From medieval carvings to Nostra Aetate: confronting Christian antisemitism

I took a virtual tour of Cologne Cathedral in Germany and marveled at its Gothic architecture, soaring twin spires and majestic stained glass.

But as I looked closer at the photographs, disturbing images emerged of anti-Jewish tropes. There was a medieval wood carving of a Judensau (Jew’s sow), an antisemitic folk motif, in the choir stalls dating from the 14th century.

Inside the cathedral, there was an image of two thugs wearing Jewish conical hats flogging Jesus. This suggested it was the Jews, not the Romans, who were meting out the beating and reflected the centuries-old antisemitic trope and false Christian teaching that Jews as a collective were responsible for killing Jesus.

However, the official Cologne Cathedral website, which hosts the tour, is at pains to point out that many images are examples of “appalling anti-Judaism” and are quite rightly seen as problematic. “Christian anti-Judaism frequently led to the persecution of the Jewish population and its exclusion from society. It was also a precursor of modern antisemitism,” the website says.

The teaching of contempt

This acknowledgement harks back to 1965 when the Second Vatican Council released Nostra Aetate, a declaration on the relationship between the Church and non-Christian religions. It denounced antisemitism.

The Catholic Church’s position is that neither Jews at the time of Jesus nor Jews today can be held collectively responsible for his death. There have been similar pronouncements since 1965, most recently on 22 October, when Pope Leo XIV met with the American Jewish Committee, a global Jewish advocacy organization.

He condemned antisemitism, and in May last year he reaffirmed the Church’s commitment to Nostra Aetate.

‘I pledge to continue and strengthen the Church’s dialogue and cooperation with the Jewish people in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council’s declaration Nostra Aetate,’ the Pope wrote.

In Australia, it’s been fascinating to read submissions from Catholic organizations to the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion in the context of the Church’s commitment to Nostra Aetate.

The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference and Catholic Religious Australia (CRA), representing leaders of more than 150 Catholic religious institutes and societies, made a submission in which they acknowledge the Church’s historical role in fostering the ‘teaching of contempt’ towards Jews, and consider how centuries of anti-Jewish teaching might continue to influence attitudes today.

From the early centuries of Christianity, CRA explains that respected Christian thinkers believed Jews were ‘Christ-killers’. Later there were a number of false claims against Jews that they were responsible for the Black Death and killed Christian children to use their blood in rituals.

‘Numerous scholars have therefore proposed that supersessionist theology and other forms of church-sanctioned antagonism towards Jews had the effect of lowering the moral resistance of populations to later forms of racial antisemitism, notably Hitler’s murderous ideology which directly fuelled the Holocaust,’ the CRA submission says.

The submissions also acknowledge the growing antisemitism in Australia. ‘The recent explosion of explicit antisemitism in parts of Australia is shocking and deeply distressing,’ the bishops say. They also say that non-Jews should be troubled that Jews need security to participate in ‘ordinary community life’ and that Jewish schools need armed guards.

A relationship being rebuilt

The bishops’ and CRA submissions highlight that education is vital to counteracting antisemitism. Last year, CRA released online resources developed with the Executive Council of Australian Jewry to help Catholic school principals and other community leaders ‘to better understand the nature and indicators of antisemitism and to navigate incident response in their local setting’.

To mark the 60th anniversary of Nostra Aetate last year, over a hundred Year 10 and 11 Catholic and Jewish students in NSW attended an event sponsored by the Australian Catholic University and the Executive Council of Australian Jewry for students to discuss antisemitism.

Like the CRA, the bishops say in their submission that ongoing engagement with the Jewish community is vital. It was unsurprising then to read that one of the two signatories to the bishops’ submission is Melbourne Archbishop Peter A Comensoli.

He has a strong connection to Yaakov Glasman, senior rabbi at the St Kilda Synagogue, where I am a member. In 2024, the archbishop and rabbi went on a solidarity pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where they visited the Western Wall, toured Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Centre, and met with Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa at the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

Both the archbishop and rabbi spoke and wrote about their experiences. Archbishop Comensoli told an Australian reporter, ‘It (the pilgrimage) was particularly powerful for me to stand with my friend, Rabbi Yaakov, at the Western Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem, and to pray together Psalm 150 and Isaiah 2.1-5.’

Rabbi Glasman wrote a piece for the Australian Jewish News about his experience. In it he said, ‘Our joint “pilgrimage” to the holy city of Jerusalem will forever be etched in my mind as one of the most meaningful experiences of my life.’

The relationship between St Kilda Synagogue and the Catholic Church is ongoing. Next month (10 December), the synagogue is hosting an interfaith concert celebrating the friendship “between our Jewish and Catholic communities.”

Archbishop Comensoli will deliver an address at the concert, Two Faiths One Voice, featuring the Mosaic Voices of London. Mosaic Voices, the resident choir of the New West End Synagogue, is an a cappella ensemble specializing in traditional Jewish and contemporary music.

While the Catholic Church has condemned antisemitic attacks in Australia and worked to improve relationships with the Jewish community, the CRA says in its submission there is ‘more to be done’. The organization is cognizant of how remnants of the teaching of contempt can continue to ‘shape, or dilute, its reaction to modern antisemitic events’.

In this context, the CRA cites in its submission the work of Philip Cunningham, co-director of the Institute for Jewish-Catholic Relations at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia: “(Cunningham) likens this to muscle memory that can surface in moments of heightened tension, particularly amid unfolding violence in the Middle East, when age-old biases can inadvertently color commentary or language.”

It’s also a reminder of how any of our latent prejudices can rise to the surface, even when we believe we have left them behind.

This column first appeared in Eureka Street and is republished by Global Catholic with permission.