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KARL KEATING'S E-LETTER
TOPIC:
FR. FEENEY AND THE JEWS
Dear Friend of Catholic Answers:
In the 1930s and early 1940s Fr. Leonard Feeney (1897-1978) was known to the
public mainly as a writer of better-than-average poetry and of popular books
such as "Fish on Friday." From the late 1940s until his death he was known
instead for his rigorist interpretation of the maxim "extra ecclesiam nulla
salus" ("no salvation outside the Church"). Adherents to his interpretation
became known as "Feeneyites."
Ordered to stop teaching his interpretation, Feeney refused and was
excommunicated, not technically for teaching heresy but for disobedience. He
was reconciled to the Church before his death, and the excommunication was
lifted. Some of his followers have tried to construe the reconciliation as a
Vatican affirmation of Feeney's theology, but, since the excommunication did
not extend beyond a matter of obedience, the lifting of it did not extend
any further.
Feeney founded and headed the Saint Benedict Center, which was located
across the street from Harvard University. He organized a religious
association known as the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. After his
death his followers split into no fewer than eight factions, the chief of
which, still using the name Saint Benedict Center, is located in Richmond,
New Hampshire, just north of the Massachusetts border.
The web site for that group includes an essay attacking Msgr. Ronald Knox
(1888-1957). Knox, a convert from Anglicanism, was arguably the most
brilliant British Catholic writer of the twentieth century. The essay
attacking him can be read at:
www.catholicism.org/pages/knoxproblem.htm
I had seen the essay a long time ago, but it came to my attention again
recently when Traditionalist writers Hugh Owen and Robert Bennett used it to
argue, indirectly, for the young-earth theory.
They were writing against an article that had appeared in "The New Oxford
Review." That article had used a translation by Knox of Pope Pius XII's 1950
encyclical "Humani Generis," and the Traditionalists didn't like the
translation. This meant they didn't like Knox. To justify their dislike
further, they cited the Saint Benedict Center essay attacking Knox.
The essay is titled "The Problem of Monsignor Ronald Knox: A Painful
Post-Mortem" and was written the year after Knox's death. It carries no
byline, just a note that it is reprinted from the July 1958 issue of "The
Point," a publication that is not otherwise identified.
Wanting to learn more about "The Point," I did a Google search and found
another Feeneyite web site. It features the full run of "The Point":
www.fatherfeeney.org/point/point.htm
It turns out that "The Point" was a publication of the Saint Benedict Center.
Before I discuss what is found in that publication, let me back up half a
century. A friend of mine who lives in Boston was a teenager when Feeney and
his companions used to go to Boston Common to speak, as they did most balmy
weekends in the 1950s. Their public remarks were of the rabble-rousing
variety, so much so that the police always were on hand to protect Feeney
and his friends from the crowd.
The talks quickly achieved notoriety, not so much because they pushed the
Feeneyite take on salvation but because of the unrelenting Jew-baiting that
came from the platform. My friend remembers the Feeneyite speakers regularly
using terms such as "kike" when referring to Jews.
Over the ensuing decades the followers of Leonard Feeney have insisted that
neither he nor they were anti-Semitic, and they say the application of that
term to their founder and to themselves has been unfair.
One must acknowledge that, more often than not, the term "anti-Semite" is
bandied about carelessly and is applied to people who do not deserve the
title. Columnists Patrick Buchanan and Joseph Sobran come to mind, two
examples of prominent figures who unjustly have been accused of
anti-Semitism.
But sometimes the term is used aptly. What about in Feeney's case? We can
learn something from examining "The Point." This monthly was published from
1952 to 1959. It supplanted an earlier publication called "The Catholic
Observer."
I have not seen printed copies of "The Point," but the brevity of its text
leads me to conclude it was not printed in regular magazine format. Each
issue was about 2,500 words long--the equivalent of five single-spaced typed
pages. Some issues consisted of just one article. Some had a main article
plus one or more very short additional items.
Here are the main titles from the issues for 1957:
| January: | "Jewish Invasion of Our Country--Our Culture Under Siege" |
| February: | "When Everyone Was Catholic--The Courage of the Faith (Regarding the Jews) in the Thirteenth Century" |
| March: | "Dublin's Briscoe (Jewish Lord Mayor) Comes to Boston" |
| April: | "The Fight for the Holy City--Efforts of the Jews to Control Jerusalem" |
| May: | "Our Lady of Fatima Warned Us (About Jewish Communists)" |
| June: | "The Rejected People of Holy Scripture: Why the Jews Fear the Bible" |
| July: | "The Judaising of Christians by Jews--Tactics of the Church's Leading Enemies" |
| August: | "A Sure Defense Against the Jews--What Our Catholic Bishops Can Do for Us" |
| September: | "An Unholy People in the Holy Land--The Actions of the Jews" |
| October: | "The Jewish Lie About Brotherhood--the Catholic Answer--Israeli Brotherhood" |
| November: | "Six Pointers on the Jews" |
| December: | "The Price of Christmas in Mexico--Freemasons" |
You will note that the title of each issue, except for December's, includes
an explicit reference to Jews. The proportion is similar for the other years
in which "The Point" was published.
Leonard Feeney may be remembered today for insisting that "there is no
salvation outside the Church" (a true doctrine, by the way, if properly
interpreted), but it seems that in the 1950s he and his Slaves were
preoccupied with the Jews, to the point of obsession. They blamed Jews for
all sorts of ills: religious, political, social, and cultural. (They do not
seem to have blamed them for the Johnstown Flood.)
So far as I can tell, nowhere in "The Point" is there an explicit statement
that its writers hate Jews or wish them ill or think them mentally or
biologically "inferior." But does it take such attitudes to constitute
anti-Semitism?
I don't think so. Webster's defines anti-Semitism as "hostility toward or
discrimination against Jews as a religious or racial group." Certainly "The
Point" is packed with hostility--and unrelenting hostility at that. (I
invite you to read the articles for yourself.)
As I said, the most prominent of the Feeneyite offshoots is the Saint
Benedict Center. Its web site, www.catholicism.org,
reprints from "The Point" several articles concerning Jews or Jewish influence.
If you want to read the whole run of "The Point," you must go to the alternate web site,
www.fatherfeeney.org,
which is sponsored by some other organization (one
that does not otherwise identify itself).
That other organization is bluntly anti-Semitic. Its web site carries an
essay that claims, contrary to Catholic teaching, that "the Jews corporately
murdered Christ," that "the Jews all bear the guilt of the murder of
Christ," and that "the Jews are all cursed for their deicide." Not
surprisingly, the site also features the text of the "Protocols of the
Learned Elders of Zion," a document well known to be a forgery but
nevertheless used by the most extreme anti-Semitic groups worldwide.
So that is the other group. What about the Saint Benedict Center's current
stance on Jews? Its web site doesn't really say. Most of what is found there
has nothing to do with Jews, but what is said about Jews is never
complimentary.
Have the folks at the Saint Benedict Center--including old-timers who used
to join Feeney in Boston Common--renounced the anti-Semitism that used to
come from the mouths of Feeneyite speakers? Have they renounced the
anti-Semitism that was the chief note of "The Point" and therefore of the
Saint Benedict Center in the 1950s? Have they renounced the anti-Semitism
that appears at the web site of the other Feeneyite offshoot?
Not that I can determine. They have sidestepped such questions. They still
run articles from "The Point," and that suggests they are not overly
embarrassed about what appeared in that publication half a century ago.
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