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POLAND
Plea for forgiveness
Bishops apologize for anti-Semitism
The bishops of Poland on August 25 issued a letter requesting forgiveness on behalf of Polish Catholics for incidents of anti-Semitism in the country’s history.
The letter was approved at a special Jubilee Year meeting in the shrine town of Czestochowa. “We ask forgiveness for those among us who show disdain for people of other denominations or tolerate anti-Semitism,” the bishops said. “Anti-Semitism, just like anti-Christianism, is a sin.”
They added that although many Poles made heroic efforts to save Jews and oppose the Nazis during World War II, some Poles also showed indifference or enmity. The letter appeals for strengthening Christian solidarity with the “people of Israel to prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again, anywhere.”
“We should also efficiently overcome all signs of anti-Judaism, that stems from a wrong interpretation of the Church’s teaching, and of anti-Semitism, which is hatred stemming from nationalistic or racial ideas that still exist among Christians,” the bishops said. But they also said that the anti-Polish ideas of some Jewish groups should be “countered with equal determination.”
On behalf of the Church, they asked for forgiveness from all those who “did not find understanding or met with rejection or had suffered because Christians forgot the basic truth that we are all children of one God.”
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