May 8, 2019 — New York
AJC is calling on Catholic leadership in Poland to reprimand the Bishop of Tarnow for his Holy Thursday sermon that was filled with attacks on the Jewish people.
Bishop Andrzej Jeż, citing a 1937 edition of the Polish periodical Nasza Sprawa that referenced the 10th World Zionist Congress of 1911, asserted that Jews control the media, had launched decades ago a plot against the Church, and today were responsible for certain accusations of misbehavior by priests in Poland. “A certain nation” plotted early in the 20th century to divide and slander the Catholic Church, Bishop Jeż said.
“Bishop Jeż’s outrageous antisemitic comments betray the profound example and commitment of Saint John Paul II to a relationship of true mutual respect in keeping with the groundbreaking Nostra Aetate document adopted by Vatican Council II more than 50 years ago,” said Rabbi David Rosen, AJC’s International Director of Interreligious Relations. “The tepid response by Catholic leaders in Poland to Bishop Jez’s outlandish sermon is deeply disturbing.”
Rosen seconded the view expressed by Poland’s Chief Rabbi, Michael Schudrich, who said Bishop Jeż’s sermon shows “there is a problem that needs addressing inside the Catholic Church in Poland.”
