walter reich dietrich

- father bernauer is thekraft family professor at the department ofphilosophy at boston college. he is also director of thecenter for jewish-christian learning at boston college, and he's done a reallygreat job leading that. his fields of interestinclude holocaust studies, german jewry, and thephilosophies of michel foucault and hannah arendt. father bernauer hasedited a number of books

and written extensively on hannah arendt and michel foucault. he's contributed a number of essays to father tom worcester's "cambridge encyclopedia of the jesuits." his talk today will drawfrom his most recent book, which he co-edited withrobert maryks, titled, "the tragic couple: encountersbetween jesuits and jews" and his current researchon jesuits and jews

during the period of the holocaust. so please join me inwelcoming father jim bernauer. (applause) - thank you, tom. it's on, obviously. i want to thank you for the invitation. thank you for your presence here today. such a beautiful day, i was wondering how many would show up.

this lecture originally was supposed to be presented in february of this year. but if you recall, therewere some snowy days. i took consolation in thefact that i was advised, "but, you know, we're concerned about your safety traveling." and i thought, well this is rather nice. that they're concerned about my safety it wasn't possible toget over here that day,

february 9th, i think it was. the book, i'm going to be speaking on excerpts from my more extensive project which is a book that i'm writing on with that title, "jesuit kaddish." it's a work in progress. i'm very conscious thatwe're two days before the 50th anniversary of the promulgation of the nostra aetate bythe vatican council ii.

and as i attempt to show, i think jesuit activity isone of the major sources behind that document, at least in part. i've been left to wonderabout another hypothesis namely, if you've readjohn connelly's book "from enemy to brother"which is his study of the changing catholic teaching about the jewish community and he points out thatone of their major sources

for that change was the fact that there were converts fromjudaism within catholicism and especially at vatican council ii, working for cardinal bea in particular, who were able to get enough people at the council thinkingand speaking about judaism in a different way than they had been. it's indebted to the converts. i've wondered, in termsof the society of jesus,

whether the memory of jewishpresence in the society. and at one point, this was the fact thatrobert maryks in his book on the synagogue of satan pointed out that in the early society, 20% of jesuits were from families thatwere converts from judaism. there's a very significant presence. and of course our second general came from one of those families, laynez.

so i've wondered how thatmight have influenced jesuit thinking, it certainly influencedignatius' thinking, and how that was transmitted. now curiously enough though even though 20% of the early society were from converseless families, if you look at james martin's book "the jesuit guide to almost everything"

there's no reference tojews whatsoever in it, which really surprised me. i must confess to you thatresearch for this paper has led to me to some strange facts and some weird fantasies, things i didn't know about. for example, i don't knowif you know about this. i found one of thestrangest facts was that rudolph hoess, the commandant of auschwitz,

before he was executed at auschwitz, reentered the catholic church. and it was throughconversations with a jesuit in krakow, a provincial of the jesuitsin poland at the time, they had tried to get anumber of people to talk to rudolph hoess, because hehad asked for a priest. and apparently everyonekept pleading they can't go, language difficulties,hoess only spoke german.

but at least a jesuit onthe part of others is that, who wants to be the personthat has to deal with rudolph hoess about reenteringthe catholic church? but it was the jesuitprovincial who met with him and rudolph hoess received the sacraments, went to confession, before his execution. another strange fact, i knew karl marx had written about jesuits and jews in a very negative way of course.

he compared them in terms of their similar self-interest. but one of the defenders ofthe jesuits, i discovered, was trotsky, not thathe's often (laughing) he's not often put forwardas a defender of the jesuits but he does speak aboutthem very positively over against other priests,he recalls the warriors as opposed to shopkeepers. those are just some of the unusual facts

that you're led into whenyou take up jesuits and jews. you're led into propaganda of course, terrible images that youcan see on the internet whenever you want. but there are also bizarre experiences that you're confronted with. one of them was a documentary on the protocols of the elders of zion. and in this documentarya man is selling it,

as i recall, on a street in new york and the documentary filmmakergoes up to him and says, "why do you think the jewsare behind everything?" and he says, "well look, they're obviously in control of new york. look at the city. who's the mayor? jew-liani." you know? you are ledinto the sheerly ludicrous in some of the areas. now i'm going to speak for 50 minutes and

i will definitely shut down before then and i hope we have time forsome discussion at the end. the operational protocols of the nazis was however not on the level of the humorous, it is lethal. and so a change in mood is necessary here and my title is reflective of that. contemporary considerationof jews and jesuits does take place against thebackdrop of the holocaust.

death and that is one ofthe reasons for my title. as this centers on thejewish elders in faith, there is not a single wordof the kaddish, prayer, which christians cannotproclaim faithfully. not a single word thatchristians would not embrace. should not all who have read the torah, even if under a different name, should not they be able tojoin the chorus in petitioning may a great peace fromheaven and life be upon us

and all israel and say all amen. still the kaddish is a prayer of mourning, a litany that challenges death. for the jews, the prayer first emerges in the wake of the crusades. for christians and jesuits, in the aftermath of the shoah. and isn't it appropriate for us, wasn't the establishment of yad vashem

in jerusalem an invitationas well as a summons? when the israeli knessetpassed a law of the martyrs and heroes remembrance authority in 1953, yad vashem was found as memorial to the six million jews killed in the shoah. among the duties assignedto the institution was to discover andcommemorate those non-jews who had risked or losttheir lives in efforts to save jews during theperiod of the holocaust.

they were to be namedrighteous among nations an expression that was borrowedfrom ancient literature of the jewish sages. when visitors come to yad vashem, they remember the deadbut they also honor those righteous among thenations who are remembered by trees or plaques. there's even a monumental sculpture dedicated tho those unknown righteous

who have never had thedocumentation required by yad vashem for individual recognition. a number of years ago,i was doing research at yad vashem and i ranacross an early discussion with the man who became the director and they said, "how should wecommemorate these righteous?" and somebody suggested, "wellwhy don't we plant a tree at yad vashem in honor of each of them?" and the directory said,

"well it won't become much of a forest." well as a matter of fact it did and they had to move it. now you get recognized with a plaque rather than a tree. they just don't haveany room for the trees. if i was to ask youjust to reflect on this for a second, how many doyou think have been honored by yad vashem

as non-jews who risked theirlives or lost their lives trying to save jewish life? and it could not have been done for money. if you just ask yourself, "well how many do youthink have been honored?" at this point, last time ilooked, a year or so ago, there were 25,000, which,at least in my experience, is usually beyond thenumber that people guess. and yad vashem estimatesthat's 10% of those

who deserve the recognition. now the fact that manypeople guess very few says something about how the moral culture is operating on us, that we don't think thatthis type of sacrifice is as prevalent as it was at that time. jan karski makes thispoint very strongly in a section of the interviewwith claude lanzmann in the film "shoah" that was excised

because lanzmann didn't want to leave any sort of positiveimpression in that film. the recognition ofthese people takes place on mount hertzl where the cemetery for israel's leaders and militarydead is also located. among the 14 jesuits who have thus far been awarded the title of righteous is a french jesuit, roger braun. and now i turn to thosesheets that i handed out,

i'm not into powerpoint, but i think maybe it's a little easier for youto just look at the sheets as i mention certain names. roger braun, with whom i lived while i was a student in paris. we never spoke about his biography, but i vaguely knew that he had been in the resistance during thenazi occupation of france and that he'd been honoredby the state of israel.

only later was i to readyad vashem's account of his activities and how "father braun's principleof solidarity with the jews dominated the priest's actions during the entire occupation. thus, dressed in his jesuit robes, he even participated in services at the toulouse synagogue. among braun's morepractical accomplishments

was the freeing of jewish prisioners from detention camps,his prevention of the deportation of 30 jewish children and the hiding of many more jews. at his request, the kaddish was chanted by a rabbi during his 1981 funeral. did he feel the catholic mass needed to be supplemented by this prayer, much as the new testament

needs the jewish scriptures? was it particularly appropriatefor a jesuit's funeral because the unofficialmodel of the society for the greater glory ofgod echoed the prayer. blessed and praised andglorified and raised and exalted and honored and uplifted and laud it be, the name of the holy one. but all of a sudden, not the only jesuit to have requested thekaddish at its funeral.

the very first sentence of"from enemy to brother," john connelly's magisterial study of the development ofcatholic teaching on the jews pays tribute to the polishjesuit stanislaw musial as among the most courageous opponents of the anti-semitism in our time. he denounced officials inthe polish-catholic heirarchy who tolerated hostility to jews and castigated the chauvinism of catholics

staking crosses at auschwitz. when musial passed away in 2004 at his expressed wish kaddish was said by a hassid, a decendent of the rabbi of bobowa a village not far from the place where musial himself was born. perhaps their desire for this prayer was meant as a witness totheir struggles against

the persecution and murder of the jews, which at times had been simply described as the determination todestroy jewish tradition by silencing the kaddish forever. reciting the kaddish negatesthe silence of the nazis, that the nazis wishedto impose upon the jews as well as the secrecy they wished to draw over their crimes. even in the darkest momentsof the shoah however,

it turns out the kaddish was prayed. saul friedlander writesthe diary of the jews zalmen gradowski, whowas forced into service at the birkenau death camp, a diary which was found after the war buried near a crematorium. in it he tells of howafter each of the gassings, he would say kaddish for the dead. mention of saul friedlander,

arguably the greatest livinghistorian of the holocaust recalls a spiritual deed by another jesuit that should not be unknown. in his beautiful memoir"when memory comes" friedlander writes ofthe decisive day when as a young boy he learns that his parents have been killed atauschwitz and that he himself was not born a catholic,although he'd been baptized. he had been hidden in a catholic school

during the nazi occupation of france and he embraced christianity there. because he was such an excellent student, he even imagined a futuredirection for his life. "i was in the limelight, undoubtedly i was going to become ajesuit or rather a jes as the (mumbles) the day had it." the transforming knowledgethat that decisive day for friedlander came to his conversation

with a jesuit priest he was at the school. this is to quote friedlander, "for the first time, ifelt myself to be jewish." whenever i cite this i get very emotional. it's a beautiful passage in friedlander. the attitude of father l,and that's how friedlander does identify him, and ieventually found out who it was, but he calls him father l. himself, profoundly influenced me

to hear him speak at the lot of the jews with so much emotion and respect. it must have been an enormousencouragement for me. he did not press me tochoose one path or the other and perhaps he would have preferred to see me remain catholic, but his sense of justice, whowas it (mumbles) found charity led him to recognize myright to judge for myself by helping me to renewthe contact with my past.

and now of course friedlander had produced all those wonderful bloggings of his. among other encounters of jews and jesuits during the period of the holocaust is one that was recorded by thefortunoff video archive. the interviewee, fatherjohn s. had been a jesuit studying in hungary andone day he was walking by a railroad station and whilestealing a look through a hole in the fence, he saw atrain packed with deportees.

and he talks about how hesaw this man brutalized and he didn't do anything, he ran away. but he couldn't runaway from what he'd seen and he says in the interview, "i see it personally as thegreatest tragedy in my life, that the jewish people were deported and i didn't do anything." and then he recalls theincident and he says, "maybe today i would call out.

today perhaps i would be ready. today maybe i would be ready to then run in front of the train and lay down. maybe i today would go out and protest or risk being shot or clubbed down." how might we haveprepared for confrontation with the violence of the holocaust? it's a question for all moralagents since that period and thus, also a question for jesuits.

father john s. would have had to overcome a particular jesuit formof hostility toward jews, this the hungarian jesuit i'm speaking of, which is asemitism. this is a non-violentindifference to jews, but one that find consolationin their disappearance. this perspective has its rootin an original injustice, the policy of excludingthose with jewish ancestry from membership in the jesuits even though

such a program reversed itsearliest distinctive commitment into their inclusion. with its dream of jewish disappearance, jesuit asemitism makesparticularly relevant the question rabbi abraham heschelpressed on his jesuit friend, father gustave weigel in 1964, although heschel had saidthis to other people as well. "is it really the will of god that there be no more judaism in the world?

would it really be a triumph for god if the scrolls of the torah were no longer taken out of the ark and the torah no longer read in the synagogue? our ancient hebrew prayers, which jesus himselfworshiped no more recited? the passover seder no longercelebrated in our lives? the law of moses no longerobserved in our homes? would it really be ad maiorem dei gloriam

to have a world without jews?" the fact that heschelused in his last sentence the very model of the society of jesus, for the greater glory ofgod, made the question a direct interrogation ofthe jesuit approach to jews. when the society of jesus was founded, it would have been difficult to predict that such hostility would emerge. we know that ignatius ofloyola's desire for intimacy

with the savior evenincluded an actual sharing in the jewish lineage of jesus and mary. he's reported to havecriticized a jewish convert for having failed to appreciate the gift of being born jewish. ignatius said he would wantto be of jewish ancestry because god chose thislineage for jesus himself. becoming a son of abraham and david and other patriarchs and kings.

ignatius' devotion to thepersonal figure of jesus saved him, and initially the society, from a most common prejudice at that time, namely the view that jewishconverts to christianity and their descendants, the so-called new christians of spain, weremore jewish than christian. that their conversionswere insincere and thus, in the category of the time,they were of impure blood. such tainted ancestryjustified their exclusion

from church posts and religious orders. ignatius courageously resisted ecclesiastical and political pressures and refused to exclude jewish converts or their descendantsfrom the society's ranks. and thus, some of the mostdistinguished early jesuits were of jewish heritage. with the result, the societydeveloped the reputation of being a nest, or a synagogue, of jews.

ignatius was still very mucha man of his times, however, and when it came to the matterof jews who did not wish to become christians, he could support the oppressivepolicy of ghettoization imposed by pope paul the fourth in 1555. however severely we judgeignatius on that matter, the society was to abandon thefounder's courageous policy on membership and wouldcommit the original injustice that fueled jesuithostility to jews later.

in 1593, under pressure fromecclesiastical inseclors as well as from its own members, the society banned theadmission of all with hebrew or saracen stock. and not even the generalfo the order was allowed to dispense from thisimpediment of origin. the fifth general congregation explained, "for even though the societyfor the sake of the common good which is to become all things to all men

in order to gain forchrist all those it can, still it is not necessarythey recruit its organs from any and all human races." the decree was adoptedon december 23, 1593, perhaps the most shamefulday in jesuit history according to father j.p. donnelly. asemitism, let me just saysomething here more at that. jesuits are preachers, writers, teachers and their historicalpresence is heavy with

spoken and written language. with respect to the jews,much of that language echoes the traditionalchristian teaching on contempt and yet to reduce it to thatwould be to misunderstand it. there is somthing novelin (mumbles) as well and that freshness is rarely detected by contemporary scholars, let aloneby its own native speakers. one is reminded of raul hilberg'sremark in the film "shoah" when he discusses the difficultythat people experienced

in trying to find theright terms to describe the genocide of the jews. expressions proliferated,expulsion, territorial solution, total solution, final solutionand rather than clarifying, these wordings demandinterpretation and inference. most often this linguisticspread is interpreted as a tool of camouflage,but hilberg disagrees. to quote hilberg, "it wasan authorization to invent. it was an authorization tobegin something that was not

as yet capable of being put into words. i think of it that way." i recall that interview from "shoah" because there was a similarproliferation of terms in scholarly efforts todescribe hostility toward jews. appreciation for themultiple forms of an emnity is blocked by an over-dependenceon the term anti-semitism and the inclination totreat it as an essence. as we know, the word waspopularized by the german

wilhelm marr around 1873to describe a racist policy that he and others wereadvocating at that time. at the end of the 19thcentury, the frenchman bernard lazare formulatedthe term anit-judaism in order to distinguish christian religiousopposition to jews and judaism from anti-semitism. many more terms need tobe utilized to do justice to the complexity of theevolution of attitude and

practice in the historyof hostility toward jews and this current scholarship presents us with an array of conceptsontological anti-semitism, judeophobia, jew-hatred,anti-jewish prejudice in addition to the morefamiliar anti-semitism and anti-judaism. jesuit speech about jews requires perhaps yet another term, asemitism. certain traces of theearlier teachings of contempt

may be heard in jesuit chargessuch as rituals, murders, annunciations, or an impoverishedjewish spirituality and in the acceptance of the justdesserts for a deicide people. but as jews became publicagents in modern societies, this older teachingmixed with new forms that attempted to address theirreal or imagined power to describe their dangerto christianity and to develop strategies fordealing with that menace. there is a confusingabundance of categories

for grasping this jesuitdiscourse on jews. and they operate likehammers demolishing any wall separation betweena supposed religious anti-judaism and secularracist anti-semitism. we hear talk of a spiritualanti-semitism which wants to feature a non-scientifictheological ethical racism that was combined witha fear of modernity. the jesuit editor, enricorosa, distinguishes between two types of anti-semitism,an un-christian form

that springs from racismand another prudent kind which demonstrates thehealthy evaluation of the danger emanating from the jews. another jesuit writes thattwo types of anti-judaism, a religious one and asocial-political one. the former was articulatewithin the sounds of religious values and ledto support for legislation that would limit the social influence and the civil rights of jews.

in contrast, thesocial-political anti-judaism culminates in racistlegislation and genocide. the distinguished german jesuit thinker, erich przywara, regards the political and intellectual restlessnessof jews to be rooted in their spiritual historyand that tradition transcends religious or secular identities. the messianic ambitions ofjudaism need to be arrested, but he advocates for firmand stable christianity

as accomplishing that goal rather than anti-semitism and repression. this last point is importantbecause it reflects a view shared among many catholics,that the most productive way of resisting modernity as well as jews is the strengthening of catholicism. olaf blaschke claims thatthis papacy-centered viewpoint on history gave it aparticular flavor and extension to their cultural criticism.

to quote blaschke, "thanks to catholicism, their own are embracing cure or ideology, which they had at their disposal, catholics had no need toturn to racist ideology. they saw the present problems not as racial degeneration, but asincreasing de-catholization." and this perspectiveled to an acceptance of a dual anti-semitism. one good, based on jewish reality,

one bad, because it wasfounded on fantasies about the jew. now, i could at this pointgive a detailed comparison between these two major documents that gave rise to thecategories of an anti-jesuitism and an anti-judaism. at the monita secreta of 1615 which stresses the will to power with goal of political governance,

manipulation of powerful,accumulation of wealth and a will to knowledgeand the means for that was the technology of confession. the protocols of the sages of zion, which comes much later, is dependent in some ofits major cateogories on that earlier documentfrom the 17th century. the protocols of courseare the will to total power and then also a will to knowledge,

which means education tosecrets of social structure. in that protocols of the elders of zion of course it's all fantasy, it's all a propaganda instrument. but in that, there's onlyone rival they acknowledge, "the jesuits alone mighthave compared with us but we have contrived to discredit them in the eyes of the unthinking mob." neither the monita secreta nor the

protocols of the sages of zion are things that one relaxeswith at evening reading. they're fascinating in termsof how categories of hate migrate from one zone of hatred to totally different zones of hatred. it's almost as if there's alimit to series or categories that hate can actually express itself in and you just have to find a different object.

but i'm not going to be able to go into detail with that. except to acknowledge a few commonalities. quite apart from this explicitmention of the jesuits, which i just referred to,there's an obvious correspondence in the representationof the jesuit and jew in these two influential documents. recent scholarship hasdeepened the appreciation of that similarity andthat has attempted to trace

the twisted paths alongwhich the early 17th century monita contribute to the categories of the late 19th century protocols. the emphasis has been on understanding the french milieu in whichthe latter was composed and where there had long been an anti-jesuit discourse. other scholars have complimented the earlier emphasis on the french role

in the evolution of the protocols with a new regard to the russian milieu, in which it was first published. for example, one scholar, de michelis has arguedpersuasively that the construction of the diabolical jesuit who was ancestor to thejew or the protocols owes less to certain frenchwritings than it does to the perverse image ofjesuitism that flourished

in 19th and 20th century russia. and that led to the legal prohibition of entry into russia for jesuits. that image, he claims, would have been far more influentialon the russian authors of the original version of the protocols. a very significant pointto register in the history of the protocols, adocument that would come to exercise such influence on nazi leaders,

is that its first scholarly denunciaton was by a belgian jesuit, pierre charles. he wrote in 1922, that its blind hatred was the seed of disease and that one feels a little humiliated toestablish that a forgery, a plagiarism as grotesque,as baroque, as ridiculous as the protocols could have been taken by serious men and writers in the west for a clever conspiracy.

a brilliant and devilish plan for the destruction of society." that's the end of quotation of charles. my next section is to trace the evolution of the protocols into the nazi experience. there's the occasionaltestimony to how this linked anti-jewish, anti-jesuitdiscourse found political voice in nazi thought and practice.

for example, eichmann'sdeputy, dieter wisliceny, who was executed in 1948for his own involvement, described the two ideaswich led hitler and himmler to the mass murder of jews. one was a biological racism, the other was "a mysticaland religious view which sees the world asruled by good and bad powers. according to this view,the jews represented the evil principle with asauxiliaries the church,

the jesuit order,freemasonry, and bolshevism." there are several majorstreams which carried the interrelated visions of anti-jesuit and anti-semite to hitler himself. houston stewart chamberlain's "foundations of the nineteenthcentury," that volume, celebrated the prowess of the aryan people in its struggle withother races and his volume was very popular in nazi circles

and hitler himself acknowledgeschamberlain's stature in his mein kampf. chamberlain's hope for aryan supremacy explicitly entailed alife and death conflict with jewish and jesuit cultures. for him, ignatius ofloyola, allied with the jews who made up his circle of friends, embodied the struggleagainst the germanic spirit. the jesuit ethos put forwardan absolute materialism

that both opposed themystical, spiritual quality of an aryan christianity and subverted its love for freedom. another source for hitler would have been his one time ally,general erich ludendorff, who published several works that yoked jesuit and jew togetherin a general conspiracy against german moral life and in the particular responsibility

for the stab in the back on the homefront that brought defeat togermany in world war one. a third more significantsource is represented by dietrich eckart who has been regarded as a mentor for hitler andto whom hitler paid tribute at the very end of mein kampf as, "that man, one of thebest, who devoted his life to the awakening of his, our people, in his writings and his thoughts

and finally in his deeds.” among those writings ofeckart is a dialogue between him and hitler that was published in 1924 as bolshevism from moses to lenin and which ernst nolte hascalled the most authentic and revealing of allconversations with hitler. as the title indicates, thespeakers assert that bolshevism was invented by the jewish spirit from the very beginnings in moses.

there is much discussion ofreligion, of judaism, of the catholic church as well as ofthe reformation in the text. eckart also speaks ofthe jesuits and ties them to the jews in terms of bothpersonalities and spirit. the key figure howeverin the interrelating of jew and jesuit for hitler, is most likely alfredrosenberg who came to be the nazi party's leading ideologist and before he was appointed in 1934

as the fuhrer's delegatefor the supervision of the whole intellectualand philosophical education and training of thenational socialist party. born in estonia into afamily of baltic germans, he fled the communist revolution in 1918 and along with otherfiercely anti-communist russian emigres, rosenbergarrived in munich at the beginning of 1919. it was in munich where hemet hitler's associate,

dietrich eckart, who i justquoted, who quickly employed him as a writer for the newspaperhe edited, in good german, auf gut deutsch. i wouldn't recommend that you try to access that title throughinter-library loan because you'll get all these grammars about how to learngerman, auf gut deutsch. i know that from experience. rosenberg immediately started writing up

the anti-semitic views hehad brought from russia and central to which wereconvictions regarding jews' aspiration for total power,their destructive materialism, and their responsibilityfor the russian revolution. it was also in munichthat rosenberg encountered the influence of bavarian catholicism, which he probably viewed through the lens of the anti-catholicism and anti-jesuitism of his native russia.

in any case, he was appalledby the power exercised by catholic culture and sawthe materialism of the jesuit at the center of itscorruption of spiritual power. in 1920, rosenberg published his "the trace of the jewthrough changing times" which crudely articulated thefundamentals of his anti-semitism. in the same year he publisheda series of articles on jesuitism where he examinedits embodiment of judaism. 1920 is early, especially in terms of

figuring out the influence,what influenced hitler. a year later he would putjesuits and jews together as criminal aspirants to world power. rosenberg met hitler in 1919 and he quickly became one of his followers for which he was rewardedwith important posts that included chief editorof the party newspaper and later reich minister for the occupied eastern territories.

despite these positions,there has been a tendency to underestimate rosenberg'simportance to hitler and the nazi movement because he does not seem tohave been an influential force in hitler's major decisions. today, as greater respect for the place of ideology in nazism has grown, there is new regard forrosenberg's importance as the architect of thenational socialist worldview.

hitler decided to make himthe first recipient in 1937 of the national prize for artand science and its citation asserted that rosenberghad distinguished himself because he helped establishand stabilize the world view of national socialism bothscientifically and intuitively. although hitler'sbiographer, konrad heiden, claimed that rosenberg wasthe first to give hitler a copy of the protocols,it seems that eckart was more likely to haveintroduced hitler to its ideas

and the first indicationof hitler's embrace of those ideas is in his notesfor an august 1921 speech. we do know, however,that hitler also adopted rosenberg's view of the collusionbetween jewish leadership and the creation ofthe russian revolution. we may surmise thathitler's own anti-jesuitism would have welcomedrosenberg's presentation of the parallel between jews and jesuits. for rosenberg, the jesuit founder,

ignatius of loyola formed a type. he consciously trod underfoot men's feelings of honors set a new goal for ideas,revealed exact means and ways and was thus a consciouscultivator of souls. its corpse-like obedience has created a herd of soulless slaves. and for what purpose? its goal, ad maiorem dei gloriam, for the greater glory of god has become

the disintegration ofthe nordic-germanic west. the jesuit order alsopossesses a will to knowledge that solidified itself in working toward, as in fact he claimed, the definition of papal infallibility atthe first vatican council. in having this doctrine solemnly declared, jesuitism has drawn thelast logical conclusion from the roman system and the roman-jesuitical systematic

destruction of personality was perfected. we know from his customary rhetoric that hitler accepted thevalidity of the protocols. and i could quote from mein kampf on this but in the interest of time,i'll skip that section. we may even wonder whether the protocols was the key text for thedevelopment of hitler's worldview and personal strategy. his early biographer konrad heiden

had suggested this perspective. even if it was a forgery,heiden pointed out, the protocols nevertheless provided a textbook of worlddomination, pure and simple. at first hitler sincerely believed that the protocols ofthe wise men of zion were the instructions for establishinga jewish world domination. later when time came for himto formulate his own aims, he was forced to recognizethat they were laid down

in this supposed jewish book. his own sense of world conquest. to my knowledge, there isno comparable reference to the monita secreta inhitler's writings and speeches but that work's image ofjesuit ambition and corruption was very likely in hitler'smind well before he developed his passionate hatred for the jews. when he lived in viennabefore world war one, it is reported that the twogroups he harangued the most

were the communists andthe jesuits, not the jews. this animosity toward thejesuits likely goes as far back as his adolescent years inlinz, austria, where there was especially strong supportfor german nationalism. as opposed to the habsburg empire, which was perceived as being supported by the jesuits. hitler was certainly drawn as a youth to the nationalist anti-habsburg movement.

von schonerer's away from rome movement was a summons to replace the international roman catholic allegiancepromoted by the jesuits with an authentic germanic spirituality. if hitler the politiciancomes to discard the jesuits as object of his public invective,the reason may very well have been the two lessonshe drew from the failure of schonerer's pan-german movement. he concluded that it waspolitically unwise and unnecessary

to attack the catholic church at that time and this reluctance wasone of the sources of hitler's rupture with hissometime ally ludendorff who criticized him for beingsoft on catholics and jesuits. the second lesson was that one should on purely psychologicalgrounds, never show the masses two or more opponents, the jewswere to be the one opponent. this, however, did not shield the jesuits from potential danger.

as munich's cardinalmichael von faulhaber warned in a march, 1933 letter tothe bavarian episcopate, “we confront new situationsfrom day to day, and the present jew-baitingcan turn just as quickly into jesuit-baiting.” and jesuits appear ina very curious manner in some of hitler's speeches. i don't know what to do withthis yet, but they're there. on december 23, 1928,hitler denied charges

that the nazi party wasunder jesuit influence and that it was even preparing a volkische-jesuitische dictatorship. on november 23, 1930,hitler mocked the claim that the nazis were reallyjesuits in disguise. two years later, inthree different speeches, he explicitly denied the accusation that he was in the pay of the jesuits. what are we to make ofthese protestations?

was it the case that,as heiden pointed out regarding the protocols,hitler took over for himself that imagined dream of ajesuit will to absolute power that while written in the monita secreta, haunted hitler's youth in linz and his early adulthoodin vienna and munich? now we move into a concluding phase. as you know, since the promulgation of nostra aetate 50 yearsago, the catholic church

has been committed to aredefinition of its relationship with the jewish people. with saint john paul twothat commitment has embraced a penitential practice. although many conferencesof bishops have articulated their own remorse for christianconduct during the shoah, religious orders have not been heard during this liturgy of confession. with respect to the jesuits,there is another level

of penitential practice thatshould not be overlooked. first is the abrogationof 1594 prohibition on the admission into the jesuitsof any who are descended from hebrew stock,which was interpreted as banning all jews who had not been proven to descend from threegenerations of christians. the 1946 generalcongregation of the jesuits adopted a decreeabolishing the prohibition and its formulation as terse.

it states that "the presentcongregation did not wish to retain it, but substituteit for a statement reminding the provincials ofthe cautions to be exercised before admitting a candidateabout who there was some doubt as to the character'shereditary background or his lack of catholiceducation raising the question whether he was suited forthe life of the society." there is no account ofwhy the prohibition's targeting of those from jesuitancestry is being lifted,

in part because the jesuitarchives won't release any material until thevatican releases its material, it doesn't want to embarrass the vatican. so we don't have the official documents, but there are other ways, sort of semi-official documents. the historians in thegroup probably recognize this far better than i did. there's no account of whythe prohibition is targeting

those from jewishancestry is being lifted, but several members of thecongregation are noteworthy. the anti-nazi, anti-vichy henri de lubac was an elected delegate from france to that congregation. the belgian jesuit, jean janssens had been very effective in rescuingjews during the war and he was to be honored by yad vashem as one of the righteous among the nations.

at this congregation, janssenshimself was to be elected leader of the jesuits. a third name that standsout in the membership of the 1946 congregationis the jesuit from munich, augustin rosch, who hadbeen a leader in the anti-nazi german resistance. in addition to these individuals,there had been petitions to the congregation fromvarious sectors in the society in europe, america andasia that the ban be lifted

because it was nowperceived on the horizon of racism and anti-semitism. a second development towhich i would point is the april 24, 1960 petition of thepontifical biblical institute in rome to the preparatorycommission for the upcoming vatican ii council. although the impetus for thecouncil to address the issue of the catholic church'srelationship to the jewish people was certainly due to pope john the 23rd,

the petition of the jesuitstaff institute is the first request by a scholarly body to call for a conciliar declaration. it stands in sharp contrastto episcopal sentiment of the day about whichjohn connelly writes, "in over 800 pages of notes,from dutch, belgian, french english, polish and germanbishops, not a single suggestion was made to considerchristian-jewish relations at the council."

now that i find extraordinary. that right after theshoah, in europe itself, not a single bishop in europe suggested in the preparation leading up to vatican council ii that there be some declaration about the jews. the most learned commentatoror the history of the decree, nostra aetate, claimsthe line of thought and manner of expressions had just

that it was written by stanislaws lione, this earlier document, thefrench jesuit biblical scholar. the petition includes asection on the avoidance of anti-semitism and pointedlystates that the jewish people should not be presentedas rejected by god. paul's letter to the romansis put forward as a teaching that counters the prejudicesgenerating anti-semitism. the jesuit petition challengessermons and instructions that erroneously teach thatthe jewish people are cursed,

rejected by god andsharing a collective guilt for the death of jesus. the petition makes referenceto writings of paul, a convert from judaism,who became a priest, but who advocated reconciliationof christians and jews and not the conversion of the latter. the seeds in nostra aetatewere sown here, in this jesuit-authored petition andit marks an important step in the post-holocaust journeyboth for jesuits and jews

and of jews and christians. the council declaresthat the passion of jesus cannot be blamed uponall the jews then living without distinction, norupon the jews of today. and it should not be presented as repudiated or cursed by god. as (mumbles) follow fromthe holy scriptures. the council goes on to affirm more over mindful of our common patrimony

with the jews and motivatedby the gospel's spiritual love and by no political considerationsshe deplores the hatred, persecutions and displays of anti-semitism directly against the jews atany time and from any source. now i want to say somethingabout cardinal bea, who was one of the major architects of the document and the major facilitator of the council. he was certainly one of the handful of the

last century's best known jesuits. although i'm shockedto discover that at bc, we have a large, about 70 young jesuits who are studying for the priesthood or doing theology degreesthere and i've regularly had them over for variousevents and i've asked them if they knew who cardinal bea was. and i'm amazed at how many have never heard the name before.

and he's really one ofthe heroes of 20th century jesuit life. it's not a good sign. and he was trained as a scripture scholar and for many years hewas the rector of the biblical institute in rome, where he became the confessorto pope pius the 12th as well as an adviser tonumerous church committees. he deserves a lot of attention and i was at a conference injune in rome and there was

a panel discussion whichbrought up cardinal bea and one of the panelists said, "we don't know much about cardinal bea." but then people near me said, "we know a lot aboutcardinal bea" so i think he must have destroyed his papers and you can have both views on it. but without cardinal bea it'sreally difficult to imagine that nostra aetate could havesailed through the council

and sailed through is notthe term to use because it took a lot of effort over different sessions of the council. john the 23rd asked bea totake over the responsibility for the document on the jewsand so he went looking for whom should he consult among the jews? and so he was advised that thereal equivalent to the pope was doctor nahum goldmann,who was the president of the world jewish congress at the time.

and so he met with goldmann and said, "i'm told that you're thejewish pope" and goldmann said, "well, i guess i am, but don'task me to embrace celibacy." in his discussion withthe jewish community, he did follow their suggestionsas well as he could. for example not asking foran official representation from the jewish communitybecause that would be divisive. and bea was one of the greatleaders in communicating nostra aetate after the council.

i'm watching my time here. and even bea had limitations. he was a scripture scholar, but his view of judaism was very traditional and certainly in the 1920s. he studied in berlin in the 19-teens and he studied underjewish scholars there, the same people abrahamheschel was studying under. so he knew judaism from within,but in his early writings

he still reflectedchristian supercessionism where judaism has beenreplaced by christianity. the thing that i'm really struck by in bea is his capacity for growth. he listened to people andhe changed his viewpoints in light of what he heard. it's very admirable for someone when pope john the 23rd appointed him, i think he was in his early 80s.

now some of the jewish leaders were saying "he's near 100 years of age" but he looked older thanhe was, he wasn't that old, but he was pretty old. and he had a lot of hostilityfrom within the church initially, but the documentwas overwhelmingly embraced by vatican council ii. i have the figures someplace,i'm not sure i have them on that sheet there, but it was something

2,000 to 180, somethinglike that among the bishops. i have all sorts ofthings, where he felt that in order to implement nostraaetate we had to deal with teaching the catechism and bible studies, there were other suggestions. but maybe i'll justconclude there and look more at the sheets there in termsof identifying a few points before asking for questions or comments. there have been, since 1998, meetings

of jesuits who are in dialogue with jews. i list on there in 1998 in krakow and we met there becauseit was near auschwitz, so we all went out toauschwitz and that was sort of the context for our meeting. in 2000 we met injerusalem and the topic was "the significance ofthe state of israel for contemporary judaism andjewish-christian dialogue." 2005 we met in zug,switzerland, "the importance of

modern jewish thought forjewish-christian dialogue." if you're in thisbusiness, you travel a lot which is pretty nice. 2007 we met in new yorkand we discussed diaspora and the whole notion of "diaspora, secularization and modernity." in boston we had the conference that produced the bookthat tom referred to, "the tragic couple: encountersbetween jews and jesuits"

and we're planning something in 2017 either in paris or in jerusalem although we're having difficulty deciding what the topic should be. there are some morecontroversial topics than others. in the concluding issues there,i have five minutes left, was nostra aetate a spiritualbreakthrough or a cease fire between jews and catholics? i think of it as a spiritual breakthrough.

that catholicism was ableto redefine its relationship to judaism and i think it's a model for how other faiths might be able to enter into friendship with otherreligious traditions that have been painted verynegatively over the centuries. so i like to think of itas a spiritual breakthrough although that's yet to come. one of the things that's interesting is

if it is a spiritual breakthrough and one of its majormissions is to confront fundamentalism, then you mighthave a different register of what led to nostra aetate. you might want to go back to pacem in terris and say that this is partof a broader peace movement on the part of the catholic church. and that the first peoplethey had to make peace with was the jewish community.

but the real thrust ofcatholicism, at this stage, is against fundamentalism, its own, as well as that of others. the other topic there,continuing cognitive comfort, that's a term i take overfrom nirenberg's book on anti-judaism, thatthere's a cognitive comfort, sartre points this out in anti-semitism, you don't have to ask questions if you have your enemy always there,

you can be like a stone. you run from freedom and the need to ask questionsabout what reality is. and that cognitive comfort continues. both against jews, of course, and lesser against jesuits. i think we're seeing someanti-jesuit animus right now in terms of the pope, that he's being regardedas somewhat foreign.

of course heidegger is a classic case. this new material coming on heidegger, the schwarze hefte,his anti-judaism isn't a minor social prejudice, it's rooted in the history of thinking. but he has the same anti-jesuit prejudice. now some say it's due tothe fact that he only lasted two weeks in the jesuits,which isn't a long time, but he apparently resented the jesuits

ever since that time. so he makes all sorts ofanti-jesuit references and the denazificationcommittee after the war, when heidegger was challengedabout his support for the national socialist regime,especially as rector of freiburg university. he defended himself atone point by saying, "listen i had jesuits in my classes. i never kicked them out of my classes."

even the nazis were verystrong against the jesuits. but jesuits will say at thetime, he would never have taken a jesuit on as a doctorate student. he couldn't ban them from the classes, but he would never have agreed to direct their dissertation. the other example i might give how this tradition continues. i was looking at thismammoth biography recently

of kaiser wilhelm the second and it's amazing, hisanti-jesuit and anti-jewish, the intimacy of his prejudice there, that they're responsiblefor world war i, the two of them, working together. and the idea behind world war i was to bring down the protestantmonarchy in prussia. it was an anti-protestant movement. here's the guy who was so reckless,

it's really hard toread some of this stuff. my third question is there ajewish jesuit spirituality? and i think there is. probably from the verybeginning ignatius loyola really did have a he was influenced byjewish experience i think. and the jewish jesus is rooted right there in the spiritual exercises. this principle ofaccommodation that somehow

there isn't one normative culture, as the line at the time said, the jesuit monastary's the world. well i think the jewspioneered that diaspora, experience of being able to live and develop richly in different cultures and i think jesuits havethat in common as well. finally, is there needfor a jesuit apology? comparable to somethinglike john paul ii did

on numerous occasions. and on the second sheet,i've written my own statement of jesuit repentance. i think there is a need for an apology. now in certain circles inreligious orders they'll say. "well the church has already spoken, there's no need for individualreligious orders to speak." but i disagree with that, i think individual religious ordershave their own history

of anti-judaism to deal with. so, i won't read thatstatement of penitence, but i think i've reached 5:30, the exact time i promised i'd conclude. i'm sorry if it was alittle confusing at points because i was droppingmaterials along the way. but thank you so much for your attention. if you have questions orcomments, i'd be most interested in hearing them.

the beginning, thejesuits were perceived as violating the principlesof religious life. they weren't living in monasteries, they had a spirituality that embraced action. later they seemed to become secularized because they were in schools, which wasn't the originalintention of the jesuits. so they were always accusedof becoming too worldly and sometimes jesuits are very imprudent.

walter ong, the jesuitscholar of communication has some interestingthings to say about this. the jesuit schooling camealong right at the time when there was a takeoff inthe economic life of europe. and jesuit schools fit inbeautifully for training people in that new regime in howto think, how to speak, how to write. by comparison, universitieslooked rather dated, the type of learning they were giving.

now there are lots of other reasons. there was no way you could doa comprehensive presentation of jesuits and jews,there's too much diversity in the course of the centuries, at least at this time as far as we know, who knows in a hundred years whether there'd be some grand narative. but with respect to thenazi period, which was the period i focused onbecause the consequences

were so grave, it is thatconnection with the habsburg and the fact that jesuitslike jews were regarded as internationalists. they were not linked tonationalisms and that's why in some ways, some of themwere very distinguished during this period because very significant numbers didnot buy into vichy france as a way of protecting catholicism. others did, but not the major figures,

not people like de lubac and (mumbles) the more educated ones. so the internationalismwas an important factor. the fact that they had access to youth, they became enemies of the nazis certainly who wanted to educate youth. but religious orders,it's a strange thing. the jesuits do comeacross as untraditional, not wedded to previousways of doing things.

and pope francis for meis an exemplar of that and look at the difficulty he's having. not with christians ingeneral, but with the ecclesiastical authoritiesor at least many of them. as i was just reading somethingrecently, i mean no pope has ever been under thissort of assault by cardinals. i mean, letters being written whether he's stacking a committee. the pope's always havestacked committees (laughs)

they were never criticized for it before, so it's an unusual phenomenon i think. please. - [audience] pope francis made (mumbles) - oh, many. i mean he had greatfriendship with this rabbi in argentina. he visited many jewishinstitutions in argentina while he was an archbishop.

he wrote a book with the rabbi and at this roman conference, i was at the hotelwhere they put us up and who sat down next to me atbreakfast the first morning was rabbi skorka and i thought, "oh i know who you are." and then, he's continued making statements and he met with us in rome and he made a very good statement about how

nostra aetate changedthe whole relationship between catholics and jews. but one of the things thatwas interesting for me, i don't know if anyone knows who wrote francis' speech to congress. i've asked around and i can't find out, i'm sure it will surface someday. but i was very struck by the fact that the two catholics, if yourecalled in that speech

which i thought was a magnificent speech, he cited four people. lincoln and martin luther king jr. and then two catholics, dorothy day and thomas merton. now dorothy day and thomas merton are among the two most philo-semitic catholics of the 20th century. and i can't imaginethat was just by chance.

so whoever wrote that speech for him. yes, please. - [audience] you shouldcontact john favreau - john? - [audience] favreau. holy cross grad who, a presidential speech writer. - ok, that's a good source. i contacted dave hollenbach who's usually, he's down at the libraryof congress right now

and he's got good contacts, but he hasn't found out yet. he thinks it was some church historian, who that was i have no idea. - [audience] i actually wanted to ask you a question about your statement of repentance. i read it as they sense a struggle about tone in a way. it does a couple of differentthings and i thought

you could comment on it. the first page is a kind of sorrow (mumbles) and the second page is quite different. the second page strikes me as a reminder of those who say (inaudible) could you say a little bit about how it is that you arrived at thisparticular statement

and what it is you're tryingto keep in balance here. - well, it's a good question. i really haven't shared the statement with people and this is perhaps the value in sharing it with you. it's certainly got to besome statement of repentance for not having done more. but i am troubled by theway that the catholic church has ignored people likethe yad vashem jesuits.

catholics recognized byyad vashem jesuits are small percentage. here's another archival failure of mine. there was a french jesuitwho was honored by yad vashem and the adl invited himover to new york for a special dinner to honor himand the vatican blocked it. and i'm beginning to seea concerted effort here at that time, now this isbefore john paul ii's papacy and certainly before john 23rd's papacy.

was there a concertedeffort to hide the people who recognized what the properthing to do at that time was? certainly in the french church. people like de lubacis very severe, in fact there's a document that de lubac wrote almost, 99% certain that it's de lubac, and it was found in thearchives of jacques maritain right before he went to the vatican to become the frenchambassador to the vatican.

and de lubac wrote up this document on the failures of thefrench catholic church. and it's a severe document, really severe. this is the ludicrous, hesays one bishop spoke to him and said that whenever he wasin the presence of (mumbles), he found it difficultnot to fall on his knees and ask for (mumbles) blessing. now that's a bishop. the thrust of de lubac's statement is

french bishops were very poorly educated, they did not know theology. they thought of themselvesas administrators of an operation instead ofwitnesses to the gospel. but they're not goingto include the document in the collected works of de lubac. at least that was the last decision. i presume it's because it'sso severe in its criticism of the french catholic church.

but i just become suspicious about why these people are not better known. and this has been asked of me by israelis. we do this work at yadvashem, which i really think is a wonderful project, but nothing happens to these people after we've honored them. now i'm happy to say thatthat's changing a bit. vincent lapomarda, thisinstitution, has been very good

in tracking down some of these people. i haven't looked at thedocuments at yad vashem, i've seen his lettersidentifying some of these people for yad vashem, butthere's a jesuit buried who's been honored, heworked with wallenberg in budapest at the endof the war and he was honored by yad vashem. he saved hundreds of jewish lives, hid them in his community house,

i mean it was amazing how he hid them because it was a rather small house. but he's buried outhere in weston cemetery, the jesuit cemetery in newengland and he's one of the four or five, i think, righteous gentiles buried in the united states. now he escaped a communistafter the war, came here and died in a car crash in newjersey, but he's buried out in weston, which i knewnothing about, and i read

this material at yad vashem. and so what we're doing,the center i represent is affixing a plaque, it'llbe announced in the spring, on his grave pointing out that he's been honoredby yad vashem in israel. i think he deserves that. so i guess that's part ofwhat's behind my page there. i think there are peoplewho are being ignored and i don't think it'sgood for our moral culture

or spiritual culture. and if you look at some ofthe work with jan karski, jan karski says very explicitly, it's hard the first time you hear this,it's very hard to imagine, he says, "people did notfail during the holocaust. their institutions failed,but the people did not." it depends how you view it. if there are 250,000 people at yad vashem, deserve the recognition,risked their lives

or lost their livestrying to save jewish life and for most of thesepeople, they were strangers. and in poland of course it was draconian, your whole family wasexecuted if you hid a jew. i think there's something wrong in the way we're perceiving this period. i asked this of friedlanderat a conference. friedlander obviously feltthat that's not his job, he's doing something else about the shoah.

there's been some minorworks done on these figures, but there's been no effortto really put them forward in a way that christiansare not embarrassed to single them out, and sort of have this sense there are a few good people andthere are more than a few and they were quitecritical of the operation of the institutions they were a part of. universities and churches as well. so that's what's probablybehind that statement.

i'll have to rethink it inthe light of your question. because it can seem a little apologetic in the sense that we hadall these good people, too. - [audience} it's doing both of them. - yes, yes, but that'ssort of what's behind my feeling on the issue. let me just point out,friedlander himself. to my knowledge, with theexception of that autobiography, memoir he writes "when memory comes"

doesn't refer to it in hiswritings, that he was rescued. somebody pointed out tome, there's a filmmaker in hollywood right now who's doing a film, he did the "weapons of thespirit," pierre sauvage. he's doing a film on this american, his name is escaping me right now, but there's a street inberlin named after him. and he was one of the people who rescued intellectuals in france against the wishes

of the institution thatsent him over there, varian fry, exactly. one of the people hesaved was hannah arendt and i have a greatadmiration for hannah arendt but sauvage pointed out to me that she never acknowledges that her life was saved by this fellow. maybe when your life has been saved, you realize how vulnerable your life was,

you try and forget the peoplewho came to your rescue, i don't know. it's just puzzlingbecause having worked in a correspondence withhannah arendt quite a bit, her generosity of spirit is so great, that for her not toacknowledge varian fry is puzzling to me. and maybe there's something,a broader issue there about the whole relationship one has

to this whole rescue community, that we want the period to be totally dark and it wasn't totally dark. - [audience] this questionmight be a little off track i went to holy cross, itook every course (mumbles) had, he actually officiated at my wedding when i married a nice jewish girl. in learning more about jewish culture and jewish religion, i havethis feeling that jesuits

much closer align to a jewishway of examining things than the usual catholicway of examining things in that there's a questioning,questioning, questioning until eventually youhopefully arrive at truth or maybe just createsome more good questions. but as someone who was raisedby an irish catholic family right off the boat, wewere told never to question anything the church said. i guess the question i'masking is, does it seem

like the jesuits andjewish scholars would be very closely aligned in terms of their academic approach that they were using? - yes, i've heard that saidby many jewish people to me, i don't know if it'smy new york accent that leaves them to think thati've been influenced by them. but i think that there'sa lot of truth in that, that there's a similarity of questioning. you reminded me as you were speaking,

maybe this is how i can end. i usually do some book of hannah arendt's in most of my courses andthis student raises his hand one day, very polite. he said, "may i ask you aquestion? was hannah arendt a troubled lady?" i said, "why do you ask?" and he said, "all these questions she has,

walter reich dietrich,all these questions. doesn'tshe ever come to an answer?"

and i said, "well there are different ways of taking these thinkers." listen, thank you so much,i appreciate your attention.