Polish Catholics Apologize for Anti-Semitism

The leaders of Poland’s Roman Catholic Church have asked forgiveness for its toleration of anti-Semitism and disdain of non-Catholics in a letter of joint apologies for failings in its 2,000-year history.

The bishops approved the letter late Friday at a special Jubilee Year session at the nation’s holiest shrine in the southern city of Czestochowa. The contents were published Saturday by the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper.

Parish priests across Poland are expected to read the letter during Masses today. About 95% in this nation of 39 million call themselves Catholic.

“We ask forgiveness for those among us who show disdain for people of other denominations or tolerate anti-Semitism,” the bishops said in a clearly worded letter.

“Anti-Semitism, just like anti-Christianism, is a sin,” it says.

The bishops said they clearly see the tragedy of the Nazi Holocaust in Poland, which the Germans occupied during World War II--though the horror was not limited to that country.

Before the war, Poland’s 3.5 million Jewish community was the largest in Europe and made up 10% of the nation’s population. But only a few hundred survived the Holocaust, and most of them were driven out by Communist-sponsored anti-Semitic propaganda in 1968.

About 20,000 Jews live in Poland now. The painful past as well as present-day differences continue to spark bitter disputes between Poland and members of the Jewish Diaspora.