Edward H. Flannery (1912 – October 19, 1998) was a priest in the
Roman Catholic Diocese of ProvidenceThe Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence is a diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. The diocese was erected by Pope Pius IX on February 17, 1872 and originally comprised the entire state of Rhode Island and the counties of Bristol, Barnstable, Dukes and Nantucket in the state...
, and the author of
The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Antisemitism, first published in 1965.
Fr. Flannery was the first director of Catholic-Jewish Relations for the
U.S. Bishops' Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious AffairsThe U.S. Bishops' Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs is the principal ecumenical and interfaith organization of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops....
, a position he held from 1967 to 1976.
Flannery was born in
Providence, Rhode IslandProvidence is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island, and one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the estimated second or third largest city in the New England region...
, the son of a police officer. He studied at St.
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Edward H. Flannery (1912 – October 19, 1998) was a priest in the
Roman Catholic Diocese of ProvidenceThe Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence is a diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. The diocese was erected by Pope Pius IX on February 17, 1872 and originally comprised the entire state of Rhode Island and the counties of Bristol, Barnstable, Dukes and Nantucket in the state...
, and the author of
The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Antisemitism, first published in 1965.
Fr. Flannery was the first director of Catholic-Jewish Relations for the
U.S. Bishops' Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious AffairsThe U.S. Bishops' Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs is the principal ecumenical and interfaith organization of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops....
, a position he held from 1967 to 1976.
Early life
Flannery was born in
Providence, Rhode IslandProvidence is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island, and one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the estimated second or third largest city in the New England region...
, the son of a police officer. He studied at St. Charles College in Catonsville, St. Sulpice Seminary near Paris, and the Catholic University in Washington. He was ordained in 1937 and spent most of the next 30 years in the Diocese of Providence working as a pastor and chaplain as well as writing for the diocesan newspaper.
Work
Flannery devoted his life to the reconciliation of Christians and Jews, and to the study of antisemitism. In an interview in 1967, he said: "The anti-Semite, not the Jew, is the real Christ-killer. He thinks he's religious, but that's a self-delusion. Actually he finds religion so heavy a burden, he develops 'Christophobia.' He's hostile to the faith and has an unconscious hatred of Christ, who is for him, Christ the Repressor. He uses anti-Semitism as a safety valve for this hostility and is really trying to strike out at Christ."
Forms of antisemitism
Flannery traces antisemitism back to the 3rd century BCE. He identifies five strains:
- Political and economic antisemitism, giving as examples Cicero and Charles Lindberg;
- Theological or religious antisemitism, sometimes known as anti-Judaism;
- Nationalistic antisemitism, citing Voltaire and other Enlightenment thinkers, who attacked Jews for supposedly having certain characteristics, such as greed and arrogance, and for observing customs such as kashrut
Kashrut is the set of Jewish dietary laws. Food in accord with halakha is termed kosher in English, from the Ashkenazi pronunciation of the Hebrew term kashér , meaning "fit"...
and shabbatShabbat is the seventh day of the Jewish week and a day of rest in Judaism. Shabbat is observed from sundown Friday until the appearance of three stars in the sky on Saturday night...
;
- Racial antisemitism, as practised by the Nazis.
Flannery also was one of the 53 author's to respond to Simon Wiesenthal's novel
The Sunflower.
See also
- Antisemitism
- History of antisemitism
- New antisemitism
- Racial antisemitism
- Religious antisemitism
Further reading
- Flannery, Edward H. The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Antisemitism, first published 1965; latest edition Paulist Press 2004.