When pre-Vatican II liturgies for Good Friday referenced "perfidious Jews" as bearing some special responsibility for the crucifixion of Christ, that reference was hardly a bedrock of our Catholic Faith. Further, it references a small number of Jews in a crowd in Jerusalem orchestrated by the High Priest of the Temple into responding to Pilate's: What then shall I do with Jesus Christ? by saying: Crucify him! Crucify Him!" The pious Jewish women who were preparing the Passover Seder for their families in towns wherever Jews lived were not referenced as "perfidious." Nor were the Jewish scholars lovingly contemplating Torah with their families or students. Nor the simple Jewish workmen of whatever degree of piety or not who were busy as carpenters, vineyard workers, mechanics, farmers, etc. Nor is "perfidious" some sort of default description of all Jews then and now. Joseph, Mary, Jesus, Peter and each other Apostle, Joseph of Arimethea, St. Paul, St. Stephen and each other Christian before the Council of Jerusalem were Jews by ancestry. Certainly the liturgy did not reference them as "perfidious" simply because they were Jews ancestrally.
Those who recognize Willie Horton as a murderer are not claiming that all blacks are murderers. Likewise, Charles Manson and whites or Carlos the Jackal and Hispanics.
Nonetheless, is it reasonable to assume that many in the Church hierarchy thought, and reasonably so, that many in the pews were not making the appropriate distinctions as to "perfidious" Jews especially a mere two decades after the Holocaust. Shamefully, anti-Semitism (the actual generalized kind) was all too common in the pews back in those days when I was growing up.
Annas and Caiphas may have been Temple officials but that does not bind us as Catholics to honor their remarkable second response to Pilate who said: But I find no fault in this Man! To which, Annas and/or Caiphas replied: Let His Blood be upon us and upon our children! (not that Anyone had authorized Annas and/or Caiaphas to bring curses and punishment upon those not present and therefore not guilty of the specific sins of Annas and Caiaphas and their associates/Misery apparently loved company even then!). Those present and screaming: Crucify Him! bear moral guilt for their sins as do we all. Jesus Christ was crucified for the sins committed and to be committed by all mankind and not just by Jews. Other than Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, who in the history of all mankind has been sinless and therefore free of guilt for the necessity that God the Father send His only begotten Son to be crucified in atonement for OUR sins?
I sincerely hope that this Mark Potok is not related to the superb Jewish novelist, scholar and University of Pennsylvania professor Chaim Potok who wrote The Chosen, The Promise and My Name is Asher Lev, among others, and a surprisingly conservative and anti-soviet non-fiction account of his experiences visiting Jews persecuted by the soviets which apparently had quite an effect on his own ideology which had been somewhat naive.
Mark Potok, in any event, does not display as sophisticated an understanding of the nuances in Catholicism as Chaim Potok displayed as to the tapestry of Judaism and its schools of thought. This is not surprising since Mark Potok, related or not, works for the egregious Southern Poverty Law Center which lacks a reputation for scholarship or integrity.
Eric Rudolph (who bombed the Birmingham abortion mill and remained at large for several skillful years in the southern mountains) seems rather unlikely to be a Catholic at all much less a traditionalist Catholic (an ill-defined term if ever there was one). He may have meant to name James Kopp, a Lutheran who converted to Catholicism and became a devotee of the Tridentine Mass while hiding in Ireland, participated in Operation Rescue, shot and killed abortionist Dr. Slepian at Slepian's home in suburban Buffalo, New York. That was Kopp's act and not that of other Catholics, much less that of all Catholics.
As one who prefers the Tridentine Mass, I would argue that "Traditionalist" as an adjective modifying "Catholic" ought not to be applied to those merely doing the light lifting of preferring (a matter of taste, really) the Tridentine Mass over the Novus Ordo but rather to those who, whatever their preferred liturgy, are first and foremost Catholics "in communion with the Holy See," recognizing and submitting to papal authority and obedient to a fault in all things moral. This means, at minimum, that "traditional" Catholics cannot be those excommunicated or reveling in their naked defiance of and contempt for papal authority that has always been the hallmark of the SSPX schism.
I have no idea of whether or not Fr. Gruner said Mass at an anti-Semitic conference. For Catholics to shun Fr. Gruner should require no more than his absolute refusal to obey his ecclesiastical superiors despite his sacred vow of obedience taken before God at his ordination. Likewise all SSPX priests and clergy for the same reason. There is no question that some of them, like Bishop Williamson, are also barking anti-Semitic moonbats and Holocaust deniers (therefore out of touch with historic reality as well).
If the answer to any question is a promotion of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as factually true or intellectually respectable, then it must have been an uncommonly silly question.
As always, NYer, may God bless you and yours.
I think too much is read into the term "perfidious." It simply means faithless, and can be just as easily applied to pagans and infidels. In this case, it is a cognitive translation from the Latin, which is not meant to be as perjorative, not simply a statement of fact. It does not have the same import as it would when applied to a forger or double-agent.
I've read books by Chaim Potok - very good author. "My Name is Asher Lev" is very good and amusing, especially when the young artistically gifted kid responds to a bully by drawing a picture of the bully being dragged into hell by demons. He leaves the picture where the bully can find it, and from then on the bully did everything he could to avoid Asher Lev!
As far as Mark Potok, Morris Dees probably said that the SPLC swimming pool needs a new set of marble tile, so go out and find a threat we can make some money on.
And to yours! God bless all of you, on your journey home! Thank you for the support.
Great comments, thanks!