Collective Jewish guilt is a lie.

As we approach the Jewish High Holy Days, I write as a Catholic with a simple truth that should never need repeating but desperately does: The Jews did not kill Jesus.

Not then. Not now. Not ever.

This isn’t a matter of opinion or interpretation. This is historical and theological fact. Yet the false charge that Jews killed Jesus—called “deicide”—has been used to justify violence against Jews for centuries.

It’s time we face what this lie has cost us all.

The Historical Truth

Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem around 30 CE, and Pontius Pilate—the Roman prefect of Judaea—both presided over the trial of Jesus and gave the order for his crucifixion. This is not disputed by any serious historian.

Crucifixion was a Roman method of execution. Only Roman authorities had the legal power to order such an execution. The Jewish religious authorities of that time could arrest someone and bring charges, but they could not execute.

While certain leaders in the local Jewish community felt that Jesus’ teachings were politically subversive, experts have determined that Jesus was not perceived as particularly threatening to the Jews around him. The conflict wasn’t Jews versus Christians—Christianity didn’t even exist yet. Jesus was a Jew. His followers were Jews. This was a dispute within Judaism, not between religions.

Yet somehow, two thousand years later, we still hear this poisonous lie repeated.

How Deep the Poison Runs

For centuries, many Christians believed that Jews committed deicide by killing Jesus, and it was not until the late 20th century that some Christian churches condemned this charge as false.

The Catholic Church didn’t officially repudiate the deicide charge until 1965—when the Second Vatican Council explicitly stated that “what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today”.

Think about that. 1965. Less than 60 years ago, the Church officially declared what should have been obvious from the beginning: collective Jewish guilt is a lie.

The damage of centuries doesn’t disappear with one declaration. The allegation that the Jewish people killed Jesus is perhaps the oldest and most inflammatory conspiracy myth levied against Jews, despite the uniform agreement of historians and theologians that Jews are not responsible for the death of Jesus.

The Self-Feeding Cycle of Hate

Here’s what terrifies me about this lie: it creates a feedback loop of hatred that encompasses everyone.

The deicide charge leads to conspiracy theories about Jewish power and Jewish evil. Those conspiracy theories justify discrimination and violence. That violence reinforces the stereotypes. The stereotypes fuel more conspiracy theories. And the cycle continues, generation after generation.

Whatever people are unhappy about, they can map it onto Jews. One person blames Jews for making New York the capital of capitalism. Another blames Jews for killing Jesus. One motive is economic, the other theological, but they converge on Jews.

This is how hate works. It finds a scapegoat and then retrofits justifications. It doesn’t matter if those justifications contradict each other. What matters is having someone to blame.

When we believe lies about others, we poison ourselves. We become capable of cruelty we would have thought impossible. We abandon our own values in service of hatred that corrodes everything it touches.

Why We Must Read History

The deicide charge paved the way for the undermining and marginalization of Judaism. Early Christians argued that Jews repudiated this new faith because of their inherent maliciousness, rendering Judaism more than just a competing religion—it became a source of evil.

When Pope Urban II called for the liberation of Jerusalem in 1095, the biblical tropes of Jews as Christ killers and devils inspired Christian crusaders to slaughter thousands of Jews.

The Medieval blood libels—the grotesque accusation that Jews murdered Christian children to use their blood in rituals—emerged directly from the deicide charge. The first documented blood libel in 12th-century England blamed local Jews for killing a boy in a perverse re-enactment of Jesus’s crucifixion.

Martin Luther’s virulent antisemitism, Hitler’s Holocaust, pogroms across Europe, the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre—all of it traces back to the original lie that Jews killed Jesus.

History teaches us where lies lead. We have the receipts. We have the body count.

The Theological Truth

As a Catholic, I believe in the Catechism. And the sixteenth-century Catechism of the Council of Trent explicitly rejects the idea that Jews bear more guilt for Jesus’ crucifixion than non-Jews, stating that all who fall into sin are involved in this guilt, and that “this guilt seems more enormous in us than in the Jews”.

Read that again: Our guilt is greater than theirs.

Why? Because Jesus died for the sins of humanity. All of humanity. Every person who has ever lived or will ever live. His death wasn’t murder—it was sacrifice. It wasn’t inflicted on him by one group—it was embraced by him for all groups.

Only the Roman authorities had the legal power of execution as demonstrated by the specific Roman legal charge used to justify the crucifixion: Causa Maiestatis (the crime of lèse-majesté or treason). The Jewish authorities’ charge was blasphemy, which was not a capital offense under Roman law.

The Execution Sign: The sign placed on the cross, INRI (Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum—Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews), also confirms the Roman legal basis for the execution. Crucifixion was reserved for rebels, slaves, and pirates—those seen as a threat to the state’s order. Jesus was executed as a self-proclaimed “King of the Jews,” a direct challenge to the authority of the Roman Emperor.

Pope Benedict XVI wrote that when Matthew describes the crowd saying “His blood be upon us and on our children,” Christians should remember that Jesus’ blood “does not cry out for vengeance and punishment; it brings reconciliation. It is not poured out against anyone; it is poured out for many, for all”.

So this isn’t some progressive reinterpretation. This is core Christian theology, rooted in scripture and tradition.

The Modern Mutation

The deicide charge hasn’t disappeared—it’s mutated. The same wrongful accusation and imagery connected with Jews as Christ-killers has been recycled.

Ancient hatred finds new disguises. The lie persists because hatred is easier than truth, and scapegoating is easier than accountability.

Just weeks ago at Charlie Kirk’s funeral, Tucker Carlson repeated the gospel stories about the Jews murdering Jesus. In 2025. In America. From someone with a massive platform.

This isn’t ancient history. This is happening now.

Wake Up to Original Truths

We live in an age of conspiracy theories and alternative facts. Everyone has their own truth, their own narrative, their own version of reality.

But some things are just true. Objectively, historically, theologically true.

The Jews did not kill Jesus. The Romans executed him. And in Christian theology, his death was a willing sacrifice for all humanity’s sins—not the crime of one people.

Believing conspiracy theories doesn’t make you a truth-teller. It makes you someone who chooses comforting lies over uncomfortable facts.

And when those lies target a specific group of people, when they justify hatred and violence, when they echo the same propaganda that led to pogroms and genocide—you’re not a truth-seeker. You’re a participant in evil.

The Corrosive Emotions

Hatred isn’t a discrete emotion. It’s a poison that spreads.

When we hate others for a lie, we hate ourselves for believing it. When we scapegoat others for our problems, we abdicate responsibility for solving them. When we dehumanize others, we diminish our own humanity.

The deicide charge doesn’t just harm Jews. It harms Christians who believe it. It corrupts our faith, distorts our theology, and makes us complicit in evil.

Self-hate and other-hate are two sides of the same coin. You cannot build a healthy society on hatred of any group. You cannot practice authentic Christianity while clinging to lies that justify violence against Jews.

As the Holy Days Approach

-Rosh Hashanah (New Year): This is the Day of Judgment, beginning the Ten Days of Repentance.
-Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement): This is the day of fasting and sincere repentance, the holiest day of the Jewish year, when one’s fate is sealed in the Book of Life.
-This is the Jewish calendar’s period of Atonement and Accountability (Teshuvah). Jewish tradition calls for personal accountability and turning toward a better path during this time.

…So too must Christians reflect, repent and commit to a truthful future.

As our Jewish brothers and sisters prepare for their most sacred days—as a Catholic I say sorry:

I’m sorry for … the centuries of persecution justified by this lie; that my Church took until 1965 to officially reject it; and, that in 2025, people still spread this poison.

More than apology, I offer truth.

Because silence is complicity. And after everything history has taught us about where this lie leads, we have no excuse for silence.

When you hear someone spreading this lie—whether explicitly or through dog whistles and innuendo—speak up. Correct them. Refuse to let the lie stand unchallenged.

What We Owe Each Other

We owe each other truth. Not comfortable lies, not tribal mythologies, not hatred disguised as faith.

We owe each other the courage to face history honestly, to read our sacred texts carefully, to think critically about what we’ve been taught.

We owe each other the humility to admit when we’re wrong and the strength to change.

And we owe each other the basic human decency of refusing to participate in hatred, regardless of how ancient or how normalized that hatred might be.

The Jews did not kill Jesus. Read history. Study theology. Reject conspiracy theories.

Then maybe—just maybe—we can break the cycle of hatred that has poisoned us all for far too long.

KJS 9.25