Date of Award
Spring 2022
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Theological Studies (MTS)
Abstract
When I began the MTS program in the Fall of 2016, the first class I took was entitled, “The Nature and Mission of the Church.” In this class we discussed many documents from Church history, especially those from Vatican II, which have heavily influenced the ideas, thoughts, and teachings of the Catholic Church today. One of the documents we read was Nostra Aetate, the declaration on the relation of the Church to non-Christian religions. While I read this document, I thought about how we do not often talk about the Shoah in the Catholic Church, from a Catholic perspective. I attended Catholic grade school, and I do not recall discussing the Shoah in religion class, only in history class. As an undergraduate during my time at St. Norbert, I also had taken the class “Judaism and Christianity: The Holocaust” in which we discussed both the Jewish and Christian theological perspectives of the Shoah – those prior to, during, and after the Shoah – in relation with one another. Since Jews were the most targeted group during the Shoah, and since the Catholic Church has its roots in Judaism, I find it problematic that we do not regularly discuss the atrocity of the Shoah in religion classes, homilies, faith formation and so on.
Recommended Citation
Pfantz-Hokamp, Elizabeth M., "The Rise of Antisemitism Today, the Catholic Church, and the Shoah: A Lesson Plan" (2022). Master of Theological Studies Theses (campus only). 28.
https://digitalcommons.snc.edu/mtstheses/28
