A passionate, politically incorrect refutation of the current pieties about the supposed inveterate anti-Semitism of the traditional Catholic church, at Fish-eaters.com.
It lists the extensive persecution of Christians over the centuries at the hands of Rabbinical Jews, starting with their judicial murder of Jesus, using the Roman state as a proxy:
I know that it’s politically correct to bash the Romans on this account, but the Romans had no issue with Jesus and “only” acted as instruments to carry out the Jews’ wishes (which is culpability and cowardice enough, to be sure). The Jews, however, did want Christ dead, and used Roman power to make it happen. The Russians didn’t want it, the Poles didn’t want it, the Ugandans didn’t want it, Pilate washed his hands of the matter: the Jews wanted it.
John 11:45-53 (KJV), after the raising of Lazarus: Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him. But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done. Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation. And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad. Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death.
Note, though, please, how many Jews here came to know the Messiah, Who Himself was genetically (partly) Semitic and Who fulfilled the Old Testament promises. The point, which I reiterate here, is that “race” and “ethnicity” are not the issue; the issue is a matter of idealogy, faith, belief, and acts of the will. Peter, Paul, Matthew, etc. — most of the Apostles — were Semitic followers of the Old Testament religion who came to know that the Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled in Jesus Christ and who gave up their lives defending that belief.
In addition, while it is obvious historical fact that, proximately, it was Palestinian Jews who used Roman power to kill the Messiah, it is also true — and has been taught as true since the Church’s beginning — that we are all responsible. The Catechism of the Council of Trent, issued by Pope St. Pius V (A.D. 1566-1572), taught:
Furthermore men of all ranks and conditions were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ. Gentiles and Jews were the advisers, the authors, the ministers of His Passion: Judas betrayed Him, Peter denied Him, all the rest deserted Him.
and
In this guilt are involved all those who fall frequently into sin; for, as our sins consigned Christ the Lord to the death of the cross, most certainly those who wallow in sin and iniquity crucify to themselves again the Son of God, as far as in them lies, and make a mockery of Him. This guilt seems more enormous in us than in the Jews, since according to the testimony of the same Apostle: If they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory; while we, on the contrary, professing to know Him, yet denying Him by our actions, seem in some sort to lay violent hands on him.
In other words, Palestinian Jews were historically, proximately responsible for Christ’s Passion and death, just as were those Romans who allowed themselves to be cowed by them, but culpability for His death lies in us all — the more so with Christians who know Him and believe Him, but still offend Him. While the post-Temple Jewish religion can be described as a “Deicide religion” in that it glories in Deicide when exulting in the murder of Jesus, “the Jews” cannot be decribed as “Christ-killers” in any literal sense. This isn’t some new Vatican II teaching that changed the “anti-semitic traditional teaching of the Church” as anti-Catholics want you to believe so they can shame the Church into submission; it is what the Church has always taught, and the only reasons I even bring it up are our inability nowadays to speak of historical fact as revealed by the Gospels, the willingness of too many people to blame everyone — anyone — but “the Jews” (why it’s OK to diss “the Romans” but not “the Jews” is beyond me as a daughter of Rome), and the stupid, nerve-wracking idea that the Church “used to be anti-semitic,” but now, “since Vatican II,” the Church has changed Her teachings.
That last is only the world’s way of dismissing traditional — i.e, true — Catholic teaching altogether and of making the Church seem wishy-washy, anything but divine, and, above all, malleable (“You’ve ‘changed’ your teachings on the Jews, why not change your attitudes toward sex and priestly celibacy and the ‘ordination’ of women?”) It’s a way of shaming the Church’s History and stealing Her rich heritage from those who love Her. And it’s also a way of propping up “the spirit of Vatican II,” the most destructive force that has ever afflicted Holy Mother Church and which has rendered the institutional Church impotent and sterile, and has almost destroyed the Roman Rite. All one has to do to see the “disconnect” between the what the “the spirit” of this Council really did and how the Modernists want you to perceive it is to study the horrific effects of the interpreations of Vatican II — and then read how Jews, neo-Catholics, and the media speak of the “great Council” while they dismiss the “pre-Vatican II Church” as barbarous and unenlightened.
At any rate, it’s rather paradoxical, this clamor on the part of Jews to absolve “the Jews” of Deicide (note the hysteria in response to Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ”), especially when in their “holy” books and by the pens of their “sages,” they openly and proudly state that Jews did kill Jesus. Note what Maimonides, who is considered by Jews to be “The Second Moses,” wrote in his “Letter to Yemen”:
[Jesus of Nazareth] impelled people to believe that he was a prophet sent by God to clarify perplexities in the Torah, and that he was the Messiah that was predicted by each and every seer. He interpreted the Torah and its precepts in such a fashion as to lead to their total annulment, to the abolition of all its commandments and to the violation of its prohibitions. The sages, of blessed memory, having become aware of his plans before his reputation spread among our people, meted out fitting punishment to him.
The Jewish historian Josephus confirms the Gospel account in his “Antiquities”:
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day [my emphasis].
And see the Toledoth Yeshu (onsite). Interestingly, an article appeared on the website of the American Jewish Committee that affirmed what is being said here about what Jewish writings themselves say about the death of Jesus. That article disappeared from the site within days (oops! how’d this get published?), but you may read the article here on-site.
To continue with the topic: the errors of the Pharisaic rabbis, their legalistic, “anti-goy” elitism, grew even greater after the Temple fell and the only priests left were New Covenant priests. Their desires for a restored Jerusalem and a worldly Messiah-King were not shared by the Christians, ethnically Hebrew or not, whose Messiah told them to “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s”; this Christian anti-Zionism only fueled the Pharisees’ hatred for the Christians.
Around A.D. 100, the Pharisees started a school at Jamnia (often referred to as the “Council of Jamnia” or “Jabneh”) to solidify the Pharisees’ power. They threw out the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, used by the Palestinian Jews for hundreds of years and cherished by the Apostles, because this version, which contains the Deuterocanonical Books (referred to as the “Apocrypha” by Protestants), was used by the Christians to proselytize Jews due to its more specific language used to convey the Messianic prophecies. From this “Council of Jamnia,” too, came the Birkat ha-Minim — a part of the Amida prayer which consists of a curse against Christians asking God to destroy us. This Amida prayer with its curse against Christians has been prayed by religious Jews three times a day for almost two millennia. Rounding out this racism, in A.D. 125, one of the most respected rabbis (he is quoted over 700 times in the Talmud), Rabbi Simeon Ben Johai, formally declared that non-Jews are not even human.
Jewish pogroms against Christians took place not only in Palestine (note the famous Bar Kochba Rebellion of A.D. 135), in Caesarea, Scytpolis, Yemen, Antioch — a town through which Jews dragged the body of Patriarch Anastasius in A.D. 608, after they threw his genitals in his face and disembowelled him — and any other place they could get away with it.
When reading the typical history book talking about the “repressiveness” of the Church, or hearing a typical dispensationalist Protestant sermon reviling the great Saints like John Chrysostom who spoke against the errors of Pharisaic Judaism (just as Jesus did!), you won’t hear a word about the above — or how Jews agitated anti-Christian animosity among Kings and Emperors, resulting in the slaughter of true Israel (the Church). You won’t read this, from Sozomen’s (c. A.D. 375-c. 447) “Ecclesiastical History,” Book II, Chapter IX:
When, in course of time, the Christians increased in number, and began to form churches, and appointed priests and deacons, the Magi, who as a priestly tribe had from the beginning in successive generations acted as the guardians of the Persian religion, became deeply incensed against them. The Jews, who through envy are in some way naturally opposed to the Christian religion, were likewise offended. They therefore brought accusations before Sapor [King of Persia], the reigning sovereign, against Symeon, who was then archbishop of Seleucia and Ctesiphon, royal cities of Persia, and charged him with being a friend of the Caesar of the Romans, and with communicating the affairs of the Persians to him. Sapor believed these accusations, and at first, ground the Christians with excessive taxes, although he knew that the generality of them had voluntarily embraced poverty. He entrusted the exaction to cruel men, hoping that, by the want of necessaries, and the atrocity of the ex-actors, they might be compelled to abjure their religion; for this was his aim. Afterwards, however, be commanded that the priests and conductors of the worship of God should be slain with the sword. The churches were demolished, their vessels were deposited in the treasury, and Symeon was arrested as a traitor to the kingdom and the religion of the Persians. Thus the Magi, with the co-operation of the Jews, quickly destroyed the houses of prayer.
You won’t hear how Jews allied themselves with the Christian-born but later professing pagan Julian the Apostate, Emperor of Rome between A.D. 361 and 363 and fourth successor of Constantine, who oppressed Christians even as he tried to help Jews rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem, a project that ended when mysterious balls of fires emanated from the ground (and sky, depending on the account) at the site, burning the workers to death, and an earthquake struck. (For fascinating accounts from primary sources as to what happened when the Jews tried to rebuild the Temple, see this page, onsite).
You won’t hear how the Jews allied themselves with the Persians in attacking Palestine in A.D. 614 — and how they reveled in slaughtering the Christians there and razing their churches, including the one built over Christ’s Tomb. According to Monk Strategius of Mar Saba (Antiochus Strategos), Jews purchased Christian slaves from the Persians for the sole purpose of slaughtering them “just as one might buy cattle to slaughter.” 3
You won’t hear how Jews rose to high levels in medieval Spanish society by falsely claiming to have converted to the Holy Faith, how many became priests, rose to prominence in the Church, and then proceeded to Judaize that country’s Catholics. You won’t hear how these false converts also cooperated with Muslims to overtake that country during the Muslim aggressions (oh, so that’s why that nasty Catholic Queen Isabella kicked them out in 1492!)
You won’t hear that on Yom Kippur, Jews pray the Kol Nidre, a prayer that releases them, in advance, of all vows they will make in the upcoming year, a prayer which allowed them to engage in fraudulent business practices while still remaining loyal to Judaism.
And you most certainly won’t hear about usury — the other true source of “anti-semitism” in Christian lands.”