The Vatican Council: A Vote Against Prejudice

"What happened to Christ in his Passion cannot be attributed to all Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor to the Jews of today."

By a vote of 1,763 to 250, the bishops at the fourth session of the Second Vatican Council last week approved this statement as the official teaching of the church. In accepting the declaration on non-Christian religions, the bishops made unmistakably clear the intention of the church to risk no further charge of antiSemitism. Also taking into account the Jewish suffering under the Nazis, the declaration deplored "hatred persecutions,...