"The common character of all the measures taken is that of defending Christian communities from the penetration of the Jewish race and Talmudic ideas. They can be grouped in four principal categories:
Measures concerning the race.
Interdiction of the employment of Christian nurses by Jews.
Interdiction of mixed marriages (considered as an universal principle of Christianity.)
Measures assuring protection of the professions from Jewish influence.
Interdiction from public office.
Interdiction from entering certain defined trades.
Interdiction from liberal professions (with particular tolerance to medicine.)
Interdiction from owning real estate.
Protective rules from usury.
Measures separating the social life of the Jews from that of Christians.
Separation by the ghetto. General interdiction against cohabitation.
Wearing of distinctive clothing.
Expulsion from certain areas.
Measures of direct protection of the faith.
Destruction of the Talmud, and severe interdiction against the reading or teaching of the Talmud.
Legislation as to neophytes. "
(from "The Jewish Problem As Dealt With By The Popes")
Augustinian (c.386) theology reinforced the notion of the Jews as a wandering, homeless, rejected and accursed people who were incurably carnal, blind to spiritual meaning, perfidious, faithless and apostate. Their crime, being one of cosmic proportions, merited permanent exile and subordination to Christianity. (ASTLH p.19.)
St John Chrysostom (died 407) "The Golden Mouth" said: "I hate Jews" over and over; and, "God hates Jews and always did." He was finally (and, no doubt, unjustly) ex-communicated, defrocked, and died in exile but NOT for the above reasons! (TAP p.617 & VOC p.219.)
St Gregory the Great, {64th P.} thought it wrong to force people into Faith:
In the same letter which orders the severe persecution of Manicheans, he directs Jews to be attracted to the faith, rather than compelled, by the remission of one-third of the taxes due to the Church in the case of such as might conform, saying that, though the conversions thus obtained might be insincere, yet the children of the converts would be baptised as Christians. Comment: If an insincere conversion were obtained by such bribery what would be the moral position of such a convert receiving the Eucharist, Holy Orders, or any other Sacrament? And what would be the position of he who obtained such a conversion by such means?
In another place he writes: "Conversions wrought by force are never sincere, and such as are so converted seldom fail to return to their vomit as soon as the force is removed."
Nevertheless, on one occasion, "he congratulated a king of Spain for initiating a violent persecution of the Jews. " He condemned the holding of Christian slaves by Jews.
Leo VII {128th P.} Encouraged Archbishop Frederick of Mainz, Apostolic Vicar and legate for all Germany, to expel Jews who refused to be baptised.
St Gregory VII {155th P.} (22 April 1073 - 25 May 1085)
"In 1078 he renewed the canonical laws which prohibited giving Jews power over Christians...Jews might not be employed as tax-farmers or mint-masters."
Lucius II {164th P.} (12 Mar. 1144 - 15 Feb. 1145)
During his reign, "the first recorded accusation of ritual murder was brought in 1144 against the Jews of Oxford...Once started, they spread in waves...the only Jews to escape slaughter by the mobs (during the pogroms) were those who slew their wives and children and then died by their own hand." (B&S p.58.)
Alexander III {168th P.}
The Augustinian doctrine that "the Jew is the slave of the Christian" was soon embedded in canon law and confirmed by the Third Lateran Council (1179.) Even the great medieval philosopher St Thomas Aquinas (1125-74) affirmed the legitimacy of holding the Jews in "perpetual servitude" for their crimes", while urging that they not be deprived of those things necessary for sustaining life.
Forbade Christians under severe penalties, to enter the service of Jews for any lengthy period or to become domestic servants in their households.
Innocent III {174th P.}
Wrote against admitting Jews to Christian cities: they repay their hosts, as the proverb says, after the fashion of the rat hidden in the sack, or the snake in the bosom...the sons of the free-woman should not serve the sons of the bond-woman.
In On Jews and Saracens, he wrote: "We forbid the giving of public appointments to Jews..."
At the 4th Lateran (12th General) Council he decreed that Jews and Muslims should wear a distinctive dress - a conical hat in the Germanic and a "Jew" badge in the Latin countries.
"In 1215...any Jew above the age of thirteen, or Jewish woman above eleven, was to wear a mark, usually a patch, front and back, on the outer garment."
Honorius III {175th P.]
1217, Nov. 07: Bull - Sicut judaeis non debet esse licentia. Object: It is forbidden to force Jews to baptism or molest them.
1219, Apr. 29: Bull - Ad nostram noveritis audietiam. Object: They are obliged to carry a distinctive badge. Forbidden to fill public office.
Gregory IX {176th P.]
1233 Mar. 5: Bull - Sufficere debuerat perfidioe judeorum perida. Object: Jews are forbidden to employ Christian servants. He complains bitterly of their ingratitude! (PATC pp.651/2.)
1239: He issued an order to the kings and the archbishops to confiscate all copies of the Talmud, investigate the work and, if they found that it contained anything insulting to Christianity, to condemn the book and all its commentaries."
Innocent IV {178th P.]
"Accusations of Ritual Murder...in 1236...Frederick II called a conference...a few years later Pope Innocent IV issued a Bull in which he announced that the accusation was not to be believed. But it was useless; the accusations continued to crop up.
May 9: Bull -Impia judeorum perfidia. Object: French King ordered to burn the Talmud. Jews forbidden to employ Christian nurses.
..grant you full authority by these present letters to banish the above mentioned Jews..."
(cf. Benedict XIV's encyclical.)
Clement IV {181st P.] 1267, July 26: Bull - Turbato corde. Object: Christians forbidden to embrace Judaism.
Bl. Gregory X {182nd P.] 1274, Mar. 1: Bull - Turbato corde. Identical object.
Nicholas III {186th P.] 1278: Aug. 4: Bull - Vineam Sorec. On: Preaching to Jews.
Nicholas IV {189th P.] 1288, Sept. 5: Bull - Turbato corde. Object: Christians who embrace Judaism.
During Clement V’s {193rd P.] pontificate the Jews were expelled from France.
John XXII {194th P.]
1317, Aug. 12: Bull - Ex parte vestra. Object: Relapse of converts.
, June 19: Bull - Cum sit absurdum. Object: Converted Jews need not be despoiled.
- [The Talmud] "burned in Rome by order of Pope John XXII., and accompanied by robbery and murder of the Jews by the mob."
By late 1347 the Black Death was in Sicily, by early 1348 in North Italy and in the summer of that year in England. Word got around that the Jews had caused the plague. More were killed in reprisal for the Black Death than in any persecution up to the 20th century.
Clement VI {196th P.]
Defended the Jews when the Black Death appeared at Avignon in 1348/9.
Bl. Urban V {198th P.]
1365 June 7: Bull - Sicuti judaeis non debet. Object: Forbidden to molest Jews or to force them to baptism.
Martin V {204th P.]
Showed unusual moderation towards the Jews, denouncing (1422 and 1429) violent anti - Jewish preaching and forbidding compulsory baptism of Jewish children under twelve.
the last years of his pontificate, however, he repealed several of his ordinances (favourable to the Jews), charging that they had been obtained under false pretences."
June 3: Bull - Sedas apostolica. Object: Jews obliged to wear badge.
Eugene IV {205th P.] 1442, Aug. 8: Bull - Dudum ad nostram audientiam. Object: Forbidden to live with Christians or fill public functions, etc.
Calixtus III {207th P.] 1456, May 28: Bull - Si ad reprimendos. Object: He revived the harsh legislation (allowed to lapse by his two predecessors) banning the social intercourse of Christians with Jews.
Paul II {209th P.] (1464 - 1471) Handsome, vain he was a great promoter of carnivals, to the expense of which Jews were obliged to contribute.
Sixtus IV {210th P.]
1478: said to have expressed his approval of "ritual murder" accusation against the Jews in "the Papal Bull XII Kal, 1478, July."
1480: Bull sanctioned the Spanish Inquisition.
1483: Thomas of Torquemada appointed Grand Inquisitor; he ruled tyrannically for 15 years. It was said that he had a Jewish grandmother himself.
1486: Malleus maleficarum (The Witches Hammer) was written by the Dominican Inquisitors, Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger - for the discovery and punishment of witches. A couple of examples:-
Q. Can children be begotten by the devil?
A. In the affirmative. .
(Also, men can "loose" their "member" [their penis]!, etc.)
Innocent VIII {211th P.] All Jews expelled from Spain.
Paul III {218th P.] Denounced Spaniards as the offspring of Jews and Moors.
1542, Mar. 21: Bull - Cupientes Judaeos. Object: Privileges in favour of Jewish neophytes.
1543, Feb. 19: Bull - Illius, qui pro dominici. Object: Establishment of a monastery for Jewish catechumens and neophytes.
Julius III {219th P.]
1553, burned the Talmud and prohibited Christians from printing it.
1554, [The Talmud ] "burned by hundreds and thousands in Ancona, Ferrara, Mantua, Padua, Candia and Ravenna."
1554, Aug. 31: Bull - Pastoris aeterni vices. Object: Taxes in favour of (Jewish) neophytes.
Paul IV {221st P.]
"In July 1555 he issued a decree which, for ferocious anti-Jewishness, was not equalled until the coming of Hitler to modern Germany. No amount of effort on the part of the Jews could save the community from imprisonment within a ghetto."
1555, July 17: Bull - Cum nimis absurdum. Object: stressed the Jews were by nature slaves; to be confined to the ghetto and to wear the yellow hat. Forbidden to practice any industry, etc. One of his inquisitors was the future St Pius V {223rd P.}
1556, Mar. 23: Bull - Dudum postquam. Object: Tax in favour of neophytes.
Pius IV {222nd P.]
1562, Jan. 26: Bull - Cum inter ceteras. Object: Bull relative to monastery of (Jewish) catechumens.
Dudum e felicis recordationis. Object: Bull confirming that of Paul IV.
St Pius V {223rd P.]
The Talmud was burned in "1558 - Rome, [by] Cardinal Ghislieri." - the future Pius V.
Under him the number of persons accused and sentenced, often men of culture and distinction, soared. He was no less harsh on Jews:
1566, Apr. 19: Bull - Romanis Pontifex. Object: Confirming that of Paul IV. Yellow cap and sign.
1566, June: He personally baptised two Jewish adults and their three children; five cardinals acted as their godfathers.
1566, Nov. 29: Bull - Sacrosanctae catholicae ecclesiae. Object: Bull relating to convent of neophytes.
1567, Jan. 19: Bull - Cum nos nuper. Object: Jews are forbidden to own real estate. Sell or be confiscated!
1569, Feb. 26: Bull - Hebraeorum gens. Object: Expulsion of Jews from the Church States except Rome and Ancona - else property confiscation and slavery.
Gregory XIII {224th P.]
Said the guilt of the Jews "only grows deeper with successive generations, entailing perpetual slavery."
1577, Sept. 1: Bull - Vices ejus nos. Object: Obligatory preaching. Creation of college of neophytes. The Jews were required to send every week at least 150 of their number to listen to the conversionist sermons.
1581, July 1: Bull - Antiqua judaeorum improbitas. On: Against blasphemers.
1584, Sept. 1: Bull - Sancta mater Ecclesiae. Object: Obligatory preaching.
Sixtus V {225th P.]
1586: Bull - Christiana pietas. Object: Privileges granted to the Jews. He was more favourable to the Jews and permitted the printing of the Talmud after it was censored (1586.)
1588: regularised the popular cult of St Simon of Trent by ratifying it in 1588, as cited by Benedict XIV in Book I, Ch. xiv, No. 4 of his On the Canonisation of Saints.
Clement VIII {229th P.]
1592, Feb. 28: Bull - Cum saepe accidere. Object: Jews of Avignon forbidden to sell new goods.
1593, Feb. 25: Bull - Caeca et obdurata. Object: Confirmation of the Bull of Paul III. Jews forbidden to dwell outside the ghettos of Rome, Ancona and Avignon.
1593, Feb. 28: Bull - Cum haebraeorum malitia. Object: It is forbidden to read the Talmud.
1596: A stricter, enlarged Index, inc. a ban on Jewish books, came out.
1604: Rabbi Joshua Ascarelli, his wife and four children were sent to the "Casa" for brain-washing. The parents refused to give in and were finally released. The children were not allowed to accompany them and, without their parents, eventually succumbed and were baptised. When the parents came to take them home, they were told to go away before they were flogged.
Paul V {231st P.]
1610, July 31: Bull - Apostolicae servitutis. Object: Regulars (of monks) obliged to learn Hebrew.
1610, Aug. 07: Bull - Exponi nobis nuper fecistis. Object: Bull relating to the dowries of Jewish women.
Urban VIII {233rd P.]
1625, Apr. 22: Bull - Sedes apostolica. Object: Heretical Jews, in Portugal.
1626, Aug. 20: Bull - Injuncti nobis. Object: Privileges granted to the monastery of catechumens.
1635, Oct. 18: Bull - Cum sicut acceptimus. Object: Obligation to feed poor Jews imprisoned for debt.
1636, Mar. 17: Bull - Cum allias piae. Object: Synagogues of the Duchies of Ferrarri and Urban, to pay tax of 10 ecus.
Alexander VII {235th P.]
1657, Dec. 01: Bull - Verbi aeterni. Object: Bull relating to rights of neophytes regarding jus gasaga.
1658, Nov. 15: Bull - Ad ea per quae. Object: Jus gasaga.
1662, May 23: Bull - Ad apostolicae dignitatis. Object: Concordat between the college of neophytes and German college.
1663, Mar. 06: Bull - Illus, qui illuminat. Object: Privileges favouring the fraternities of neophytes.
Clement X {237th P.]
Under Clement, the Portugal Inquisition (against Jewry) was halted, but he refused to help the expelled Jews of Vienna (1670.) "The worst feature ... under papal dominion was the closing of the gates of the Roman ghetto at night. Severe penalties awaited a Jew leaving the ghetto after dark, or a Christian entering it."
Alexander VIII {239th P.]
Mar. 30, 1690: Bull - Animarum saluti. Object: Bull relating to the neophytes in the Indies.
Innocent XII {240th P.] Aug. 31, 1692: Bull - Ad radicitus submovendum. Object: Abolition of special jurisdiction.
Clement XI {241st P.]
1704, Mar. 11: Bull - Propagandae per unicersum . Object: Confirmation and extension of Paul III regarding neophytes.
1705, Jan. 21: Bull - Essendoci stato rappresentato . Object: Powers of Vicar of Rome in jurisdiction of catechumens and neophytes.
1712, Jan. 02: Bull - Salvatoris nostri vices . Object: Transfer of "Pii Operai" the work of the catechumens.
Innocent XIII {242nd P.] (8 May 1721 - 7 Mar. 1724)
On Jan. 18, 1724: Bull - Ex injuncto nobis . Object: Prohibits sale of new objects.
Benedict XIII {243rd P.] (29 May 1724 - 21 Feb. 1730)
1726, Jan. 08: Bull - Nuper, pro parte dilectorum . Object: Establishment of dowries for young girl neophytes.
1727, Feb. 14: Bull - Emanavit nuper . Object: Necessary conditions for imposing baptism on a Jew.
1729, Mar. 21: Bull - Alias emanarunt . Object: Forbidding the sale of new goods.
Benedict XIV {245th P.]
1747, Feb. 28: Bull - Postremomens. Object: The baptism of Jews.
1747, Sept. 16: Bull - Apostolici Ministerii. Object: Right of repudiation of neophytes.
1749, Feb. 09: Bull - Singulari nobis. Object: Marriages between Jews and Christians.
1751, June 14: Encyclical - A quo primum . "To the primate, archbishops and bishops of Poland, concerning what is forbidden to Jews dwelling in the same towns and districts as Christians." Forbidden: "...they are forbidden to do the very things they are allowed to do in the Kingdom of Poland, namely, all the things We have enumerated above."
1751, Dec. 15: Bull - Probe to meminisse . Object Baptism of Jewish children.
1755, Feb. 22: Bull - Beatus Andreas . Object: Confirms martyrdom of the child, Simon of Trent, by Jews. Also see citation by Benedict XIV in Book I, Ch. xiv, No. 4 of his On the Canonisation of Saints .
(JRM p.19.)
Clement XIV {247th P.]
In 1759, when he was still Cardinal Ganganelli, went to Poland in answer to a Jewish appeal to the pope in relation to the "Ritual Murder" allegations. According to the anti-semite Arnold S. Leese:
"...although this man went out with a biased mind in favour of the Jews (in this report, he says: 'With my weak faculties I endeavored to demonstrate the non-existence of the crime which was imputed to the Jewish nation in Poland,' hardly the spirit in which to enter upon such an investigation!), he actually says of this Trent case (see Report of Cardinal Ganganelli, in C. Roth's The Ritual Murder Libel and the Jew, 1935, p.83): 'I admit then as true the fact of the Blessed Simon, a boy three years old, killed by the Jews in Trent in the year 1475 in hatred of the faith of Jesus Christ (although it is disputed by Basnage and Wagenseil); for the celebrated Flaminio Cornaro, a Venetian Senator, in his work On the Cult of the Child St. Simon of Trent [Venice, 1753] disposes of all doubts raised by the above-mentioned critics.' "
Pius VI {248th P.]
"renewed all the restrictions enacted from the 13th century. The censorship of books was strictly enforced...and their attendance at conversionist sermons was enforced."
Leo XII {250th P.]
Re-enforced these rules with extreme rigour, and again locked up the Jews in ghettos. The modern state which Cardinal Consalvi (a previous Secretary of State) had been tentatively fostering reverted to a police regime infested with spies and intent on stamping out, with penalties ranging from petty clerical surveillance of private life to execution, any possible flicker of revolution.
Pius IX {253rd P.]
On the night of Passover, 1848, he permitted the removal of the ghetto's gates. After being forced to flee Rome during the revolution, on his return he was so bitter that he blamed the Jews for the revolutionary movements, and maintained the ghetto in Rome until it was abolished by the Italian occupation of Rome 1870.
Persuaded Tuscany to forbid Jewish doctors to practice medicine.
1858: The seven year old Jewish child, Edgardo Mortara, was seized under clerical orders from his parents, brought up as a Christian, and then a priest.
Oct. 02, 1870: By Royal decree the Jews were given the freedom which the papacy had denied them for over 1500 years.
Leo XIII {254th P.]
Was the first pope who exercised no territorial jurisdiction over the Jews. However, "he encouraged anti-semitism by bestowing distinctions on leading anti-semitic politicians and authors, as Lueger and Drumont...he refused to interfere on behalf of Captain Dreyfus, or to issue a statement against the blood accusation."
"It was discovered that the real spy on the general staff was a certain Major Esterhazy, who fled to England, and that a number of accusing documents tending to throw the guilt on Dreyfus had been forged by Lieutenant-Colonel Henri, who committed suicide rather than face trial."
St Pius X {255th P.]
1908: The Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Inquisition has a name change to The Holy Office.
Pius XI {257th P.]
1938, Sept.: expressly warned his hearers that anti-semitism was incompatible with Christianity.
"Spiritually", he declared, "we are all Semites."
Pius XII {258th P.]
1943, January: "As early as January, 1943, Pius had in his hands a letter from Wadislas Rackiewicz, president of the Polish government-in-exile in London, in which he said: ‘The extermination of the Jews, and with them many Christians of the Semitic race, has only been a test for the systematic application of scientifically organised mass murder....Hundreds of thousands of people are killed without due process....’
1943, Dec.: Jews were deprived officially of Italian citizenship. Of the 335 persons shot in the Ardeatine Caves, 70 were Jews.
1943: "Pius was truly worried that Hitler would abrogate an article of the 1929 Concordat in which the German government collected a compulsory Church tax from its citizens each year. Fifty per cent of this sum was turned over to the Catholic Church in Germany and the rest went to Rome. The tax total collected in 1943, for instance, amounted to 450 million marks, which at the time was worth over $100 million."
1944, June 5: The Military chaplain removed the seals, including Pius XII's, from the gates of Rome's Great Synagogue. Jews were free again.
1945: The conversion of Chief Rabbi Italo Zolli to Catholicism: "Rabbi Zolli had disappeared from view on September 8, 1943, when the Nazi troops took over Rome completely. Not until June 1944, when the allied armies took Rome, did Rabbi Zolli re-surface...he had hid himself in various places...When the Germans retreated from Rome, Rabbi Zolli, then 68 years old, sought to take up his duties once again as the Chief Rabbi of Rome, but Rome’s Jewish community resisted because the people felt that the chief rabbi had left them in the lurch when they really needed him.
"Rabbi Zolli, together with his wife and daughter Miriam, had himself baptised in the Catholic rites early in 1945...though he was a superb scholar and a humanist, Zolli was not considered a good rabbi by his peers, nor even by his daughter...
"As Chief Rabbi of Rome, however, Zolli never quite found his place in that city’s community, the oldest Jewish community in the world...Embittered...Zolli became an outcast among his own people. After he was informed by a prominent Roman Jew in 1944 that he had better search around for another arrangement, Zolli over-reacted and told the representative that if Rome’s Jews wanted to put him out to pasture after he had spent 40 years working for Judaism, ‘they will pay dearly for it.’ "
Bishop Tissier de Mallerais, of the Society of St Pius X, in Catholic of May 1997, under the title, The Jews in Latter Times , wrote:
"The extermination of Jews by the Nazis could only be the doing of an anti-Christian regime. The Church for its part has at all times forbidden and condemned the killing of Jews even when 'their grave defects rendered them odious to the nations among which they were established.' "
"...All this makes us think that the Jews are the most active artisans for the coming of antichrist."
