Reasons to be vigilant

Most of us know both about historical anti-semitism within Europe and about the anti-semitism felt by radical Islamists today- perhaps though more obscure is the worrying growth of extremist anti-semitic movements along the fringes of Catholicism in the United States and throughout the world. The Southern Poverty Law Center has done wonderful work exposing the threat that neo-nazis pose to the United States- as I reported months ago on Bits of News they reported on the over 60 terrorist plots by Neo Nazi terrorists against the United States since 1995.

Neo-Naziism therefore is still in some quarters a threat to the way that we live in the world. But there is a further dimension to this which the Southern Poverty Law Center has also recently illustrated in a report which I link to further down. One of the organisations which has done stirling work particularly over the last thirty or forty years to attack totalitarianism has been the Catholic Church. John Paul II was one of the most courageous opponents of Communism and his role in attacking it shouldn't be forgotten. After Vatican 2 the Church sought as well to forever disavow any anti-semitic teachings that it might have allowed in the past to corrupt the faith. Never more would Catholics say masses for the conversion of the Jews and in Nostra Aetate the Church declared that anti-semitism was repugnant. Jewish and anti-racist organisations have stepped forward to salute the Vatican for its work and so they should.

However when the Church reformed in the 1960s many people disagreed. Some traditionalists even went as far as arguing that the see of Rome was empty. Some of these traditionalists attacked the whole set of reforms, and objected in particular to the reforms concerning the abandoning of a prayer to convert the Jews in the Mass. The Southern Poverty Law Centre's most recent report documents from literature and observations at conferences and services an extensive record of anti-semitism amongst Traditionalist Catholics in the United States. They draw on the kind of history that the Church has declared is an aberration, a falling off from the tolerant message of Christ. They derive strength from it though and particularly from the fact that men like Leonard Feeney, amongst their intellectual ancestors, too found themselves opposed by the liberal heirarchy. Father Leonard Feeney once stated that

Essential to the understanding of our chaotic times is the knowledge that the Jewish race constitutes a united anti-Christian bloc within Christian society, and is working for the overthrow of that society by every means at its disposal

Compare this to Brother Anthony Mary who argued at the St Joseph Forum in 2005 that The perpetual enemy of Christ is the Jewish nation, that the Jews had started both World Wars and that their eventual aim was to destroy all Christian nations. Brother Mary described the Jews as the synagogue of Satan. At an earlier conference in 2003, the SPLC researchers spotted anti-semitic literature like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion on sale.

The numbers given for these groups range from 17 million sympathisers and 2 million beleivers right down to Michael Lawler of Creighton University's estimate that there are only 50,000. The SPLC estimates that there are around 100,000. The Scotsman agreed in a 2004 article. There don't seem to be many therefore in comparison with the 60 odd million American Catholics- having said that though its worth remembering that the SPLC argues that they are increasing in numbers by 10% a year and as the Scotsman argued they are battling a Church that in the States has a demoralised leadership. All traditionalists are probably not anti-semitic- and its worth remembering that but its also worth remembering that the SPLC has shown convincing evidence that there is a lot of anti-semitism around within the movement. What proportion are or aren't is not something I know- the SPLC assumes that most are anti semites but I don't know.

It buttresses though a suspision of mine- that whilst it is right for us to keep watch on the Islamic terrorists and to keep a weather eye open for totalitarians abroad, we also have to remember that the poisons which disturbed our body politic, in Europe and America in the twentieth century are still there- there are still battles out there to be fought and won. One of those is between the orthodox Catholics and those who disdain the philo-semitic tone that the Church has adopted- there are other battles as well for other groups, Protestant, socialist, liberal etc to fight. We should not stop our vigilance at home just because there are dangers from abroad.