c. 1996 Religion News Service

(Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and a sociologist at the University of Chicago National Opinion Research Center. His home page on the World Wide Web is at http://www.agreeley.com. Or contact him via e-mail at agreel(AT)aol.com.)

(UNDATED) Victor Hugo would not see much connection between his novel”Notre Dame du Paris”and the new Disney film,”The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” But in the experiences of the two Gypsy characters in the film _ the lovely Esmerelda and the loathed hunchback, Quasimodo _ the novelist would agree the Disney film did get one thing right: The evil prejudice against Gypsies was as rampant in Victor Hugo’s day as it is today.

The Romany, as they call themselves, are among the most vulnerable minorities in human history. They have been hated, persecuted, tortured and killed down through the ages. Hardly anyone raises a word in their defense.

Hitler murdered the Gypsies of Europe with the same efficiency with which he murdered the Jews _ and for the same reason: He considered both inferior peoples.

Yet though Gypsies were subjected to their own holocaust, few people mourn them. There are no monuments to remind us of their suffering. Present-day Germany reacts to the slightest hint of anti-Semitism in its society as though it were a fatal contagion. But no one complained when the German government recently deported thousands of Gypsy refugees back to Romania, where they have been treated like dirt as long as humans can remember.

The recent book,”Bury Me Standing,”by I. Fonseca, tells the sad story of oppression of Gypsies today in the former socialist countries. It doesn’t matter whether the government has been fascist, Communist, or what passes for democracy in broken-down places like Albania, Gypsies still are the low people on the totem pole, the targets for every sick hatred that stirs in the souls of individuals or countries.

For those who are impelled to hate and who have run out of targets, Gypsies are still an available target for their malevolence. Since the time of Quasimodo and Esmerelda, nothing has changed, nothing at all. If societies no longer sanction expressions of hatred for blacks or Jews or Catholics, hatred for Gypsies, in some circles, remains an acceptable prejudice.

Gypsies are believed to have originated in India; the language they speak has Sanskrit roots. This wandering people specialized in craftsmanship and, like nearly all itinerant folk, were considered outcasts by more settled types.

Oddly enough, despite all the persecution Gypsies have suffered in their meanderings through Asia Minor and Europe, they are pacifists. Most reject violence as a response to life. Perhaps the rest of us could learn something from them.

It is interesting to compare the prejudice in Ireland against the so-called Irish Gypsies, who are Celtic in origin.

Wandering tradesman that they are, Irish Gypsies _ also known as Tinkers or Travelers _ are treated the same as the Romany are in other countries. They respond to ill-treatment in the same way the Romany have, locking themselves into a subculture from which it is difficult to escape.

When I try to give a couple of coins to a begging Irish Traveler woman in Dublin, I am warned against it by the locals. Don’t give anything to them, I am told. These people are liars, fakers and thieves.

Well maybe some of them are. But what can people do when they are excluded from the human condition both by prejudice and by the culture they have created in response to the prejudice?

If some Irish Travelers and Romany Gypsies treat their women poorly and engage in activities that are less than appealing to the rest of us, the blame is not entirely theirs. It is also ours, because we have made them that way with centuries of the worst kind of bigotry and oppression.

Since Irish Gypsies were respectable and respected artisans a century and a half ago, it seems legitimate to conclude that it doesn’t take long _ as human history goes _ for wandering workers to become the targets of scorn and to develop a self-defeating culture in response to that bigotry.

I do not know what can be done to help the Gypsies of Europe, except to abandon our biases against them and leave them alone.

I only wish that when the professional do-gooders and quota-makers take stock of oppressed groups, they would add the Gypsies to the list. They are the most oppressed of all.

MJP END GREELEY