Date and place: Friday, February 5, 12:00 p.m., Postupak Room, McGowan School of Business

Historian Rev. Kevin Spicer, C.S.C., James J. Kenneally Distinguished Professor of History at Stonehill College, will discuss the intersection of Christianity and antisemitism in Nazi Germany during a lecture at noon on Friday, Feb. 5, in the Postpupak Room, at King’s College. The lecture is this year’s “Donald Grimes Lecture.”

Father Spicer’s lecture, titled “Christian Antisemitism in Nazi Germany: A Deadly Combination,” is free and open to the public. The event is co-sponsored by the McGowan Center for Ethics and Social Responsibility and the Honors Program at King’s.  

In the late 19th and into the 20th century, the widespread attitude of Catholics and other Christians was that Jews were divinely destined to suffer and be on the margins of society. Father Spicer’s presentation will explore how this sentiment contributed to the growing power of racial antisemitism, making the lives of Jews in Europe more precarious. It was in this climate that Pope Pius X made the statement – roundly repudiated by Vatican II in the 1960s – that "we cannot concede Judaism any further validity."  

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