A major event in the history of the twentieth century, the Nazis' attempt to exterminate the Jewish people poses formidable questions to the conscience that no human being can dismiss. The Catholic Church, far from appealing to oblivion, knows that conscience is constituted by memory and that no society, like any individual, can live in peace with itself over a repressed or false past.
The Church of France is wondering. It is invited, like the other Churches, by Pope John Paul II, at the approach of the third millennium: It is good that the Church crosses this passage being clearly aware of what it has done. Yesterday's decline is an act of loyalty and courage which has strengthened our faith, which makes us perceive the temptations and difficulties of today and prepares us to face them ...
… We do not have to set ourselves up as judges of people and consciences at this time, we are not ourselves guilty of what happened yesterday, but we are in solidarity with it because it is our Church and today we are obliged to observe objectively that ecclesial interests understood in an excessively restrictive manner have come before the commandments of conscience and we must ask ourselves why ...
... On the eve of the war, Archbishop Saliège recommended that twentieth century Catholics seek light in the teaching of Pius XI rather than in such edict of Innocent III in the thirteenth century. During the war, theologians and exegetes, in Lyon and in Paris, prophetically highlighted the Jewish roots of Christianity, stressing that the stem of Jesse had flourished in Israel, that the two Testaments were inseparable, that the Virgin, Christ, the Apostles were Jews and that Christianity is linked to Judaism as the branch to the trunk which carried it. Alas, they were hardly listened to ...
… In the judgment of historians, it is a well-attested fact that, for centuries, a tradition of anti-Judaism prevailed among the Christian people, until the Second Vatican Council, marking various levels of Christian doctrine and teaching, theology and apologetics, preaching and liturgy. On this soil, has flourished until our century. Hence the wounds that are still alive ...
... Today we confess that this silence was a mistake. We also recognize that the Church of France then failed in its mission of educator of conscience and that thus it bears with the Christian people the responsibility of not having brought help from the first moments when the protest and the protection were possible and necessary, even if, thereafter, there were countless acts of courage.
This is a fact that we recognize today. For this failure of the Church of France and its historic responsibility towards the Jewish people is part of itself. We confess this fault. We implore forgiveness and ask the Jewish people to hear this word of repentance.
