Report to the Tribunal of the Holy Office Concerning the Charge of Ritual Murder Against the Jews of Poland
Cardinal Lorenzo Ganganelli, O.F.M. Conv. – 1759
Note on the text: This document — known formally as the “Polonia” memorandum — was a Votum (expert opinion) submitted by Fr. Lorenzo Ganganelli, then Consultor of the Holy Office, to the Supreme Congregation of the Holy Office in late 1759. It was composed in Italian at the direction of Pope Benedict XIV following a petition from Jacob Selek, a Polish Jew, on behalf of the Jewish communities of Poland. The Congregation approved the memorandum’s conclusions on 24 December 1759*. Ganganelli was later elected Pope Clement XIV (r. 1769–1774). The original Italian text, held at the Holy Office, was authenticated in a letter of 18 October 1913 from Cardinal Secretary of State Merry del Val to Lord Rothschild. It was first published in full by Cecil Roth (The Woburn Press, London, 1935). The following is a new English translation made directly from the Italian original by the present translator. The motto at the head of the document is drawn from Theodoret’s* Ecclesiastical History*, Book I, Chapter 33.*
Motto: Non solis accusatoribus credendum. Not only those who accuse should be believed.
[Preamble: The Petition of Jacob Selek and the Cases in Poland]
In the year 1758, there was presented to Benedict XIV of glorious memory, by Jacob Selek, a Jew of Polish nationality, a petition in which he implored from the Pontifical beneficence an opportune defence against the vexations, imprisonments, extortions, torments and death to which his unhappy co-nationals were so often subjected on the pretext that when they manufactured their well-known unleavened bread they mingled in it human blood, and especially that of Christians — so much so, that over the course of ten years, if the corpse of any Christian were found by chance, murder was immediately suspected, and it was moreover at once believed to have been committed by the Jews of that neighbourhood for the said superstitious purpose.
This was what occurred at Zasław, where the late Prince Paul Sanguszko had his residence. The same thing happened in Szappatówski, where Prince Preez, Judge of Kremenetz, resides; near Ostra, where Prince Jabłonowski lives; also in Pavolochi, where the late Duke Michael Lubomirski lived; and finally in Yampol, where Duke Casimir Radziwiłł lives, because a putrefied body was found floating in the river Oregna. In view, therefore, of a false imputation which renders the nation not only odious but subject to many punishments that injure their substance and torment their persons, the Jewish nation of Poland implores some measure by which it may be defended from a stain that renders it both opprobrious and unjustly punished in property and in person.
The aforesaid petition, by order of the Supreme Congregation, was committed to me, that I might humbly offer my opinion upon it. With my weak faculties I endeavoured to demonstrate the non-existence of the crime which was imputed to the Jewish nation of Poland. Nevertheless, in order to proceed in such a matter with the necessary caution, I was of opinion that, before arriving at any resolution, one should write to the Apostolic Nuncio of Poland so as to obtain exact information.
The petition having been put forward, together with my written opinion upon it, Your Eminences, in a Congregation of Graces held on 21 March 1758, were pleased to approve it, decreeing: “scribendum esse Reverendo patri domino nuntio pro informatione, auditis ordinariis locorum, in quibus supponuntur sequi crimina, de quibus agitur.” [“That the Reverend Father Lord Nuncio should be written to for information, having heard the Ordinaries of the places in which the crimes in question are supposed to have occurred.”]
It now remains to be considered what action ought to be suggested by me, now that the information on this matter has arrived from Poland. To fulfil my part, it is necessary that I should proceed to consider the information: first in the general aspect, then in the particular, and finally in the individual cases.
I. REFLECTIONS UPON THE INFORMATION RECEIVED FROM POLAND, IN GENERAL
In all populations there prevail certain preconceptions which the enlightened people of this age call prejudices. Everyone knows how much time and effort was required to undeceive the Spaniards concerning the famous goblins of Granada. Certainly more than half a century passed before the Venerable Innocent XI condemned the error in one of his Apostolic Briefs.
But let us leave aside the attempt to describe characteristics unwelcome to individual nations, since in some of them we should find vampires and ghosts, whence would arise evident reproof of these prejudiced preconceptions. I will confine myself simply to pointing out the grave injury done to many innocents when they must be judged by one who is under the sway of such prejudices.
The force of preconception carries with it the facility of persuading oneself of all that is consistent with it, and at the same time great difficulty in believing the opposite. Thus that balance which must necessarily precede all just judgment is lost, and innocence is sometimes wronged. “Readiness to believe is also a fault,” wrote St. Bernard to his Eugenius in Book 2 of the De Consideratione, Chapter 14: “hence comes about frequent condemnation of the innocent.” From this it further follows that, by giving assent without examination to many reports, one comes to admit as truth what is mere imposture. Concerning this, the same illustrious Polish nation ought to recall what happened to it in the year 1254.
A certain cunning man named Martin gave himself out as the founder of the “Brothers of Penance of the Order of the Blessed Martyrs”, with fullest Apostolic privileges. The bishops of that kingdom and even Boleslav the Chaste, moved by their innate goodness to promote what was beneficial, assigned him the church of St. Mark in Kraków and abundant resources. Yet the whole was utter imposture, as Alexander IV declared some years later, in letters dated 15 May 1259, notifying that the Apostolic indulgences put forward by the crafty Martin were false. If the contrivance of Martin was short-lived, others, propagated by numerous witnesses, passing from mouth to mouth and from country to country, have gained for themselves a certain perpetuity, so that the mark of blame attached to some family or nation becomes almost indelible.
Gratian, Peter Lombard, and Peter Comestor were certainly three illustrious men, yet they were slandered as born of adultery and are reputed as such by many writers, as St. Antoninus relates in the Summa Historica, Part 3, Title 18, Chapter 6, and especially by Tiraqueau in the De Nobilitate, Chapter 15, No. 32. Nor are there lacking others in our own times who live under this opinion drawn from rumour. “Would any but a brainless man believe rumour?” says Tertullian in his Apology, Chapter 7. And indeed one needs to be truly thoughtless to imagine that the three illustrious men were bastards, when by investigating their origin one finds that Gratian was born in Chiusi in Tuscany, Peter Lombard in Novara, and Peter Comestor in Troyes in Champagne, and the respective mothers of each are known.
Zosimus likewise had the effrontery to slander Constantine the Great with the base character of bastard, and the calumny was believed by many writers, and especially by Bodin in his Historical Method, Chapter 7, p. 302. The great Constantine is learnedly cleared of this calumnious stain by Michael Arpoldo in his Britannia Illustrata, Chapter 1, Section 2, §§ 6 and 7. Let us repeat then with St. Bernard: “readiness to believe is also a fault; hence comes about frequent condemnation of the innocent.”
In order not to fall into this grave defect, to the great injury of poor innocents, even pagan authors have provided prudent guidance. Hence the celebrated Lucian brought out a book entitled On Not Believing Calumnies Easily. Seneca, in Book 2 of De Ira, Chapter 19, provides excellent and fitting maxims for princes and judges, to free their minds from prejudiced preconceptions and an excessive tendency to believe evil rather than good. Let us conclude with St. Prosper: “Let not the ears be easily opened to wild rumours”; for such defamations often owe their origin to the hatred of him who invents them, and to the same passion in him who believes them.
If all Christians must guard themselves against this prejudice, all the more so must princes and judges before pronouncing judgment. King Theodoric, in Cassiodorus Book 4, Letter 10, speaks thus for the common benefit: “It is shameful, in the administration of public law, to give license to personal hatreds; nor should unguarded passion judge at a man’s own discretion. For what pleases him who is angry is altogether too unjust. Men in a rage have no sense of justice, since while in the storm of passion they are wild for vengeance, they pay no regard to moderation.”
When the passion of hatred is manifest, one need not fear that any judge would let himself be led astray; but when hatred conceals itself under a cloak of zeal — and of religious zeal above all — the judge then requires the utmost caution to avoid being taken by malice unawares. Hence Theodoret, in Book 1 of his Ecclesiastical History, Chapter 33, found no other way of clearing the Emperor Constantine from the charge of injustice in having pronounced sentence of exile against so many illustrious and innocent ecclesiastics — among whom was St. Athanasius — than to say that: “He put faith in bishops who endeavoured to conceal the truth, living a life of splendour and distinction, whereby they imposed on the Emperor and deceived him. . . . And I say these things that I may answer for the Emperor, and show the weakness of human nature, and teach at the same time: not only those who accuse should be believed, however worthy they may seem to receive credence; for the other ear should be kept intact for the accused.”
God forbid that I should merely suspect that the two Polish bishops wished artificially to conceal the truth, or that they sent here fraudulent information. It is possible, however, that they were not deceivers but deceived; and in this there is no cause for wonder, as the great Pope St. Gregory said in a similar case in Book 1 of his Dialogues, Chapter 4: “Why do you wonder, Peter, that we make mistakes, we who are men?” The manner in which Peter of Celle conducted himself in certain circumstances seems very apt here. He writes in Epistle 9 of Book 6: “I am not accustomed to decide important matters either suddenly or hastily, but with much thought and mature deliberation. . . . Thus it happens that I do not immediately believe every spirit, on account of him who transforms himself into an Angel of Light and often proffers the poison of deception under the cloak of consultation. For it is alike a fault to believe everything and to believe nothing.”
These sentiments are reputed no less useful for the prudent rule of a prince than they are necessary for the just procedure of a judge. Hence everyone knows the law De Unoquoque, § de re judicata, upon which Hippolyte de Marsiliis, Alessandro de Imola, Misingher, and especially Gigas — in Part 3, questions 6 and 10, dealing with the atrocious crime of lèse-majesté — have learnedly written, showing that one must not proceed to condemnation on the foundation of accusations alone, without first having heard the supposed criminal and without his having been assigned means of defence.
Guided by these principles, I am persuaded that I have sufficiently explained all that is needed to demonstrate how we ought to conduct ourselves concerning the informations from Poland considered in general. All I request is that judgment remain suspended for the present, until the examination in particular, and finally in the individual cases, has been made; so that we may afterwards come to the judgment of this cause with an unbiased mind, in accordance with the counsel of the wise Greek Phocylides: “Let not judgment make an end to the dispute if the cause has not been equally examined on both sides.” And rightly so, since to know is the character proper to the judge, as to command is the gift of the prince, as Medea says in the Tragic Poet: “If thou judgest, know; if thou reignest, command.”
II. REFLECTIONS UPON THE AFORESAID INFORMATION, IN PARTICULAR
It is necessary for me to enquire with all diligence how far the informations received from Poland are credible in their purely particular aspect. These informations, then, considered in particular, assume the cruelty of the Jews against Christians. This one assumption, upon which they turn, renders them immediately plausible, and hence perhaps really true and fit for belief. [Note: The Author proceeds to demolish this hypothesis and the facts adduced in its support.]
In the first place, all know what zeal led the monk Rudolph in Mayence to repress the audacity of the Jews against the Christians. He held it his special duty to preach to the Christian people and stir them to just resentment against the Jews, eager for Christian blood. In fact the Christians of Mayence, emboldened by the zeal of this monk, were stirred and perpetrated a great massacre of the Jews.
We also learn from Raynaldus the just resentment of the princes of Germany and of the King of France in the thirteenth century against the Jews, who were consequently subjected to corporal and pecuniary punishments. The specific reason assigned is the same for which they have been punished in Poland, namely: “that in that same solemnity [of Unleavened Bread] they make communion with the heart of a slain child . . . and lay to their charge the corpse of a dead man.”
We also hear that in Padua in the year 1475 the Jews were most severely punished for this atrocious crime of having slain a child. In Verona likewise, in the year 1603, a Jew was brought to trial, the reason being that “having cruelly slain a child, that he might put his innocent blood to most evil and wicked uses, as had been done at other times, which the accuser attempted to prove by certain historical records.” In the year 1705 on the Rialto Bridge in Venice, near the church of San Giacomo, in order to reproach the perfidious Jewish nation with this horrible misdeed, a painting was displayed to the public view in which were depicted “Jews killing a child, with other figures and inscriptions.” In the Papal States also — precisely in Viterbo on 13 June 1705 — the Jews were said to have tried to commit a similar act of barbarity against a Christian boy; and in Ancona in the year 1711 they were accused of having bled and killed a Christian child.
If we wish to add the testimony of well-known writers to so many supposed facts, we shall find in them also a confirmation of the same crime imputed to the Jews. Reference may be made to the work of Father Luigi Contarino Crucifer, the Vago e dilettevole giardino, and to Giulio Morosini, formerly a rabbi among the Jews and afterwards a Christian, whose work contains a long and melancholy series of examples of Christian children murdered by Jews. The case of the Blessed Simon of Trent, martyred by the Jews in 1475, is well known to the world. A similar event occurred in Prague, on account of which the mother was beheaded and the father broken on the wheel.
Now if this crime is imputed to the Jews by so many nations, in almost every time and place — even where they are subject to strict control — and by so many writers with evident proofs, one can see on what a claimed basis of truth the informations from Poland on this subject rest.
I have thought it my duty to assemble all these adduced facts, in order to estimate the probability and credibility of the informations in particular which have come from Poland concerning the matter under discussion. Now, however, I cannot be refused permission to show, in spite of all this, the unsubstantial character of the authorities cited with regard to the object at issue.
The first proof produced is supplied by the monk Rudolph. Let us see whether his conduct against the Jews was approved by competent judges. Henry, Archbishop of Mayence, under whose eyes the massacre of the Jews was perpetrated, disapproved of Rudolph’s conduct and made his feelings known to the glorious St. Bernard. Let us hear the reply that the holy Abbot made to Archbishop Henry in his 323rd letter:
“That man of whom you speak in your letter is sent neither by man, nor as man, nor for man, nor yet by God. For if he boasts of being a monk or a hermit and from this takes upon himself the liberty or office of preaching, he may and ought to know that a monk has not the office of one who teaches but of one who laments; for to him a city should be a prison and solitude Paradise. Yet this man on the contrary holds solitude to be a prison and a city Paradise. . . . Truly three things in him are most worthy of reproach: the usurpation of preaching (with which he stirred up the people to massacre the Jews); contempt of the Bishops (who regretted the slaughter of these unhappy people); and license of approving murder (by promoting and approving the extermination of the unfortunate).”
St. Bernard then goes on to indicate the manner in which Christians ought to behave towards Jews, and says:
“Does not the Church triumph more abundantly over the Jews day by day, by convincing or converting them, than if she were to destroy them all at once at the edge of the sword? Has that universal prayer of the Church been appointed in vain, which is offered for the perfidious Jews from the rising of the sun to its setting, that the Lord God may remove the veil from their hearts, that they may be brought from their darkness to the light of truth? For unless she hoped that those who believe not would believe, it would seem superfluous and vain to pray for them. . . . What becomes then of that saying: ‘See that thou slayest them not’? What of: ‘When the fullness of the peoples shall have entered, then all Israel shall be saved’?”
The immoderate zeal of Rudolph was not confined to the limits of Mayence. He traversed France and other parts of Germany, stirring up the Christians to massacre the Jews — for which he received other well-merited reproaches from the Abbot of Clairvaux, as may be gathered from his letter 363 addressed to the clergy and people of eastern France: “The Jews ought not to be persecuted, or massacred, or even driven into exile.” Benedict XIV of glorious memory, in his Encyclical to the Primate, Archbishops and Bishops of Poland sent 19 June 1752 (A quo primum), likewise opposes “the excessive and frenzied zeal of Rudolph.” It may be concluded, then, that from the action of Brother Rudolph it is impossible to deduce any fault of the Jews against Christians, but rather of Christians — led astray by a hermit — against the Jews.
Let us now pass on to the representations of the King of France and the princes of Germany concerning the crime of the Jews: “that in the same solemnity [of Unleavened Bread] they make communion with the heart of a slain child . . . and lay to their charge the corpse of a dead man” — the very same crime imputed to them by the Poles. To decide properly on this imputation I wish to avail myself of a judge whom none can consider suspect. Innocent IV, Supreme Pontiff, in the year 1247, was interpellated by the Jews themselves, tormented in property and person in Germany and France on account of the said imputation. Let us see how the esteemed Pontiff conducted himself. I will therefore transcribe the very letter of Innocent IV cited by Raynaldus, which may serve as a reliable guide for the ruling to be given on the present matter of the Jews of Poland. He writes to the Archbishops and Bishops of Germany as follows:
“We have received a mournful complaint from the Jews of Germany [here one may rightly say ‘of Poland’] telling how some princes, both ecclesiastical and lay, and other nobles and powerful persons in your cities and dioceses, devise evil plans against them and invent various pretexts in order to rob them unjustly of their goods. This they do without stopping to consider prudently that it is from the archives of the Jews, so to speak, that the testimonies of the Christian faith came forth. Holy Scripture pronounces among other injunctions of the Law: Thou shalt not kill, forbidding them when they celebrate the Passover even to touch any dead body. Nevertheless, they are falsely accused that in that same solemnity they make communion with the heart of a slain child — this is believed to be enjoined by the Law, whereas in fact such an act is manifestly contrary to it. Moreover, if the body of a dead man is found anywhere by chance, they maliciously ascribe the cause of death to the action of the Jews.”
This is precisely what is set forth in the petition presented to the Holy See in the name of the Jews of Poland. If, therefore, Innocent IV accepted the petitions of the Jews of Germany and defended them from this false imputation, charging the Christian prelates and potentates to protect them, it seems that common sense demands that the Holy See should now take into consideration the defence of the Jews of Poland from whatever injury they suffer on account of the same false imputation.
I will now give the rest of the letter of Innocent IV:
“On this and many other fictitious pretexts they rage against the Jews . . . and despoil them, against God and justice, of their possessions. By starvation, imprisonment and many heavy persecutions and oppressions they harass them, inflicting upon them divers kinds of punishment and condemning very many to most shameful death. . . . Wherefore, fearing that they would be utterly exterminated, they have thought well to have recourse to the wisdom of the Apostolic See. We, therefore, being unwilling that the aforesaid Jews should be unjustly harassed . . . do ordain that you show yourselves favourable and benign towards them. Duly redress all that has been wrought against the Jews in the aforesaid matter by the said prelates, nobles and potentates; and do not allow them in future to be unjustly molested by anybody on this or any other similar charge.”
Innocent IV wrote another letter in the same strain in defence of the Jews to the Bishops of France, as Raynaldus notes.
Innocent IV, then, did not believe that the Jews committed that crime which, imputed to them in Poland even today, causes them to be tortured and killed in that kingdom “with divers kinds of punishment and most shameful death.” Hence he forbids such procedures on account of a crime for which not even probability exists, and commands that they be indemnified. I am aware that the Magdeburg Church Historians, with their usual effrontery, venture to suggest that Innocent IV was induced to issue these two letters in favour of the Jews by a large bribe. To refute these most impudent calumniators, it is enough to recall that Gregory IX in the year 1235 issued an encyclical “To faithful Christians” and the following year wrote to all the bishops of France — both letters in justification of the Jews on the point of this same crime imputed to them by Poland. We should also reflect on the constitution of the great Pontiff Innocent III, “Licet perfidia Judaeorum”, in which we shall see how many other Roman Pontiffs undertook to protect this unhappy people. However much the Jews may be reproved for their contumacy and obstinacy, yet we never read that they have been reproved by the Holy See for the crime imputed to them in Poland; on the contrary, they have been positively cleared of such an imputation by Gregory IX and Innocent IV, and were protected with great clemency by Innocent III following the example of so many of his predecessors. This would never have happened had they really been guilty of the supposed atrocious crime.
Let us return from France and Germany to Italy, and let us examine the cases from the republic of Venice, where the crime is supposed to have been proved. Two facts are brought forward: one in Padua in 1475, the other in Verona in 1603; and lastly, the painting displayed on the Rialto Bridge in 1705. I cannot be persuaded that the Most Serene Republic would have wished either to despoil the Jews or deprive them of life for the alleged crime. In fact, examining the two cited cases, I find the exact opposite. In the Doge’s letter sent on 22 April 1475 to the Captain of Padua, the latter’s conduct towards the Jews is reproved. As a sign of his enlightened mind the Doge openly protests: “We assuredly believe that the rumour of the slain child is an invention and a pretext.” The Most Serene Republic recognised that the rumour of a Christian boy killed by the Jews was without foundation and a mere artifice to extort money from those unfortunates. When the examination of this Polish accusation has been concluded, it may well be — as I hope — that the Tribunal of Rome will also have to state: “We certainly believe that the rumour of the slain child is an invention and a pretext.”
I come to the case of Verona. There a certain Jew named Joseph was defended by a celebrated Christian advocate against the charge that “he had cruelly killed a child, in order that he might put his innocent blood to most wicked and nefarious uses, as had been done at other times.” The said Jew Joseph was defended and declared innocent. I think it necessary to report literally the sentence of acquittal pronounced on 28 February 1603:
“The said Joseph, through his most excellent advocate, as well as in his own legitimate defence, has demonstrated by various passages of Holy Scripture that the Hebraic rite abhors the shedding of blood, indicating moreover that various princes have held this rumour of the use of blood to be ‘vain and false’ and have issued special ordinances to that effect: namely Bona and Gian Galeazzo Sforza, Dukes of Milan (19 May 1479); Pietro Mocenigo, Doge of Venice (22 April 1475); and the Emperors Frederick III, Charles V, and Maximilian II (8 March 1566), in which it is affirmed that in the past the Supreme Pontiffs have forbidden men to believe the accusation of the alleged impious abuse of Christian blood. In consequence of all this, all suspicion of such impious wickedness on their part is removed. On this account, the most Illustrious Lord Podestà (then Giustiniano Contarino), together with the most Excellent Consulate, has released the aforesaid Joseph.”
From this sentence of Verona we may recognise the justice of the Councillors and the wisdom of the Podestà, who considered that the Jews, by reason of their rite, abhor the shedding of blood; that many Christian princes had held this rumour of the use of blood to be “vain, null and false”; and that it had been forbidden by Supreme Pontiffs to believe in the impious accusation of the use of Christian blood. In consequence of all these highly reasonable considerations, that wise magistrate determined that “all suspicion of such impious wickedness is removed.”
Concerning the painting on the Rialto Bridge in 1705: the Most Serene Republic decreed on 8 April 1705 that “the said painting be wholly and entirely effaced and deleted.” The two other accusations against the Jews in Viterbo and in Ancona had a similar result — nothing was found against the accused, as may be seen from the acts drawn up on those occasions.
Passing from the supposed facts to the writers, the first is Father Luigi Contarino Crucifer. He calls his work a “pleasant and delightful garden” — yet describing twelve persecutions it presents nothing but a terrible and tragic spectacle of the shedding of innocent blood. If the facts narrated by him correspond with the truth as the subject matter corresponds with the title, we have no basis on which to rest the Polish accusations against the Jews.
Let us now pass to Giulio Morosini, first a Jew and afterwards a Christian. In these neophytes from Judaism there is wont to occur a certain transport against their own nation, by reason of which they not seldom go beyond the limits of truth. I observe that not only Giulio Morosini but also Dr. Paolo Sebastiano Medici, another neophyte from Judaism personally known to me, put forth various accusations against the Jews. The Jews of Rome published in print a full vindication against the same, to which Medici could not reply. At the end of the last century there appeared a book entitled Maximi fructus Monitum, in which the anonymous author makes evident that it is utter imposture that the Jews seek Christian blood for superstitious use and to knead their unleavened bread. He adduces many texts of the Old Testament, various oracles of the Supreme Pontiffs, and copious testimonies of well-known writers. In the year 1753, in Vienna, there was produced a book by Ludwig von Sonnenfels, Professor at the University of that city, entitled: Judaism Accused, Examined, and Absolved (in Poland, they would say: and Condemned!) concerning the use of innocent Christian blood. The author, having been a Jew and having afterwards, by divine help, embraced the Christian religion, makes plain how repugnant the use of Christian blood is to the Jewish nation. What he says in the preface should make a great impression on the minds of Christians, and should move them to defend the Jews from this stain rather than impute it to them:
“Just as we are forbidden, by the general law of charity, to impute anything false or sinister to any assembly of men, of whatever superstition they may be, so in the same manner we are bidden to strive by every means to invalidate and overturn all preconceived incrimination of them, as being contrary to the said charity and truth. For besides the fact that these accusations, falsely imputed to the opposite side, are contrary both to eternal and to created truth, they at the same time break the sacred bond of human society, and cause in minds which dissent from Religion, besides contempt and bitterness, such harmful hatred that at last they do not even endure to hear of our saving Faith, concluding erroneously that it rests only upon falsehood and hatred. Taught this by experience, I write as one who was devoted to the rites of the Jews from my birth and my cradle, till at last, by the infinite mercy of God, the scales of infidelity having fallen from my eyes, I beheld the light of the Gospel. . . . It cannot be told how powerfully the said futile inventions, of which they are falsely accused by us, kindle in the heart of the Jews the fire of a general hatred of Christians. This it is, besides other things, that has prevented them hitherto from coming to our Faith in greater numbers.”
Paul of Burgos, formerly a Jewish doctor and afterwards a Catholic raised to the bishopric of Burgos, was of the same opinion. He wrote on the first chapter of Genesis: “Wherefore to attribute this error to the Jews is not useful in bringing them to the truth; for they think that we invent lies against them, which presents no small obstacle in our making them believe us.”
In this matter, then, fanaticism — as we perceive it in Paolo Sebastiano Medici and Giulio Morosini — is not wanted. But if we wish to give credence to neophytes, we have the celebrated Nicholas de Lyra of my Order, the famous Leone da Modena, Paul of Burgos, Ludwig von Sonnenfels, and many others, in whose writings no such imputation against the Jews may be read — on the contrary, it is bravely combated by them “for the pure love of truth.” Giulio Morosini ought then to have followed the track of so many other celebrated writers converted from Judaism to the Christian faith, and should have remembered that “Princes have held this rumour of the use of blood to be vain and false”, and that from many records “all suspicion of such impious wickedness on their part is removed”, as may be read in the judgment of Verona in favour of the Jew Joseph.
Laying aside such fictions — which arise sometimes from hatred and often from prejudiced preconceptions, of which I have given examples in my first section — I must pass on to the consideration of real and established facts. I admit, then, as true the fact of the Blessed Simon, a boy three years old, killed by the Jews in Trent in the year 1475 in hatred of the faith of Jesus Christ (although this is disputed by Basnage and Wagenseil), for the celebrated Flaminio Cornaro, a Venetian senator, in his work On the Cult of the Child St. Simon of Trent disposes of all the doubts raised by the above-mentioned critics. It should, however, be noted that Sixtus IV — a luminous planet of my Order — in whose pontificate this tragic event occurred in Trent, promulgated an Apostolic Brief in which he forbade the devotion which was paid to the Blessed Simon by his fellow-citizens. Indeed, the matter went so far that this devotion remained forbidden for the course of nearly a century, until in 1588 the great Pontiff Sixtus V — another luminous planet of my Seraphic Order — by his Apostolic Brief conceded the Office and Proper Mass in honour of the Blessed Simon. The Brief of Sixtus IV is cited in the immortal work On the Canonization of Saints by Benedict XIV of glorious memory (Book I, Chapter 14, No. 4).
I also admit the truth of another fact, which happened in the year 1462 in the village of Rinn, in the diocese of Brixen, in the person of the Blessed Andreas, a boy barbarously murdered by the Jews in hatred of the faith of Jesus Christ. I observe, however, that the diocese of Brixen had to wait from 1462 until 15 December 1753 before obtaining from the Holy See the concession of the Office and the Mass. On 14 January 1754 the Plenary Indulgence was granted to those visiting the church at Rinn. Hence the diocese of Brixen had to wait nearly three centuries before the devotion of the Blessed Child Andreas was permitted by the Holy Roman Church.
Finally we ought to observe concerning these two events, of Brixen and of Trent, what the glorious memory of Benedict XIV wisely taught in a letter of 22 February 1755 to Mgr. Benedetto Veterani, in which, at § 29, he prescribes that in order to have well-founded proofs of similar infanticides imputed to the Jews, these must be crimes “notorious, known to the people, execrated by all, and avenged by the Magistrates.”
It should be concluded, then, that among so many infanticides imputed by writers to the Jews in hatred of our holy faith, only two can be said to be true, since these two alone can be said to be proved by authentic proofs after much diligence and a considerable lapse of time. When I come to consider the reports from Poland individually, I shall make it clear in the light of day how meagre, doubtful, and uncertain are the proofs adduced of the pretended imputations — indeed I wonder whether it may not reasonably be suspected that the whole is an imposture of Christians against the Jews.
I do not believe, moreover, that by admitting the truth of the two facts of Brixen and of Trent, one can reasonably deduce that this is a maxim — either theoretical or practical — of the Jewish nation; for two isolated events are not enough to establish a certain and common axiom. Just as the relatives of some individual who has committed a crime are not deprived thereby of honours and advancement to higher ranks and dignity, so ought we to conclude in our present case, unless we wish to deceive ourselves. This should certainly be our attitude not only in view of the judgment of Verona, but much more in view of the teaching of St. Bernard adduced against Brother Rudolph, and finally of the sentiments of Gregory IX and Innocent IV — who, as I have shown, exclude this pernicious maxim from the Hebrew nation. Let the Jewish nation dwelling in Poland justly reply to the two supposed cases of the Blessed Simon and the Blessed Andreas: “If you prove it, it does not concern us.” So true is it that a crime committed by one member of a family or of a nation cannot and ought not to be imputed to the other relatives or fellow-citizens.
The painting in Posen may have as much basis of truth as have the inscriptions on the two horses that give the Quirinal its name, namely “opus Phidiae et Praxithelis” — for it is known to scholars what anachronism is contained in those inscriptions. I imagine that this picture would deserve to be treated as the other was treated which was displayed in 1705 on the Rialto Bridge, concerning which the Most Serene Republic “ordered the said picture to be wholly and entirely effaced and deleted.”
Furthermore, a negative argument may be adduced in favour of the Jews: everyone knows that the entry of the Jews into Poland occurred after their expulsion from Spain, while before that time there is no vestige or memory of Jews in Poland. Now it is certain that Ferdinand the Catholic, on 30 March 1492, issued an edict ordering the Jews, under pain of death, either to receive Holy Baptism or depart from all the realms of that monarchy. One hundred and seventy thousand families departed — calculated at eight hundred thousand persons — and scattered throughout Africa, Turkey, Greece and Italy. Let us suppose they subsequently entered Poland; this could not have happened before 1500. I do not see, therefore, how from a painting supposed to be older than the fifteenth century — when the Jews were not yet in Poland — one can derive a factual argument against the Jews, since they could not at that time have been the perpetrators of a deed worthy to be painted and displayed on the facade of the temple of Posen.
All these reflections were necessary concerning the informations in particular from Poland, since those informations are founded, as has now been seen, on the basis of pretended facts already dissolved and testimonies of historians already refuted. Hence the said informations in particular ought not, in my judgment, to cause any harm to the Jews.
III. REFLECTIONS ON THE REPORTS IN DETAIL
By order of this Supreme Tribunal, Mgr. the Nuncio of Poland obtained reports concerning the petition of Jacob Selek, Jew of Polish nationality, only from the Bishops of Łuck and Kiev, which are given in the annexed summary under the letters A, B, and C. Upon these I shall make, with due respect, the necessary observations.
In the information of the Bishop of Łuck (headed B) we read as follows:
“We may understand most plainly how many and how great proofs of cruelty towards Christian blood have been given in this kingdom [i.e., Poland] by the perfidious Jewish nation, not only from histories printed throughout the world, but also from the judgments in cases of infanticide pronounced before various diocesan courts and also by the executions on the persons of the unfaithful [this is what gives just offence] that followed in virtue of them from the year 1400 to the present time.”
From the preface to this report it is evident that those prejudices about and against which I have reasoned in my first section exist in the mind of the Bishop of Łuck, and that the aforesaid report relies on those same principles on which were built the accusations against the Jews of Germany, France, Venice, Padua, Verona, Viterbo and Ancona. Therefore, if the Supreme Pontiffs Gregory IX and Innocent IV judged such accusations to be groundless — as I have clearly shown — and if the Jews were declared innocent in the other tribunals of Italy, I cannot see how they can be considered guilty of such a crime in Poland alone, and how for nearly four centuries — from the year 1400 to the present — they have continued to commit it at the cost of such suffering in property and in person.
Moreover, the Bishop of Łuck shows himself too prone to believe what cannot be true, since, as has been observed, the Jews did not enter Poland until after 1500 — so that, not being there in 1400, they could not commit the supposed crime. Nor is it credible that, having barely entered Poland — not as conquerors but almost as slaves — they would at the very beginning have dared to make themselves more odious than they had been in Spain. In Spain, had they committed such a crime, they would have been killed rather than merely exiled. If then in Spain, where they dwelt so long and were so prosperous, the Jews were never accused of such a crime, how can it be credible that as soon as they arrived in Poland they immediately began an epoch of infanticide and homicide?
It is now a hundred years since the Jews in Poland were first accused of such a crime. There were not wanting persons to undertake their defence. The Very Rev. Father Giovanni Battista de’ Marini, General of the Order of Preachers, moved to pity by the Jews of Poland who were being harassed by this imputation, wrote on 9 February 1664 a most urgent letter to Father Alan Chodoruski, Provincial of Poland, instructing the members of his Order in that Kingdom to preach from the pulpit and persuade the people to dismiss the evil opinion obsessing them concerning the Jews. He wrote:
“It has been humbly and sorrowfully shewn to us on the part of the unhappy Jews, who dwell scattered throughout the Kingdom of Poland, that they are malignantly traduced with various calumnies and imputations by the ignorant populace and by certain persons hostile to them through private malice; in particular on the charge that they are accustomed to use the blood of Christians in their rite of the Unleavened Bread. . . . We therefore, moved by righteous pity, earnestly charge your Paternity, through yourself and your Order, to succour this unhappy people against all unjust calumnies. . . . Charge each preacher of the Divine Word through the entire province, in our name and yours, that they should exhort the people in their sermons not to offend our God by ill-treating this hapless race through unlawful hatreds, false accusations, abusive contumely or any insult. . . . Let the Jews find out in this matter that we desire not their destruction but their salvation.”
Such also were the sentiments of St. Bernard against Brother Rudolph, such the oracles of Gregory IX and Innocent IV against the princes of Germany and France, as we have seen. The Lord grant that a ray of this truth may break forth some time in Poland, where they offend our God by ill-treating this hapless race through unlawful hatreds and false accusations. The offence against God ought to be reputed so much the greater in this matter, the greater the obstacle it sets up against the conversion of those unhappy people.
The Bishop of Łuck then mentions the fact that the corpse of a Christian, who died of wounds, was thrown into a marsh near the castle of Yampol. The man is alleged to have been killed by the Jews on the basis: first, that the slain man frequented the Jews and continually dwelt in their company; secondly, that the Jews, “led by a certain unwonted attraction towards a Christian corpse, attempted by force and prayers to bury it as soon as possible”; thirdly, that the Jews resisted its removal for identification; fourthly, that many secretly withdrew from the city by flight.
Let us discuss these proofs. Who can think it possible that the Jews, if they had murdered a Christian in their service, would afterwards want to leave the body displayed to public view, and not bury it safely in a deep and dark grave? For the Jews of Poland know by very painful experience that a mere suspicion of homicide is enough to make them considered — and sentenced — as guilty.
This imputation of the murder is completely similar to that brought against the Jews of Germany in the time of Innocent IV. This is clearly recognised by what that great Pontiff wrote in his letter: “and they maliciously lay to their charge the body of a dead man, if it happens that one is found anywhere.” Innocent IV considered such an imputation malicious — that is, not true, but false and calumnious. Yet now the Bishop of Łuck, with greater discernment than a Roman Pontiff, immediately believes the fact and immediately condemns the Jews as authors by profession of such a crime.
It is not therefore to be wondered at that when the corpse was found the Jews used every device to prevent action by the bishop’s court, for they know by mournful experience that suspicion falls upon them at once and is not cleared away “without the shedding of blood” — corporal and pecuniary.
But what would the Bishop of Łuck say if it were proved that such a monstrous crime has sometimes — God forbid it should be always — been committed by Christians themselves, even by a father, and then imputed to the unhappy Jews? I blush at suspecting it, but I am much more embarrassed at producing the authentic record of it [marked D in the Nuncio’s report], in which we read that a Christian father mutilated his own tender daughter in several places with mortal wounds, wrapped her in cloths, and abandoned her in the manger of a stable in an inn kept, after the custom of Poland, by Jews. We read that this little girl, surviving by the Divine Will, confessed out of her own mouth that she had been ill-treated, with so many wounds and mutilations, by her own father. Yet suspicion had already been formed against the Jews and it was already desired to proceed against them.
I need not delay on what the Bishop of Kiev says, since the greater part of his information is an Apology defending his own conduct. I will only add that we Christians ought to remember that this same stain of infanticide and homicide was imputed against our own Religion by the pagans in the first centuries. Tertullian, in his Apology, Chapter 7, speaks: “We are said to be guilty of the sacrament of infanticide. . . . You, on the other hand, do not take steps to suppress the practice you have charged us with for so long. Either suppress it, if you believe in it; or stop believing in it if you will not suppress it.” What did the Swedes leave undone, in the last century, during the invasion of Germany, against certain Jesuit Fathers in Paderborn? They accused the innocent ecclesiastics of having murdered a boy and thrown him into a well. All were exiled, and their College was despoiled of all its substance. The mistake was discovered when it was found that it was a stork, and not a child, which was engulfed in that well.
From all that has been concluded, it may be realised with what lively faith we ought to ask God with the Psalmist: “Deliver me from the calumnies of men.” For it cannot be denied that “calumny maketh the wise man mad, and destroyeth the strength of his heart”, as Ecclesiastes says, Chapter vii.
[Conclusion]
I therefore hope that the Holy See will take some measure to protect the Jews of Poland, as St. Bernard, Gregory IX, and Innocent IV did for the Jews of Germany and of France, “that the name of Christ be not blasphemed” by the Jews and, moreover, that their conversion may not be made more difficult. I do not venture, however, to put forward any specific project to liberate these unfortunates from such ill-usage, hoping that Jesus Christ will suggest to His Vicar such means as shall be honourable to the Christian name and conducive to the conversion of those unhappy people.
I, FRIAR LORENZO GANGANELLI, Consultor of the Holy Office.
Referred as above to the said Consultors. On Monday 24 December 1759, they decided that in the matter under discussion a letter should be written to the Very Reverend Father Nuncio in Poland in accordance with a form to be drawn up by the Very Reverend Father Consultor (now the Most Eminent and Most Reverend Cardinal Ganganelli), based upon the arguments set forth by him in his written report.
Sources. Italian original: Lettere del Pontefice Clemente XIV Ganganelli, ed. Romualdo Zotti, Tomo Primo (London, 1799) — Internet Archive. Published in full (Italian with English translation) in: Cecil Roth, ed., The Ritual Murder Libel and the Jew: The Report by Cardinal Lorenzo Ganganelli (Pope Clement XIV) (The Woburn Press, London, 1935). Authenticity confirmed by Cardinal Secretary of State Merry del Val in a letter to Lord Rothschild, 18 October 1913. English translation in this document is a new translation from the Italian original. Wikipedia: Ganganelli Memorandum. Bitter Winter: The Blood Libel Anti-Semitic Myth.