Christ The King

Principally the Writings of Fr. Giuseppe Oreglia di Santo Stefano, S.J., Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J., Fr. Francesco Saverio Rondina, S.J., and Fr. Gaetano Zocchi, S.J.

Fr. Giuseppe Oreglia di Santo Stefano (1823–1895) was born in Bene Vagienna, Piedmont, and was among the founders of La Civiltà Cattolica, the semi-official Jesuit journal of the Holy See, established in Naples in 1850. He served as its editor from 1865–1868 and contributed for over four decades. Fr. Raffaele Ballerini (1830–1907), born in Medicina (Bologna), joined La Civiltà Cattolica in 1860 and remained for over four decades. He is the primary author of the landmark 1890 three-part series, the 1897 anti-Zionism article, and the 1898 Dreyfus article. All articles in La Civiltà Cattolica were reviewed and approved by the Secretariat of State of the Holy See before publication, and enjoyed the direct patronage of Popes Pius IX, Leo XIII, and St. Pius X. All passages are verbatim translations of the original Italian texts, or verified English translations, as cited from the scholarly and primary sources named in each footnote. Passages translated directly from Italian are so noted.

A note on dates: The foundational three-part series “The Jewish Question in Europe” (La questione giudaica in Europa) appeared in October, November, and December 1890. It is included here because it was the central statement of the journal’s theology on the Jewish question for the entire ensuing decade. Verified articles strictly within 1891–1899 begin in Part II.

Part I: “The Jewish Question in Europe” (La questione giudaica in Europa), October–December 1890

La Civiltà Cattolica, Series XIV, Vol. VII–VIII, Fascicules 961, 970, and 979 (23 October, 4 November, and 6 December 1890). Attributed by scholars (Catalan, Storicamente, 2011; Dahl, Patterns of Prejudice, 2014) to Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J., as principal author, with input from the College of Writers. Scanned original at Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/ballerini-raffaele-della-questione-giudaica-in-europa-la-civilta-cattolica-1890

I. Supersessionism — Mosaism Fulfilled; Judaism Replaced by the Talmud

The Jewish question in our times does not differ greatly from the one aroused in the Christian people of the Middle Ages. Mosaism in itself could not become an object of hate for Christians, since, until the coming of Christ, it was the only true religion, a prefiguration of and preparation for Christianity, which, according to God’s Will, was to be its successor. But the Judaism of the centuries [after Christ] turned its back on the Mosaic law, replacing it with the Talmud, the very quintessence of that Pharisaism which in so many ways has been shattered through its rejection by Christ, the Messiah and Redeemer.

— Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J. [attr.], “La questione giudaica in Europa,” Part I: The Causes, § II, La Civiltà Cattolica, Series XIV, Vol. VII, Fascicule 961, 23 October 1890. English translation (1998), reproduced at http://www.catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/Judaism/Jewrope.htm and at https://archive.org/details/civiltacattolicatheJewishquestionineurope

II. “A Foreign Nation within the Nations” — Jews as a Perpetually Hostile People; St. Paul on the Jews

The Jewish race, in which there is also a nation, although one without a fixed fatherland and without a political organism, lives dispersed among nations, mixed among them. Although sheltered within the whole, the Jews still form a social union. They view their hosts as enemies, and they greedily prey upon them, even as they sit at their tables. Thus it is that the great Israelite family, dispersed among the gentile people of the world, form a foreign nation within the nations in which they reside, and are their sworn enemy, since the cardinal point of Talmudism is the oppression and spoliation of the very people who extend hospitality to their disciples. About which St. Paul, at the end of his days, said that the Jews were God’s displeasure and repulsive to all men, Deo non placent, et omnibus hominibus adversantur [“who please not God and are adversaries to all men”] (I Thess. ii. 14).

III. The Talmud Commands Hatred of Christians and Makes It Lawful to Degrade Them

The rules of the secretive codex of the Talmud prescribes an execrable morality, one that demands hatred of all men who don’t have Jewish blood, and especially Christians. The Talmud makes it licit to deprecate and beat them as noxious brutes.

IV. On the Moral Precepts of the Talmud — Non-Jews as Beasts and Animals

“O seed of Abraham,” exclaims the Talmud, “The Lord has surely chosen you, as spoken by Ezekiel; you are my sheepfold; I mean that you are men, whereas the other peoples of this world are not men, but beasts.” The Jew who insults a non-Jewish woman and assaults her is absolved of all judgment, because he has done evil “to a mare.” Maimonides, who is considered infallible in the ghettoes, in his treatise on homicide, in a sentence treating an Israelite who kills a goi, wrote that the Jew cannot be punished, precisely because the goi is not a Jew. What else? One of the authoritative Jewish books seriously asserts that “non-Jews are black animals,” who are also described as boars.

— Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J. [attr.], “La questione giudaica in Europa,” Part I: The Causes, § V, La Civiltà Cattolica, Series XIV, Vol. VII, Fascicule 961, 23 October 1890. English translation (1998). Footnotes in the original: Baba-Metsigna, f. 114.f.; Barakout, f. 88.f.; Salkutro-Ubeni, f. 10.3.

V. The Talmud Elevates the Jew above the Angels of Paradise

The Talmud elevates the Jew above all humankind; and teaches that an Israelite is more pleasing to God than the angels of paradise; that to strike a Jew is to strike Him; that the non-Hebrew, he who thrashes a son of Jacob, is actually worthy of death.

VI. The Talmud Licences Fraud and Theft from Christians

The codices of this morality make licit, and even obligatory, that the Jew appropriate to himself the lost property of non-Jews; and behold the incredible reason: “to make the non-Jew shameful in the sight of the mercy of God.” And as a matter of strict obligation, Maimonides avers that the dirty trick is a strict obligation: “Whoever pays them back,” he wrote, “commits a sin, because he strengthens the hand of the impious.”

— Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J. [attr.], “La questione giudaica in Europa,” Part I: The Causes, § V, La Civiltà Cattolica, Series XIV, Vol. VII, Fascicule 961, 23 October 1890. English translation (1998). Footnotes in the original: Baba-Koummah, fol. 29, 50; Sanhedra, fol. 76, 5; Maimonides, “Regarding plunder and lost property,” cap. IX, art. 3, 4.

VII. Rabbinical Law Licences Cheating Christians; Usury as a Religious Obligation

“It is permissible, whenever possible, to cheat a Christian. Usury imposed on a Christian is not only permissible, rather, it is a good; and it is lawful to impose it even on holydays. So much so that you ought to cheat a Christian in such a way as to ensure that he remains ruined.”

— Rabbinical authorities cited by Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J. [attr.], “La questione giudaica in Europa,” Part I: The Causes, § V, La Civiltà Cattolica, Series XIV, Vol. VII, Fascicule 961, 23 October 1890. English translation (1998). Original: Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat, f. 348, n. 1; Yoreh De’ah, 159, n. 1.

VIII. The “Rights of Man” as Instruments of Jewish Supremacy

That series of assertions which in 1789 was said to be the synthesis of the rights of man, in fact represented nothing but the rights of Jews, to the detriment of the peoples in whose bosom the practice of these rights was advanced. These rights were, so to speak, the bulwark of power by means of which, in our century, Judaism laid siege to Christian society, assaulted it, upset it and, to a great extent, overtook it. This is seen in the universal stupor in which Europe finds itself as it perceives that gold, the dissemination of ideas, and the political-irreligious tendency of its states are nearly entirely in Hebrew hands.

— Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J. [attr.], “La questione giudaica in Europa,” Part II: The Effects, § I, La Civiltà Cattolica, Series XIV, Vol. VIII, Fascicule 970, 4 November 1890. English translation (1998).

IX. Emancipation as a “Devastating Torrent”

Once having acquired absolute civil liberty and equality in every sphere with Christians and the nations, the dam which previously had held back the Hebrews was opened for them, and in short time, like a devastating torrent, they penetrated and cunningly took over everything: gold, trade, the stock market, the highest appointments in political administrations, in the army and in diplomacy; public education, the press, everything fell into their hands or into the hands of those who were inevitably depending upon them … the very laws and institutions of the states hinder Christian society from shedding the yoke of Hebrew audacity, imposed under the guise of liberty.

— Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J. [attr.], “La questione giudaica in Europa,” Part II: The Effects, La Civiltà Cattolica, Series XIV, Vol. VIII, Fascicule 970, 4 November 1890. English translation (1998); cited in David I. Kertzer, The Popes against the Jews (Vintage Books, 2002).

X. Usury as the “Mustard Seed” of Jewish World Domination

Usury then remains to us, and better than the faith and morals of Christ, usury is the little stone that fell from the mountain, which must cover the world; the mustard seed that grows into a superb tree, which will dominate the world.

— Rabbinical source adduced and endorsed by Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J. [attr.], “La questione giudaica in Europa,” Part II: The Effects, § II, La Civiltà Cattolica, Series XIV, Vol. VIII, Fascicule 970, 4 November 1890. English translation (1998). Original footnote: Socialismo, p. 339–40.

XI. The Drach Passage — Talmudic Messianism and the Awaited “Slaughter of the Christians”

“The Messiah had to be a great conqueror who subjugated the nations to a state of slavery by the Jews. They would return to the Holy Land as vanquishers, and take the riches from the infidels. The purpose of the coming of this Messiah would be to liberate the dispersed Jews, assembling them in the Holy Land, and establishing a temporal kingdom there, lasting to the end of the world. Then all the people will be subjects of the Jews, and they will pay tribute to them with their persons and their goods. The learned Rabbis of the Synagogue routinely end their discourse by invoking this triumph, as well as all of the blessings promised with the coming of the one who is heralded as the Messiah. Among these promised blessings is the much awaited and longed for moment of the slaughter of the Christians, and of the complete end of the sect of the Nazarene.”

— P.-L.-B. Drach, De l’Harmonie entre l’Église et la Synagogue (Paris, 1844), pp. 18–19, quoted and endorsed by Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J. [attr.], “La questione giudaica in Europa,” Part I: The Causes, § IV, La Civiltà Cattolica, Series XIV, Vol. VII, Fascicule 961, 23 October 1890. English translation (1998).

XII. The Remedies — Restoration of Discriminatory Legislation against Jews

The remedies that are indicated as just and necessary are of two kinds, moral and political. The moral ones consist in a return to the ancient virtues of the Christian peoples, of faith, of charity, and of sobriety; the political ones consist in wise laws which are able to restrict the invasive activity of the Jews … Because the social evil of which we speak does not admit of elimination but only of reduction, and its reduction demands the restoration, with appropriate modification, of the ancient restraints against the Jews in Christian society.

— Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J. [attr.], “La questione giudaica in Europa,” Part III: The Remedies, § I–II, La Civiltà Cattolica, Series XIV, Vol. VIII, Fascicule 979, 6 December 1890. English translation (1998).

Part II: The 1891–1899 Articles

I. Fr. Rondina — The Twelve Points of Talmudic Blood Ritual (1893)

Fr. Francesco Saverio Rondina, S.J., “La morale giudaica e il mistero del sangue” (Jewish Morality and the Mystery of Blood), La Civiltà Cattolica, anno 44 (1893), Serie XV, Vol. 5, pp. 145–160; 269–286. Scanned original: https://archive.org/details/la-morale-giudaica-in-la-civilta-cattolica-a.-44-1893-s.-15-vol.-5-pp.-145-160

The following twelve propositions are Fr. Rondina’s own numbered summary of what he claimed the journal had established regarding alleged Jewish ritual practice. Translation from Italian by the compilers:

The murder of a Christian … is commanded to Jews by the Talmudic–Rabbinical law …

The aim of said murder … is above all to fulfil a religious duty …

During the feasts of Purim … the blood of any Christian whatsoever may be used, but for the Passover feasts it must be the blood of a Christian child not exceeding seven years of age …

The unleavened breads, Jewishly seasoned with that little flavour of Christian blood, are given as gifts to non-Jews during the feasts of Purim; but during the Passover feasts they are eaten for a full seven days by Jews alone …

In order that the blood of a Christian child be fit for the rite … it is necessary that the child die in torment …

Christian blood also serves for the rite of circumcision and for other uses …

The believed necessity and efficacy thereof moves the Jews to seek out our children, in order to extract by force of tortures the blood, which is then … sold at a high price … by means of wandering Jews furnished with a certificate from the Rabbi himself, which certifies how and in what manner said blood is true Christian blood …

The ritual use and the mystery of blood is found written only in the Eastern codices … whereas in the Western ones it is replaced by practice and oral tradition …

Finally, the rite is general among Jews who observe their (Talmudic) law, and dates back to the earliest centuries of Christianity.

— Fr. Francesco Saverio Rondina, S.J., “La morale giudaica e il mistero del sangue,” La Civiltà Cattolica, anno 44 (1893), Serie XV, Vol. 5, pp. 145–160; 269–286. Italian original cited verbatim and contextualised in the scholarly thread at it.cultura.storia, https://groups.google.com/g/it.cultura.storia.moderato/c/gtk9OHD4RGM/m/MwLhfB2bzx0J. Translation from Italian by the compilers of this document.

II. Deicide and the Talmudic Synagogue — “The Synagogue Which Had Put Man-the-God on the Cross” (1895)

[T]he Synagogue which “had put Man-the-God on the Cross,” thus bringing about the dispersion of the Jews and causing their “irritating” presence throughout the earth.

— Anonymous [La Civiltà Cattolica College of Writers], La Civiltà Cattolica, vol. 46 (1895), no. 1, p. 262. This passage encapsulates the journal’s settled theology in 1895 — the year of Oreglia di Santo Stefano’s death — linking the Talmudic Synagogue directly to the act of deicide, and that act to the providential punishment of perpetual dispersal. Cited and translated in: La Civiltà Cattolica (encyclopaedic entry), Encyclopaedia Judaica / Jewish Virtual Library, https://Jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0004_0_04332.html

III. The 1895 Chronicles on Dreyfus — “The Most Luminous Proofs of Treason”

Now it is a captain of the general staff, Monsieur Dreyfus, who has been put in prison on suspicion — indeed, on the most luminous proofs of treason — of having disclosed the secrets of national defence to a foreign power. This Monsieur Dreyfus is a Jew, and on that account is specially protected by his co-religionists, by whose favour, stepping over others, he reached his position of trust.

— Anonymous [La Civiltà Cattolica College of Writers], chronicle item, La Civiltà Cattolica, 1895 (published immediately after Dreyfus’s conviction of December 1894). Italian original: “Ora è un capitano di stato maggiore, il sig. Dreyfus, che è messo in prigione per sospetto, anzi per le prove luminosissime di tradimento, per aver palesato i segreti della difesa naZionale allo straniero. Codesto sig. Dreyfus è un ebreo e per ciò protetto in modo specialissimo dà suoi correligionari, col favor dei quali scavalcando gli altri giunse al suo posto di fiducia.” Cited in Tommaso Todaro, “L’Affaire Dreyfus e la Civiltà Cattolica,” Nuovo Monitore Napoletano, 13 May 2020, https://www.nuovomonitorenapoletano.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2790. Translation from Italian by the compilers.

IV. Fr. Ballerini — “La Dispersione d’Israello nel mondo moderno” (The Dispersion of Israel* in the Modern World*), 1897

Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J., “La Dispersione d’Israello nel mondo moderno,” La Civiltà Cattolica, anno 48 (1897), Serie XVI, Vol. 10, pp. 257–271. Published 20 April 1897. Identified as Ballerini’s by Tullia Catalan (Storicamente, 2011). HathiTrust scan: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044105220339&seq=271. Full English translation: https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-dispersion-of-Israel-in-the-modern

This is the foundational Catholic theological response to proto-Zionism. Published four months before the First Zionist Congress in Basel (August 1897), it set the terms of the Vatican’s theological opposition to Zionism for decades. All passages below are from the full English translation published at The Journal of American Reform (Substack).

A. Jewish Dispersion as a Unique Historical Fact

For those who do not believe in the divinity of the Scriptures and reject the prophecies of the two Testaments, it must seem inexplicably strange to see the fact, unique in the history of mankind, of a people, for more than nineteen centuries, dispersed and wandering, without a king, without a temple, without a priesthood, without a homeland; and yet always subsisting, mingled with the nations of the globe, with none of which it has ever been related, and always by all the same nations, sometimes more sometimes less, disliked, hostile or rejected.

— Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J., “La Dispersione d’Israello nel mondo moderno,” La Civiltà Cattolica, anno 48 (1897), Serie XVI, Vol. 10, p. 257. English translation at https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-dispersion-of-Israel-in-the-modern

B. Deicide and the Curse of the Blood — Sanguis eius super nos

Behold, 1827 years have passed since the prediction of Jesus of Nazareth came true to the letter, that Jerusalem would be destroyed, until not one stone was left standing upon another, that the Jews would be led captive among all the nations, and would remain scattered there until the end of time. Of this prediction, to this day, not a syllable has failed. The curse of the sanguis eius super nos et super filios nostros [his blood be upon us and upon our children], already shouted by the people in the presence of Pontius Pilate, continues to be verified every day, with the same constancy with which the sun rises and sets every day.

— Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J., “La Dispersione d’Israello nel mondo moderno,” La Civiltà Cattolica, anno 48 (1897), Serie XVI, Vol. 10, p. 258. English translation at https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-dispersion-of-Israel-in-the-modern

C. The Emancipation of 1789 as Bearer of Servitude for Christians

With this, the dreamers and supporters of human brotherhood, in secularized civilization, believed for some time that they had cut the knot of quarrels, due to disparity of lineage and religion; and they sang a hymn to the pacifying glory of the new freedom. But very soon, and before the centenary of such a beautiful enterprise was celebrated, the quarrel arose again, more lively than before, and the heavenly emancipation of the Jews showed itself in its effects to be the bearer of servitude for the Christians; so that even this article of the Magna Carta, which was supposed to renew the world, is beginning to be seen to have made it much worse.

— Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J., “La Dispersione d’Israello nel mondo moderno,” La Civiltà Cattolica, anno 48 (1897), Serie XVI, Vol. 10, pp. 261–262. English translation at https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-dispersion-of-Israel-in-the-modern

D. The Jewish Nation — Immutably Jewish by Seed, Talmud, and Kabbalah

The Jew always continues to be immutably Jewish in every place. His nationality is not in the soil where he was born, it is not in the language he speaks; it is in the seed, in the lineage and in that mixture of Bible, Talmud and Kabbalah, which he calls his history and his religion. An innate and secret bond binds him to his brothers in Abraham. The equality of civil rights, which he enjoys where he lives, takes nothing away from his nationality. Everywhere he is a stranger to all, except those with whom he shares his origin and curse. Outside of his own interest, he has no other political aim, wherever he lives. It is all the causes, all the flags, all the dynasties, which facilitate the purchase of gold. That is for him the most favored of the nations, which provides him with the most means of accumulating it: hence it makes the Jew laugh, who in Italy, in France, in Germany, pretends to quibble out of tenderness for his country. He aspires to covert, rather than overt, domination; but he does not aspire to it as a pasture for pride, but rather as an instrument of greed. In short, together with his people, wherever he is, he constitutes a nation in every nation, which organically exists nowhere, but sparsely exists everywhere.

— Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J., “La Dispersione d’Israello nel mondo moderno,” La Civiltà Cattolica, anno 48 (1897), Serie XVI, Vol. 10, p. 265. English translation at https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-dispersion-of-Israel-in-the-modern

E. Jewish Domination of Vienna and the Austro-Hungarian Empire

In Vienna, up to this last time, when the vigorous revolt of the Christian Socialists began, they were all in the public offices, in the town hall, in the ministries, and dictated the law in the Court itself. … All the leading newspapers were theirs, and were edited and written by one hundred and ten of their brothers. Their monopoly was also the University, in which they occupied almost all the chairs … the theological faculty itself is subject to the influence of the Synagogue and the Talmud. Out of consideration for the offspring of this race, the recitation of Christian prayers, including the Pater Noster, had to be abolished in the schools of the Catholic city, and images of the Crucified Christ had to be removed from the walls, as they would have offended the delicate sight of the children of his crucifiers.

— Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J., “La Dispersione d’Israello nel mondo moderno,” La Civiltà Cattolica, anno 48 (1897), Serie XVI, Vol. 10, pp. 265–266. English translation at https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-dispersion-of-Israel-in-the-modern

F. The Fate Reserved for Christian Europe under Jewish Domination

In essence, the Habsburg Monarchy gives an idea of the fate reserved for the great states of Europe, if for another half century they continue to allow themselves to be devoured by the lineage of Jacob, under the pretext of the freedom promulgated by the French Revolution of 1789. Their Christian peoples famem patientur ut canes [shall suffer famine like dogs], will starve to death, and with the sweat of their brow they will provide the Jews with wherewithal to amass millions, in order to tyrannize them and trample upon their necks.

— Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J., “La Dispersione d’Israello nel mondo moderno,” La Civiltà Cattolica, anno 48 (1897), Serie XVI, Vol. 10, p. 266. English translation at https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-dispersion-of-Israel-in-the-modern

G. Anti-Zionism I — Why Palestine Cannot Receive All the Jews (Leroy-Beaulieu Quoted)

“Palestine would not have enough to supply food for the entire family of Israel. All Syria would not be able to accommodate more than a small portion of the seven or eight million Jews who live scattered around the globe. Could the Christians and Muslims be evicted from there to make room for them? Could we hand over the Holy Sepulchre to the Synagogue for safekeeping? What Christian would tolerate it? Even if you were to hand over to Israel all the free territory of Syria, with the desert up to the Euphrates, no more than a third or a quarter of the Jews of Europe would live there.”

— [Leroy-Beaulieu, quoted and endorsed by] Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J., “La Dispersione d’Israello nel mondo moderno,” La Civiltà Cattolica, anno 48 (1897), Serie XVI, Vol. 10, p. 269. English translation at https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-dispersion-of-Israel-in-the-modern

H. Anti-Zionism II — Dispersal is Providential and Scriptural; Rebuilding Jerusalem Contradicts Christ’s Own Prophecy

According to the sacred pages, the Jewish people must always subsist dispersed and wandering among other peoples, so that, not only with the deposit of the Scriptures, which they venerate and keep in reserve, but also with their very state, they bear witness to the faith of Christ. Who, through the mouth of David, prayed to the Father that He would not kill their lineage, which was hostile to Him, ne occidas eos [do not kill them], but that He would disperse and degrade them with His power, disperge illos in virtute tua et depone eos [scatter them by your power; and bring them down]. Which was to say: disperse them among all the nations of the world and let them be an ever living and present example of Your justice, and a palpable demonstration of the truth of the Gospel. “The Jews were dispersed,” Augustine notes, “so that they might be witnesses of their own iniquity and of our truth.” Now nineteen centuries have already passed, and the prophetic word is fulfilled today, more manifestly than in times past. The Jewish dust encumbers the civilized and Christian world.

As for rebuilding a Jerusalem, which will become the centre of a resurrected Israelite Kingdom, it must be noted that this is contrary to the prediction of Christ himself, who affirmed that Jerusalem will be trodden by the Gentiles, that is, by rulers of non-Jewish progeny, donec impleantur tempora nationum [until the times of the nations are fulfilled], until the conversion of the nations is accomplished and the end of the world has arrived.

— Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J., “La Dispersione d’Israello nel mondo moderno,” La Civiltà Cattolica, anno 48 (1897), Serie XVI, Vol. 10, pp. 269–270. English translation at https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-dispersion-of-Israel-in-the-modern

I. Anti-Zionism III — The Proposed Remedy: Restrict Jewish Civil Equality by Parliamentary Means

[The remedy is found in] the fair use, where it is lawful, of that very weapon of popular suffrage, of which corrupting Judaism has availed itself, to subjugate the countries that have hosted it. When then the votes of the greater number shall be in the hands of Christian Parliaments, it will be possible to see to what extent the parity of rights, conceded to dispersed Israel, is to be maintained, is to be taken away, or is to be reformed.

— Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J., “La Dispersione d’Israello nel mondo moderno,” La Civiltà Cattolica, anno 48 (1897), Serie XVI, Vol. 10, p. 271. Translation from Italian by the compilers; Italian text cited in Tullia Catalan, “Sionismo e stampa cattolica italiana (1897–1917),” Storicamente, https://storicamente.org/catalan, fn. 21.

V. Fr. Ballerini — “Il caso di Alfredo Dreyfus” (The Case of Alfred Dreyfus), 1898

Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J., “Il caso di Alfredo Dreyfus,” La Civiltà Cattolica, anno 49 (1898), Vol. I, pp. 273–287. Attribution confirmed in the Cambridge Core bibliography: Ballerini, R. 1898. Il caso di Alfredo Dreyfus. La Civiltà Cattolica 1:273–87. See: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/modern-italy/article/abs/antisemitism-of-the-italian-catholics-and-nationalism/A415A8145A5DD61DB6C6E27BC28AFD6A. Full Italian text: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AQrsI32O9UWLYUHzQaBN_4pqhlQKDOPF/view

Published in response to Zola’s J’Accuse (13 January 1898), this article maintained Dreyfus’s guilt even as overwhelming evidence of his innocence was emerging. It simultaneously served as a comprehensive attack on Jewish domination of France and the Jewish-Masonic alliance.

A. Dreyfus as a Racial Jew and High-Ranking Freemason

The traitor Dreyfus, a captain of the French army, attached to the general staff, of Alsatian origin, Jewish by race, and moreover, as was asserted, a high-ranking member of Freemasonry.

— Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J., “Il caso di Alfredo Dreyfus,” La Civiltà Cattolica, anno 49 (1898), Vol. I, p. 273. Italian original: “il traditore Dreyfus, capitano dell’esercito francese, addetto allo stato maggiore, di origine alsaziano, giudeo di razza e per di più, come si asseriva, pezzo grosso della Massoneria.” Translation from Italian by the compilers. Cited in Tommaso Todaro, “L’Affaire Dreyfus e la Civiltà Cattolica,” Nuovo Monitore Napoletano, https://www.nuovomonitorenapoletano.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2790.

B. Jewish Seizure of France — Under the Shield of Civil Equality

Nonetheless, this handful of Jews, swarming from within and having forced themselves in from without, has raised itself to a power which, a hundred years ago, one would have said was a dream to contemplate. Under the shield of civil equality, it has seized everything: the bar, the press, commerce, the banks, the railways, the university chair, literature, science, the public administration, and in large part the legislative power and even the army … Freemasonry, mistress of the State, depends servilely upon them; and they, through it, hold the Republic in their hands — which is therefore called Jewish rather than French.

— Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J., “Il caso di Alfredo Dreyfus,” La Civiltà Cattolica, anno 49 (1898), Vol. I, pp. 273–87. Italian original: “Ciò non ostante, questo pugno di giudei, tra pullulativi dentro e introdottivisi di fuori, vi si è sollevato ad una potenza che, cent’anni fa, si sarebbe detto sogno di pensarla. Sotto lo scudo dell’uguaglianza civile, di ogni cosa vi si è impadronito: del fôro, della stampa, del commercio, della banca, delle ferrovie, della cattedra, della letteratura, della scienza, della pubblica amministraZione, ed in gran parte del potere legislativo e persino dell’esercito … La Massoneria, signora dello Stato, dipende servilmente da essi; ed essi, per mezzo sua, hanno in mano la Repubblica, detta perciò ebraica più che francese.” Translation from Italian by the compilers. Cited in Tommaso Todaro, “L’Affaire Dreyfus e la Civiltà Cattolica,” Nuovo Monitore Napoletano.

C. The Proposed Remedy — Jews to Be Treated as Foreigners, Not Citizens

A fundamental and concordant law of individual States, which would assimilate the Jews to foreigners and would have them treated as guests and not as citizens.

— Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J., “Il caso di Alfredo Dreyfus,” La Civiltà Cattolica, anno 49 (1898), Vol. I, pp. 273–87. Italian original: “una legge fondamentale e concorde dei singoli Stati, che assimilasse i giudei ai forastieri e li volesse trattati da ospiti e non da cittadini.” Translation from Italian by the compilers. Cited in Tommaso Todaro, “L’Affaire Dreyfus e la Civiltà Cattolica,” Nuovo Monitore Napoletano.

VI. Jews as a “People Accursed by God” — Theological Ground for Opposing Emancipation and Zionism (1898)

The Jews should not be exiled from France, for they were a people accursed by God, scattered to the four corners of the earth in order to testify by their very ubiquity to the truth of Christianity.

— Anonymous [La Civiltà Cattolica College of Writers], La Civiltà Cattolica, vol. 49 (1898), no. 1, pp. 273–87. Cited and translated in: La Civiltà Cattolica (encyclopaedic entry), Encyclopaedia Judaica / Jewish Virtual Library, https://Jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0004_0_04332.html. This passage argued that the proper Catholic response to the Jewish question was not expulsion but perpetual subordination — living testimony to the Church’s supersession of the Synagogue.

VII. Fr. Zocchi — Anti-Clericalism and Dreyfus as a Jewish-Masonic War on the Church (1899)

Fr. Gaetano Zocchi, S.J., “L’anticlericalismo e Dreyfus,” La Civiltà Cattolica, 1899, Vol. IV, pp. 140–141.

The anti-clerical movement and the campaign for Dreyfus are but two arms of the same Jewish-Masonic attack upon Christian society and the Church of Rome.

— Fr. Gaetano Zocchi, S.J., “L’anticlericalismo e Dreyfus,” La Civiltà Cattolica, 1899, IV, pp. 140–41. Cited (in Italian original) in David Lebovitch Dahl, “Normalization of antisemitism, 1880–1900: the case of a Jesuit community in Rome,” Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 48, no. 1 (2014), fn. 88, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0031322X.2013.874620. Translation from Italian by the compilers.

VIII. “A New Ritual Murder” — November 1899

A new ritual murder.

— Anonymous, article title, La Civiltà Cattolica, November 1899. The article reported the discovery of a seven-year-old Hungarian orphan found with his throat slit, presenting it as an instance of Jewish ritual murder. Cited in Jules Gomes, “The Vatican’s Mouthpieces Haven’t Ended Their 150-Year-Old Jew-Hatred,” https://www.jihadwatch.org/2024/05/the-vaticans-mouthpieces-havent-ended-their-150-year-old-Jew-hatred.

IX. “Stop Shedding and Sucking Their Blood” — November 1899

Don’t throw oil on the fire … Content yourselves … with the Christians’ money but stop shedding and sucking their blood.

— Anonymous [La Civiltà Cattolica College of Writers], “L’omicidio rituale ebraico” (Jewish Ritual Murder), La Civiltà Cattolica, November 1899. The passage was addressed, in mock-warning tones, to “certain Jews,” framing the alleged ritual murder as an established practice. Cited in Jules Gomes, “The Vatican’s Mouthpieces Haven’t Ended Their 150-Year-Old Jew-Hatred,” https://www.jihadwatch.org/2024/05/the-vaticans-mouthpieces-havent-ended-their-150-year-old-Jew-hatred.

X. The Holy See’s Refusal to Condemn the Blood Libel (August 1900 — Coda)

By November 1899, the three most prominent English Catholics — the Archbishop of Westminster Herbert Vaughan, Lord John Russell, and the Duke of Norfolk Henry Fitzalan-Howard — petitioned Pope Leo XIII to condemn the ritual murder accusation. The Holy See refused. A note preserved in the Archives of the Holy Office of the Inquisition accompanying the decision stated:

The ritual murder constitutes a historical certainty … Moreover, such a murder has been accused and condemned several times in the civil courts of Austria … Given all this, the Holy See cannot give the required statement, which, while it might please a few deluded people in England, would provoke widespread protest and scandal elsewhere.

— Note preserved in the Archives of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, Vatican, accompanying the reply of Cardinal Secretary of State Mariano Rampolla, 4 August 1900. Cited in Jean Meyer, La fábula del crimen ritual: El antisemitismo europeo (1880–1914) (Tusquets Editores, Mexico, 2012), p. 115; and summarised in “The Vatican, authoritarianism and anti-Semitism (III),” Pressenza, 23 October 2022, https://www.pressenza.com/2022/10/the-vatican-authoritarianism-and-anti-semitism-iii/.

Supplementary: The Four Adversus Judaeos Pillars of La Civiltà Cattolica, 1890–1899

A. Supersessionism

The Old Covenant was fulfilled and superseded by the New Covenant in Christ. Post-biblical Judaism is, in the journal’s theology, an active rebellion against the revealed order — crystallised in the Talmud — rather than a living continuation of the religion of Moses.

B. Deicide and Its Consequences

The Jewish people, by crucifying Christ (sanguis eius super nos), incurred a collective guilt whose consequences are visible in history: the destruction of Jerusalem (70 A.D.), the permanent Diaspora, and the loss of national sovereignty. These are divinely-ordained punishments. Any political project reversing them — emancipation, Zionism, or the restoration of Jewish civic equality — is held to be contrary to the divine will.

C. Anti-Zionism on Theological Grounds

Ballerini’s 1897 article argued explicitly that a reconstituted Jewish state in Palestine was contrary to the prediction of Christ Himself. The dispersal of the Jews is providential: they exist, scattered among the nations, as living witnesses to the truth of Christianity’s supersession of their covenant. Augustine is quoted: “The Jews were dispersed so that they might be witnesses of their own iniquity and of our truth.” To restore them to a national homeland would be to deny this theological meaning.

D. The Talmud as a Subversive Anti-Christian Code

The journal consistently maintained that post-biblical Judaism is the religion of the Talmud — a code that, in its reading, commands deception of and hatred toward Christians, licences usury against non-Jews as a religious duty, elevates Jews above the angels of paradise, and forms the doctrinal basis for the alleged ritual murder of Christian children.

Sources

Primary Sources — La Civiltà Cattolica (with scans and translations)

Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J. [attr.], “Della questione giudaica in Europa,” three-part series, La Civiltà Cattolica, Series XIV, Vol. VII–VIII, Fascicules 961, 970, 979 (23 October, 4 November, 6 December 1890). Scanned original: https://archive.org/details/ballerini-raffaele-della-questione-giudaica-in-europa-la-civilta-cattolica-1890 · Full English translation (1998): https://archive.org/details/civiltacattolicathejewishquestionineurope and http://www.catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/judaism/jewrope.htm

Fr. Francesco Saverio Rondina, S.J., “La morale giudaica e il mistero del sangue,” La Civiltà Cattolica, anno 44 (1893), Serie XV, Vol. 5, pp. 145–160; 269–286. Scanned original: https://archive.org/details/la-morale-giudaica-in-la-civilta-cattolica-a.-44-1893-s.-15-vol.-5-pp.-145-160

Anonymous [La Civiltà Cattolica], La Civiltà Cattolica, vol. 46 (1895), no. 1, p. 262 [deicide].

Anonymous [La Civiltà Cattolica], chronicle item on Dreyfus, La Civiltà Cattolica, 1895. Italian text and discussion in Tommaso Todaro, Nuovo Monitore Napoletano, https://www.nuovomonitorenapoletano.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2790

Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J., “La Dispersione d’Israello nel mondo moderno,” La Civiltà Cattolica, anno 48 (1897), Serie XVI, Vol. 10, pp. 257–271. HathiTrust scan: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044105220339&seq=271 · Full English translation: https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-dispersion-of-israel-in-the-modern

Fr. Raffaele Ballerini, S.J., “Il caso di Alfredo Dreyfus,” La Civiltà Cattolica, anno 49 (1898), Vol. I, pp. 273–287. Full Italian text: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AQrsI32O9UWLYUHzQaBN_4pqhlQKDOPF/view

Anonymous [La Civiltà Cattolica], vol. 49 (1898), no. 1, pp. 273–87 [Jews as accursed witnesses].

Fr. Gaetano Zocchi, S.J., “L’anticlericalismo e Dreyfus,” La Civiltà Cattolica, 1899, Vol. IV, pp. 140–41.

Anonymous [La Civiltà Cattolica], “Un nuovo omicidio rituale” and “L’omicidio rituale ebraico,” La Civiltà Cattolica, November 1899.

Secondary Sources

David I. Kertzer, The Popes against the Jews: The Vatican’s Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2001; Vintage Books, 2002).

Jean Meyer, La fábula del crimen ritual: El antisemitismo europeo (1880–1914) (Tusquets Editores, Mexico, 2012).

Encyclopaedia Judaica / Jewish Virtual Library, “La Civiltà Cattolica“: https://jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0004_0_04332.html

David Lebovitch Dahl, “Normalization of antisemitism, 1880–1900: the case of a Jesuit community in Rome,” Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 48, no. 1 (2014): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0031322X.2013.874620

Tullia Catalan, “Sionismo e stampa cattolica italiana (1897–1917),” Storicamente (University of Trieste, 2011): https://storicamente.org/catalan

The Journal of American Reform (Substack), full English translation of Ballerini 1897: https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-dispersion-of-israel-in-the-modern

Cambridge Core (Modern Italy), “The antisemitism of the Italian Catholics and nationalism” (bibliography confirming Ballerini 1898 attribution): https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/modern-italy/article/abs/antisemitism-of-the-italian-catholics-and-nationalism/A415A8145A5DD61DB6C6E27BC28AFD6A

Tommaso Todaro, “L’Affaire Dreyfus e la Civiltà Cattolica,” Nuovo Monitore Napoletano, 13 May 2020: https://www.nuovomonitorenapoletano.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2790

Francesco Crepaldi, “L’omicidio rituale nella ‘moderna’ polemica antigiudaica di Civiltà Cattolica nella seconda metà del XIX secolo,” in Catherine Brice and Giovanni Miccoli (eds.), Les Racines chrétiennes de l’antisémitisme politique (École française de Rome, 2003), pp. 61–78.

Jules Gomes, “The Vatican’s Mouthpieces Haven’t Ended Their 150-Year-Old Jew-Hatred,” JihadWatch, 24 May 2024: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2024/05/the-vaticans-mouthpieces-havent-ended-their-150-year-old-jew-hatred

“The Vatican, authoritarianism and anti-Semitism (III),” Pressenza, 23 October 2022: https://www.pressenza.com/2022/10/the-vatican-authoritarianism-and-anti-semitism-iii/

Wikipedia, “La Civiltà Cattolica“: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Civilt%C3%A0_Cattolica