Anti-Defamation League Alleges St. Joseph was Anti-Semitic
Newly-appointed
spokesman for the division on inter-religious surveillance of the
Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Ikan Akuse, announced in a press conference today that the ADL
has concluded that the foster father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, St. Joseph, was
in fact an unrepentant anti-Semite. “All of the
modern scriptural exegeses and historical research is converging on this
conclusion that the figure of the Christian narrative called Joseph was
anti-Semitic. The evidence is irrefutable and overwhelming.”
When asked by reporters to give an example of the evidence, Mr. Akuse said that according to the Christian Gospels, Joseph did not oppose the practice of stoning Jewish women who were found to be with child before marriage. When faced with an objection that the Gospel account indicates that Joseph attempted to avoid this penalty for his espoused, Mary, by putting her away quietly, Akuse responded: “Irrelevant! He was willing to slur the reputation of a Jewish woman by divorcing her quietly. He also remained silent in the face of a judicial system that executed Jewish women. In this sense he is the clear intellectual predecessor of Pope Pius XII.”
Another reporter asked how Joseph could be considered anti-Semitic since he was Jewish himself. Akuse dismissed such an objection as a “mere technicality.” He concluded that the ADL would no longer tolerate the reference to a figure “who has been the source of inspiring hatred and injustice for centuries.”
Assistant to the usual Vatican Spokesman, Sister Iware Biznisuits, replied to the ADL claim with a statement that confirmed the Vatican would be launching a full scale investigation of the charge and would take immediate and appropriate action if St. Joseph were found to be an anti-Semite, which could involve posthumous excommunicating St. Joseph for anti-Semitism. A-CNN has contacted a canon lawyer who was considering whether St. Joseph’s status as Patron of the Universal Church would exempt him from such a possible legal action. “It is unclear,” the canonist, who wished to remain anonymous, said “if the New 1983 Code of Canon Law would recognize this designation of Patron of the Universal Church. In any event, most legal scholars have recognized an anti-Semitic exception to all parts of the New Code which would render null all defenses to a canonical criminal charge for any accused who is alleged to be anti-Semitism.”
Sister Biznisuits went on to say that the Vatican Commission for the Investigation of Mythical Saints may have a solution to the dilemma. Recent research, she said, “indicates that St. Joseph may—like St. Philomena and St. Christopher—be a mere myth of history.”
She went on, “We have been independently considering eliminating St. Joseph from the Church as historical evidence indicates he may be merely the creation of early Christian mythmakers hoping to add a third character to the Christmas fairy tale. The Commission indicated the most recent studies conclude that since the Gospels never mention Joseph’s death, he obviously could never have lived.
The Catholics Feminist Union applauded this announcement and indicated that once the Christ Child was recognized in fact to have been female their primary demands relating to the Christmas story would be met. “We would then move on to the next level issue of properly recognizing the Magi to have been Queens, not Kings.” The Society of St. Pius 1¼, a sedevacantist group that is a split twice removed from the Society of St. Pius V, stated that although they regretted this possible move against St. Joseph it would strengthen their position that his name should not be included in the Canon of the Mass.
Sister Biznisuits concluded her remarks by stating that if anyone could actually find and communicate with St. Joseph and if he signed a preamble unambiguously endorsing the new orientation of Nostra Aetate, the Vatican might be able to drop the entire investigation and even formally recognize his existence. She reaffirmed “the Vatican’s immemorial commitment to Catholic-Jewish dialogue in the spirit of Nostra Aetate and as such would continue to accede to whatever requests the ADL will make as a result of the ever evolving process of dialogue whose end nobody can foresee as the spirit of the new openness is further unpacked.”