Juan Manuel de Prada, the Russian and Hamas massacres, and the 'nebula of oblivion'

Last Saturday, writer Juan Manuel de Prada published an article in ABC outlining which massacres should concern Catholics.

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In his article, Juan Manuel de Prada stated:

"Undoubtedly, in the Polish John Paul II and the German Benedict XVI the influence of the trauma to which we have referred in previous installments acted like a burden on their consciences; since, without having participated in it, both were contemporaries and witnesses of the Nazi persecution of the Jews, which translated into a markedly deferential and sensitive attitude towards them that sometimes led to rhetorical excesses or even to very questionable theological nonsense."

Later, the author also accuses both popes of "Jewish proclivity", but without explaining the basis for this ugly accusation. Likewise, De Prada also does not specify what "rhetorical excesses" or theological confusions he attributes to these two great popes in relation to the Jews. Of course, many good things can be highlighted from the pontificates of Saint John Paul II and Benedict XVI, and one of them was, precisely, the firmness with which they condemned anti-Semitism, a scourge that was fueled for centuries by many Christians, with historical effects as savage as the Holocaust.

I find it hard to understand how a Catholic could criticize two popes in such a vague way, leveling serious accusations against them that he doesn't bother to specify, but to be honest, knowing the author of the text, this is no surprise. Furthermore, at the end of his article, De Prada speaks of "aberrant massacres" against which a Catholic must act, massacres that "mysteriously, have been shrouded in the nebula of oblivion". The writer specifies these massacres to which a Catholic "must pay special attention, rather than the past massacres in which present generations had no fault."

De Prada begins by mentioning "the slaughter of innocents in their mothers' wombs", which seems fine to me, and then adds "the silent massacres of Catholics that Islamist groups (usually promoted and even sponsored by Anglo-Zionism) are perpetrating in various suburbs of the Atlas." It should be noted that many of the Islamist massacres are not only against Catholics, but also against members of other Christian denominations. Attributing these massacres to "Anglo-Zionism" is, quite simply, a lie, a deception that cannot be excused by the fact that this writer has a pathological hatred towards Israel and the Anglo-Saxon countries.

Furthermore, the Basque writer instructs Catholics in this way: "Among these very current massacres that should challenge Catholics much more than the past massacres with which they are trying to traumatize them, there is, of course, the massacre that the Palestinians are suffering."

I find this very curious. In almost two years, Juan Manuel de Prada has missed numerous opportunities to criticize the savage Hamas pogrom of October 7, 2023. In the article in question, he briefly refers to it as an "attack", but does not call it a "massacre." Let us remember that two days after that anti-Semitic massacre, De Prada published an article in Abc in which he did not dedicate a single word to the 1,400 people murdered or the 252 kidnapped, the vast majority of them Jews, horrendous crimes in which entire families were massacred at the hands of Hamas.

Likewise, it must be remembered that Juan Manuel de Prada openly justified the Russian invasion of Ukraine, an unprovoked invasion and without any justification. In August 2022, that writer predicted "suffering" for Europeans due to the sanctions against Russia, without issuing even the slightest criticism of the atrocious crimes perpetrated by the invaders in Ukraine. So far, De Prada has not dedicated a single line to massacres like those in Bucha, Izyum and Chaplyne, three examples of war crimes perpetrated by the Russians, among whose victims were men, women and children, in many cases handcuffed.

In fact, since she is (rightly) concerned about the Palestinians, De Prada could have denounced the war crimes committed by Hamas by using Gaza civilians as human shields, digging tunnels under their homes in which it still holds dozens of hostages, and using schools and hospitals to launch indiscriminate attacks against the civilian population of Israel, thus turning these civilian installations into legitimate targets under international law.

I am still waiting (sitting down) to read a criticism of you in that sense, because up to now you have not written one, which has a certain logic, even if it is a perverse logic: recognizing these crimes by Hamas would imply pointing the finger at the true culprit of the deaths of those civilians, and that would spoil their particular campaign to demonize the State of Israel, a campaign that began - I repeat - two days after that democratic country, the only one in the Middle East where Christians enjoy genuine religious freedom, suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history and the greatest massacre suffered by the Jewish people since the Holocaust.

Honestly, reading that writer's instructions to Catholics about what should concern us morally, and seeing the "nebula of forgetfulness" that seems to cloud that gentleman's selective memory, I can only say that Juan Manuel de Prada's moral authority to speak of massacres is comparable to that of all the other admirers of Vladimir Putin's Russia. That is to say, none. I am sincerely fed up with someone so biased and who turns a blind eye to the crimes suffered by the citizens of Ukraine and Israel having the nerve to, in addition, give us moral lessons.

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Photo: Fundación Cajasol.