| Priest under

MY father is a contrar-
ian, always has been.

Family lore has it that my
grandmother assured him
repeatediy that he would be
the end of her. Such was the
power of Jewish guilt that
when my grandmother final-
ly died, Dad, by then well
into his 30s, believed he was
responsible.

His chutzpah, however,
had fittle to do with the reg-
ular beatings he received at
school. The pummeling was
usually accompanied by the
“Christ killer” accusation.

T suspect that similar
experiences explain why
many Jews watched in hor-
ror as Father Peter Gumpel,
in an interview with the
CBC-TV last week, revived
this once perennial anti-
Semitic calumny.

The German Jesuit priest
said this: “It is a fact that
the Jews have killed Christ.
This is an undeniable histori-
cal fact.” .

Father Gumpel proceed-
ed to support his statement
with hearsay allegedly
uttered by a “Jewish col-
league,” who had readily
accepted culpability for dei-
cide, or so Father Gumpel’s
say-so gocs.

Trae, it is almost Easter
time, and Easter being his-
torically notorious for inspir-
ing anti-Jewish sentiments, I

reckoned we Jews were long
overdue for a little pogrom
or blood fibel. My visions of
Cossacks in 4X4s roaring
into Jewish neighbourhoods,
searching for evidence of the
human blood we use for our
upcoming Passover rituals,
soon gave way to a profound
sadness; a sadness for Pope
John Paul IT.

With his 1998 encyclical,
Pope John Paul sounded a
lone voice for “faith and rea-
son” in the postmodern reli-
gicus wilderness.

Who else has spoken with
unhectoring clarity about
the errors of relativism in
modern thought?

Who other than Pope
John Paul has pointed out
how “a legitimate plurality
of positions has yielded to
an undifferentiated plural-
ism?”

And who among men of
cloth has had the intellectual
alacrity to say that inkerent
in the error of relativism is a
rejection of the search for

matibex —_.__

Warming warning issued

mining Po

truth, and with it reason.

For if we accept that ail
positions are equal and no
one position better than the
other, as we do these days,
we have forfeited our ability
to discern, and forthwith
our Judeo-Christian her-
itage.

Pope John Paul's philo-
sophical integrity was reiter-
ated last month in another
profundity entitled
“Memory and
Reconciliation: the Church
and the faults of the past,”
in which he endorses the
Jewish concept of teshuva
(repentance) and offers an
apology for “the hostility or
indifference of numerous
Christians towards Jews.”

This, he concedes, “is a
sad historical fact.”

Neither does he shy away
from asking “whether the
Nazi persecution of Jews was
not made easier by the anti-
Jewish prejudices imbedded
in some Christian minds and
hearts” — an issue that
segues into the conduct of
Pope Pius X{1 during the
Holocaust, and his silence in
the face of Hitler’s attempt
to exterminate the Jewish
people.

It so happens that Father
Peter Gumpel has been
“designated by the Vatican
to oversee the canonization
of Pope Pius XI” and has
stated categorically that Pius

Dear Editor: ;
Re: Mr. Ted White’s (March 29) column.
While there is certainly justifiable skepti-

-< -¢ism about weather trends and the effect of

~ fruman activity, it seems like a good idea to
change our activities to minimize known
impacts, regardless of whether we can exact-
ly quantify their effects.
note he omitted to mention that the
Arctic ice cover has decreased in thickness

y about 40% recently.

.-Achange in our activities is not necessar-
ily a lowering of our standard of living, but
‘rather conservation should be regarded as a
‘means of extending our resources to main-
tain our standards for a longer, hopefully
indefinite, period.

~ . “Where does he think the $30 billion to
“ gnitigate the carbon dioxide problem would
go to? . ; .
It wouldn’t be flushed down the Fraser,
or packaged uP. and sent to foreign coun-  -
tries, but would be mostly spent on wages

our economy.

If we energetically pursue research in the
field, Canada may become a leader in the
technology and generate substantial foreign
exchange.

There is the initial problem of allocating
funds, but even $30 billion is relatively smal!
compared with our expenditures on many
discretionary items.

‘When even the petroleum companies are
starting to spend money on alternate energy
sources, Mr. White’s remarks make him
appear hopelessly out of date.

He should be looking for approaches by
which we can capitalize on the future, rather
than clinging to the past until we get
swamped by the oncoming wave.

His closing remarks further weakened his
column. Ozone, nitrous oxides and carbon
monoxide are largely co-pollutants with car-
bon dioxide.

Can’t argue with him that cleaner cars
are a good idea, but this level of ignorance

and materials in Canada...

Like any othé.r. form of economic activity,
it would shortly’ be seen as a vital part of

Eu Fasarcs Lr.

.Name

doesn’t lend credence to his remarks.

Jack Morris

COUPON

Return this coupon for a special bones
of obo a bise ‘ttars

jackmorris@telus.net

s Cf Note
—_-_e—

=~ = SHOviile. H.R

is deserving of beatification.
As emphatic as Gumpel is
about Pope Pius’ holiness,
he is able to offer only the-
dog: ate-my-homework type
excuses for this Pope's deaf-
ening silence during the
Holocaust, or for Pius’
request that the liberating
Allied forces refrain from
sending black soldiers to
Rome as he feared they
would rape Italian women.
lr’s illuminating that the
very priest who will recom-
niend the beatification of
Pope Pius XI! is also the
church official to resurrect
the killers-of- Christ accusa-
tion.

torian, Father Gumpel

should have been aware of
the 35-year-old Nostra

oi,

Parlaying himself as a his-

Friday, April 7, 2000 — North Shore News - 7

e’s magnifi

Aetate, a document issued
by the Church that expressiv
rejects as a cardinal error the
depiction of Jews as Christ
killers.

“What happened in His
passion,” it reads, “cannot
be charged against all the
Jews, without distinction,
then alive, nor against the
Jews of today.”

Ironically, the collective
apology extended by the
Pope is as incongruous as
the collective blame appor-
tioned by Father Gumpel.

Can one apologize on
behalf of a transgressor? By
extension, can we forgive on
behalf of the dead? Or can
we blame an entire people
for the deeds of few? Pope
John Paul does not attempt
to fudge these issues. He has

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stated clearly that “sin is
always personal.”

Hence it is che sinner
who is culpable for wrong-
doing, and to ascribe guilt
beyond those responsible for
the deeds is impossibie.

Aware as he is of the pit-
falls of an apology by proxy,
the Pope has nonetheless
issued one as an act of good-
will.

Inspired by little grace,
on the other hand, Father
Gumpel has continued a tra-
dition that has wreaked
nothing but pestilence and
persecution. He has also
undermined a truly magnifi-
cent man.

—gnome@attcanada.net

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