A Toxic Alliance

How horrendous are the latest findings by David Collier, as he uncovers a cesspool of Christian antisemitism in England's north-west.

In this case, the antisemitism in question would appear to be driven by elements within the Catholic Church.  I've written in past blogs how the Protestant Reformation in England facilitated the Readmission of the Jews to England and their acceptance within the land.

Instrumental in this path to toleration were the abolition of such cults as that of Little St Hugh, a boy who was supposed to have been ritually murdered by Jews, and whose shrine in Lincoln Cathedral was a place of pilgrimage, and the placing of a copy of the Bible in the vernacular in each parish church in the realm, which by showing people that Jesus was killed by Roman soldiers on the orders of Pontius Pilate helped to diminish the rigid assumption that Jews were "Christ-killers", a stain which marked them for all time.

The vernacular Bible also played no small part in the development of a philosemitic tradition within English Protestant sects such as the Puritans, a tradition exemplified by that marvellous man, Colonel Wedgwood MP.

It was not, of course, until Pope John XXIII's Nostra Aetate that the Catholic Church abandoned, at least in theory, the charge of Deicide against the Jews, and avowed its willingness to enter into dialogue with them. Here in Australia there have been many rewarding instances of thawed relations between Jews and Catholics, with the Sisters of Sion, and the late Father William Smith SJ, of blessed memory, being especially notable over the years. By contrast, the Uniting Church (an amalgam of Methodists and some, not all, Presbyterians) has proved particularly hostile, especially to the State of Israel.

It would be instructive to know whether the antisemitic Catholics featured in David Collier's latest blog are swayed by age-old religious bigotry or by that unfortunately all-too-prevalent attitude among many persons of Irish heritage, the assumption that the lot of the "Palestinians" is analogous to the lot of the Irish Catholics pre-Irish independendence and that Israel is, like Ulster in their view, a foreign element on another's native soil.

In any case, the alliance between them and toxic Israel-haters of the non-Catholic persuasion that the blog describes makes utterly disturbing reading.

Meanwhile, in today's British press:

Not as worthy of outright dismissal as the "as-a-Jew" Corbynistas and their antisemitic allies might (indeed do) suggest. (See also here)