Fox News apologizes for poll saying Jews killed Jesus

Fox Latin America has apologized for a poll on whether Jews killed Jesus Christ that one of its staffers put on a Facebook page promoting the National Geographic Channel’s Christmas special.

The poll asked readers who they think is responsible for the death of Christ: Pontius Pilate, The Jewish People or the High Priests.

The Simon Weisenthal Center in Buenos Aires calls it a defamatory reference to Vatican propaganda that “resulted in the persecution and murder of Jews for two millennia.”

The Jewish group says it’s outraged that Fox would perpetuate an idea that the Vatican annulled back in 1965.

Fox Spokeswoman Guadalupe Lucero apologized on behalf of National Geographic, saying the poll was removed immediately and measures have been taken to prevent such incidents in the future.

While there is no factual information that ties the Jewish population to the death of Jesus Christ, the belief is pervasive and has provoked persecutions, torture and massacres of Jews since the time of the Roman emperor Constantine. Throughout history, the Vatican has sought to demonize the Jewish faith by perpetuating that myth, along with the lie that Jews sacrifice Christian babies at Passover. Such propaganda has resulted in the execution of millions of Jews and set the stage for the Holocaust.

During the Middle Ages, the Vatican created two orders of monks expressly to disseminate anti-Semitic propoganda throughout Europe. The Roman Catholic Church remains the most influential faith in Latin America.