Who killed Christ?

"Priest stirs old hatreds," read the head-line above an article in the back pages (p. 47) of the Toronto Sun (Mar. 17, 2000). "Jesuit breaks with Vatican, says Jews killed Christ" said the National Post. "'It is a fact Jews killed Christ,' Vatican official says," noted the Toronto Star.

The subject was Father Peter Gumpel -- who oversees the canonization of Pope Pius XII, a process highly unpopular with some people.

"It is a fact that the Jews have killed Christ. This is an undeniable fact," he had declared on Canada's CBC-TV in an interview in Rome for the National. Moreover, he had discussed this with a Jewish colleague, a university professor like himself, who had agreed: "Well, Father, what do you want? Our forefathers found out that Christ was a false prophet; so we killed him. And why would we change our minds with regard to those who followed this false prophet?"

Others reacted differently. The well-known Jewish writer Elie Wiesel was quoted as saying, "I am amazed. I'm shocked and outraged.... He is coming out with accusations that are old and he forgets that we all live now in the 21st century." As if to clarify this, the news agency Canadian Press stated: "More than 30 years ago, the Vatican stopped assigning blame for Christ's crucifixion to the Jews. And just last week [Mar. 12], Pope John Paul asked for God's forgiveness for anti-Semitism and other sins of the Church in its history."

Fr. Gumpel, on his part, protested that he had been taken completely Out of context. For this, see News in Brief, page 36.

For now let us concentrate on the issue itself: Who killed Christ? The elements for unravelling this puzzle are all there. Let us ask four brief questions: Who does the Catholic Church say killed Christ? Whom does the Church blame for the killing? Has the Church changed her mind in the last 30 years? Where does anti-Semitism come in?

In order to clarify that the following teaching is widespread, and not just the words of a few Vatican officials issued in some declaration or other, I am resorting to the popular centuries-old devotion among Catholics called The Way of the Cross, a short meditation with an opening refrain, a prayer, and a closing verse or hymn while stopping at each of 14 "Stations" portraying the passion and death of Jesus Christ. Check any Catholic church and you'll see these stations on the wall around the church. The booklet I use every Friday says: "Compiled from biblical texts." It dates from 1965 and I have used it for 35 years.

First Station: Jesus is condemned to death.

Again the high priest began to ask him, and said to him, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?" And Jesus said to him, "I am. And you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven." But the high priest tore his garments and said, "What further need have we of witnesses? You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?" And they all condemned him as liable to death" (Mark 14:61-64).

Second Station: Jesus carries his cross.

And Pilate said to the Jews, "Behold, your king!" But they cried out, "Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your king?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar." Then he handed him over to them to be crucified. And so they took Jesus and led him away, bearing the cross for himself (John 19:14-17).

These quotes settle the first question. Based on the Gospels, the Church holds that Christ was put to death by the Jewish leaders with the Roman soldiers acting on their behalf.

The question "Who is to blame" has a very different answer. The later Stations leave no doubt whatever about the answer.

Third Station: O God, to free us from sin and weakness, your Son, Jesus Christ, embraced his fearful passion and crucifixion" (emphasis mine).

Fifth Station: "Lord,...help us to see in the sufferings and shortcomings of our lives a share in your cross...."

Well, somebody might say, this booklet dates from 1965 and already reflects a changed mentality. Let us see now. How about the same Stations of the Cross by St. Alphonsus de Liguori (1696-1787), published first in Italian in 1761. St. Alphonsus doesn't even discuss the Jews. He goes right away to the heart of the matter. The very first Station (Pilate condemns Jesus to die) has, as the prayer said by the people: "My adorable Jesus, it was not Pilate, no, it was my sins that condemned you to die."

Third Station: "It was the weight of my sins that made you suffer so much...."

At the Eleventh Station the hymn reads: "Let me share with you this pain, who for all our sins were slain, who for me in torment died."

The answer then to the question "Who is to blame" is "You and I, we!" Of that "we" the Jewish population is only a tiny fraction.

Did the Church change her teaching 30 years ago? No. She has always assigned the blame for Christ's death to the sins of all people, both in her devotions and in her liturgy. What the Church did do in 1965 was to make it clear in a solemn proclamation (Nostra aetate) that this was so, namely, that one cannot blame the Jews alone or collectively for the death of Christ, as some anti-Semites have done in the past. We are all to blame because we are all sinners and Christ came to atone for all sins.