What The Catholic Church Teaches About The Jews – Part 4
The Magisterium On The Jews Before Vatican II – Sicut Judaeis
The Catholic Church had many councils regarding how to handle the Jews, in the middle ages.
Moreover, the Popes issued many papal bulls regarding how to handle the Jews, in the middle ages.
These councils and bulls often dealt with topics like Sicut Judaeis. Sicut Judaeis is Latin for “as the Jews”.
Sicut Judaeis is a policy of dealing with the Jews that the Popes promulgated throughout the Middle Ages.
Even though Catholic Popes consistently criticized the behavior of the Jews, Sicut Judaeis was a standing order for Christians to never harm the Jews, which started with Pope St. Gregory the Great in the late 6th century.
In 598 AD, Pope St. Gregory the Great said this in a letter:
Just as one ought not to grant any freedom to the Jews in their synagogues beyond that permitted by law, so should the Jews in no way suffer in those things already conceded to them.
To Victor, Bishop of Palermo (June 598)
Thus, nobody may harm the Jews, but the Jews also have no right to subvert us Christians!
Popes Callixtus II, Innocent IV, Gregory X, Clement VI, Urban V, Boniface IX, Martin V, and Nicholas V were amongst the Popes the confirmed Sicut Judaeis.
Here is a sample of Sicut Judaeis written by Pope Alexander III, with additions by Pope Innocent III:
[The Jews] ought to suffer no prejudice…. We, out of the meekness of Christian piety, and in keeping in the footprints or Our predecessors of happy memory, the Roman Pontiffs Calixtus, Eugene, Alexander, Clement, admit their petition, and We grant them the buckler of Our protection.
For We make the law that no Christian compel them, unwilling or refusing, by violence to come to baptism. But, if any one of them should spontaneously, and for the sake of the faith, fly to the Christians, once his choice has become evident, let him be made a Christian without any calumny. Indeed, he is not considered to possess the true faith of Christianity who is not recognized to have come to Christian baptism, not spontaneously, but unwillingly.
Too, no Christian ought to presume…to injure their persons, or with violence to take their property, or to change the good customs which they have had until now in whatever region they inhabit.
Besides, in the celebration of their own festivities, no one ought disturb them in any way, with clubs or stones, nor ought any one try to require from them or to extort from them services they do not owe, except for those they have been accustomed from times past to perform.…
We decree… that no one ought to dare mutilate or diminish a Jewish cemetery, nor, in order to get money, to exhume bodies once they have been buried.
If anyone, however, shall attempt, the tenor of this decree once known, to go against it…let him be punished by the vengeance of excommunication, unless he correct his presumption by making equivalent satisfaction.
The Popes and the Jews in the Middle Ages by Edward Synan, (NY, NY: Macmillan Company) 1965, Paperback Edition 1967. Appendix VI, pp. 231-232.
And Popes and bishops often opened the cathedrals to protect Jews fleeing mobs of Christians.
(Why mobs of Christians were pursuing the Jews will be the topic of a future article of this series. Blood Passovers and usury are the 2 main reasons, though).
That out of the way, the Popes often criticized the Jews (for good reason) and even though Popes protected the Jews, they also set policies to keep the Jews from subverting Christians.
In conclusion, I will leave you with this quote from Our Lord:
