'Constantine's Sword' Cuts Into Anti-Semitism

April 20, 2008 — -- Call it coincidence or providence. A new documentary about Christian anti-Semitism that has drawn the ire of some Catholic groups premiered Friday in New York -- the same day Pope Benedict XVI visited a synagogue on the city's Upper East Side.

The film, "Constantine's Sword," in which former Roman Catholic priest and author James Carroll traces the violent history of the Christian faith, takes Pope Benedict XVI to task for not fully acknowledging the Catholic Church's and Christianity's role in the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust.

"It wasn't planned," the film's Oscar-nominated director Oren Jacoby says of the film's opening during the papal visit. "But it gives us an opportunity to present the story of Jim, the remarkable story of an American Catholic whose faith was fractured by people hijacking religion."

Pope Benedict even makes an appearance in the film, when he visits a synagogue in Cologne, Germany, shortly after his installation as pope. There he condemns the Nazi genocide but characterizes it as an outgrowth of neo-paganism.

Carroll says Benedict did not go far enough. In the film, he addresses the camera, saying "that hatred had two parents," the other being Christian fanaticism. "This film is about reckoning with Christianity's role," he says.

That reckoning has some Catholic groups upset. The filmmakers say "Catholic New York," the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of New York, refused earlier this week to run ads promoting the film. After contacting the newspaper, ABCNEWS.com was told that no one was available to comment on the matter.

The Catholic League, which dubs itself the nation's largest civil rights organization for Catholics, launched a protest against "Constantine's Sword" two weeks ago and blocked clips from being shown at a panel discussion on terrorism at the U.S. Air Force Academy. The league objected to cadets being required to watch something they "might find offensive," Kiera McCaffrey, the league's director of communication, told ABCNEWS.com.