I don’t usually share hate mail, but this the first time we’ve received a Yiddish curse via our contact form on Catholicism.org, and it somehow seems worth noting. This came in the digital mailbag last night:
The Jewish Nation will Enter the Church. No, it will not. You have a lot of chutzpah. That is antisemitic claptrap. Just FYI:
“As a newly-ordained priest, the young Father Maximilian offered his first Holy Mass at that side altar in Sant’Andrea delle Fratte where Alphonse Ratisbonne was converted.”
The purpose of hyphenation is to increase clarity. The hyphen between newly and ordained is completely unnecessary, as there is no possible confusion that could result by leaving it out. Inserting a hyphen where it’s not needed is like adding an exclamation mark when there’s no interjection or exclamation. It’s not an oversight, it’s an error.
“Do not use the hyphen to connect an adverb ending in ly with a participle in such phrases as newly married couple, elegantly furnished house,” says The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage.
Yiddish curse: Zoln dayne beyner zikh brekhn azoy oft vi di Aseres-Hadibres.
According to Gemini 2.5 Pro, this is indeed a Yiddish curse, which translates to:
“May your bones break as often as the Ten Commandments.”
It’s a good thing I’m not superstitious. I think I’ll survive.
Of course, she’s right about the grammatical point. I’ve corrected the piece accordingly. I have no idea why I would have put that hyphen there.
It’s intriguing that our malefactor calls our belief in the eventual mass conversion of the Jews “antisemitic claptrap.” She should read Luther. He didn’t believe in it, and he really hated the Jews with a profoundly irrational hatred. Below is brief excerpt from a piece I wrote called, Charity for Gentiles and Jews, where the great heresiarch is quoting dismissing the future conversion of the Jews, and giving his reasons, which are clearly “antisemitic” in the literal meaning of that much overused word (which means biological determinism):
Father Pohle, in his volume on Eschatology (pp. 105-106), explains:
From this text [of Romans 11, which I’ve just cited] it may with reasonable certainty be concluded:
(a) That the majority of nations, or at least the majority of the people of all nations (plenitudo gentium), will embrace Christianity before the end of the world;
(b) That, after the general conversion of the “gentiles,” the Jews, too, will accept the Gospel.
Though these propositions by no means embody articles of faith, it requires more than such antisemitic scolding as was indulged in by Luther to disprove them. The Apostle expressly speaks of a “mystery,” and ascribes the final conversion of the Jews, not to the physical or mental characteristics of the Semitic race, but to a special dispensation of God’s “mercy.” Luther overlooked both these factors when he wrote: “A Jew, or a Jewish heart, is as hard as wood, stone, or iron, as hard in fact as the devil himself, and hence cannot be moved by any means. … They are young imps condemned to Hell. … Those who conclude from the eleventh chapter of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans that the Jews will all be converted towards the end of the world, are foolish and their opinion is groundless.”
Father Pohle is not alone among Catholic authors in censuring Luther’s anti-Jewish diatribe on Romans 11. Father Ferdinand Prat, in his masterful two-volume The Theology of St. Paul (vol. I, p. 266) takes umbrage with the same passage from the apostate Augustinian, and broadens his criticisms to Luther’s fellow heresiarchs: “If the leaders of the Reformation refused to believe in the ultimate conversion of the Jews, it was only on account of the dogmatic prejudices. … Modern Protestants have, on the whole, returned to a better exegesis of St. Paul, whose teaching is wholly unambiguous.” Father Prat’s many scholarly pages on Romans 9 to 11 are a must-read for those seriously interested in the teachings of St. Paul on Israel and his relationship with the Church.
If St. Paul is “wholly unambiguous” on the subject of the eventual mass conversion of the Jews, it seems to me that the Fathers of the Church were, as well — at least an impressive number of them. I’ll cite but one passage, from St. Cyril of Alexandria’s Commentary on Genesis, Bk. 5: “Towards the end of time, Our Lord Jesus Christ will effect the reconciliation of His former persecutor Israel with Himself. Everybody who knows Holy Scripture is aware that, in the course of time, this people will return to the love of Christ by the submission of faith . . . Yes, one day, after the conversion of the Gentiles, Israel will be converted, and the Jews will be astonished at the treasure they will find in Christ.”
