The Association of Catholic Hebrews (catholichebrews.org) is a group of Jewish people who have become Catholics. On their web site, there’s a Novena to Saint Edith Stein. She converted from Judaism to Catholicism and became a nun. The Nazis arrested her, and she died in one of their prison camps. The following appears on the Second Day of the Novena invoking her assistance:
“The Catholic Bishops of Holland had issued a joint protest against the deportation of Dutch Jews by the Nazis, which they instructed was to be read out at every Mass in all churches on Sunday, July 26th. Prior to that, the Bishops had procured an exemption from deportation for Catholics of Jewish origin, from the Nazi authorities, who accorded the privilege on condition that the persons concerned had belonged to a Christian organization before January 1941.
The pastoral letter of the Bishops created apprehension about the possibility of a Nazi reaction; it was soon forthcoming. On August 2nd, Christians of Jewish origin of every religious community in the country were arrested and carried off by the Gestapo. The General-Commissar Schmidt announced publicly, that he was taking reprisals for the pastoral letter of the 26th July. He specified, saying:
“We are compelled to regard the Catholic Jews as our worst enemies and consequently see to their deportation to the East with all possible speed.”
The savage reaction of the Nazis to the pastoral letter of the Dutch Bishops is what motivated His Holiness, Pius XII, to withhold and destroy his own protest which he had already composed. If such be the reaction to the protest of the Dutch Bishops, he argued, what might not be the reaction to a protest of the Pope. On his orders, the monasteries and convents throughout Italy had taken in Jewish refugees fleeing the persecution of the Germans. The Vatican itself was fill to overflowing with Jews who had come to its doors seeking refuge.”
The highlighted portion is of particular interest: “We are compelled to regard the Catholic Jews as our worst enemies and consequently to see to their deportation to the East with all possible speed.” What could have inspired such a thought? Obviously, the devil, whose work the Nazis were doing. All those who chose to do his work hate The Church, and particularly hate those who attach themselves to it, and, thereby to The Body and Blood of Christ. More than anything, they hate those who leave more worldly ways of life for Catholicism.
Seldom has the other side’s hate, and fear, of Jesus Christ and His Church been made so obvious as in the above passage.
