ROME – Since the start of the war in Gaza, Israel and the Vatican have periodically found themselves at odds. Israel has sometimes objected to what it sees as the Vatican’s false moral equivalence between terrorist aggression and Israel’s right to self-defense, while the Vatican has complained of a “disproportionate” Israeli response. ” which he says puts innocent people in danger and threatens to spark a wider regional, if not global, conflagration.

Such differences are perhaps inevitable, as Israel continues its war while the Holy See attempts to stay above the fray, concerned about the humanitarian fallout for all sides. No one has suggested that the Vatican’s rhetoric reflects explicit anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish sentiment, but rather the consequence of contrasting geopolitical perspectives and priorities.

In other words, no one has so far suggested anti-Semitic prejudice.

On October 7, Pope Francis sent a letter to Catholics in the Middle East on the first anniversary of the start of the Gaza war, deploring the “fuse of hatred” lit a year ago and urging Christians of the region not to be “swallowed by the darkness that surrounds you”.

To some extent, the letter sparked the same ambivalence from many Israelis and Jews that other Vatican statements on the war have sparked all along.

Some have noted, for example, that Francis never referred to what October 7 actually commemorates, namely the unprovoked Hamas attack on Israel and the taking of Israeli hostages. Others complained that Francis said “the people of Gaza” were in his daily thoughts and prayers, but said nothing about the people of Israel.

Besides, critics complained, it was apparently a letter addressed to Catholics in the Middle East, but there was no mention of Catholics in the State of Israel who are also suffering – and this, despite the fact that the total pre-war Catholic population of Israel Gaza numbered at most a few hundred souls, while there are at least 200,000 Catholics in Israel.

Such objections are now relatively familiar, but there was a new element in this letter that caused particular concern.

At one point, the pontiff denounced “the spirit of evil that foments war,” citing John 8:44 that this spirit is “murderer from the beginning” and “a liar and the father of lies.”

The language may seem harmless enough, unless you know the history of that particular verse. Among experts, John 8:44 is considered one of the most problematic passages for Jewish-Christian relations in all of biblical literature.

In the New American Bible version, here is the full verse, which depicts Jesus speaking to the Jews: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you willingly do. He was a murderer from the beginning and he does not abide in the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks in character, because he is a liar and the father of lies.

Certainly, biblical scholars insist that such passages must be read in context. Jesus and all of his early disciples were Jews themselves, these experts point out, so Jesus clearly did not intend to challenge all Jews or Judaism. Instead, these antagonistic passages reflect a debate within Judaism and were aimed solely at a small group hostile to Jesus and his message.

This nuance, however, has been largely lost over the centuries by bigots and anti-Semites of all stripes, who have used John 8:44 to justify persecution, oppression, and violence. Children’s literature from Nazi Germany, for example, cited John 8:44 to explain and justify Hitler’s Jewish policies. Most recently, Robert Bowers, the shooter responsible for the 2018 massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue that left 11 people dead and six injured, posted “Jews are the children of Satan,” quoting John 8:44, in his profile on the social media platform. Gab.

Ethan Schwartz, professor of Hebrew Bible at Villanova, wrote of John 8:44 in an article for Religion News Service that “it would not be unreasonable to speculate that no individual sentence caused more deaths and of suffering among the Jews. It fueled countless persecutions, pogroms and, in its own way, the Holocaust. As a result, Schwartz said, quoting the verse from the papal letter, that “it is impossible to overstate what a disaster this constitutes for Jewish-Catholic relations.”

Among the 7,957 verses in the New Testament, choosing this one in the context of the war in Gaza conveys a seemingly clear message: Jews are enemies of peace and truth and therefore bear responsibility for the carnage.

So how in God’s name did this verse end up in a papal letter on the first anniversary of the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust – and without any context or gloss that could soften the apparently crude anti-Semitic implications?

Logically, there are only two possibilities, and honestly, it’s hard to know which is more troubling.

The first option is that the use of this verse was intentional, a sort of scriptural shot in the direction of Israel and the Jewish world, warning them of growing frustration with the Israeli approach to war. If this is the case, one must seriously question the judgment involved in using such a historically charged passage to make this point, particularly because it appears to associate the Vatican with a trend of anti-Semitism which so often ends in horror.

The second option is that the use of John 8:44 was unintentional, because whoever prepared a draft for the pope did not know the history of the passage or the reaction it would likely provoke.

If this is the reality, it raises troubling questions about the Vatican’s level of sensitivity to Jewish-Christian relations – which is particularly worrying given that next year marks the 60th anniversary of Nostra Aetatethe groundbreaking document of the Second Vatican Council that seemed to signal a Copernican shift in the Church’s relationship with Jews and Judaism.

While it is possible that a Vatican official tasked with drafting a papal letter – a letter, for the record, that everyone knew would be of keen interest to Israel and the Jews – could actually ignore the checkered past of John 8:44, this would raise real questions about the extent to which Catholicism has taken Nostra Aetate in the heart.

To date, the papal letter has generated relatively little negative public reaction, in part because many Israeli officials and Jewish leaders are likely still stunned and struggling to understand how this could have happened. This delayed response presents the Vatican with an opportunity: it may still be possible to preempt another flash point in Jewish-Catholic relations by explaining how it happened and apologizing for the hurt and confusion that it causes. cannot prevent. but cause.

Otherwise, it might be difficult for many Israelis and Jews not to conclude that the Vatican is indifferent to the historical ghosts that the pope’s letter has awakened – and to call such a conclusion a potential “setback” for relations with Judaism would be to misrepresent in a serious understatement.