June
7, 2008
Recently a media furor involving
Catholics, as well as Protestants and Jews, erupted over the
inflammatory rhetoric of John Hagee, the same pudgy pastor who
figures so highly (or lowly) in our previous essay. The
controversy, which would expand to absurd proportions, began late in
February, when John McCain welcomed the televangelist’s endorsement
of his candidacy. Indeed, the senator had even solicited this
beforehand. News of their alliance, however, sent William Donohue
of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights into something
of a tirade. Mincing no words, Donohue called Hagee an
anti-Catholic bigot whom McCain should reject totally, just as Obama
had repudiated Louis Farrakhan.
This, though the senator would not do
–– not yet. Not simply because of any anti-Catholic insult.
Echoing over TV and the internet, and
picked up by Time magazine, Donohue’s words sounded almost
feisty. Proof for these charges came via a short but powerful video
linked from an article on his website. This shows Hagee lecturing
and pointing to an illustration of the “Great Whore of Revelation
17,” who is holding a cup while reading a Beast. The pastor
says the Whore, (or as Catholic translators generally say, “Harlot”)
personifies false religion, i.e. the “apostate Church.” The cup she
holds contains the “blood of the saints,” which, he says, is
principally that of the Jewish people, shed during the Crusades, the
Spanish Inquisition and the Holocaust. Indeed, Hagee says,
Hitler boasted he would only do in his lifetime what the Roman
Church had been doing for the past 800 years, but on a greater scale
and more efficiently.
The Whore, Hagee notes further, was
“born in Genesis 10,” progressed through Israel to become
Baal worship, and developed into the false cult system of this
apostate church. Ultimately she will be devoured by the Beast,
which for most commentators, including Hagee, embodies the
Anti-Christ system. Before this happens, though, true believers
like him will be raptured into heaven. . .
Hallelujah!
To be sure, Catholics reject such an
interpretation of scripture. By calling Hagee “bigoted” Donohue was
right on target, and immediately the pastor went on the defensive.
In a press release he insisted he had not identified the Catholic
Church with the Great Whore; by the term, he meant “the apostate
church, namely those Christians who embrace the false cult system of
Jew-hatred and anti-Semitism!” Donohue, however, would not buy
this. In an article posted online early in March, he notes that
“anti-Catholic Protestants have long labeled the Catholic Church
‘The Great Whore,’ and no amount of spin can change that reality.
No one who knows anything about the term would suggest otherwise.”
He also alluded to various websites which continue this old method
of smearing the Catholic Church.
As for Hagee’s charges regarding der
Fuehrer, Donohue in a previous release had pointed out, as we have
previously, that Pius XII saved many Jews in Rome and that Hitler
actually persecuted the Church. He also noted that Hitler “was
automatically excommunicated in 1931 — two years before he assumed
power — when he served as best man at Joseph Goebbels’ Protestant
wedding. Hitler even bragged about his separation from the
Church.”
When it came to John McCain, though,
Donohue proved less adamant. He did not stick to his original
demand that the senator totally renounce Hagee as Obama had
Farrakhan. Instead, when McCain simply said he repudiated any
comments, including Pastor Hagee’s, “if they are anti-Catholic or
offensive to Catholics,” Donohue decided this was good enough. On
his website, he wrote: “Sen. McCain has done the right thing and we
salute him for doing so. As far as the Catholic League is
concerned, this case is closed.”
But it was not really, not as of
March 10, when the above news release appeared—for several reasons.
First, there was that nasty video still circulating online, showing
Hagee at his most irksome. Second, there was the ongoing controversy
involving Barrack Obama and Pastor Wright, for which Democrats
naturally tried to find a parallel in the relationship between Hagee
and McCain. Third, and most importantly, Donohue had started
something that he failed to finish. While objecting to the “Great
Whore” thing, he did not expose in detail the errors of Hagee’s
thinking.
Not that there is anything new in
this. For centuries Catholics in Anglo-Saxon lands have endured
such calumnies, mostly in silence. Where now are all the Concilliarist clerics speaking out in defense of their
Church? Are they such cowards — or don’t they care? So much for
the so-called “marketplace of ideas” and “freedom of speech” when it
comes to religion. Moreover, with Hagee the problem is compounded
by the Jewish dimension to the controversy. From the beginning
Donohue himself was extremely solicitous in this regard, making it
clear that he did not object to him because he was pro-Israel, that
many other evangelical leaders were such without also being
anti-Catholic.
As head of the lobby known as CUFI,
i.e., Christians United for Israel, Hagee, of course, is pro-Zionist
to the hilt. Also head of a San Antonio “megachurch” and
televangelist to millions, he is a force to be reckoned with among
gullible gentiles. By speaking out against Iran, however, he has,
despite the support of fellow zealots, alienated more moderate Jews
who fear the impact on Israel — and the rest of the world ––
of a major blow-up in the Middle East. Ironically it is this
dissension among those to whom he defers that would prove his
undoing with McCain. Eventually the senator would renounce Hagee
not for anti-Catholic bigotry but for –– yes, anti-Jewish remarks.
The poor guy can’t win for losing. .
.
But back to the Great Whore and
Hagee’s faulty analysis of Revelation to which we will
henceforth, in the Catholic manner, call the Apocalypse. Let
us turn to Chapter 17 and see how the pastor interprets it. Herein
we find a woman, i.e. Harlot, or Whore, who is “drunk with the
blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.”
By identifying this blood as being “principally” that of the Jewish
people, Hagee moves way beyond the boundaries set by even rabid
Protestants of past centuries and gives the text a uniquely Jewish
twist. For not only does he identify the Harlot with the Roman
Church, he also has the gall to suggest that the Apocalypse
“principally” concerns the travails, past, present and future, not
of the Lamb, i.e., Christ and His Mystical Body, but of the
unconverted Jews. They are the martyrs, i.e., saints and heroes, of
the past two thousand years as foretold by St. John, not Christians,
whether Catholic or Protestant. Talk about absurd! No college
student would dare misinterpret an ordinary piece of literature so
flagrantly and expect to pass the course.
Yet, in a display of apocalyptic
hubris, Pastor Hagee does much worse by superimposing his own
interpretation on events depicted in, of all books, the New
Testament. You would think the scenario was his own work of
fiction, that he was not supposedly commenting on the divinely
inspired work of St. John the Evangelist. The latter’s final book,
written towards the end of the first century A.D., according to
Catholic tradition, depicts the joys and sufferings of Christians
throughout the ages, past, present, and future. A Jew himself by
race and nationality, as were most of the earliest Christians, John
can hardly be called “anti-Semitic”. Yet he himself, in Chapter 2
of the Apocalypse, warns his followers about the machinations
of those who “say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue
of Satan.” For at the time this entity was indeed persecuting
John’s followers, the Christians. Even St. Paul had done so at
first, remember?
Pastor Hagee would do well to heed
the evangelist’s words.
As the infamous video continued to
circulate, Zionist devotee, movie critic, and radio host Michael
Medved could be heard defending Hagee on his talk show, which runs
up to three hours a day during the week. The self-acclaimed
“cultural crusader” tends to target the simple-minded, and now he
was in his element. Not one to be phased by niceties of biblical
criticism, he insisted, during his broadcast of April 28, that the
charge that Hagee had ever called the Catholic Church a Great Whore
was “phony,” indeed a “big lie.” The pastor, Medved added, had
never attacked that Church. His only criticism of the institution
was one he also attributed to Protestant churches, that they had a
history of anti-Semitism.
Come on, Michael! Assuming you
watched the video, did you listen carefully to the part during
which, in one breath, Hagee says the blood drunk by the Whore was
“principally” that of the Jewish people, from the Crusades, to the
Spanish Inquisition, to the Holocaust, and that Adolph Hitler said
he wouldn’t do anything that hadn’t been done by the Roman Church
for the past 800 years? It’s there, Michael. What do you think
“the Roman Church” is?
Those Crusades, by the way, began
after the Turks refused to allow Christian pilgrims in the Holy
Land. While the Christian cause was backed by popes, they did not
lead armies. If errant knights or peasants abused civilians,
whether Moslem, Jew or Orthodox, the Church did not condone it.
Indeed, those who sacked Constantinople were excommunicated. Wars
do result in atrocities, to this very day. Indeed, with “weapons of
mass destruction,” even more so today. Does Pastor Hagee worry
about innocents who have suffered during recent wars in the Middle
East, including that for Palestine, i.e. Israel? What about the
“collateral damage” incurred in Iraq — or in Iran, if the U.S.
should attack as he suggests might be feasible?
Some Israelis only recently held a public burning of
New Testaments.
As for the Spanish Inquisition,
English Protestants have long demonized that, ignoring the fact
that, starting with Henry VIII, a far greater number of Catholics
died under British rule than did “heretics”, Marranos or otherwise,
by the hand of any tribunal in Spain. Genocidal wars followed by
the onset of harsh penal laws reduced Irish Catholics to such a
state that even in times of plenty they died of induced “famines” by
the thousands — ultimately, over hundreds of years, millions. From
1641 to 1652 alone the population was reduced by more than
one-half. Those sold into slavery suffered worse than did their
black brethren, since, costing little, they were valued less.
No, Michael, despite what you said on
a recent show, not all white people in bondage were merely
“indentured servants” freed after seven years. Thousands of Irish
captives endured slavery for life: men, women and children, even
priests and school teachers. During the 17th century the Irish
outnumbered their black counterparts in the plantations of the West
Indies. Worse yet, as papists, i.e. followers of the Great Whore,
they were feared and despised more than African pagans. Distorted
by clever propagandists, the imagery of Revelation served to
justify such treatment of Catholics in particular.
A well-documented article by Robert
E. West published by The Catholic Weekly, and posted online
by EWTN, states:
The English government variously referred to
Irish to be transported as rogues, vagabonds, rebels, neutrals,
felons, military prisoners, teachers, priests, maidens, etc. All
historians call them servants, bondsmen, indentured servants,
slaves, etc., and agree that they were all political victims. The
plain facts are that most were treated as slaves. After their land
was confiscated by England, which drove them from their ancestral
homes to forage for roots like animals, they were kidnapped, rounded
up and driven like cattle to waiting ships and transported to
English colonies in America, never to see their country again. They
were the victims of what many called the immense “Irish Slave
Trade.”
All writers on the 17th century American
colonies are in agreement that the treatment of white servants or
white slaves in English colonies was cruel to the extreme, worse
than that of black slaves; that inhuman treatment was the norm, that
torture . . . was the punishment for attempted escape.
It’s possible, of course, that by
identifying the Whore in the video specifically with the “Roman
Church,” Hagee was playing a game of theological semantics.
Significantly, Anglicans who continue to say the Nicene Creed do
have to profess a belief in the “Holy Catholic Church.” They have
rationalized this by calling their own sect a branch of a universal
tree, in contrast to the “Roman Church,” which is not. Though more
tolerant moderns may concede the latter to be a kind of twig,
depending on how “High Anglican” their beliefs are. Hagee, however,
far from being “High Anglican,” is about a low as you can get. He
hearkens back to a time when tolerance was not the norm, especially
not in England.
The irony is that British leaders
like Cromwell and William of Orange, while happy to welcome the Jews
back into England, did their damndest to rid the land of Irish
Catholics. Could there be a connection? Jewish refugees from Spain
and Portugal via Amsterdam did help fund William’s campaign for the
throne. They did quite well for themselves in their new abode, too,
especially in fields like banking. But why did their regimes of
choice have to be so cruel to Catholics? Why take the past out on
the Irish? What had they ever done to Protestants, or Jews — except
refuse to abandon the Great Whore?
Aha! That has to be it! Jews exiled
from Iberia harbored no love for the Catholic Church, and the
British elite had enriched themselves by confiscating vast tracts of
Church land. Fiscally committed to Protestantism, with its regard
for Old Testament rigor, and scorn for the unholy doctrine of
“good works,” they could find common ground with the Jews.
Catholics who refused to face the new reality with its changes in
doctrine suffered accordingly.
And so it went. For
non-Catholics the Church –– and the Pope –– conveniently embodied
the Great Whore. Until recently, that is, when, following the
changes initiated by Roncalli, “popes” like Paul VI started coming
over here to extol the United Nations and other elite entities.
On his recent trip, Benedict first had to schmooze with President
George Bush, whose religious status is questionable. (Can a
member of Skull and Bones truly be a “Christian”?) Papal
spectacles also included a huge circus in Yankee Stadium; and an
ecumenical confab with Buddhists, Jews, Hindus, etc. The
Honored Guest also made a special
trip to a New York synagogue, no doubt to assure rabbis that he was
still on their side, despite any cosmetic concessions made to
traditionalists.
As far as we know, Benedict met with
none of the latter, though he possibly conferred with admirers like
Fr. Joseph Fessio and Robert Moynihan. As presented by the media,
the visit was politically correct — and dull. Reportedly he did say
something nice to the “conservative” head of Christendom College as
he filed through a reception line, but there was, to our knowledge,
no special meeting with him; nor with Remnant or SSPX types, much
less sedevacantists.
Whereas these groups may be deemed as
being outside the Novus Ordo mainstream, are they any more so than
the Jews he did visit in their own synagogue? Considering this, it
should come as no surprise to hear that recently on his show Michael
Medved called Benedict “righteous” and “wonderful” –– and, in the
same breath, gushed over “John Paul the Great!”
If you think this sounds weird,
though, it gets weirder.
For over two months, after their
initial blow-up, Bill Donohue never actually made peace with Hagee
himself, only McCain. On May 13, however, Hagee issued a letter to
the Catholic League that oozed sincerity. He professed to be
writing “in a spirit of mutual respect and reconciliation to clarify
my views.” He said that “after engaging in constructive dialogue
with Catholic friends and leaders, I now have an improved
understanding of the Catholic Church, its relation to the Jewish
faith, and the history of anti-Catholicism.” Not that he has ever
been anti-Catholic! As proof he tells us how, after purchasing
property from nuns in San Antonio, he did not evict the poor old
things, but let them live there free of charge for 12 years.
This was kind of him, indeed, but do
you suppose he still got a good deal in real estate? To be sure,
this reflects the sorry state of a Church which is selling out big
time, as thousands desert to join Holy Roller, i.e.
rolling-in-dough, “megachurches” like Hagee’s. Nor does the matter
of how well the pastor treats modern nuns have any direct bearing on
the question of how he interprets the Catholic role in the
Apocalypse.
But on with his letter. Zealous “to
oppose anti-Semitism and bigotry,” he had, admittedly, “often
emphasized the darkest chapters in the history of Catholic and
Protestant relations with the Jews.” He may also have “contributed
to the mistaken impression that the anti-Jewish violence of the
Crusades and the Inquisition defines the Catholic Church.” But he
tells us now that it “most certainly does not.”
How nice to know our Church isn’t
defined by anti-Semitic violence after all! For a second or two we
wondered, considering how Hagee talks — and writes. If at first
reading, his words sound — well, sorta sincere but a bit odd,
however, just wait until you read the following.
I hope you recognize that I have repeatedly
stated that my interpretation of Revelation leads me to
conclude that the “apostate church” and the “great whore” appear
only during the seven years of tribulation after all true believers
–– Catholic and Protestant
––
have been taken up to heaven. Therefore, neither of these phrases
can be synonymous with the Catholic Church.
Now, how can he say that he has said
all along that the Great Whore will show up only in the future after
the “seven years of tribulation” –– and the rapture? Having watched
the video, we can testify that we saw, and heard him say, that she
was drinking blood shed over the past 800 years. In case Hagee does
not understand, this represents the future for St. John, writing
towards the end of the first century, but the past for us. Not that
the Whore is actually a real woman, alive and well in the flesh.
It’s a metaphor, stupid, one described quite clearly by Pastor Hagee
on tape. If he wants to change his interpretation, fine, but how
dare he deny what he actually did say previously!
Did he think Catholics would be taken
in because he now says we get to be raptured too? This indeed is a
switch — but who would be foolish enough to take the bait? Would
Bill Donohue? On May 13 he posted Hagee’s letter on his website and
in his own commentary called its tone “sincere.” Hagee, he said,
“wants reconciliation and he has achieved it. Indeed the Catholic
League welcomes his apology. What Hagee has done takes courage. .
.”
Donohue concludes that now
“Catholics, along with Jews, can work with Pastor Hagee in making
interfaith relations stronger than ever. Whatever problems we had
before are now history. The case is closed.”
Over the radio the next day Michael
Medved rejoiced. Such a beautiful thing had happened: Hagee had
made peace with Catholic leaders. How wonderful! Despite
everything, he had reached out to bring Christians and Jews
together. Quoting Donohue, Medved said the pastor’s achievement
enabled Catholics, along with Jews, to work with him. Moreover,
Medved insisted more than once, Hagee had never called the Catholic
Church of today the Great Whore. No, by that term he had meant only
an “apostate Church” of the future that would emerge during the
seven years tribulation.
Extolling the pastor, our talk show
host fairly gushed: “This is a good man. And a decent man. And a
loving man.” And since Bill Donohue says the case should be closed,
it should be. Though, sounding very serious, Medved also had to
ask: “Will it be closed?”
Thanks to that nasty video it was
not. For it continued to be viewed, and if Medved interpreted
Hagee’s words benignly, others did not, including Frank Rich, a
liberal Jewish columnist for the New York Times. In an op-ed
piece dated May 4, he describes the video in detail, noting that for
Hagee “the Great Whore represents ‘The Roman Church’, which in his
view, has thirsted for Jewish blood throughout history, from the
Crusades to the Holocaust.”
This could not go unchallenged.
Dennis Prager, another Jewish talk show host with views similar to
Medved’s and who, like him, contributes to townhall.com., responded
on May 6 with a piece that took Rich to task. Among other things,
he says the Times columnist “got his facts wrong”. To quote him
further:
Hagee was not calling the Catholic Church “The
Great Whore.” That is an eschatological New Testament term
in the Book of Revelation. Hagee teaches that the “Great
Whore” will be an “apostate church” and a “false cult system” made
up of all those who claim Christianity yet reject the gospel,
whether Catholic or Protestant. He has stated explicitly and
publicly — and should continue to reassure Catholics — that he does
not believe that the “Great Whore” of Revelation is the
Catholic Church. For Hagee, the sure sign that a Christian has
rejected the gospel is an embrace of anti-Semitism. In the video
referenced by Rich, Hagee chooses his examples of “apostate”
behavior — the Crusades, the Inquisition and a Hitler quote
referencing the Catholic Church — not because they are Catholic, but
because they are anti-Semitic.
Talk about confused and confusing!
Sure is nice that we have guys like Prager to interpret the gospel
according to Hagee, so he can tell us exactly what constitutes
apostasy for Christians. In case you didn’t know, it’s
“anti-Semitism.” That’s the all-encompassing, age-old sin, the
deadliest one around –– the one that will send you to hell, even if
you don’t believe in the need for good works. How ever did Dante
miss it? Though exactly where in the catechism this sin, with all
its degrees and ramifications, is defined, he doesn’t say. Guess we
have to listen up. According to Prager, Hagee says it is also “the
sure sign that a Christian has rejected the gospel.” Examples of
this can be found in “the Crusades, the Inquisition and a Hitler
quote referencing the Catholic Church.” These, to repeat, are bad
“not because they are Catholic, but because they are anti-Semitic.”
But is the reverse also true? Does
following the gospel of Christ, or being a good Christian, mean
being pro-Semitic, i.e. heeding the words of theologically adept
Jews like Prager? He seems to think he knows it all. But if,
according to Hagee as interpreted by Prager, the Catholic Church is
not, after all, the Great Whore, what does that make all those
sinners who are, by their definition “anti-Semitic?” Lesser, or
perhaps, wee whores? If not part of the Great One might not the wee
ones still be individually, to use Catholic terminology, heretical
little harlots; or, in modern parlance, hideous “’hos’”, whether
they know it or not? The prospect is frightening — indeed,
WHOREABLE!
Call back the Inquisition! Or is it
here already, without our realizing it?
Enough, you say? But it wasn’t
enough. On May 15 yet another article criticizing Frank Rich
appeared in the Washington Times. Entitled “Throwing Stones
at John Hagee”, it was written by Joel Mowbray, a friend of Michael
Medved’s. Indeed the latter may have known about it in advance,
since he promoted it on his show that very same day. Fairly
gloating, our host said the piece “nails Frank Rich,” who had
written “outright lies” about Hagee. The “big lie,” Medved said for
the umpteenth time, was to assert that the pastor had called the
Catholic Church the Great Whore. On the contrary, he insisted,
“John Hagee never attacked the Catholic Church in this way.” If
Rich had wanted to get the true story, he added, he could have
watched the video.
Was he suggesting Frank Rich had not
viewed it, that the New York Times columnist was some kind of
negligent dimwit to write as he had? That indeed was the gist of
young Mowbray’s piece –– and Medved’s commentary. Funny that other
media lights, including Wolf Blitzer for CNN and Brit Hume of Fox
News had come to the same conclusion as Rich. On the Situation
Room for May 13, Blitzer said Hagee “has referred to the Roman
Catholic Church, and I’m quoting now, as the Great Whore.” An
online video featuring Hume begins: “Televangelist John Hagee has
apologized to Catholics for referring to the Roman Catholic Church
as, quote, the “Great Whore” and calling it the “apostate church.”
Isn’t it obvious? Can they –– can we
–– be so dense as not to see and hear the basic message?
Apparently Joel Mowbray does not. To
be sure, his article reveals a mindset similar to that of Michael
Medved and Dennis Prager, with his own added new touch. After
relating the basic scenario for the video, including Rich’s
assertion that Hagee identified the Great Whore with the Catholic
Church, Mowbray reveals his own insight into the matter. Rich, he
says, neglected to note that “‘the Great Whore’ is not Mr. Hagee’s
term, but rather the Bible’s.”
You don’t say! Or, as the younger
crowd would say: Duh! Of course the term is used in the biblical
text! Rich never said otherwise; it’s understood. The
controversial part is identifying the Whore with a specific entity,
such as the Catholic Church –– or making some goal of fighting
anti-Semitism so important that it supersedes all other
considerations in interpreting scripture. Echoing Prager, Mowbray
does just this. Turning the charge against Hagee around, he says
the pastor, in “combating anti-Semitism” was “actually doing what he
has done for decades.” In other words, “Mr. Rich branded Mr. Hagee
a bigot when, in fact, he was actually fighting bigotry.”
Notice how the original charge of
anti-Catholicism, is fast fading away, leaving that of anti-Semitism
to monopolize the stage — and Hagee to play the hero. That is
because, as Mowbray puts it: “For decades, Mr. Hagee has easily been
one of the most prominent Christian leaders fighting anti-Semitism.
To him, loving Jews as much as one’s Christian neighbors is a core
tenet of his faith.”
Thus the gospel according to Joel.
Would Rich offer a rebuttal? If he did, we saw none. But others
were busy. Things were simmering below the surface. A week later
these erupted into the limelight, and John McCain announced that he
had finally renounced Hagee’s endorsement –– but because of the
Catholic thing? Heavens, no! Bill Donohue, in fact, actually
issued a press release defending Hagee! By now, though, most of
both the pastor’s detractors and his defenders — in the media, at
least –– were visibly Jewish, as were the issues.
Thus on May 21 columnist Sam Stein
came out with a story in The Huffington Post that proved
devastating for Hagee and his allies. It also probably sent his
enemies into throes of laughter, because Stein had managed to paint
the pastor, of all people, as a backer of Hitler — an anti-Semite!
Fair or not, this forced McCain the politician to act. Charges of
anti-Catholicism were one thing, but anti-Semitism? That was the
unforgivable sin. Indeed, as the senator had said repeatedly, one
of the reasons he had valued Hagee’s support in the first place was
his known friendship with Israel. The skeleton in the closet that
Stein had exposed made all the difference.
This came in the form of a decade-old
video of Hagee giving a sermon, wherein, Stein reports, the pastor
said “the Nazis had operated on God’s behalf to chase the Jews from
Europe and shepherd them to Palestine. According to the Reverend,
Adolph Hitler was a ‘hunter’ sent by God, who was tasked with
expediting God’s will of having the Jews re-establish a state of
Israel.”
Noting how Hagee moves “in and out”
of biblical verse, specifically that of Jeremiah, Stein
quotes the pastor as follows: “‘And they the hunters should hunt
them,’ that will be the Jews. ‘From every mountain and every hill
and from out of the holes of the rocks.’ If that doesn’t describe
what Hitler did in the holocaust you can’t see that.” According to
Stein, Hagee goes on to say that Herzl, the father of Zionism,
warned the Jews that God wanted them back in the promised land, but
those in Europe were too comfortable to move. So God sent Hitler
the hunter to force them out.
Hence the Holocaust.
This was strong stuff. Or as McCain
called it, “crazy.” For once we almost have to agree with him.
Though, if we dare, we might also interject here a Catholic
interpretation of the same verses of Jeremiah, as given in
the original Douay-Rheims Bible. According to this reading
of the prophet Jeremiah, God will punish the people of Israel for
their sins by sending them into exile. After they return, He will
send “many fishers” who will fish them and hunters who will hunt
them. Unlike Hagee’s version, our Catholic commentary
identifies the “fishers” with the future apostles, some of whom were
actual fishermen, and who henceforth would be, in Christ’s words,
“fishers of men.” In the forefront, of course, was Peter, the first
pope. His successors would wear the Shoes of the Fisherman and
the Fisherman’s Ring, while steering the barque of Peter. As
for “hunters,” the Douay-Rheims says this word refers to
“other apostolic men” — whose job is obviously to convert the same
people the prophet is addressing: the Jews.
By highlighting early Christian
apostles and suggesting God wants the Jews to convert to
Christianity, this reading of the text contradicts Hagee’s own
message big time. Furthermore, as is noted in our previous essay,
the pastor’s most recent book says Jesus did not intend for the
Chosen Ones to accept Him as their Messiah — not yet! Echoing
Catholic doctrine, the Douay-Rheims commentary, in contrast,
suggests the opposite. Of course this edition, dating to 1609,
precedes Hitler by just a few years. Had the translators lived
closer to our day, would they have thought like Hagee and replaced
the apostles with Nazis? Would they too have read the plight of
unconverted modern Jews into virtually every biblical verse?
Somehow we think not. But that poses
another consideration: the risks taken by those English translators
of the Douay-Rheims. Were not the very lives of such
priestly scholars at stake? Did not Protestant rulers exile, or
hunt them down like animals — like the early apostles, who ended up
martyrs? Can not, in a sense, the passage in Jeremiah apply
to them too? Though here the situation is reversed, the hunted
being the saints, not the hunters. If we extend the metaphor yet
further, can it also be seen to include our own time? Or have
things not regressed to that point? Surely we are not being hunted
down — not yet. But is the flip side of the image true either? Are
we truly ready to take the offensive, to enter the line of fire like
those biblical hunters — and fishers — of yore? If so, where are
they, the modern counterparts of valiant saints and heroes seeking
the salvation of souls?
What — or who — is stopping them?
Meanwhile, by implying that the
Holocaust was in any way the Jews’ own fault, that they could have
brought it on themselves through sin, Hagee had put himself beyond
the pale. Beyond the beyond, in fact. Sam Stein and friends said
so. Bill Donohue might come to the defense of his former enemy,
calling him “the strongest Christian defender of Israel I have ever
met,” but it was no use. Hagee was now a pariah — a sorry state of
affairs that Michael Medved bemoaned the next day on his radio
show. While not agreeing with Hagee’s old sermon, he thought McCain
had over-reacted by renouncing him. Indeed, he said, it “bothers me
deeply — it enrages me, in fact” that people should try to discredit
the guy’s life work — and to draw some kind of “moral equivalence”
between him and Jeremiah Wright.”
Trying to compare a patriot like
Hagee with a “crumb-bum” like Wright, Medved went on, is like
comparing “apples and dog poop.” Waxing lyrical, he gave us the
reasons why: “John Hagee loves America and loves Israel; Jeremiah
Wright hates America and hates Israel. That makes all the
difference in the world.”
In defending Hagee, Medved also
broached a thorny issue that delves into the realm of theology as
well as politics and history. “If you believe that God controls
human affairs, you have to believe that He allowed the Holocaust to
happen,” he said. No doubt not all secular Jews can understand or
accept this. Furthermore, it poses other difficult questions that
have divided Jews since the World War II era, when some Zionists, it
seems, tried to deal with the Nazis in order to transfer Jews from
Europe to Palestine. Understandably this posed problems. Such
matters reach far beyond the scope of this essay, however. Suffice
it to say that behind the scenes similar issues apparently continue
to divide modern Jews into various factions.
Or so it would seem.
In the World Net Daily of May
27, Dennis Prager addressed the problem by calling the idea that God
willed the Holocaust “neither anti-Jewish nor even un-Jewish”. For
him there are only “two possible explanations regarding God and the
Holocaust,” one being that God allowed it but did not will it. The
other is that God willed it. He cites a “long tradition in Judaism
that collective Jewish suffering is often God-willed.” On holy
days, in fact, their central prayer goes, “Because of our sins we
were exiled from our land.”
Prager also quotes Rabbi Jakob
Petuchowski, “one of the greatest Jewish scholars of the 20th
century, who wrote: ‘Much of the national suffering of the people of
Israel was explained by the biblical Prophets in terms of punishment
meted out by God to a sinful people.’ ”
Be that as it may, our main concern
as Catholics is with another citation of Prager’s “regarding the
Holocaust.” For this he quotes 20th century Jewish theologian Ignaz
Maybaum, “who identified ‘the Holocaust victims as vicarious
sacrificial offerings for the redemption of humanity.’” This
is indeed hot stuff — more so, in a certain sense, than the idea,
attributed to Baruch Levy in a letter to Karl Marx, that the Jewish
people as a whole would become their own messiah. For not only does
Maybaum imply this; he also seems to see his own people as
fulfilling the same role for those of every race and religion.
According to his scenario, all of humanity, even baptized
Christians, are redeemed not through the sufferings of Jesus Christ
but through those of the modern Jews!
Do they, as opposed to Him, comprise,
as a bodily whole, the true sacrificial victim?
And, we might ask, if these
sacrifices were indeed made, was it all done, as the term implies,
willingly? If so, who decided what? Was there any particular rite,
or act, or “offering” of a religious nature? That is what such a
sacrifice, one resulting in the “redemption of humanity” requires.
The Hebrew word holocaust, signifying the ancient form of
ritual, or “burnt offering”, is in fact used in the Douay-Rheims
edition of the Old Testament. Catholics see these as
foreshadowing the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Modern Jews do not.
For his part, Benedict seems to be doing his damndest to assure
them we are not praying for their conversion — especially not on
Good Friday. But... If you schmooze you lose, right? Or do some
schmoozers end up winning? Also, we should ask: who’s schmoozing
whom, and for what end? To put it in terms reminiscent of
Jeremiah, are Christians sticking to their guns, or are the
Jews, seemingly so defensive, really calling the shots? Could they
be trying to make us reject our beliefs and accept theirs instead?
Who’s converting whom, in other
words?
Certainly their allegations demand a
reply, if not a rebuttal, from a priest, a bishop — a true pope? So
where are the shepherds? Where have they fled? Have those biblical
hunters got to them? Shades of Jeremiah! However alive they
might be physically, what about spiritually? Did any of them
dare take aim at Hagee when he bashed the Faith? Not that we know
of. And what about the forthcoming CUFI bash in July, when
Hagee will be joined by friends and allies like Joe Lieberman?
Perhaps our so-called bishops will be around in spirit, if not in a
body, to do their apologetic thing. Though there will probably be
no more Catholic bashing, since Hagee has surely had enough of
that. No, it’s all likely to be warm and fuzzy, if also a bit
creepy. Lieberman, of course, recently escorted John McCain on
a pilgrimage to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, where, if you will
recall, the late great John Paul II also paid his respects. It
makes us wonder: will Benedict follow in their footsteps?
Meanwhile, don’t we tired
old members of the flock deserve a few answers? Can we ever get
them? Is there any hope of that? We know they are out there. Or
were all those crooks and miters seen parading in front of the TV
cameras during Benedict’s visit merely props for actors playing
shepherds ––
but who are, underneath, wolves in sheep’s clothing?
Click here for part I
Copyright by Judith M.
Gordon 2008