A Moral Reckoning
Encyclopedia
A Moral Reckoning, by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
, who also authored Hitler's Willing Executioners
, is a 2003 American non-fiction book examining the Roman Catholic Church
’s role in the Holocaust. More fully titled A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair, the book offers a review of scholarship in English addressing what Goldhagen argues is anti-Semitism
throughout the history of the Church, which the book claims contributed substantially to the persecution of the Jews during World War II.
The book recommends several significant steps which might be taken by the Church to make reparation for its alleged role. A Moral Reckoning received mixed reviews and was the subject of considerable controversy regarding allegations of inaccuracies and anti-Catholic bias.
in 1983. He gained prominence in the field with the publication of 1996's Hitler's Willing Executioners
, which met acclaim and controversy, particularly in Germany. The Journal for German and International Politics awarded him the Democracy Prize in 1997. In awarding the prize for the first time since 1990, the Journal wrote "Because of the penetrating quality and the moral power of his presentation, Daniel Goldhagen has greatly stirred the consciousness of the German public."
Invited by The New Republic
to review several books concerning Pope Pius XII
and the Holocaust. Goldhagen was inspired to write a review of the literature concerning the question of the "culture of antisemitism" in the Catholic Church prior to Vatican II and its impact on the Holocaust. His impressions first appeared as a lengthy essay in the January 21, 2002 edition of The New Republic entitled "What Would Jesus Have Done? Pope Pius XII, the Catholic Church, and the Holocaust" before their publication by Knopf in extended book form as A Moral Reckoning.
said that A Moral Reckoning (2003) presents an indictment of the Roman Catholic Church comparable to Goldhagen’s indictment of Germany in Hitler’s Willing Executioners (1996), saying that “both as an international institution under the leadership of Pope Pius XII
(1939–58), and at national levels in many European countries, the Church was deeply implicated in the appalling genocide. . . . Just as Germans had been carefully taught to hate the Jews, to the point that they could readily torment and kill them, so had Catholics”; that author Goldhagen “sees a deep vein of Jew-hatred ingrained within Catholic tradition; and he does not think that there was any difference of kind, between that old religious Jew-hatred and the murderous racial anti-Semitism
of the twentieth century”.
In a 2003, in The Atlantic magazine, interviewer Jennie Rothenberg Gritz quoted Goldhagen saying that “moral issues” are the “principal substance” of A Moral Reckoning, that his concern was a “consideration of culpability and repair”. In a letter to the editor of The New York Times, Goldhagen said that “the book’s real content” is in “setting forth general principles for moral repair from which I derive concrete proposals for the Church”. Donald Dietrich, author of God and Humanity in Auschwitz: Jewish-Christian Relations and Sanctioned Murder, and a Boston College
professor of Theology specializing in Holocaust studies, said that Goldhagen “asks the Catholic Church a question: ‘What must a religion of love and goodness do to confront its history of hatred and harm, to make amends with its victims, and to right itself so that it is no longer the source of hatred and harm that, whatever its past, it would no longer endorse?’ He has attempted to analyze the moral culpability of Catholics and their leaders, to judge the actors, and to discern how today’s Catholics can make material, political and moral restitution”.
Goldhagen's book suggests that the Church owes financial reparation and support to Jews and the State of Israel
and should change its doctrine and the accepted Biblical canon
to excise statements he labels as anti-Semitic and to indicate that "The Jews' way to God is as legitimate as the Christian way". Failing this, the author proposes disclaimers in every Christian
Bible
to annotate anti-Semitic passages and acknowledge them as having led to injury against Jews.
—was sued by the archdiocese of Munich
as a result of the misidentification of a photograph, falsely asserting the presence of Michael Cardinal von Faulhaber
, whom Rabbi David G. Dalin
calls "a famous opponent of the Nazis", at a Nazi rally. The picture actually depicted Apostolic Nuncio to Germany Cesare Orsenigo
participating in a May Day
labor parade in Munich — not a Nazi rally in Berlin.
In October 2002, the district court of Munich required the publisher to withdraw the book or correct the copies, but in spite of the disclosure of the error in Germany, the book was released in English by Knopf with the error intact. A representative of the archdiocese said with regards to the mislabeled photograph that "The implication is that Cardinal Faulhaber was an associate of the Nazis. When one writes about these things, one should be more precise about the truth".
Goldhagen, who acknowledged that the photo wrongly identified the figure and location, described the lawsuit as a crude diversionary tactic to displace focus from the real issues. Goldhagen stated that the photograph was misidentified by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
, from which the picture was obtained. Religious commentator and former priest Paul Collins characterized the mislabeling of the photograph as inexcusable, while The New York Times reported that most historians agreed that "a single mislabeled photo in a 346-page book is a minor error".
, Kirkus Reviews
, The San Francisco Chronicle, and given a generally favorable overview ahead of an interview in The Atlantic, it was also subject to substantial criticism, even among some of those reviewers who found aspects of the work praiseworthy. The International Social Science Review, which described the book as a "seminal work" and a "valuable introduction to and synthesis of the literature on church and state during the Holocaust", also indicated that the message of the book is "diluted by stylistic problems". New York Times reviewer Geoffrey Wheatcroft praised Goldhagen's assembly of "an impressive body of evidence" but criticized his repetitiveness, his "misinterpreting the record" and his use of it to promote a particular view, which Wheatcroft deems appropriate for an advocate
but reprehensible in a historian. Dietrich, whose review lauded Goldhagen for asking "many of the proper seminal questions", mirrored Wheatcroft's concerns about repetitiveness, misunderstandings and polemic
s, specifically suggesting that "[r]eaders must be sure to also review the footnotes since in many cases he contextually and theologically nuances his book’s claims only there".
John Cornwell
, author of Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII
(1999), praised Daniel Goldhagen’s “excellent job in exposing the propagandistic
hagiography
of recent defenders of Pius XII, especially their tendency to confuse diplomatic eulogy with historical fact”, but said that Goldhagen errs in identifying a key Vatican
figure an anti-Semite, a misrepresentation he thinks “can only provide ammunition for the Pius XII lobby”. The journalist Gritz noted that Goldhagen “does not cushion his criticisms of the Church in diplomatic language”, that “even philosophy professor John K. Roth, who favorably reviewed A Moral Reckoning in The Los Angeles Times, said that the adjectives “unpretentious . . . indecisive . . . moderate . . . patient” do not come to mind when reading Goldhagen. Another book review in The New York Times said that A Moral Reckoning is an “impressive and disturbing bill of indictment against” the Roman Catholic Church, yet its imbalanced perspective results in “turning history into a kind of cudgel”.
In summer of 2002, before its publication, Ronald Rychlak, author of Hitler, the War, and the Pope, decried it as factually incorrect, releasing a lengthy catalog of corrections to Goldhagen's essay "What Would Jesus Have Done?" After the book's publication, Rychlak published a review in the journal Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, again pointing out factual errors, and criticizing the book's tone and conclusions. Following the book's publication, Rabbi Dalin and J. Bottum, later co-authors along with William Doino of The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII, in separate articles for The Weekly Standard
denounced it as failing "to meet even the minimum standards of scholarship" and "filled with factual errors". In his review, Paul Collins indicated that the purpose of the book was undermined by poor editing, incoherence and redundancy. Mark Riebling of National Review, who described himself as an admirer of Goldhagen's first book, called A Moral Reckoning "a 352-page exercise in intellectual bad manners" and "a spree of intellectual wilding".
In reply to the charge of historical inaccuracy, Daniel Goldhagen said that the “central contours” of A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair (2002) are accurate, because the book’s title and first page communicate its purpose of moral
analysis, not historical analysis. He stated that he has invited to no avail European Church representatives to present their own historical account in discussing morality and reparation.
Opponents labelled Goldhagen as a “anti-Catholic”, as promoting an anti-Catholic agenda. Bottum wrote that its “errors of fact combine to create a set of historical theses about the Nazis
and the Catholic Church so tendentious that not even Pius XII’s most determined belittlers have dared to assert them. And, in Goldhagen’s final chapters, the bad historical theses unite to form a complete anti-Catholicism the likes of which we haven’t seen since the elderly H.G. Wells decided Catholicism was the root of all evil”. In the Catholic News Service, Eugene J. Fisher, the Associate Director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs
of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said that Goldhagen avoided original research, as “such methodological and factual considerations would definitely get in the way of the demonic portrait of the Church that he seeks to paint”.
In the book The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice
, Philip Jenkins
said that A Moral Reckoning, along with anti-Catholic conspiracy theories and other “anti-Church historical polemic”, belongs to the pseudohistory
category of books about anti-Catholic “mythic history”, historical manipulation
, and national demonization
, such as the Black Legend
about Spain, said that publishers publish such books because the sell many copies, not because they mean to “destroy or calumniate Catholicism”. Furthermore, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights president William A. Donohue
, said that Daniel Goldhagen “hasn’t a clue about Catholicism”, that he “separates himself” from other critics of Pope Pius XII “by demanding that the Catholic Church implode: he wants the Church to refigure its teachings, liturgy, and practices to such an extent that no one would recognize a trace of Catholicism in this new construction. That is why Goldhagen is not simply against Pope Pius XII: he is an inveterate anti-Catholic bigot”. Moreover, Rabbi Dalin accused Goldhagen of engaging in a “misuse of the Holocaust to advance [his] . . . anti-Catholic agenda”.
Daniel Goldhagen
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen is an American author and former Associate Professor of Political Science and Social Studies at Harvard University. Goldhagen reached international attention and broad criticism as the author of two controversial books about the Holocaust, Hitler's Willing Executioners and...
, who also authored Hitler's Willing Executioners
Hitler's Willing Executioners
Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust is a book by American writer Daniel Goldhagen that argues that the vast majority of ordinary Germans were as the title indicates "willing executioners" in the Holocaust because of a unique and virulent "eliminationist antisemitism"...
, is a 2003 American non-fiction book examining the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
’s role in the Holocaust. More fully titled A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair, the book offers a review of scholarship in English addressing what Goldhagen argues is anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
throughout the history of the Church, which the book claims contributed substantially to the persecution of the Jews during World War II.
The book recommends several significant steps which might be taken by the Church to make reparation for its alleged role. A Moral Reckoning received mixed reviews and was the subject of considerable controversy regarding allegations of inaccuracies and anti-Catholic bias.
Background
Goldhagen, the son of a Holocaust survivor, first engaged in serious academic discourse concerning the Holocaust following a lecture he attended as a student of Harvard UniversityHarvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
in 1983. He gained prominence in the field with the publication of 1996's Hitler's Willing Executioners
Hitler's Willing Executioners
Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust is a book by American writer Daniel Goldhagen that argues that the vast majority of ordinary Germans were as the title indicates "willing executioners" in the Holocaust because of a unique and virulent "eliminationist antisemitism"...
, which met acclaim and controversy, particularly in Germany. The Journal for German and International Politics awarded him the Democracy Prize in 1997. In awarding the prize for the first time since 1990, the Journal wrote "Because of the penetrating quality and the moral power of his presentation, Daniel Goldhagen has greatly stirred the consciousness of the German public."
Invited by The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
to review several books concerning Pope Pius XII
Pope Pius XII
The Venerable Pope Pius XII , born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli , reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958....
and the Holocaust. Goldhagen was inspired to write a review of the literature concerning the question of the "culture of antisemitism" in the Catholic Church prior to Vatican II and its impact on the Holocaust. His impressions first appeared as a lengthy essay in the January 21, 2002 edition of The New Republic entitled "What Would Jesus Have Done? Pope Pius XII, the Catholic Church, and the Holocaust" before their publication by Knopf in extended book form as A Moral Reckoning.
Overview
In the New York Times, book reviewer Geoffrey WheatcroftGeoffrey Wheatcroft
Geoffrey Albert Wheatcroft is a British journalist and writer.- Education :He was educated at University College School, London, and at New College Oxford, where he read Modern History.- Publishing and journalism :...
said that A Moral Reckoning (2003) presents an indictment of the Roman Catholic Church comparable to Goldhagen’s indictment of Germany in Hitler’s Willing Executioners (1996), saying that “both as an international institution under the leadership of Pope Pius XII
Pope Pius XII
The Venerable Pope Pius XII , born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli , reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958....
(1939–58), and at national levels in many European countries, the Church was deeply implicated in the appalling genocide. . . . Just as Germans had been carefully taught to hate the Jews, to the point that they could readily torment and kill them, so had Catholics”; that author Goldhagen “sees a deep vein of Jew-hatred ingrained within Catholic tradition; and he does not think that there was any difference of kind, between that old religious Jew-hatred and the murderous racial anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
of the twentieth century”.
In a 2003, in The Atlantic magazine, interviewer Jennie Rothenberg Gritz quoted Goldhagen saying that “moral issues” are the “principal substance” of A Moral Reckoning, that his concern was a “consideration of culpability and repair”. In a letter to the editor of The New York Times, Goldhagen said that “the book’s real content” is in “setting forth general principles for moral repair from which I derive concrete proposals for the Church”. Donald Dietrich, author of God and Humanity in Auschwitz: Jewish-Christian Relations and Sanctioned Murder, and a Boston College
Boston College
Boston College is a private Jesuit research university located in the village of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA. The main campus is bisected by the border between the cities of Boston and Newton. It has 9,200 full-time undergraduates and 4,000 graduate students. Its name reflects its early...
professor of Theology specializing in Holocaust studies, said that Goldhagen “asks the Catholic Church a question: ‘What must a religion of love and goodness do to confront its history of hatred and harm, to make amends with its victims, and to right itself so that it is no longer the source of hatred and harm that, whatever its past, it would no longer endorse?’ He has attempted to analyze the moral culpability of Catholics and their leaders, to judge the actors, and to discern how today’s Catholics can make material, political and moral restitution”.
Goldhagen's book suggests that the Church owes financial reparation and support to Jews and the State of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and should change its doctrine and the accepted Biblical canon
Biblical canon
A biblical canon, or canon of scripture, is a list of books considered to be authoritative as scripture by a particular religious community. The term itself was first coined by Christians, but the idea is found in Jewish sources. The internal wording of the text can also be specified, for example...
to excise statements he labels as anti-Semitic and to indicate that "The Jews' way to God is as legitimate as the Christian way". Failing this, the author proposes disclaimers in every Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
to annotate anti-Semitic passages and acknowledge them as having led to injury against Jews.
Legal controversy
In 2002, the book's German publisher—Siedler Verlag, a sister company of Random HouseRandom House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
—was sued by the archdiocese of Munich
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Munich and Freising
The Archdiocese of Munich and Freising is an ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in Bavaria, Germany. It is led by the prelature of the Archbishop of Munich, who administers the see from the mother church in Munich, the Frauenkirche, also known as Munich Cathedral...
as a result of the misidentification of a photograph, falsely asserting the presence of Michael Cardinal von Faulhaber
Michael Cardinal von Faulhaber
Michael von Faulhaber was a Roman Catholic Cardinal who was Archbishop of Munich for 35 years, from 1917 to his death in 1952.-Early life and ordination:...
, whom Rabbi David G. Dalin
David G. Dalin
David G. Dalin is an American Conservative rabbi and historian, is the author, co-author, or editor of ten books on American Jewish history and politics, and Jewish-Christian relations. He is currently a professor of history and politics at Ave Maria University, in Florida...
calls "a famous opponent of the Nazis", at a Nazi rally. The picture actually depicted Apostolic Nuncio to Germany Cesare Orsenigo
Cesare Orsenigo
Cesare Vincenzo Orsenigo was Apostolic Nuncio to Germany from 1930 to 1945, during the rise of Nazi Germany and World War II...
participating in a May Day
May Day
May Day on May 1 is an ancient northern hemisphere spring festival and usually a public holiday; it is also a traditional spring holiday in many cultures....
labor parade in Munich — not a Nazi rally in Berlin.
Goldhagen, who acknowledged that the photo wrongly identified the figure and location, described the lawsuit as a crude diversionary tactic to displace focus from the real issues. Goldhagen stated that the photograph was misidentified by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history...
, from which the picture was obtained. Religious commentator and former priest Paul Collins characterized the mislabeling of the photograph as inexcusable, while The New York Times reported that most historians agreed that "a single mislabeled photo in a 346-page book is a minor error".
Critical reception
Although A Moral Reckoning was favorably reviewed in The SpectatorThe Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
, Kirkus Reviews
Kirkus Reviews
Kirkus Reviews is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus . Kirkus serves the book and literary trade sector, including libraries, publishers, literary and film agents, film and TV producers and booksellers. Kirkus Reviews is published on the first and 15th of each month...
, The San Francisco Chronicle, and given a generally favorable overview ahead of an interview in The Atlantic, it was also subject to substantial criticism, even among some of those reviewers who found aspects of the work praiseworthy. The International Social Science Review, which described the book as a "seminal work" and a "valuable introduction to and synthesis of the literature on church and state during the Holocaust", also indicated that the message of the book is "diluted by stylistic problems". New York Times reviewer Geoffrey Wheatcroft praised Goldhagen's assembly of "an impressive body of evidence" but criticized his repetitiveness, his "misinterpreting the record" and his use of it to promote a particular view, which Wheatcroft deems appropriate for an advocate
Advocate
An advocate is a term for a professional lawyer used in several different legal systems. These include Scotland, South Africa, India, Scandinavian jurisdictions, Israel, and the British Crown dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man...
but reprehensible in a historian. Dietrich, whose review lauded Goldhagen for asking "many of the proper seminal questions", mirrored Wheatcroft's concerns about repetitiveness, misunderstandings and polemic
Polemic
A polemic is a variety of arguments or controversies made against one opinion, doctrine, or person. Other variations of argument are debate and discussion...
s, specifically suggesting that "[r]eaders must be sure to also review the footnotes since in many cases he contextually and theologically nuances his book’s claims only there".
John Cornwell
John Cornwell (writer)
John Cornwell is an English journalist and author, and a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. He is best known for various books on the papacy, most notably Hitler's Pope; investigative journalism; memoir; and the public understanding of science and philosophy. More recently he has been concerned...
, author of Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII
Hitler's Pope
Hitler's Pope is a book published in 1999 by the British journalist and author John Cornwell that examines the actions of Pope Pius XII during the Nazi era, and explores the charge that he assisted in the legitimization of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany, through the pursuit of a...
(1999), praised Daniel Goldhagen’s “excellent job in exposing the propagandistic
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
hagiography
Hagiography
Hagiography is the study of saints.From the Greek and , it refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy people, and specifically to the biographies of saints and ecclesiastical leaders. The term hagiology, the study of hagiography, is also current in English, though less common...
of recent defenders of Pius XII, especially their tendency to confuse diplomatic eulogy with historical fact”, but said that Goldhagen errs in identifying a key Vatican
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
figure an anti-Semite, a misrepresentation he thinks “can only provide ammunition for the Pius XII lobby”. The journalist Gritz noted that Goldhagen “does not cushion his criticisms of the Church in diplomatic language”, that “even philosophy professor John K. Roth, who favorably reviewed A Moral Reckoning in The Los Angeles Times, said that the adjectives “unpretentious . . . indecisive . . . moderate . . . patient” do not come to mind when reading Goldhagen. Another book review in The New York Times said that A Moral Reckoning is an “impressive and disturbing bill of indictment against” the Roman Catholic Church, yet its imbalanced perspective results in “turning history into a kind of cudgel”.
In summer of 2002, before its publication, Ronald Rychlak, author of Hitler, the War, and the Pope, decried it as factually incorrect, releasing a lengthy catalog of corrections to Goldhagen's essay "What Would Jesus Have Done?" After the book's publication, Rychlak published a review in the journal Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, again pointing out factual errors, and criticizing the book's tone and conclusions. Following the book's publication, Rabbi Dalin and J. Bottum, later co-authors along with William Doino of The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII, in separate articles for The Weekly Standard
The Weekly Standard
The Weekly Standard is an American neoconservative opinion magazine published 48 times per year. Its founding publisher, News Corporation, debuted the title September 18, 1995. Currently edited by founder William Kristol and Fred Barnes, the Standard has been described as a "redoubt of...
denounced it as failing "to meet even the minimum standards of scholarship" and "filled with factual errors". In his review, Paul Collins indicated that the purpose of the book was undermined by poor editing, incoherence and redundancy. Mark Riebling of National Review, who described himself as an admirer of Goldhagen's first book, called A Moral Reckoning "a 352-page exercise in intellectual bad manners" and "a spree of intellectual wilding".
In reply to the charge of historical inaccuracy, Daniel Goldhagen said that the “central contours” of A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair (2002) are accurate, because the book’s title and first page communicate its purpose of moral
Moral
A moral is a message conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim...
analysis, not historical analysis. He stated that he has invited to no avail European Church representatives to present their own historical account in discussing morality and reparation.
Opponents labelled Goldhagen as a “anti-Catholic”, as promoting an anti-Catholic agenda. Bottum wrote that its “errors of fact combine to create a set of historical theses about the Nazis
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
and the Catholic Church so tendentious that not even Pius XII’s most determined belittlers have dared to assert them. And, in Goldhagen’s final chapters, the bad historical theses unite to form a complete anti-Catholicism the likes of which we haven’t seen since the elderly H.G. Wells decided Catholicism was the root of all evil”. In the Catholic News Service, Eugene J. Fisher, the Associate Director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs
U.S. Bishops' Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs
The Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs is the principal ecumenical and interfaith organization of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops....
of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said that Goldhagen avoided original research, as “such methodological and factual considerations would definitely get in the way of the demonic portrait of the Church that he seeks to paint”.
In the book The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice
The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice
The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice is a book written by Philip Jenkins, Distinguished Professor of History and Religious studies at Pennsylvania State University, dealing with contemporary anti-Catholic bigotry, particularly in the United States.Jenkins, a former Catholic who...
, Philip Jenkins
Philip Jenkins
Philip Jenkins is as of 2010 the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Humanities at Pennsylvania State University . He was Professor and a Distinguished Professor of History and Religious studies at the same institution; and also assistant, associate and then full professor of Criminal Justice and...
said that A Moral Reckoning, along with anti-Catholic conspiracy theories and other “anti-Church historical polemic”, belongs to the pseudohistory
Pseudohistory
Pseudohistory is a pejorative term applied to a type of historical revisionism, often involving sensational claims whose acceptance would require rewriting a significant amount of commonly accepted history, and based on methods that depart from standard historiographical conventions.Cryptohistory...
category of books about anti-Catholic “mythic history”, historical manipulation
Historical revisionism
In historiography, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of orthodox views on evidence, motivations, and decision-making processes surrounding a historical event...
, and national demonization
Demonization
Demonization is the reinterpretation of polytheistic deities as evil, lying demons by other religions, generally monotheistic and henotheistic ones...
, such as the Black Legend
Black Legend
The Black Legend refers to a style of historical writing that demonizes Spain and in particular the Spanish Empire in a politically motivated attempt to morally disqualify Spain and its people, and to incite animosity against Spanish rule...
about Spain, said that publishers publish such books because the sell many copies, not because they mean to “destroy or calumniate Catholicism”. Furthermore, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights president William A. Donohue
William A. Donohue
William Anthony "Bill" Donohue is the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights in the United States, a position he has held since 1993.-Life and career:...
, said that Daniel Goldhagen “hasn’t a clue about Catholicism”, that he “separates himself” from other critics of Pope Pius XII “by demanding that the Catholic Church implode: he wants the Church to refigure its teachings, liturgy, and practices to such an extent that no one would recognize a trace of Catholicism in this new construction. That is why Goldhagen is not simply against Pope Pius XII: he is an inveterate anti-Catholic bigot”. Moreover, Rabbi Dalin accused Goldhagen of engaging in a “misuse of the Holocaust to advance [his] . . . anti-Catholic agenda”.
Further reading
- Feldkamp, MIchael F.Michael F. FeldkampMichael F. Feldkamp, is a German historian and journalist.-Career:Feldkamp was born in Kiel. After completing his high school studies at the Gymnasium Carolinum in Osnabrück, he studied history, Catholic theology, teaching, and philosophy at the Rhineland Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Bonn...
, "Goldhagens unwillige Kirche. Alte und neue Fälschungen über Kirche und Papst während der NS-Herrschaft", München 2003, ISBN 3-7892-8127-1 (Book review) (Book review) (Book review) (Book review)