For centuries across Europe, the teaching of contempt towards Jews fostered an environment of hostility, where the Catholic hierarchy often ghettoized, ostracized, confiscated goods from, and murdered Jews. This historical backdrop of anti-Semitism, deeply embedded in religious teachings, created a fertile ground for Nazi racial policies to flourish. Without this pervasive anti-Semitic sentiment as part of the religious zeitgeist, Nazi racism would not have thrived as it did in Germany. Hitler exploited this long-standing, Church-sanctioned anti-Semitism to justify his actions, openly aligning his policies with the traditional prejudices upheld by the Catholic hierarchy.