It's nice to see I'm not the only one who knows that the Catholic Church is evil.

To me it seems obvious that the Catholic Church is an evil institution. I have made this opinion of mine clear in several of my posts. It seems utterly clear to me that our people should not pursue ties with the worldwide mafia that is the Vatican.

Although I am sure that some of my fellow Jewish fanatics would agree with me on this point, I rarely find it expressed in the opinion columns of 'main stream' newspapers and websites. In fact it seems to me that here in Israel the same leftists in the media who are so quick to attack the Jewish religion and religious Jews, are the very first people to advocate for stronger ties with the Vatican. This is something that never ceases to baffle me. I would not say that the world of religious Judaism is free of problems, but, I haven't yet heard of any Chassidic Rebbes ordering their followers to burn people at the stake.

So I was happy to see this article over at YnetNews.com (poorly written as it may be):

A needless relationship
Why do Jews need ties with Vatican when Popes do nothing to curb anti-Semitism?
Noah Klieger

“How wonderful,” it took the Pope “only” a month of hesitation before he declared that one should not be denying the Holocaust, while ruling that British Bishop Richard Williamson should not be reinstated by the Catholic Church. This religious cleric, who belongs to the fanatic Society of St. Pius X, made a name for himself as a serial Holocaust denier and a declared anti-Semite.

Even though the bishop repeated his claim that there were no gas chambers in Auschwitz in the days before he was pardoned by the Pope, after 20 years of excommunication, Benedict XVI saw no reason to annul the pardon. Only the protests led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and the Jewish communities of course, “convinced” the Pope to retract. “Bishop Williamson…will have to take his distance, in an absolutely unequivocal and public fashion, from his position on the Shoah,” the Vatican said, as if this can erase Williamson’s words and actions.

Please allow me to go back to 1979 and recount my trip with then-Jewish Agency Chairman and World Zionist Organization President Aryeh Dolchin. We travelled to Vienna and Rome, and Dolchin had a meeting scheduled with Pope John Paul II. However, Dolchin called off the meeting after the Pope’s representatives informed him that he will only be received for a few minutes, between one official meeting and another while being led into the palace via a side entrance.

“I represent the Jewish people and my status is no lower than that of the head of the Catholic Church,” he told the Pope’s representatives.

And why am I mentioning the late Dolchin at this time? Because I never understood why we, the Jews, need a relationship with the Pope and his Church. After all, we never benefited in any way from these ties.

Anti-Semitism never ceased
Let’s examine the dry facts: Did Pius XII, the Pope who reigned during Hitler’s rule in Germany and Europe, ever speak out against the extermination of the Jews? Certainly not. He saw nothing, knew nothing, and said nothing. And what did the various Popes who succeeded him do? Did they order all priests to stop their incitement against the Jewish people? Did they forbid various religious clerics, such as Polish Cardinal Jozef Glemp, to spread anti-Semitism? No.

Indeed, about 30 years ago, the Vatican issued a statement absolving Jews from Jesus’ crucifixion – almost 2,000 years after the fact – yet did any Church loyalist conduct himself in line with this declaration? We also had a Pope who made a historic first visit to a synagogue. What a brave step!

The anti-Semitism created, led, and disseminated by Christianity ever since it was established never ceased, and these days it again raises its head. So why do we need ties with the Pope? In any case, God’s representatives on earth, according to the Catholic Church, did nothing and will do nothing significant in order to curb anti-Semitism.

I don't know the author or his views. It seems to me that that article doesn't go far enough in its condemnation of the Catholic Church but it is still refreshing to see someone who is against pandering to the Pope get published at Ynet. It is a step in the right direction.

The benevolent Vatican, what would we do without them?

It has taken most of the day to let my stomach settle before I could write this post. I think I am ready now.

Why do some Jews have such a deep rooted need to pander to the Gentiles? It seems that the more bent on destroying us a given nation or religion is, the more such Jews feel honored to bend over forward to appease them. If said nation/religion has a well established history of killing and torturing Jews, it is an even bigger Mitzvah in their eyes.

This seems to be the case with Lenny Ben-David. In an OpEd for JPost.com (also posted on his blog) from this morning, he is very excited about the news that the Vatican will be publishing a catalog of its stolen Hebrew manuscripts.

He first mentions the fact that over the centuries the Vatican systematically banned and burned hundreds of thousands of Jewish books (and often their owners with them as you can see in the illustration above) and stole many others for their archives so that their priest could study them in and effort to refute them. He then rules that by cataloging 800 of the stolen manuscripts, the Vatican has taken "a big step to atone for this cultural crime."

What?!!

Like I wrote a few days ago, I don't understand why we have anything to do with the Vatican. These are evil people who have tortured and massacred Jews for centuries. I don't know if there is anything that they can do to make up for it. But I am a reasonable person and if the Vatican would, say, pay annual reparations to the State of Israel... something in the high hundreds of millions or low billions range, and then turn over all of the Jewish artifacts and manuscripts that they have in their vaults to the Israel Museum, I might be inclined to think that they were sincere in their regret for their past actions. But this kind of insulting gesture should be met with a spit in the face!

Do you really want to be sick to your stomach? Take a look at this quote from Mordechay Lewy, ambassador to the Vatican:

...the manuscripts -- dating from the ninth century to the present day -- document "the history of the relationship of the Vatican and the Jewish community" as well as highlight the importance of the written word for "preserving and passing on knowledge from generation to generation, guaranteeing the continuity of the tradition and the survival of Jewish identity."

Jews like these need to grow a pair! Stop pandering to the Pope, the Germans, the UN, and the terrorists, get a gun, move to Judea and have a bunch of kids. That is what the Jewish people needs if it is going to survive.

Israeli Chief Rabbinate cuts ties with Israeli government...

not.

But it would make about as much sense as what they actually did this week in cutting ties with the Vatican.  Here is why:

The Rabbinate cut ties with the Vatican in order to protest the reinstating of a Holocaust denier as bishop.  The bishop had previously been excommunicated along with several others for rebelling against the Roman Church.

Now don't get me wrong, I have no problem with the Rabbinate cutting ties with the Vatican.  I don't think there ever should have been any ties with a body that has tortured, expelled and in every way possible persecuted Jews at every chance it got throughout history.  It is very nice that they held Vatican II in the 60's and declared that they no longer believe that all Jews are doomed to Hell.  In my book, that is a tiny step in the right direction, but nowhere near sufficient.  (I would like to see something in the order of sever billion dollars payed annually to the State of Israel as reparations for all of the damage to body and property that the Church did to Jews over the millenia.  Then I would consider their apology to be perhaps sincere.)

What I don't understand one bit, is why this action triggered the Rabbinate to cut ties.  Mahmoud Abbas is after all an unapologetic Holocaust denier.  The government of Israel took him from being considered a terrorist, and now props him up over and over again as the 'peace partner'.  Our government gives guns to terrorist, and lets thousands of terrorist out of jail, just to prop up this Holocaust denier so that we can hand him our historic, Biblical homeland on a silver platter.  

If recognizing a Holocaust denier, is more of a reason to cut ties with an entity than thousands of years of persecution, then the Chief Rabbinate had better cut ties with the State of Israel ASAP.

For those of you who use your brain to think I would like to suggest a different approach.  How about we cut ties with the Vatican because they are a vile body that has brought only pain and suffering to our people.  Then we cut ties with H.D.  Abbas because he is a Holocaust denier and we should have nothing to discuss with him.  Then we get back to what we need to be doing as a people.  That is building our nation and making it strong on the land that God has given to us after 2,000 years that we didn't have any means to do so because of people like the Pope and H.D. Abbas.

Pope Ratzinger as a young man giving Nazi salute.

One of H.D. Abbas' poor, suffering subjects.