"It is a fact that Jews are at odds with the Catholic Church, that they persist in free thinking and that they are instigators of ungodliness, bolshevism and subversion. It is a fact that Jews are swindlers, money-lenders and profiteers . . ."
Those strongly anti-Semitic sentiments were expressed in a 1938 address by the then Polish Cardinal and Primate August Hlond. Such views were not isolated ones but rather the expression of a profoundly anti-Semitic trend in Catholic teaching dating at least from medieval times and one which was formally rejected only in 1965 with the Vatican II document, Nostra Aetate (In Our Times).
This not only removed prayers for the "sins of the Jews" but also definitively rejected the lingering concept of the collective guilt of the Jews for the murder of Christ.
Partly in an attempt to understand the religious roots of such anti-Semitism in Catholic teaching, a three-day symposium opens today in the Vatican. Due to be attended by 60 Catholic theologians, by Vatican cardinals and by representatives of Protestant and Orthodox Christian churches, it is entitled simply "Roots of anti-Semitism in the Christian Community".
This week's symposium forms part of an ongoing process of mea culpa or contrition expressed by Pope John Paul II, not merely for past wrongs to Jews but also for other dark pages in Catholic Church history. As the church prepares for the millennium celebrations, the Pope has called for a purification of the Catholic memory with special emphasis on anti-Semitism in 1997, on the medieval and Spanish Inquisitions next year, and in 1999 on the extent to which the church has absorbed the teachings of Vatican II.
If relations between Catholic and Jew have much improved in the 32 years since Nostra Aetate, a large part of the credit must go to the present Pope. Not only has he often asked forgiveness for past Catholic sins against Jews, but he has also made highly significant and symbolic pilgrimages such as his 1979 visit to the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz and his 1986 visit to Rome's Jewish synagogue.
It was during the latter visit that the Pope used a famous phrase when referring to Jews as "our elder brothers".
The establishment of full diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Israel in 1994, despite disagreements over the future of Jerusalem and the Middle East, represented another major step forward in relations between Catholic and Jew.
The spirit of contrition towards the "Jewish brother", promoted by Pope John Paul II, recently found expression in the public act of contrition by French Catholic bishops for the church's silence during the deportation of 76,000 Jews from France to concentration camps.
It is difficult to predict the nature of the final document to be drawn up by this week's symposium. It may fall short of the expectations of Jews worldwide, who have often called for a Vatican document, even an encyclical, on the Holocaust.
Many Jews still remain sceptical about Pope Pius XII's quasi-silence during the war-time extermination of six million Jews in Nazi concentration camps. The Vatican has always rejected such accusations, arguing that Pius XII saved many lives by working quietly behind the scenes.
Monsignor Rino Fisichella, one of the symposium organisers, perhaps indicated the direction likely to be taken by this week's meeting when stating recently: "We will be concentrating on the religious aspects (of anti-Semitism), analysing those parts of the Gospels which may have paved the way for mistaken teachings and anti-Semitic actions . . . We will remain in an area that is not political, economic, social or cultural. Our expertise concerns the religious sphere."