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Australia’s most senior-ranked Catholic official has risked an international backlash by claiming that Jews are ‘intellectually and morally inferior’.

Cardinal George Pell said ‘the little Jewish people’ were shepherds who lacked intellectual development during a debate with atheist Richard Dawkins.

He went on to claim that Germans had suffered more than the Jews during  the horrors of the holocaust in the Second World War.
Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney, said Jews were intellectually and morally inferior during a TV debate with atheist Richard Dawkins, right

The remarks came during a televised debate with Dawkins on Australian TV in which the pair became locked in a heated discussion on religion and evolution.

‘I’ve got a great admiration for the Jews but we don’t need to exaggerate their contribution in their early days,’  Cardinal Pell said during the debate on ABC television.

‘They weren’t intellectually the equal of [the Egyptians or Persians] - intellectually, morally … The poor - the little Jewish people, they were originally shepherds. They were stuck. They’re still stuck between these great powers.’

Cardinal Pell said Jews had been stuck between the Egyptians and Babylonians, and that this reflected their intellectual development. He said this included Jesus.

The religious leader went on to suggest that Jews had not suffered as much as the German people during and after the holocaust.