While it is true the Catholic Church has always rejected, which is necessary and unsurprising, unjust reprisals against Jews or extrajudicial violence perpetuated by Christians against the same, once chosen people, the central issue is that John Paul II considered “erroneous and unjust interpretations” what were, in fact, established truths derived from Scripture and Tradition.

Various papal proofs, the unanimous witness of the Church fathers and 2,000 years of Catholic theology and catechisms all make clear—drawing from the above sources, namely Matt. 27:25—the 1) unique role and responsibility the Jews had in the crucifixion, their 2) being rejected (though, not absolutely) for this infidelity by Jesus Christ and 3) their laboring under a curse as punishment, as an unbelieving corporate body and religion, which continues to the present day.

— This is evidenced by John Paul II’s address in the Roman Synagogue on April 13, 1986. After exonerating the Jews, as a corporate entity, as a people—followers in solidarity with leaders—from any special responsibility (note: he does not say “all Jews”) in the Passion, he said “It is not permissible to say, despite the Church’s awareness of her own identity, that the Jews [sic] are ‘reprobate or accursed,’ as if this were taught [sic], or could be deduced [sic] from the Sacred Scriptures, both the Old and the New Testament”.