Irony alert: The Vatican plays an “anti-semitism” card

The irony of it all. The Roman Catholic hierarchy in Rome is comparing its critics and the press to anti-semites.

On Good Friday no less.

Until relatively recently in the Church’s long history, the Vatican, feeding the fires of anti-semitism, directed Catholic congregations to pray for “faithless Jews” on Good Fridays.

Now a self-righteous Rome is twisting history by contriving and attributing “anti-Catholic” motives to the Church’s internal and external critics and to the press.

Lest we forget, this Church crisis began with revelations that thousands of children have been routinely violated and victimized by priests. No one denies that it happened, although the Church hierarchy patently tried to hide it.

Here we have an institution whose history is stained by its own anti-semitism. Jesus taught love — love of everyone including one's enemies.

The Church — and much of Christendom — taught hatred by portraying Jews as “Christ killers.”

Today, in desperation, Rome has the gall to equate criticism to the very outrage the Vatican itself has perpetrated for centuries.

The Vatican’s deception, evasion and self-delusion only make the Papal See, with its isolated, arrogant, sexist and secret culture, all the more culpable.

Catholics and non-Catholics alike know full well the great, abiding good the Church has performed in the world. I’ve personally worked side-by-side with a Catholic order in a remote school in East Africa. I’ve taught at a Catholic university and stood with priests and Catholic students and faculty in opposition to war and injustice.

Now I wonder whether my friends and other Catholic reformers can overcome the hypocrisy in Rome and the withering, despicable Vatican attacks. Can courageous clergy and laity alike do great, abiding good for the Church itself?

That’s the epic story to be played out. We should not be distracted from it by Papal deceit contrived to jam the truth and the need for deep-seated reform.