Constantine’s Sword, by James Carroll, argues that the Church’s relationship with Jews has not only been a problem but, in a sense, the problem throughout its two thousand year history.

The Church’s failure to protest the Holocaust — the infamous
“silence” of Pius XII — is only part of the story: the death
camps, Carroll shows, are the culmination of a long,
entrenched tradition of anti-Judaism. From Gospel accounts
of the death of Jesus on the cross, to Constantine’s
transformation of the cross into a sword, to the rise of blood
libels, scapegoating, and modern antisemitism, Carroll
reconstructs the dramatic story of the Church’s conflict not
only with Jews but with itself.

As a troubled practicing Catholic himself, Carroll calls for Vatican III to address the problem in a multifold way: (a) a reexamination of and distancing from anti-Semitic thought in the New Testament, in essence turning it on its head as exemplary of how not to be a good Christian; (b) grappling earnestly and openly with the way in which power has corrupted the message of the Gospels; (c) [this is the conceptually challenging suggestion, IMHO] a subtle shift in portraying Jesus’ role which would recast the concept of the Jewish God against whom he ‘plays’ — from a vengeful, wrathful one (which Carroll feels inherently fuels and reflects anti-Semitism) against whom Jesus has to interpose himself as salvator, toward a more benificent and merciful one, of which nature Jesus’ role was more as the revelator; and (d) an attitude of repentance for the wrongs done to the Jews in the name of the Church through the ages, starting with the silence of the Holocaust. Carroll recognizes, of course, that the doctrine of Infallibility has to fall for this to occur, but argues that understanding the two-thousand-year arc of this troubling history makes that contingent.