Page 105 - October 7 - Teresa Pirola
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After October 7, Easter Can’t Be Business as Usual
for Catholics. Here’s Why
“ With the approach of Easter 2024, I was concerned that the church’s Lenten journey of repentance and renewal was sidestepping the sin of antisemitism, both historical and
present-day. I wrote this short piece as a ” wake-up call to Catholics, and submitted
22 March 2024
it to a Catholic magazine. But it was never published until now.
Prior to October 7, I gave a talk to Catholic teachers about Jewish-Christian relations. Inevitably, the discussion went to Christianity’s history of anti-Judaism and Christian complicity in the Holocaust.
‘How are we to go forward as Catholics, knowing that there is culpability in Christian history for a path of prejudice that eventually led to the murder of 1.5 million Jewish children?’ was the question that arose, as a somber silence descended upon the room.
The horror laid bare, I took care to end on a note of hope and optimism for the future. ‘What gives me confidence to go forward’, I replied, ‘is that I also know that our church had the
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