FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 640 14 July 2015 FATWA ON POPE FRANCIS

FRANCIS ON TRIAL.  WHY DOES A SELF-STYLED JEWISH SANHEDRIN THREATEN A FATWA ON THE POPE? HOW TO RESPOND?
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The trial of Pope Francis is imminent! By a Jewish religious court, the  Sanhedrin. Yes, the same body which tried Jesus and sentenced him to death for blasphemy. Might the same fate befall Francis? A poor joke? Yet the indictment holds the Vatican responsible for dark consequences, unless…

The historical Sanhedrin was the supreme council and the highest court of justice of Judaism, consisting of 71 elders. Israel’s God himself instituted it, as the OT Book of Numbers reports (11: 16). The Romans gave it official status when they ruled over Palestine but after Titus destroyed Jerusalem in AD 70, the Sanhedrin ceased to exist. The rabbis who threaten a fatwa on the Pope have revived it but it is a simulacrum, a product of their creative imagination. Nonetheless, they are not rogue characters but learned scholars and their initiative bears examination.

What’s the charge? The Vatican’s official recognition of the State of Palestine. Tantamount to denial of Israel’s right to exist, as the fatwa implies? But the Vatican already has diplomatic relations with the Jewish State, so why not with its Palestinian partner? 135 nations recognise the latter and the UN General Assembly has so voted.  Even President G.W. Bush (!) once spoke appreciatively of such possible State and so have many Jewish leaders. The self-styled Sanhedrin's huff is unreasonable.

An apology is demanded of Francis. His crime? To have recognised as a genuine nation ‘those who stole the land’ – the Palestinians! (A case of the pot calling the kettle black?) It is the Israelis who are the only and exclusive owners of the land, because God has given it to them. As plain as the nose on your face, eh?

Odd how the Sanhedrin got hopping mad because Francis has called Mahmoud Abbas aka Abu Mazen ‘an angel of peace’. True or not, I doubt anyone could meaningfully call Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu an angel of any kind. And, whatever he may be after, it is not peace. Crushing Palestinians into dust seems more like it.

The rabbinical letter really is bizarre. For example, it contains a reference to its authors as the ‘71 Jewish elders of Zion’. It made me sit up. ‘Elders of Zion’… Wot?’ I have come across that trope before. Concerning the notorious ‘Protocols of…the Elders of Zion’. A forgery cooked up by the Russian secret police and beloved by sundry anti-Semites ever since. Evoking the lurid spectre of a worldwide Israelite conspiracy to take over the Gentile world. Fiddlesticks, of course, but how surreal to find such sinister expression used by this very orthodox Sanhedrin!

Actually, the Vatican over the years has shown increasing friendship towards Israel. After striving initially for the internationalisation of Jerusalem and the Holy Places, in 1993 it diplomatically recognised the Jewish State. Theologically, Council Vatican II had already absolved the Jews from the millenarian accusation of ‘Christ-killers’. Pope John Paul II praised the Jewish people as still ‘bearing signs of divine election’. Inquisitors like Torquemada would have turned over in their graves!

Regardless, the Fatwa holds out a menace. Unless the Vatican begs forgiveness of the Sanhedrin and does a U-turn on Palestine, a prediction by the Prophet Obadiah will be implemented: ‘Saviours shall come up to Mount Zion to rule Mount Esau; and the kingdom shall be the Lord’s.’ Bland enough? Not if you reflect that Judaism regarded ‘Esau’ – the twin brother of Jacob hoodwinked out of his birthright by a low trick – as the ancestor of the Edomites, a tribe of despised and hated foreign half-breeds. For ‘Edomites’ here read ‘Palestinians’. Moreover, if you consider how ‘Esau’ was sometimes a cryptic, spiteful reference to Jesus of Nazareth…do you dig it? Bit nasty.

What, I wonder, if Pope Francis, instead of being the charming, sweet and peace-loving fellow he is, retaliated? What if he hit back? But how? Excommunication? No way. That doctrinal weapon works only against Christians, it cannot touch Rabbis. Curse them, as they threaten to do to him? Not his style. And he cannot summon up Christian nations to teach the Sanhedrin a lesson – there are no Christian nations around anymore. Just as well the Pope is not into any of that!

If the Sanhedrin treats Christianity as the enemy, it is mistaken. It takes two to quarrel and the Church will not quarrel with the Synagogue. Moreover, the prince of Christ’s enemies is the Antichrist and Judaism is not that. Nietzsche’s essay The Antichrist spells out the nature of that monster. He is above all the hater of the poor, the despiser and oppressor of the humble, the weak and the downtrodden. Antichrist is a pitiless creature, devoid of all mercy and compassion. Another name for him is the Superman – in reality, tragically, less than a man.

Hhmm…In actual fact, in our caring, humanitarian age that type of hysterical Antichrist is over. Is he stone dead, like poor old Nietzsche? Not quite. A trendy, contemporary bourgeois ideology is another incarnation of Antichrist. Alive and kicking and raging in our midst. Its name? Libertarianism. Capitalism with an inhuman face. A truly fiendish, anti-Christian creed…

How best to handle the mildly comical Sanhedrin Rabbis and their mystical fatwas? Maybe it is like dealing with dandelions or ladybirds in your garden. Impossible to get rid of them. So...just learn to love them.

Revd Frank Julian Gelli

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