(OSV News) — Bishop Oscar Cantú of San Jose, California, expressed “solidarity with our Jewish brothers and sisters” on behalf of the Catholic faithful and called for prayers, following a recent antisemitic display at a local high school.
On Dec. 3, a photo emerged on social media showing eight teens forming a “human swastika” on the football field at Branham High School in San Jose.
The image — posted to an Instagram account bearing the first and last name of a Branham student — was captioned with an antisemitic quote from Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, according to a Dec. 5 article by The Jewish News of Northern California, which was the first outlet to report the incident.
The Jewish News article included a screenshot of the now-deleted post, with the teens’ faces digitally redacted. The caption — autotranslated by Instagram from the original German into English — was taken from Hitler’s Jan. 30, 1939, speech before the Reichstag (German parliament), and denounced the “international financial Jews inside and outside of Europe,” whom he blamed for starting World War I.
The quote included Hitler’s description of himself as “a prophet” and his claim — made amid his ongoing efforts to spark international conflict — that “the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe” was imminent.
Under Hitler, the Nazi regime and its collaborators systematically murdered some 6 million European Jewish persons during the Shoah, the preferred Hebrew term for the Holocaust, between 1933 and 1945.
In 1920, the Nazi party formally adopted the swastika, an ancient symbol found in several cultures, as an emblem of both “Aryan identity,” German nationalism and racial “purity.”
Bishop speaks out
In his statement, which was issued Dec. 11 and posted to the diocesan website, Bishop Cantú said he was “deeply saddened and disturbed” to learn of the incident at Branham.
“The swastika is not a joke or a harmless symbol; it represents a murderous ideology that sought to exterminate the Jewish people and caused unspeakable suffering to millions,” said Bishop Cantú. “To invoke this symbol today, especially in a school setting, wounds our Jewish neighbors and reopens painful historical trauma.”
California law prohibits the display of the Nazi swastika (also known as the Nazi Hakenkreuz, or hooked cross, “for the purpose of terrorizing a person.”
Bishop Cantú stressed that “antisemitism is a grave sin against God and against the human family.
“It stands in stark contrast to our faith in Jesus Christ, who calls us to love our neighbor, to uphold the dignity of every person, and to stand firmly against hatred in all its forms,” he said.
Church teaching
Recently, extensive Vatican commemorations marked the 60th anniversary of “Nostra Aetate” (“In Our Time”), the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, in which the church affirmed its spiritual patrimony with Judaism and formally denounced antisemitism “directed against Jews at any time and by anyone.”
Specifically, the Vatican declaration stated that Christ’s passion “cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today,” and that “the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures.”
Branham principal Beth Silbergeld, who is Jewish, condemned the students’ swastika display and its accompanying quote, telling parents that the incident is under investigation.
Robert Bravo, superintendent of the Campbell Union High School District, pledged his office would “respond firmly, thoughtfully, and within the full scope allowed by Board Policy and California law.”
“I ask all Catholics, and all people of goodwill, to join me in prayer for the Jewish community, for those directly harmed by this incident, and for a true conversion of hearts wherever prejudice and ignorance have taken root,” said Bishop Cantú. “May our schools and communities always be places where every child is safe, respected, and cherished.”
Gina Christian is a multimedia reporter for OSV News. Follow her on X @GinaJesseReina.
