The Evolution Or Innovation Of Papal Jewry Policy

Ghettoization: Evolution or Innovation of Papal Jewry Policy The Papal bull from 1555, Cum nimis absurdum, is the first legislation of the Papal States to require that all Jews live in an enforced ghetto. Scholars disagree on whether the ghettoization of the Jews was a natural evolution of previous anti-Jewish policy or an innovation of the early modern Catholic Church. Stow argues that the ghettoization of the Jews followed naturally from previous anti-Jewish policy, while Siegmund argues that ghettoization was a byproduct of the development of the parish in early modern Catholicism. The position Stow takes, is that the ghettoization of the Jews in Rome followed previous papal policy aimed at the conversion of Jews. The Popes immediately

Prior to Cum nimis absurdum, papal policy considered conversion and toleration two distinct issues. This was especially due to the theory that conversion was something that would be addressed during the Second Coming. Stow considers any conversionary efforts by previous popes to be peripheral to the papacy’s Jewry policy as a whole. In this context, then, Cum nimis absurdum reversed a centuries-long tradition, as Stow mentions, “In fact, by directing his entire Jewry policy toward actively seeking the mass conversion of the Jews, Paul IV had made a radical break with all of past papal Jewry policy, not only with the traditional interpretation of the doctrine of

According to Siegmund, the Catholic Church was the first early modern bureaucracy to respond to perceived threats of fluidity and mobility by becoming ‘territorially’ defined and it was during the Catholic Reformation that the parish received this new level of attention as the key territorial and social unit of the Church. It was through the parish itself that the Church would reach the people, with the local parish priest responsible for the administration of the sacraments. This meant that the boundaries of the parish had to be fixed; a canon from the twenty-fourth session of the Council of Trent, called for just that. For Siegmund, it is possible that the determination of the territorial boundaries of parishes led some to conclude that Jews shouldn’t live within the parish boundaries. In this context, Siegmund claims that the ghetto might have been imagined as a parallel to the parish, especially when considering the rule that the ghetto could only have one