`Catholic role' in Holocaust

Milwaukee - A Catholic Archbishop in the US has said be believes Catholics "contributed to the attitudes that made the Holocaust…

Milwaukee - A Catholic Archbishop in the US has said be believes Catholics "contributed to the attitudes that made the Holocaust possible", writes Patsy McGarry. Archbishop Rembert Weakland, of the Milwaukee diocese, told a Catholic-Jewish conference: "We Catholics, by preaching a doctrine that the Jewish people were unfaithful, hypocritical and God-killers, reduced the human dignity of our Jewish brothers and sisters and created attitudes that made reprisals against them seem like acts of conformity to God's will. By doing so, I confess that we Catholics contributed to the attitudes that made the Holocaust possible."

He said that "we must work together to reverse the Cain syndrome that has haunted the human race from time immemorial, but especially in these last centuries . . . "