Pope’ Outrageous Statements Sparks Letter from Rabbi Mark Dratch
Special to Channel 613
The Jewish community’s outrage at Pope Francis’ criticism of Israel’s Gaza operations echoes a deeply troubling history of Vatican antisemitism. While Rabbi Mark Dratch’s letter diplomatically challenges the Pope’s remarks, it carries the weight of centuries of painful Catholic-Jewish relations.
From Pope Pius IX’s 1858 kidnapping of six-year-old Edgardo Mortara – forcibly baptized and raised Catholic despite his Jewish parents’ desperate pleas – to Pope Pius XII’s deafening silence during the Holocaust as millions perished, the Vatican’s record demands accountability. Pius XII, despite detailed knowledge of Nazi atrocities, refused to explicitly condemn the systematic murder of Jews, prioritizing diplomatic relations over moral leadership during humanity’s darkest hour.
Against this haunting backdrop, Rabbi Dratch’s letter confronts Francis’ December 21st statement condemning Israeli military actions: “Yesterday children were bombed. This is cruelty, this is not war.” This characterization ignores the savagery of Hamas’ October 7th massacre, where terrorists slaughtered nearly 1,500 innocent Israelis, including infants in their cribs.
The letter forcefully argues that Israel wages a defensive war against terrorists who cynically use Palestinian civilians as human shields, storing weapons in schools and hospitals. By failing to condemn Hamas with equal vigor, the Vatican risks repeating its historical pattern of moral equivocation when Jewish lives hang in the balance.
While the Vatican offered only prayers for peace in response, the Jewish community’s call for moral clarity resonates with historical urgency: silence in the face of terrorism, like silence during the Holocaust, only emboldens those who sow hatred and violence.
The letter concludes with a plea to protect innocent lives and maintain interfaith dialogue – a dialogue made more challenging by centuries of institutional antisemitism that the Catholic Church has yet to fully confront.