Carlo Falconi Describes Pope John's Pro-Jewish Arab Refugees' Holdings in Israel
Attitude, Tells of }Rejection of Anti-Semitic Book Total 453,000 'Immovable Property'
Carlo Falconi, distinguished
Italian scholar — author, translator
and contributor to many magazines
— has kept a diary of the activities
at the Vatican Council. In "Pope
John a n d the
Ecumenical Coun-
t i 1 , " published
by World Pub-
lishing Co., he
has incorporated
valuable data
about the late
Pope John.
In a fine trans- k;
lation from the
Italian by Muriel
Grindrod. this
volume recalls
some of Pope Pope John
John's activities relating to the
Jewish people. Light also is
thrown on the activities and atti-
tudes of other Catholic dignitaries.
For instance, Falcon! compares
Cardinals Spellman and Cushing.
He contends that the former's
prestige has been in decline both
among Catholics and non-Catholics,
whereas "Cushing represents and
personifies 'the Catholcism of to-
morrow' in his country." Falconi
adds that it is not a "rivalry
towards the Archbishop of New
York," that while Cushing opposed
public subventions for public
schools, "when Spellman asked
Kennedy to grant it and it was
refused he took no part whatever
in the debate." Then he writes:
"The truth is that while Cushing
fights for Negroes' rights, and
opposes both right-wing anti-
Communist movements and police
brutality, and does everything he
can to improve relations between
Catholics and Jews, Protestants and
members of the Orthodox Church,
this is all the result of something
consistent in his whole character,
not of any artificial improvization
on account of circumstances or,
less still, of a sterile personal
antagonism."
Perhaps this explains the differ-
ence in the Spellman-Cushing
viewpoints over "The Deputy,"
Rolf Ho chhuth's controversial
drama.
Referring to the requests that
had come from Jewish organiza-
tions and individuals throughout
the world "invoking the abolition
of all anti-Semitic discrimination
in the attitudes and manifestations
of Catholic life, whether offical or of the spread of an anti-Semitic
otherwise, in their respective coun- book among Catholics. His account
tries," Falconi points to the special of it is worth quoting in full:
I believe I was one of the first
section of the Secretariat for
people to get hold of a large anti-
•
Christian Union which is concerned
Jewish volume which a clandestine
with Catholic-Jewish relations, and organization is distributing to the
of the Council. Monsignor
reveals that the Jewish office of Fathers
Bontempi, who since the beginning of
the secretariat "has been consulted the Council has been seeing me less
for fear of breaking the
by the Secretariat of State con- frequently
reserve imposed by the pledges of
cerning the problem of diplomatic secrecy concerning Council affairs,
me about it over the telephone.
representation between Israel and told
He said he had read a good deal of it
the Holy See."
the night before, with extreme distaste,
that he was delighted to get rid of
Falconi also states: "In prac- so
it and hand it over to me.
tice, at John XXIII's wish and
It is a big book of 618 closely-
printed pages called Complotto Contro
in anticipation of these (Jewish)
La Chiesa (Plot against the Church),
requests, the Roman liturgy has with a reproduction below the title
been purged of all expressions on the cover of the upper facade of
St. Peter's and the Michelangelo
of disrespect for the Jewish cupola, overprinted and blotted out by
a
triangle in violent red symbolizing
people. But some irritating con-
the Jewish-Masonic-Communist Inter-
tentions about them are still to national.
No publisher is given, and the only
be found, especially in certain
is the name and address of
books and periodicals, such as, indication
Roman firm which printed the volume:
for example, the theory of their a small firm of printers with works
the Vatican, in the Prati distrct,
collective responsibility for the near
which is known to work mainly for
death of Christ. Such is the zeal ecclesiastical organizations. On the
page is the name of the alleged
of the Jewish organizations that title
author, Maurice Pinay, but this is
they send to Rome whole lists probably a pseudonym. Perusal of the
however, inclines one to think
of Catholic works, both scholarly text,
that the author must be a foreigner,
and popular, containing refer- faithfully interpreted by literarily
ences which are regarded as badly served by a translation which
often downright vulgar.
controversial or slanderous in is The
preface bears the date of 31
August 1962: the book must therefore
relation to the Jewish people."
have been put together in a great
Falconi deals with Latin Amer- hurry and its compilation speeded up
ican Catholic Fathers' activities and after the date of the Council's second
session in 1963 was made known,
he presents this astonishing fact: obviously with the intention of getting
"The Liturgical Commission it out in time to distribute it to all
Fathers before they return to their
appears to have accepted the pro- sees.
Nevertheless t h e w or k, already
posal of an Argentinian bishop,
massive enough to discourage readers,
Monsignor Kemerer of Posadas, is
not yet complete; a second volume
for a 'Sunday Service,' a service is to follow containing parts V and VI
and the reply to the comments and the
instead of the Mass which could be 'inevitable calumnies' w h i c h 't h e
carried out by laymen in the ab- enemy' will launch against the four
parts already published here. The pre-
sence of priests. At the penulti- face
also states that the author de-
mate General Congtegation every- cided to start on the book in 1961
and
that
first volume took him
one was astonished by the daring 14 months this
to write.
intervention by Monsignor Mendez
A glance at the table of contents
of Cuernavaca concerning relations suffices to indicate its main ideas: the
Jews, the 'synagogue of Satan,' are
with the Jews and Freemasonry; not only 'the secret motive force of
apropos of the former he de- Communism' and 'the occult power of
Free-masonry' but also even consti-
n o u n c e d the unconscious anti- tute 'the fifth column among the
Semitism widespread among many clergy. This last is undoubtedly a
piquant and original idea, and its
Catholics . . ."
connection with the Council is obvious.
It is already fore-shadowed in the
Under dates of late November Preface,
or rather the 'Important ap-
1962, Falconi tells of the visit in peal to the reader,' entitled 'Con-
spiracy against the Church.' It begins
Rome of Rabbi Immanuel Jacobo- abruptly as follows:
The most preverse conspiracy is be-
vich of New York, who was intro-
prepared against the Church. Its
duced to Cardinal Bea by Cardinal ing
enemies are plotting to destroy its
Spellman. He tells of the visits of most sacred traditions, carrying out
as daring and malevolent as
other Jewish leaders in Rome, of reforms
those of Calvin. Zwingli, and other
the prolonged stay there of Dr.. great arch-heretics, all on the pretext
Chaim Wardi of the Israel Ministry of modernizing the Church and put-
ting it on a par with the times, but
of Religious Affairs.
nevertheless with the secret purpose
of opening the gates to Communism,
The most interesting. revelation accelerating
the downfall of the free
in Falconi's book is his discovery world, and preparing the future
Agudah Leader Charges Israel
'Devoid of Spiritual Content'
JERUSALEM (JTA)—A leader
of the ultra-Orthodox Agudah
Israel World Organization assert-
ed that while Israel has done far
toward achieving economic and
military independence, it was "de-
void of spiritual content."
The charge was made by Rabbi
Y. M. Levin, chairman of the
organization's world executive, at
the opening session of the organi-
zation's World Congress. More than
400 delegates and 2,000 guests
from 15 countries attended the
session.
Rabbi Levin said that "irreli-
gious circles" in Israel were giving
support to "Reform Judaism
missionaries and apostates" and as-
serted that the Israel Supreme
Court had "a negative attitude to
our holy Torah."
The delegates heard a message
of greeting from Premier Levi
Eshkol expressing the hope that
the deliberations would be held
"in a spirit of Jewish love, fratern-
. ity and peace and comradeship." A
large audience filled the Jerusalem
Convention Hall. Among those
present were the President's aide,
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Friday, July 31, 1964
8
Police Minister Behor Shitreet,
Social Welfare Minister Josef
Burg, Chief Rabbi Isser Unterman,
Chief Chaplain Shlomo Goren,
and others.
Moscow's Chief Rabbi Yehuda
Leib Levin "may be permitted"
to attend a Jewish religious con-
ference in Europe in the near
future, the assembly was told
by Rabbi Levin. At the same
time, the Agudah leader de-
plored the wide publicity given
by other Jewish organizations to
efforts on behalf of Soviet
Jewry, stating that such efforts,
among other things, brought
about the Soviet government's
ban on shipments of matzoth to
Russian Jews from other coun-
tries.
A warning that assimilation and
intermarriage a r e threatening
Diaspora Jewry was voiced here
by Rabbi Nahum Perlow, of New
York.
TWo members of Parliament
from the -Agudat Israel Party,
Shlomo Lorincz and Shlomo Gross,
addressed the assembly, and criti-
cized the Israel government for
"toleration of missionary ac-
tivities."
UNITED NATIONS, N.Y. (JTA)—
Arab refugees own 453,000 parcels
of "immovable property" in Israel,
spread out over an area of more
than 5,000,000 acres, about 50 per
cent of the area being in the Negev
Desert, the United Nations Pales-
tine Conciliation Commission an-
nounced.
The PCC has been conducting
for 10 years a study trying to iden-
tify and evaluate the refugee-
owned real estate in Israel. Accord-
ing to the PCC, the government of
Israel has given the UN its fullest
cooperation in the study.
No announcement was made of
the value of the property. How-
ever, the PCC noted that the valu-
ation will be made on the basis of
the market worth of the property
as of Nov. 29, 1947, the date the
General Assembly voted its Pales-
tine partition plan, which was re-
jected by the Arab states. The
valuations will be based on the
British Mandate of Palestine
pound which, as of the 1947 date,
was worth $4.03.
In making the announcement,
the PCC noted that the General
Assembly had instructed it in 1950
to "make such arrangements as it
may consider necessary for the
assessment and payment of com-
pensation" for certain Arab prop-
erties which the Arab refugees say
they abandoned in Israel. In 1951,
Israel had agreed, according to the
PCC, "to contribute to the settle-
ment of the question of compensa-
tion for Arab property abandoned
in its territory."
A special PCC staff has been at
work on the identification and
valuation task. While some of the
work was done at UN headquarters
data had been obtained from many
official sources, including archives
and tax rolls of the British Manda-
tory administration as well as data
held by refugees in the Gaza .Strip,
Jordan and Syria.
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destruction of Christianity. Impossible
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