Slapped in the Face Again

by Christopher A. Ferrara

        Why did the Pope visit a synagogue in Cologne? What was to be gained for the cause of the Gospel by the worldwide dissemination of photographs of the Vicar of Christ sitting next to a gigantic Menorah?

        As if we could not see it coming, the gesture backfired: the stiff-necked descendants of the Pharisees used the opportunity to impugn the Catholic Church once again. As reported by Reuters on August 31, 2005, while the Pope sat next to the Menorah, one Abraham Lehrer lectured the Pope on his "duty" to unseal all of the Vatican archives, telling His Holiness before the assembled media that, as Reuters reports it, the Pope has "a special responsibility to open files that critics say would show how much Pope Pius XII knew about the Nazi slaughter of Jews."

        Here we go again. As Lehrer declared to the Pope for the benefit of the cameras: "For us, a complete opening of the Vatican archives covering the period of World War Two, sixty years after the end of the Shoah (Holocaust), would be a further sign of historical conscience and would also satisfy critics…. You grew up in Germany during a terrible time. We not only see in you the head of the Catholic Church but also a German who is aware of his historical responsibility." Notice how Lehrer declined to address the Pope as Your Holiness. The Pope is merely a "you" and a German with a "historical responsibility," even if he also happens to be the head of the Catholic Church.

        So, the visit to the synagogue in Cologne was, for the Jewish party, all about putting the Pope on the spot, pressuring him before the world to help them in their never-ending fanatical quest to "get" Pope Pius XII, who in fact did more for the Jews during World War II than Jewish organizations did. The stiff-necked descendants of the Pharisees persist in the Big Lie — refuted by Jewish testimonies immediately after the war — that Pius XII was complicit in the persecution of Jews by Hitler.

        And as the Pope sat there, Lehrer’s lecturing and condescension went on: "The very symbol of your presence on the pulpit of Northern Europe's oldest synagogue — destroyed by some of your countrymen under the influence of a murderous and morally bankrupt regime, and rebuilt by the hopes of a saving remnant, demonstrates to the world that we can look to the future without erasing the past." Yes, they dared to use Benedict XVI, the Vicar of Christ, as a public whipping boy for the crimes of Adolf Hitler.

        What foolishness it is to kowtow to those who Our Lord Himself, a Hebrew, denounced as "the Synagogue of Satan" in his locution to Saint John, the Galilean apostle who was His cousin. Men like Lehrer despise the Catholic Church and thrive on the opportunity — inexplicably given to them by the Pope himself — to scourge the Church before the world. And that is why the Pope should never again allow himself, or the Church he represents, to be exploited in this way. Enough with papal visits to synagogues!