Haaretz
Tevet 28, 5767
An Italian group on Thursday asked
Pope Benedict to order the removal of all religious works of art and
Catholic traditions that are still tainted by anti-Semitism.
The
Roman Association of Friends of Israel sent a letter to the Pope asking
him for a "clear and strong signal" that he would not tolerate any
residual or resurgent forms anti-Semitism in religious art or popular
culture, such as processions.
The group sent the letter to protest
against an exhibition in a church in the Umbrian city of Orvieto which
includes several old paintings depicting Jews desecrating a consecrated
communion host, which Catholics believe is the body of Christ.
"The
fact that this culture (of anti-Semitism) continues to survive in parishes
is very worrying and alarming for us," said the letter, a copy of which
was made available to Reuters.
"It is a sign that the embers of
intolerance and hate continue to smoulder under the ashes, which, after
the Holocaust, we had hoped were definitively put out," it
said.
22One painting, called the "Miracle of Trani", portrays the
legend of a Jewish woman in the year 1000 who sneaked into a church in the
southern city of Trani and stole a consecrated host.
According to
the legend, she took it home to desecrate it by frying it in oil. But then
the "miracle" happened. The host became flesh and started bleeding. The
woman was hanged and the event is still recalled in Trani today during
Easter week.
"The fact that this painting is on display in a church
is so grave and insulting that we decided to write directly to he Pope,
bypassing priests and bishops," Anna Borioni, the president of the
association, told Reuters.
"Only the Pope can do something to stop
these kinds of things from still happening," said Borioni, who is
Catholic.
The association's letter to the Pope said the exhibition
showed that there were still residues of "virulent anti-Jewish" feelings
in some sectors of Italian Catholicism.
Jews say that some
religious processions held during Easter week in small cities still have
traces of anti-Semitism.
In the Middle Ages in Rome, when Jews
lived in the Ghetto across the Tiber from St Peter's Basilica, a papal
envoy gave the Jewish community leader a public kick in the backside every
year at a ceremony when Jews offered tithes to the pope.
Until only
40 years ago, a ritual recited by Catholics during Good Friday services
commemorating Christ's death read: "Let us pray for the perfidious
Jews".
Pope John XXIII ordered the phrase removed and in 1965 the
Second Vatican Council issued a major document that repudiated the notion
of collective Jewish guilt for Christ's death.
In the past few
decades, the Vatican has strived to improve relations with Jews. It
established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1994 and Pope John Paul
visited the Holy Land in 2000.