Original sin and involuntary baptism

Essential to Christian belief is the concept of “Original Sin,” Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. The two first humans, as the Bible tells us, were punished by being expelled from Eden. They and all of their posterity were thereby damned by God. For anyone to succeed in achieving Salvation, two requirements needed to have been met: belief in the Trinity (Paul’s “salvation by faith”) and baptism in the names of that Trinity.

In the Catholic doctrine, only the ordained priest is authorized to perform the rite of baptism. In exceptional situations where no priest is available, the Church allowed any lay Christian to perform a baptism and, indeed, highly commended him or her for doing so. In the Middle Ages when the Church and its popes were endowed with an abundance of political power, missionary work on the Jews extended so far as to force the synagogue and its worshippers to listen to sermons given by Christian clergy; sermons whose sole purpose was to persuade the Jewish congregation that unless they were baptized they would all wind up in Hell. The litany about the tortures of Hell was hair-raising. We have much documentary literature about these conversionary sermons to justify the phrase “hair-raising.” In one of his writings, James Joyce (“Ulysses”) recalls the nightmare of Hell as described by his own priest.

If I were to write a book on the subject of the forced baptism of Jews, its title would be “Nightmare.” You will find much of this nightmare in “Constantine’s Sword” by James Carroll, which I regard as must reading.

At 8 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 2, I will give the last of my three lectures on Jewish historical affairs. The first was on the Dreyfus Affair. The second was on the Damascus Affair. Next Wednesday at Beth Shalom, 95th and Wornall, the topic will be “The Mortara Affair,” which involved the involuntary baptism of a 1-year-old Jewish boy by his pious Catholic nurse.

The story is unbelievable. It should be heard by everyone who wishes to have a better understanding of Jewishness, both past and present.

Trackback(0)

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Write comment