From Dexter Van Zile
For Christians, Lent is supposed to be a time of self-reflection, compunction, and repentance, but that’s not how it’s turning out for Christians who seem to be having a tough time dealing with the stress caused by the COVID-19 crisis afflicting humanity.
Instead of putting their faith in God’s providence and interpreting their suffering through the lens of Christ’s time in the desert, these Christians are using the current crisis as an opportunity to promote hatred of the Jews.
The Dead Sea from Ein Gedi. (Photo: Dexter Van Zile)
Italian painter Giovanni Gasparro provided the most egregious example of this phenomenon on March 25, 2020, when he posted a photograph of a recent painting of his titled “The Martyrdom of St. Simon of Trento in Accordance With Jewish Ritual Murder.”
The painting, which was produced during late 2019 and early 2020, is a lurid and pornographic depiction of Jews preparing to kill an infant and take his blood. Writing in The Algemeiner, Ben Cohen reports that the painting depicts an accusation of Jewish ritual murder that has been repudiated by the Catholic church. The Blood Libel of Trent cost 15 Jews their lives.