Return to Home PageApril 1998 Message...
Many events for good or evil have characterized the 20th Century. As to the good, there are the marvelous advances in medicine, the physical and social sciences, technology, communications, space exploration; and the progress in eliminating or reducing illiteracy, poverty and discrimination, domestically and internationally.
On the negative side of the ledger, however, there have been the horrendous wars of the century: World Wars I and II, the Spanish Civil War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Six Day War and the Persian Gulf War with the usage of chemical weapons. In World War II, nuclear weapons of mass destruction were used.
There have been the genocide of the Armenian people; the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans; apartheid in South Africa; the brutal repression of South American dictators, on both the left and the right; the horrible fratricide in Rwanda; the communist domination of Eastern Europe and large chunks of Asia with the massive imprisonment or killing of the citizens of those countries enslaved by these totalitarian regimes; the growing acceptance of and even positive support for abortion and euthanasia, both within our own country and throughout the world. Those are just a few of the nightmares which have plagued this century.
Shoah
But to my mind, the defining event of the 20th century is the unspeakable Shoah wherein Hitler and his jack-booted minions and subservient collaborators deliberately and systematically sought to eliminate all of European Jewry while, for the most part, a supposedly enlightened and civilized world watched in complicit silence.
While I, growing up in the '40s and '50s, was vaguely aware of this atrocity, it was not until the '80s that I began to appreciate the enormity of this annihilation of six million people simply because of their Jewish origins and identity, and of five million Christians, mostly Poles.
In 1983, for example, in conjunction with a Jewish-Christian pilgrimage to Israel and Rome, I visited the renowned Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, and viewed with shock, anger, horror and revulsion the haunting photographs, videos and damning documents which captured so vividly and shockingly the incredible cruelty that no human being should have to endure, yet which was inflicted upon an entire people.
Shame
I experienced the same sentiments while visiting the Holocaust museum in Washington, D.C. in the early part of this decade, again in the company of Jewish and Christian pilgrims. And again I felt shame that this catastrophe was perpetrated by so many who nominally bore the name "Christian."
By then, the shame was all the more intense for me, knowing much more acutely that so much of this evil was the bitter fruits of an anti-Semitism which the Church that I love and represent either consciously or subconsciously nurtured and fostered through the centuries.
Those insights and feelings were reinforced by attending exhibitions on the Holocaust offered by The College of Saint Rose in Albany in conjunction with the Survivors and Friends Education Center and, most recently, viewing the "Lessons for Humanity" exhibition at Union College in Schenectady, commemorating the lifelong work of Serge and Beate Klarsfeld.
The Klarsfelds have documented -- through photographs which put a human face on what could seem like a litany of nameless statistics -- the stories of the 11,403 Jewish children deported from France to Hitler's death camps. They have also courageously hunted down the infamous Klaus Barbie, the butcher of Lyon, and other Nazi collaborators responsible for this monstrous travesty, at long last bringing these perpetrators of crimes against humanity to the bar of justice.
On an occasion honoring the Klarsfelds, I resonated with the sentiments expressed by Prof. Stephen Burk, who lamented so poignantly the potential teachers, doctors, lawyers, artists, scientists and inventors whose contributions to humanity were lost so viciously and needlessly by this mindless barbarism.
Personal moment
Without doubt, however, the significance of this cataclysmic event known as the Holocaust was brought home most personally and profoundly at the Reconciliation Service conducted in our Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Albany on Palm Sunday 1986.
That's when the sons and daughters of Holocaust victims and Holocaust survivors themselves, along with a broad cross-section of the Jewish community, had the courage and the trust to come to that edifice which symbolized for them so much of the hatred, injustice and persecution Jews had suffered at the hands of Christians in general (and of Catholics specifically), both before and after the Shoah. There, they were willing to extend the hand of friendship and reconciliation, and to accept our expressions of apology and pleas for forgiveness.
Such openness to move from fear to friendship, in light of the history of persecution the Jewish people had endured at the hands of Christians, still remains a marvelous source of inspiration and admiration for me, and serves as the compelling motivation to fulfill the pledge I made at that Reconciliation Service, namely, to ensure that our Catholic people understand the unvarnished record of Catholic persecution of Jews down through the course of the centuries and do everything in our power to repent and to rid ourselves of the appalling legacy of anti-Semitism.
History of persecution
Scholars estimate, for example, that the massacres during the Crusades, the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, the Inquisition of the 15th and 16th centuries, the Cossack mass murderers in Eastern Europe in the mid-1700s, and the Tsarist pogroms and the denial of civil rights, as well as the ghettos imposed by Catholic governments throughout the 19th century, led to the deaths of 10 million Jews before the Holocaust.
Those events all coalesced, at least implicitly, to create the environment which enabled Hitler to impose his final solution in the death camps of Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Belsen.
I am pleased, then, that many of the same sentiments expressed at our Reconciliation Service in 1986 are reflected in the document on the Holocaust issued earlier this month by the Vatican, titled "We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah."
Significant document
In the preface to the statement, our Holy Father Pope John Paul II points out that the Holocaust "remains an indelible stain on the history of this century that is coming to a close." The document itself reflects upon and repents for the tortured history between Christians and Jews, including the toleration and even the promotion of anti-Semitic attitudes that reached their nadir in the Holocaust.
The great significance of this statement, I believe, is that it is an unambiguous repudiation of anti-Semitism, and it will serve as a teaching document in our seminaries, Catholic schools and religious education programs throughout the world, condemning both the Holocaust and the anti-Semitism which produced it.
I realize that some in the Jewish community and other commentators, both Catholic and non-Catholic, believe this document has not gone far enough in examining the role of the Church and of individual Christians in executing the atrocities of the Holocaust or in failing to do more to prevent this tragedy.
It should be noted, however, that Cardinal Edward Cassidy, the president of the Vatican's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, which issued the statement, indicated that the exploration of Catholic-Jewish relations is not yet over and that "nothing is closed with this document."
To underscore this point, Cardinal Cassidy announced this past week that as a result of meetings between members of his Commission and representatives from the Jewish community, who offered a critique of the document, a joint committee will be formed to probe deeper the historical record of that period and to examine together the material available.
Rabbi Henry Sobel, who attended the weeklong meeting, said: "I came to Rome convinced that the Holocaust statement had put a period on the issue. I came away feeling that it was a comma."
Healing wounds
I hope, therefore, that the Holocaust statement, and its promised joint follow-up, coupled with previous declarations on this subject by the French and German bishops, and by our Holy Father Pope John Paul himself, will fulfill the purpose which the Pope envisions for it, namely, that of seeking "to heal the wounds of past misunderstandings and injustices," and to shape "a future in which the unspeakable iniquity of the Shoah will never again be possible."
Furthermore, in keeping alive the memory of the Holocaust, it should never be forgotten that in the midst of the imprisonment and death which the Shoah reaped, there were rays of light which offer hope for humankind and its future:
* the magnificent writings of Anne Frank and Victor Frankl whose journaling of their experiences during their confinement and imprisonment reveals spectacularly the indestructibility of the human spirit even in the most frightening and abhorrent of circumstances;
* Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the renowned Protestant minister, who wrote and spoke so eloquently, and railed so courageously against the racist and anti-Semitic policies of the Nazis;
* St. Maximilian Kolbe, the Franciscan monk who substituted his own life for another prisoner who was to be shot in retaliation for some minor concentration camp infraction; and
* Christian rescuers such as Miep Gies, who was honored by the Holocaust Survivors and Friends Educational Center at an event at The College of Saint Rose in 1996, and Irena Dyzcz Freeman, of Gloversville, honored this past year by Temple Israel and Siena College. They represent the women and men who at the risk of their lives defied their Nazi captors and political tormentors, and harbored their Jewish brothers and sisters in their homes, basements and farms, and then secured their safe passage to freedom.
Shining examples
These people of goodness, love, courage, compassion, heroic sacrifice and profound spirituality in a world gone mad should serve as shining examples for us in the Jewish and Christian communities to foster continued dialogue, understanding, healing and reconciliation, and to collaborate tirelessly to root out the "isms" of our day, just as the terrible "isms" of Nazism, Fascism and Communism which have plagued this century have been rooted out.
Today's "isms" -- individualism, privatism, consumerism, sexism, racism, ageism and militarism, as well as homophobia and xenophobia -- strip people of their God-given human dignity and treat those who may be different than ourselves by reason of race, religion, ethnicity, language, culture, nationality, sexual orientation or socio-economic status as "other," as a stranger or alien who is unworthy of our concern and, worse yet, who becomes a scapegoat for our fears, our anxieties, our insecurity and our failure to grasp the fundamental solidarity that the Lord has revealed must exist among the members of the human family.
As we Christians embark upon Holy Week, which historically has been marred by anti-Semitic vilification and retaliation, and as we unite ourselves with Jesus in His passion, death and resurrection, let us be mindful that this Son of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, of Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel died for all humanity. By His blood, we are redeemed to live as a new people and to forge a new Israel where "kindness and truth shall meet; justice and peace shall kiss" (Ps. 85:11).
May this Holy Week lead us to a deeper appreciation of our bondedness with the chosen people and with every human being whom Christ has saved by His Passover from death unto life.