A Papal Faux Pas
by Eduardo del Buey
A Papal Faux Pas
Jesus Christ was born a Jew in Israel along with his mother, Mary, and his twelve disciples, all of whom were Israelis and Jews from the Galilee.
Jesus grew up a Jew, performed all of the Jewish rituals, and died a Jew.
Indeed, the Last Supper was a seder ritual – celebrating the Jewish feast of Passover.
And yet, Palestinians today are working hard to paint themselves as the region’s indigenous people and the Jews as European colonists who are occupying their land.
Their sympathizers around the world support this conspiracy theory, and it will only be a matter of time before their supporters seek and likely achieve a UN resolution to this effect.
Is it any wonder, then, why this photo of the Pope celebrating the depiction of the nativity of the Christ child swathed in a keffiyeh in the Vatican is such an outrage?
The Pope is a highly educated Jesuit who cannot claim ignorance at the significance of this photo.
As head of a billion-member church that historically contributed to global antisemitism by falsely accusing Jews of killing Jesus and only recanting it in the 1960s, he should know better.
Indeed, he does know better.
Yet, for some reason, many leaders like Pope Francis are catering to the demands of the Islamist mobs screaming at their gates.
As Erica Le Bon, a noted Iraqi-born expert on the Middle East, has written, the keffiyeh emerged as a symbol of the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire beginning in the early 1900s.
It subsequently became a symbol of Palestinian resistance after being popularized by Yasser Arafat in the 1960s.
Today, it is used as a symbol of solidarity with Palestinians in the Israel-Hamas conflict and often worn by those advocating for the destruction of Israel and its replacement with an Arab/Muslim state, which was not the identity of the land of Israel in which Jesus was born and grew up.
This symbol has nothing to do with Jesus, who lived 2,000 years ago in Judea before these violent identity conflicts began with the Arab identity conquering the land with the 7th-century Muslim conquests, later conflicting with the Jewish identity returning to the land.
To associate Jesus with violence and wars by forcing him to wear a symbol associated with one side against the other is abhorrent and a complete misevaluation of Jesus’s teachings.
He was a Jewish rabbi and a man of peace. He would have believed in peace between these two peoples and would never have engaged in the divisiveness of “picking sides” at the expense of another’s humanity.
To force Jesus into a “side” with symbolism that repudiates Jesus’s teachings of peace because of your own personal politics is to bastardize his message and his legacy.
And to do so in the Vatican by a Pope and a Vatican that should be keenly aware of history is a provocative act that will stoke the rising fires of antisemitism globally.
The Church played an awful hand during the NAZI era with its studied silence on the Holocaust based on historical antisemitism based on false accusations against Jews throughout its history.
To repeat such actions once again today is, quite simply, wrong.
Shame on the Pope, who should know better and does, I am sure, know better.
Par Anna Kurian de i-media (agence spécialisée dans la couverture du Vatican) - Ces derniers jours, la crèche de la salle Paul VI du Vatican – où le pape tient ses audiences générales en hiver –, sème la polémique. La présence d’un keffieh, foulard traditionnel utilisé par les Palestiniens comme symbole national, lors de l’inauguration avec le pape François samedi dernier, a suscité des protestations de la part des Israéliens. L’étoffe noire et blanche a ensuite disparu de la mangeoire, et le Saint-Siège a pris ses distances avec l’initiative.
La crèche, intitulée la "Nativité de Bethléem 2024", a été conçue par deux artistes palestiniens, Johny Andonia et Faten Nastas Mitwasi. Cette représentation a pour but de rappeler que la Terre sainte "est le théâtre quotidien de destructions, de conflits, de deuils et de violences", avait expliqué le Vatican.
Une œuvre jugée "provocatrice" par Israël
Lors de l’inauguration, les images du Pape se recueillant devant le nouveau-né reposant dans une mangeoire couverte d’un keffieh avaient déclenché de vives critiques. Le quotidien Times of Israel avait ainsi dénoncé une œuvre "provocatrice".
"Le santon de l’Enfant Jésus et le keffieh ont été enlevés de la crèche du Vatican", a alerté la presse italienne mercredi matin, tandis que le Pape présidait son audience générale à quelques pas. Les médias se sont alors répandus en supputations sur les motifs de la disparition de l’objet de la discorde.
Mais pour le Vatican, rien de plus normal : traditionnellement, le nourrisson est déposé dans sa mangeoire seulement à Noël, jour de sa naissance. La crèche avec tous ses personnages avait été exposée seulement pour l’inauguration, afin d’être montrée au pape, indique le Bureau de presse du Saint-Siège.
Quant au keffieh, celui-ci avait été ajouté par l’artiste à la dernière minute et ne figurait pas dans le projet initial présenté au gouvernorat de la Cité du Vatican, informe l’organe de communication du petit État. Des propos qui expriment une prise de distance par rapport à cette initiative contestée.
Deux rendez-vous pour François
Si le santon de Jésus sera donc à nouveau visible le 25 décembre, il reste encore une incertitude sur le retour ou non du keffieh. "Il est possible que l’on revienne au projet initial", souffle une source vaticane.
Dans ce contexte tourmenté, deux rendez-vous qui concernent la région du Proche-Orient sont à l’agenda du pape François cette semaine. François doit recevoir ce matin le président palestinien Mahmoud Abbas. Et vendredi, il doit rencontrer le chef du gouvernement libanais Najib Mikati."
I try to avoid contentious political and religious news and this is both. A terrible state of affairs that serves no good.