The participants in a Mass celebrated by the priest on Monday, February 10, at the municipal cemetery in Bolesławiec informed us about his conduct.

– During the homily, the priest said something that shocked me – says a funeral participant. – I wrote down the priest’s statement: “The Jews hated Jesus. They hated him so much that they ordered him to be killed” – the reader quotes the priest.

During the funeral Mass, Rev. Łukasz Klimek, a curate from the basilica in Bolesławiec, delivered a lengthy homily. The words noted by the reader were part of this statement. Father Łukasz Klimek is a vicar at the Parish of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Nicholas in Bolesławiec, a catechist at the I General Secondary School in Bolesławiec, and a chaplain at St. Luke’s Hospital in Bolesławiec.

We contacted the curate’s superior, parish priest Bogusław Wolański. However, he could not answer our questions because he had not witnessed the incident. He referred us to the curate. We sent an email about the matter and are awaiting a reply.

In the email, we asked: in the curate’s opinion, did the quoted words convey antisemitic content or not? In what context were they spoken? Did this context also include information that, historically, Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary and Joseph were also Jews?

Unfortunately, the Catholic Church has no obligations other than decency and a willingness to engage in dialogue with the community in which it operates to answer our questions.

Christian Churches and Antisemitism

Christian churches have a long-standing tradition of promoting antisemitism. For 600 years, Gniezno Cathedral has contained an obscene relief depicting the Judensau (“Jewish sow”) motif. The sculpture is located in the chapel of St. Andrew, enclosed by a grille, near the confessional containing the relics of St. Adalbert.

Gniezno is the capital of Poland’s first ecclesiastical metropolis and the seat of the primates. It contains the tomb of Poland’s patron saint. Rulers of the Piast dynasty were crowned there, John Paul II prayed there, and the site is visited by tours from around the world.

The Judensau originated in 13th-century Germany. Antisemitism was spreading throughout Europe at that time. Jews were accused of ritual murders of Christian children and of desecrating hosts. For ordinary people, this false information was considered true, especially because it came from authorities, often from pulpits. Today, we would call it fake news disseminated by the Church.

In the 13th century, sculptures appeared on church façades throughout Germany depicting a rabbi looking beneath a pig’s tail and Jewish children drinking milk from the teats of an animal considered unclean.

Antisemitism was also part of the repertoire of Church reformer Martin Luther. His words would later serve Nazi propaganda in constructing a narrative leading directly to the persecution of Jews. The Nazis used quotations from Luther to justify crimes against the Jewish population.

When representatives of the Catholic Church strive for Polish-Jewish dialogue and reconciliation, they are met by a wave of hate. This happened to Bishop Rafał Markowski, chairman of the Committee for Dialogue with Judaism within the Polish Bishops’ Conference. After his speech in Jedwabne, he was showered with insults online: “ignoramus,” “liar,” “Jew,” “pseudo-bishop.”

The Sin of Antisemitism

A letter from the Polish bishops published on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the council declaration “Nostra aetate” states:

Anti-Judaism and antisemitism are sins against love of one’s neighbor, sins that undermine the truth about Christian identity; therefore, their categorical condemnation cannot be softened by the cultural, political or ideological circumstances in which anti-Judaism and antisemitism appeared in the past. (...) Christian-Jewish dialogue must never be treated as a “religious hobby” of a small group of enthusiasts, but should increasingly permeate the mainstream of pastoral ministry, such as catechesis, the proclamation of the Word of God and pilgrimages to the Holy Land.

This letter, written in 2015, should still be updated and brought to the attention of Polish priests.