Lecturer discusses anti-Semitism in Poland

About 20 students and professors filled Woodburn Hall's room 111 Thursday to hear a visiting scholar from the University of Michigan discuss the history of anti-Semitism in Poland's Catholic Church.\nThe Polish Studies Center sponsored Brian Porter's lecture, "The Search for Catholic Modernity: Anti-Semitism and the Boundaries of Catholic Discourse in Poland."\nBozena Shallcross, the Center's director and an associate professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, said the center has sponsored similar lectures for the past 25 years.\n"We maintain discussions of anti-Semitism as a light motif in our lectures," Shallcross said. "It is an ever-present topic in Polish studies."\nIn his brief presentation, Porter was careful to suggest that the focus of his research was on sociology rather than religious studies. He said he was not interested in vilifying or exonerating the Church's position in an anti-Semitic society.\nInstead, Porter stressed that neither Catholics nor Poles can be said to be anti-Semitic. He said every instance of anti-Semitism in Poland should not be viewed in isolation, and making generalizations about such a sensitive social trend can be dangerous.\n"People often associate the Church with rabid Polish nationalism," he said. "But until the 1930s, that connection did not exist."\nHe said the Church has a steady history of opposition to nationalism because of its nature as a universal institution. Authority ultimately comes from the pope in Rome, and, consequently, Porter said, Catholics are often torn between their allegiances to the Church and their national identity.\nPorter began the lecture by praising Pope John Paul II for his attempts to apologize for the vigorous anti-Semitism of the early 20th century. This, Porter said, is actually a completion of the circle that Catholic discourse has traveled since the 1870s.\n"At that time, Poles viewed anti-Semitism as a peculiarly German problem, that could never happen in Poland," Porter said. "Ten years later, when that problem began to emerge as a powerful political force in Polish nationalism it was immediately condemned by the Church."\nHe noted that the Church fathers recognized the inherent conflicts between divisive anti-Semitism and Christian ideals of love and brotherhood.\nPorter also drew attention to the Church's historical discomfort with modern thought.\n"The Church, while not a monolithic or static institution, has always been averse to change," he said. "The problem with anti-Semitism was that it was quintessentially modern and the conservative Church was wary of this."\nHe maintained that the Church was opposed to this shift until the early 1900s, until outside pressures prompted it to accept the principle that human communities are locked in a struggle for survival.\nPorter said anti-Semites posited the struggle as an eternal conflict and that the Church could agree with this because it didn't rely on concepts of modernity, such as Social Darwinism.\nPorter said that by the 1920s, pervading attitudes saw a struggle for earthly supremacy between the Catholic and Jewish communities. And while the Church continued to condemn the violence of anti-Semitic sentiment, Porter said it sometimes publicly acknowledged an "understanding" of its arguments and actions.\n But several audience members had problems with Porter's speech. They criticized Porter's conclusions, complaining he relied too heavily on weak assumptions about the nature of external influences on the Church. One man in particular asked why Porter did not discuss the popular origins of Polish and Catholic anti-Semitism, instead focusing on institutional rhetoric.\nPorter responded by saying that the basis for his data was grounded in such rhetoric because this illustrated the intangible nature of social phenomena.\n"What historians need to understand is that the Church itself was never a rabidly anti-Semitic institution," Porter said. "Just as the Church today condemns abortion and presents a unified Catholic front against it, many individual Catholics support or even practice abortion.\n"To repeat my earlier statement, historians should not talk of an anti-Semitic Church or an anti-Semitic Poland. This is a fallacy that only leads to misunderstanding and sometimes resentment."\nGraduate student Eunha Hoh said she attended the lecture because she is from Japan and somewhat unfamiliar with the concept of anti-Semitism.\n"I was interested in the subject, but I didn't really know what to expect," Hoh said. "I think I've come away with a greater understanding of the issues involved, though, and especially of their history"