“The Vatican Has Learned Nothing.” That’s the title of a December 10 commentary that compares the Vatican’s stance on the brutal killing of Jews by Hamas on October 7 to its World War ii relationship with the Nazi regime. To most observers, the Vatican is standing idly by as Jewish life is threatened. But the Trumpet warns that it is worse than that.

The commentary, published on the website of Germany’s prestigious Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, notes:

Eighty years after the Holocaust, the silence of a pope is straining the relationship between Israel and the Vatican. And this pope is not called Pius xii. His name is Francis. Since the Hamas attack on Israel, the head of the Catholic Church has consistently avoided making a clear distinction between aggressor and victim.

Instead, the pope makes sweeping denunciations of “terrorism” in the Middle East conflict, apparently referring primarily to the Israeli side. Francis allowed the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem—the highest Catholic representative in Israel—to sign a statement from Christian churches unchallenged, which unilaterally blames Israel for the escalation of the conflict.

Author Thomas Jansen noted that the Vatican’s recent statements need to be considered in the context of “centuries of Christian anti-Judaism and the inglorious role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust.”

This is a sobering view of history. Many today, including sincere Catholics, may be unfamiliar with this history. But it is important to remember that in prior centuries, popes called for the conquest of Jerusalem, resulting in the butcher of Muslims and Jews. Have we forgotten the history of the Crusades? What about the Inquisition? By order of the Catholic Church, Jews were tortured to renounce their faith and punished if they reverted to it. In many cases, they were burned alive or otherwise killed.

This set the stage for much of the hatred toward Jews in Europe, which led to the Holocaust under the Nazi regime. In this regard, many point to Pope Pius xii’s “silence” toward the Holocaust. But the true history is much more sobering. Our reprint article “The Pope, the Vatican, the Holocaust” vividly shows that the Catholic Church, led by the pope, played a key role in getting Adolf Hitler elected, sustaining his power, and helping Nazis escape after the war. Recent revelations even show that Pope Pius had a secret channel of communication with Hitler himself. This is hardly “silence.”

Jansen also pointed to the Vatican’s failure to establish meaningful diplomatic relations after the Jewish state was founded. He made this shocking statement: “If it had been up to the Vatican alone, the State of Israel would not exist at all.” The chief proponent of a Jewish state, Theodor Herzl, brought his cause before Pope Pius x in 1904. According to Herzl’s diary, the pope responded by saying that the Jews had not recognized Jesus Christ as the Son of God, “therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people.” How many are aware of this history?

Jansen wrote, “Forty years later, in the summer of 1943, the Vatican informed Washington that Catholics would be ‘wounded in their religious pride’ if Palestine fell into Jewish hands.”

After the war, the Vatican tried to persuade Latin American states to vote against a Jewish state at the United Nations in 1947. “After the Vatican had been unable to prevent the founding of the Jewish state, it resorted to largely ignoring it,” Jansen noted. It took the Vatican until 1994 to establish diplomatic relations. “When the state of Palestine was granted observer status at the United Nations in 2012, the Vatican immediately embraced the concept” (ibid).

Jansen concluded: “What are all the noble words about the Jews being the ‘elder brothers’ of Christians worth if the pope effectively denies the only state in which Jews can live without hostility the right to self-defense?” That is a sobering question.

It is unusual to see a modern-day commentator making such connections between this proven history and the words and actions of the Vatican today. But the more you learn and understand about that church, the more you can recognize that such connections are entirely founded and appropriate.

The history of the Holy Roman Empire shows the close link between the Roman Catholic Church and the political power that has dominated the Continent of Europe. Biblical prophecy actually likens the church to a woman who is riding upon and guiding a beast.

This prophecy was revealed to the late Herbert W. Armstrong during the time of Adolf Hitler. I encourage you to read his free booklet Who or What Is the Prophetic Beast? It will help you understand this crucial prophecy, which is vital to recognize the reality of the relationship between this church and the Jewish state today.