centuries. He reminds the prelates that their Church has regarded the Jews as dangerous parasites and pushed them into ghettos for 1500 years. (See more below on this page.) 1936 Cardinal Hlond of Poland urged Catholics to boycott Jewish businesses.
1938 Hitler brought back various century-old church laws, ordering all Jews to wear a yellow Star of David as identification. 1940: The Nazis confined Jews to inner-city ghettos. 1941 to 1945: The Nazi Holocaust resulted in the execution of over 6 million Jews, a similar number of non-Jews such as Soviet prisoners of war, Polish intellectuals, and about a half million Roma (Gypsies). Also killed were an unknown number of Jehovah's Witnesses and homosexuals. Of these victims, only the Jews were marked for total annihilation.