Look. This business of implying that modern-day Jews are guilty of Christ's blood is ridiculous. Who would deny it. BUT! The Passion plays are *supposed* to show what happened "at the time of the Passion." It is NOT "heresy" to say that some of the Jews of the time were to blame for the death of Jesus. On the contrary, John 18 & 19 make it clear that His death was instigated by the demands of "the Jews" as represented by the Sanhedrin and those clamoring for His crucifixion in the court of Pilate. It's simple Scripture. Was John a heretic, too?
No one but a confirmed bigot would lay the God-killer charge on a modern-day Jew. The last person of Jewish descent directly involved in the chain of events leading to the crucifixion died no more recently than 1900 years ago. If modern-day people are to be blamed at all, then we can ALL lay claim to responsibility, since it is clear enough that ALL of our sins have a share in the crucifixion.
As for the allegations you make about the pope, he did no such thing. He didn't "forgive the Jews" as you say. It would not be in his power to truly forgive people who lived over 19 centuries before his own time. God can see to such forgiveness Himself, as Jesus asked Him to do from the cross. All the pope did was to state clearly that the Jewish descendants of those directly involved in the crucifixion of Christ have NO inherited guilt for it. Big difference. Your headline was a distortion. The mainstream media were capable of mangling the facts then as now...
>All the pope did was to state clearly that the Jewish descendants of those directly involved in the crucifixion of Christ have NO inherited guilt for it. Big difference. Your headline was a distortion. The mainstream media were capable of mangling the facts then as now...<
Why did he feel the need to do it?Why was it front page news? Simple answer it was a commonly held heresy within the Catholic Church.
The problem was not passion plays but how they were staged with Jews portrayed as ogres and inherantly evil.