Book Reviewed: Catholic Spectacle and Rome's Jews: Early Modern Conversion and Resistance by Emily Michelson

The savagery of the Roman Catholic Church A vast edifice of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholarship of the Roman Catholic Church was built on institutional records that portrayed it as a monolithic, uniform, and a successful religion. In this book, the author tackles antisemitism and mistreatment of Jewish population in Rome. Before 1555, Jews had lived in the city for centuries with periods of tolerance and hardship. They were allowed to practice Judaism, run small businesses, and had synagogues. The major turning point was when Pope Paul IV took over as the head of the church, and the proclaiming the Papal Bull of 1555 “Cum nimis absurdum,” which energized antisemitism. Jews were forced into a small ghetto, an overcrowded area near the Tiber River. It was walled, guarded, and locked at night. Jews were banned from owning property, practicing medicine on Christians, and holding most other professions. The Papal Bull intensified the church’s efforts to force Jewish conversion into Christianity, and allowed numerous intimidation tactics. The author focuses largely on the weekly church sermons and the way they were conducted. It was filled with hostility and theatrical zeal to assert Catholic identity, power, and global ambition. The author also highlights the Jewish resilience and community resistance like avoidance, passive resistance, formal petitions, and public protests. The sermons were staged weekly in public for roughly 250 years. Many of these events were held at the Oratory of Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini. Jews were marched under guard from the ghetto to sermon; policed, cataloged, and seated under Christian spectators. The church also organized mock processions to counter the solemn Jewish funeral march of mourners. Funerals were fraught with sadness and the threat of violence. These processions provided an occasion for Catholic church to intimidate large groups of Jews gathered together outside the ghetto. The book discusses the known case of disrupting Rabbi Tranquillo Corcos’s funeral with a satirical approach. The mock procession of local young Catholic men to counter the solemn Jewish funeral procession of mourners. At the head of the counter procession, the mock Corcos's coffin contained a live pig. The author could have focused more on Jewish chroniclers and Jewish leaders who fought against the overreaching authority of the Roman Catholic Church, and perhaps their perspectives of antisemitism. This book is an important investigative work that highlights the dangers of intolerance to minority religions like Judaism and Hinduism. Antisemitism is widely spread among Muslim population around the globe. The legacy media, the liberal politicians and the Left-wing groups are intensifying antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiments at an unprecedented level, and this make it possible the religious persecution of minority faiths.