CHAPTER
III
CRYPTOJUDAISM AND OPUS DEI
2. Secular Infiltration of
Crypto-Judaism in the Clergy
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The crypto-Jews did not simply submit to the laws of the Church with
ardour. They went much further. They took dissimulation to extreme
limits, to the point that many of them did not hesitate to enter and
swell the religious orders. In the ecclesiastical establishment there
were priests and bishops from Judaism who ostensibly practiced Catholic
religious practices and followed, simultaneously and in secret, the
Mosaic law.
Under their talar habits, under their cassocks and mitres, they kept in
their hearts, with zealous care, "the flame of the paternal religion
and undermined the foundations of the powerful Catholic monarchy"
according to the opinion of the famous Jewish historian Graetz.
It should not be forgotten that the Jewish converts considered the
ecclesiastical career as a way of integration, of scale and influence
in the Christian community. In fact, (38) the Spanish church
received a
copious Jewish contribution and already, in the time of Philip II, when
Cardinal Siliceo took possession of the Primate See, it was found that
"almost all the priests of the Toledo Archdiocese were of Jewish
descent and, in a single village, of fourteen clergymen, only one was
an old Christian". The same was true of the religious orders. Some of
these clerics and religious ended up at the stake, like the notorious
case of Fray García Zapata, prior of the convent of the
Hieronymites of Sisla who even celebrated the Jewish feasts inside the
convent itself.
It is evident that the Spanish Church was full throughout the 16th
century of personalities of Hebrew origin who clearly and emphatically
Judaized. Caro Baroja (39)
tells us that a prelate famous for his
rigidity and hardness, Don Diego de Simancas, narrates in his biography
that in 1568 "a great synagogue was discovered in Murcia, in which at
night a guardian of Saint Francis preached the Law of Moses, a Jew by
birth whose name was Fray Luis de Valdecañas". Don Diego de
Simancas saw the converts threatening Catholic unity.
The authorities of the time discovered with astonishment and stupor a
letter signed by Usuff, considered the head of the highest hierarchy of
the Jews of Constantinople, in response to a query made by the Spanish
Rabbi Chamorro, about the plan to follow, the way of acting and
behaving of the Spanish Jews and converts, the indications about their
external manifestations, their patterns of behavior in the Iberian
Peninsula. The text of the document sent to Chamorro through a secret,
secure and confidential channel was found and revealed to the public.
The anthropologist Mr. Julio Caro Baroja (40) has synthesized in five
points the extremes contained in the letter-order and that we summarize
synoptically:
1. Converting in appearance to Christianity
2. To devote themselves more insistently to trade,
to ruin the Christians
3. To practice medicine and pharmacy as well, in
order to kill Christians with impunity, if necessary.
4. Become Catholic priests to desecrate and destroy
religion and Christian temples
5. Entering into government positions to subjugate
oppressors and obtain various forms of revenge.
The instructions were carried out. The document is contemporary. A
historical analysis reveals the identity between the instructions given
and the degree of compliance with the order received in a perfect
setting, in a total osmosis.
A great number of confessors and preachers were of the Semitic race.
The Jews used the sacrament of confession as a privileged source of
information for the benefit of themselves and their race. Preaching
served them to gain notoriety and obtain canons and prebends, income
and honors, to make themselves known and to utter anathemas.
That is why Bataillon does not go astray when he assures us (41) that
it was men of the Jewish race who paved the way for the new moral and
mystical tendencies of such deep resonance in the Spanish spirituality
of the 16th century.
The ecclesiastical converts intravenously introduced their ideology
into the clergy if we consider the privileged situation of the clergy
at that time, which made their choice and adoption of the religious
state attractive and suggestive. It has been written that (42) "the
tendency of converts to enter the clergy was only one aspect of the
general aspiration of these people to comfortable, well-paid jobs of
sufficient social status to silence the inferiority complex that
tormented them".
The Book of Alborique accuses them of "stealing the churches, buying
the bishoprics, canons and the other dignities of Holy Mother Church,
taking orders from clergy, and not believing in the holy Catholic
faith, nor in the Mass they say". (43)
Although numerically they were more abundant in the lower clergy, it
was not rare, strange, or singular to find numerous cases of Jews and
converts sheltered and protected from prelates, members of the high
clergy, who shared affinities of race and former religion. The alarm at
the presence of these high ecclesiastical magistrates reached the
Vatican itself, which issued pontifical provisions prohibiting convert
prelates from being judges in matters of faith, in order to avoid
possible partiality in the trials. (44)
The high dignitaries were also caught judaizing, making evident their
condition of false converts, as, to cite an example, the Bishop of
Calahorra, Don Pedro Aranda, who ended up being demoted on November 16,
1498 and imprisoned in the Castle of Sant-Angelo for leading a double
religious life, with a cynicism and hypocrisy worthy of scandal.
The case of the Hieronymite friars, (45) the richest and most
influential at that time in Castile, deserves special attention;
although the converts swarmed through all the orders, in none did they
reach a number and characters of scandal as among the Hieronymite
friars. It is symptomatic that they preferred to take refuge in the
richest and best seen friars, those who, it is worth saying, were in
fashion in Castile. The practical spirit of the Hebrews never fails.
"They agreed to withdraw to it (the Hieronymite Order), many converts,
and since they are so cunning and the hypocrisy and ceremony from
outside, without respect for the truths from within, they began to
conceal themselves and keep themselves here for a long time and even
gain a name" if we follow the testimony that is reflected by Bro J. de
Sigüenza in his History of the Order of St. Jerome published in
Madrid in 1605.
In the monastery of Our Lady of Sisla, near Toledo, it is said that
things must not have been going very well, since the number of converts
in the Order was increasing day by day. There were cases like that of
Bro Alonso de Toledo who, in his spiritual contradiction and hell, with
a burning desire to Judaize, escaped twice, not finding or seeing any
way to get out of that permanent state of dissimulation and
uncertainty; or that of Bro. Juan de Madrid (who "had not joined the
friars except to keep the law of the Jews better"). The prior was Fray
García Zapata, a true Judaist who, together with the majority of
the community, among whom were also Fray Juan de Madrid and Fray
Jerónimo de Vilagarcía, celebrated the Jewish feast of
the Cabañuelas every year in September in the same Monastery.
(46) When he
said Mass, the prior did not consecrate and instead of the
words of consecration he said: "Sus, periquete, que te mira la gente".
Along with him, several friars would be relaxed by his mocking and
derision.
A brother of García Zapata, named Francisco Álvarez
Zapata, was a canon of the primate cathedral and a serious opponent to
the implementation of the Statute of Cleanliness in the diocese,
because of the account he had for it.
Following the Jerónimos, the Inquisition of Guadalupe had found
"this leprosy not only in the town, but even within the Monastery, in
Fr. (47) Things
got so bad that in 1486 the famous chapter took place
which denied entry to the Order to the converts and determined to make
an inquisition within the Order to punish the many culprits.
Another convent of the Order, that of San Bartolomé de Lupiana,
founded in 1456 by Fray Alonso de Oropesa, from the first moment was
suspected of housing Judaizers, which was confirmed when Fray Diego de
Burgos and Fray Diego de Zamora were discovered among many others.
In Aragon, Pedro de Almería, a Jew in the service of the Court,
converted to Christianity by entering the Cathedral of Huesca as a
canon between 1100 and 1104, receiving from Bishop Esteban the
almunia-monastery of San Pedro de Séptimo that the Jew Zavaxorda
had possessed, and then going on to become a canon in the Cathedral of
Jaca and from there to the monastery of San Adrián de Sasau. He
then emigrated and returned to Judaism. (48)
Another convert was Martin Garcia, son of Rabbi Azach Xuen who on March
17, 1507 was promoted to the first clerical tonsure in Huesca, entering
on the same date in the ecclesiastical state Juan de Baraiz, son of
"magistri Abraham Sustoris quodam civitatis Osce, noviter ad fidem
Christi conversus". (49)
The Fajol family, fachol, faxol or faiol,
which with the four spellings appears in the documents known between
the years 1468 and 1491 (50)
also gave clergymen in the area of upper
Aragon and the condemnations against them for judaizing in 1489 seem to
demonstrate the insincerity of their conversions to Christianity, which
would not be more than apparent. The converts were the canons Vicente
Gómez and Martín de Santángel, the latter
vice-president of Dean in Huesca Cathedral, in the first quarter of the
16th century, who paid for the chapel of Santa Ana, in the same
Cathedral, where the prayerful image of the prebendado in polychrome
alabaster is preserved.
The converts were able to occupy all public positions enjoying the same
prerogatives as Christians, both at the Court and among the
ecclesiastical hierarchies; thus we find converts at the Court of
Isabel the Catholic; Pedro Arias Dávila, major accountant and
royal advisor, to the advisor Pedro de Cartagena or of the queen's
secretaries, Fernando Alvarez, Alfonso de Acila and Fernando Pulgar,
being the confessor of His Majesty the crypto-Jew Hernando de Talavera,
since 1478 and finding marrano lineages in Juan de Macuenda, Bishop of
Coria; Alfonso de Valladolid, Bishop of Valladolid; Alonso de
Palenzuela, Bishop of Ciudad Rodrigo, Pedro de Aranda, Bishop of
Calahorra, Juan Arias Dávila, Bishop of Segovia...Jewish
influence is revealed even in the Queen's own marriage which was
arranged by a public Jew, Alfonso de la Cavalleria, and a converted
Abraham Señior.
The dominance of the Jewish-convert clan increased when her husband
King Ferdinand was widowed and continued to reign with Charles I, where
even the Bishop of Badajoz, head of the Royal Chapel, Pedro Ruiz de la
Mota, was a swine and the hegemony did not decrease in the time of
Philip II where even his own secretary, Antonio Pérez, were of
Jewish lineage and where the nobility, the hierarchy and the cabildos
were quite controlled by non-Christians, it is enough to cite as an
example the influential Cardinal Mendoza y Bovadilla or Diego Deza
himself, at that time Inquisitor General.
To protect from "leprosy" as it was said, statutes of blood cleansing
were implemented from 1515 in the Church of Seville and Badajoz, in
1530 in the Church of Cordoba -city mined by the converts- in 1566 in
Leon . And in the Orders there was another one, accepting as a
safeguard the statute of cleanliness since 1486 in the Order of the
Hieronymites, since 1489 in the Dominicans, since 1525 in the
Franciscans where it was said "that the new Christians ran over the old
ones pretending the total control of the Order, to return en bloc to
Judaism", or since 1593 in the Society of Jesus, where the number of
pigs was very high. (51)
For a better access to the ecclesiastical estate, the Jews resorted to
the trap of the traps, that is, SIMULARly abandoning the Jewish
religion, in order to falsely transform themselves into members of the
invaded people, falsely converting themselves to the religion of the
said people and changing their names (52) to the usual ones of
the
invaded people and the one they wanted to conquer, infiltrating them
and their Church like the Trojan horse.
The Holy Inquisition came to find secret archives within the walls, in
well-camouflaged basements and even in the basements of Christian
churches and convents controlled by the Jews infiltrated by the clergy
or even in the houses of bishops who enjoyed the reputation of very
good Christians.
Some authors (53)
consider that these Jews in cassocks is the worst
catastrophe that Christianity has suffered in all its history.
In the 17th century, the bachelor Juan López de Vilareal, priest
of La Redonda, diocese of Ciudad Rodrigo and priest of Riofrío,
diocese of Astorga, or Jacinto Vázquez Araujo, chaplain of the
Cathedral of Orense, was prosecuted for judaizing Jews, arrested in
1687, or the famous Felipe Godínez, priest of Seville who made
ostensible manifestations of cryptojudaism and came to write two
literary works, Queen Esther and The Harp of David, where he secretly
poured out Jewish proposals. (54)
The crypto-Jewish clergy, under "the veneer of a real Catholicism, hid
their true religious convictions in their hearts". (55) The structure
of the Catholic Church has been undermined from within, and from its
privileged positions it has been able to obtain comfortable, well-paid
jobs of undoubted social standing.
Also in the Order of St. Augustine, a Judaizing circle was discovered
in their convent in Seville and when the prior wanted to correct them
he was killed in 1536. (56)
To cite the most scandalous and Judaizing meanings of different
dioceses, such as the canon of Cordoba Pedro Fernandez de Alcaudete who
was sacrilegious, and his companion in the cathedral, Gomez Fernandez
Solano; the prior of the church of Santiago, Bartholomew Pordel; Miguel
Baeza, a benefactor clergyman of the Church of Baeza; the canon of the
Seo Leridana, Dalmay of Tortosa, who practiced superstition, always
carrying a Jewish payroll written in Hebrew and celebrating the Jewish
Passover; Superstition was also shared by the cleric of Calahorra,
Diego Sánchez, a necromancer and crypto-Jew; the cleric
García de Alava, arrested in Burbáguena for publicly
preaching the Law of Moses, or the priest Pedro López of the
Church of San Salvador in Cuenca, which was more like a synagogue than
a Christian temple, since Francisco de la Barrera, a priest of the same
church, was also a slaughterer who sacrificed animals according to the
Jewish rite.
The Inquisition, regardless of its meritorious performance, was the
target of infiltration by crypto-Jews. Previously we have alluded to
one of the General Inquisitors, Cardinal Deza, of Sephardic origin, but
he was not the only one of such condition. Other ecclesiastical
ascendancies in the Court of the Holy Office are found in Juan de
Torquemada, Cardinal of San Sixtus and of immediate Jewish descent,
being in many cases the Jews themselves those who took their
institutions of the Jewry, the Court of the Din; to the Christian
Inquisition, (57)
protecting false converts in some cases and punishing
mercilessly the group of converts who had strayed too far from the
Mosaic faith. Sometimes the excess of zeal hid or concealed the
condition that was to be covered up, on the part of the one who imposed
it.
The Jesuits were not exempt from the crypto-Jewish problem and the
blood of Israel flowed through the veins of many priests of the
Society, such as the Second General of the Society, founded by St.
Ignatius, Father Lainez, was of Jewish descent, as were many famous
Jesuits of all times.
The Jews and Jesuits, Caro Baroja (58) tells us, despite the
fact that
in history they have sometimes been seen in opposing camps, have
maintained very subtle links, which can be said to be drawn from the
views of the founder of the Society himself. St. Ignatius maintained a
position hostile to the statutes of cleanliness... he repeatedly said
that he would have considered it a special grace to come from the
lineage of Jews. So it should not be surprising, then, that among the
first and most effective collaborators were several converts; of this
lineage he was, as we have already noted, the second general of the
Society, Diego Lainez.
And next to the convert from Almazán stands Polanco, the son of
the wealthy family, also a convert from Burgos, who did not become the
fourth general of the Company due to strong pressure. It was not until
1593 that the statute of Cleanliness of Blood was introduced in the
Company and its incorporation was more a formal than a real procedure,
since it is known, on the other hand, (59) that in the middle of
the
17th century the sons of converts and even Judaists often studied with
the Jesuits, as is the case of Isaac Cardoso, called "the apologist of
Israel".
The Jewish infiltration of the clergy was a technique of conquest of
the Christian world that Jewish imperialism considered indispensable to
dominate its main stronghold, the Church of Christ (60), employing
various tactics, ranging from frontal attacks to infiltrations. The
favorite weapon of the fifth column was to introduce into the ranks of
the clergy young Christians of Jewish descent who secretly practiced
Judaism, so that once ordained as priests they would try to climb up
the hierarchy of the Holy Church, either in the secular clergy or in
the religious orders, so that they would then use the positions
acquired within the clergy to the detriment of the Church and to the
benefit of Judaism, its plans of conquest and its heretical or
revolutionary movements.
The fake crypto-Jewish Christian clergyman is carrying out, according
to the rabbinical criteria, a holy enterprise for his unavowable
interests. The fifth column in the clergy has been and is one of the
basic pillars of international Judaism.
The aims of the infiltration of crypto Jews into the clergy are clearly
explained in an interesting document that was publicized by Abbé
Chabauty and quoted by the Archbishop of Port Louis, Monsignor Meurin.
It is a letter from the secret leader of the international Jews, who
lived at the end of the 15th century in Constantinople, addressed to
the Hebrews of France, giving them instructions, in response to an
earlier letter that Chamor, Rabbi of Arles, had addressed to him
requesting them. The letter reads as follows: (61)
"Beloved brothers of Moses, we have received your letter, in which you
make known to us the anxieties and misfortunes which you are obliged to
endure, and we are penetrated with a pain as great as yours. The advice
of the greatest rabbis and satraps of our Law is as follows:
"You say that the King of France obliges you to become Christians;
well, do so, but keep the Law of Moses in your hearts.
"You say that they want to take away your goods; make your children
merchants, so that they may dispossess the Christians of theirs by
traffic.
"You say that an attempt is made on your lives; make your children
physicians and apothecaries, that they may deprive Christians of theirs
without fear of punishment.
"You say that your synagogues are destroyed; make your children priests
and canons, that they may destroy the Christian church.
"Ye say that they make an attempt upon your lives; make your children
lawyers, notaries, or members of other professions that are commonly in
charge of public affairs; by this means ye shall dominate the
Christians, take possession of their lands, and avenge yourselves upon
them.
"Follow this command we give you, and you will see by experience that,
however despondent you may be, you will reach the height of power.
"Signed V.S.V. E.F. Prince of the Jews of Constantinople to Casleus of
1489."
The reprobates were despised for their cynical adherence to Catholic
practices. Their disloyalty and insincerity were denounced. Tens of
thousands of new Christians submitted outwardly, went mechanically to
the Church, mumbled prayers, performed rites and observed customs, but
the spirit had not been converted. (62) They still
clandestinely kept
the Jewish feasts, ate their own food, kept their circles of Hebrew
friends restricted, and studied their ancient science and customs.
Amador de los Rios, the apologetic author of Judaism and Marranism,
points out how in Zaragoza "the converts considered themselves as
depositaries of the ancient culture of their elders and set their
sights not only on the minor offices of the republic, but also on the
ecclesiastical dignities". (63)
All Jewish historians admit and recognize that the converts reached
"exalted positions in the organization of the clergy" - Joseph Kastein
- to, according to the Enciclopedia Judaica Castellana that as "Daniel
Israel Bonafoy, Miguel Cardoso, José Querido, Mordecai Mojiaj
and others, defended Marranism as a method of undermining the
foundations of the enemy and as a means that contributed to making the
fight against it more elastic . to whom Queen Esther, who confessed
neither her race nor her birth, seemed to be her own prototype" -
Enciclopedia Judaica Castellana, Volume IV, word Spain
But don't think we're talking only in the past about something that
happened in the past, in a historical period or a chapter already
closed. In the present Church, cryptojudaism has a great presence and
power.
Cardinal Bea, of Israeli origin (Bea Ohim) and one of the great
architects of the Second Vatican Council, was to receive instructions
from the Heads of the Occult Power through the B`nai-B`rith, before
each session of the Council, in order to have them applied in the
Council. (64)
Pius XII himself had as his confessor the Jew Bea.
The present Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, Jean-Marie Lustiger, was born
Jewish, was educated in the synagogue and maintains an ambivalent
religious stance, being a clear favourite for the succession to the
Papacy of John Paul II. He is a contemporary Jew-convert, a crypto-Jew
who boasts of being "a French Jew" as his first evidence (65) and who
is "aware of his Jewish origin, if only because of my name Aaron. (66)
Also in the female clergy and in the 20th century the phenomenon of
cryptojudaism continues to occur, such as the daughter of Israel Edith
Stein, the Hebrew convert to Catholicism, a favourite disciple of the
philosopher Edmund Husserl and famous in Germany before becoming a
Carmelite. (67)
In Spain the most famous crypto-Jew of recent times is Jose Maria
Escriva de Balaguer, founder of Opus Dei, despite the fact that, as
Father Basilio Meramo (68)
confirms, "Judaism is against the Church and
has always been its enemy.
REFERENCES
38. Fernández Suárez, p 19.
39. Caro Baroja, p 118.
40. Ibid
41. López Martínez, p 49.
42. Ortiz, Dominguez, "Los cristianos nuevos", p 254.
43. López Martínez, p 113.
44. Ibid, p 114.
45. Sigüenza, Fray J., "Historia de la Orden de San
Jerónimo", Vol. III, (Madrid 1605) p 33.
46. Blánquez Miguel, p 191.
47. López Martínez, p. 118.
48. Gudiol, Antonio Durán, "La judería de Huesca"
(Zaragoza, 1984), p 31.
49. Ibid, p 88.
50. Ibid, p 91.
51. Rivanera Carlés, op cit.
52. Boyer, p 30.
53. Ibid, p 41.
54. Blánquez Miguel, p 236.
55. Ibid, p 190.
56. Ibid, p 192.
57. Formica, Mercedes, Diario ABC (March 23, 1969).
58. Wast, Oscar Hugo, "Jesuits, Opus Dei and Cursillos in
Christianity," op cit, p 18.
59. Ibid, p. 19.
60. Pinay, Maurice, "Complot contra la Iglesia" (pp 137-138, Spanish
Edition).
61. Ibid, pp 138-139.
62. Ibid, p 141.
63. Ibid, p 150.
64. The Jewish-Masonic action within the Council (1964).
65. Lustiger, Jean-Marie, "The Choice of God" (Madrid, 1989), p 16.
66. Ibid, p. 17.
67. Lelotte, F., S. J., "Converts of the 20th Century" (Madrid:
Studium, 1956), p 39.
68. Interviú" magazine, No. 780 (22-28 April, 1991), p 28.
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