Ed Stourton on the history of Catholics and Jews

Edward Stourton himself a Roman Catholic has produced two programmes for BBC Radio 4 on the history of the troubled relationship between Catholics and Jews. The first programme offered a good international perspective, starting with the Council of Jerusalem via the theology of St Paul and St Augustine, to England being the first European country to expel the Jews in the 12th centrury and the little recognised extraordinary flowering of Judaism in 16th and 17th century Poland. The first programme drew to a close by looking a the infamous Dreyfus case in France, how the Roman Catholic Church in France, Italy and Austria felt itself to be under attack from liberalism, which was seen as being the work of "the Jews". This was the Catholic Church in which the future Pope Pius XII grew up. Programme 2 next Sunday will look in more detail at the role of the Pope and the Catholic Church during the second world war.
For the next seven days you can listen again to programme one.