“Jesus lived. You killed him. God raised him. We saw him. Say sorry,” US Navy Chaplain Lt. Aristotle Rivera reportedly preached to servicemen at a North Carolina military base ahead of the Easter celebration on 4 April.
The chaplain is believed to have relayed a wild interpreted a passage from the New Testament's Acts of the Apostles, describing how Peter was preaching to “men of Israeli” about Jesus Christ’s death and spiritual redemption. In Lt. Aristotle Rivera’s words, Jews were to blame and they should be bitterly apologetic about this.
What has surprised many and caused outrage was that the sermon was apparently posted online on 30 March on the website of The Washington Headquarters Services the government agency providing administrative services to US military departments.
The anger was shared by another organisation, the Jewish War Veterans, who urged an investigation of the situation and Lt. Rivera personally, insisting he should apologise for his controversial sermon. Moreover, they're demanding that the Department of Defense acknowledge that the article, which has since been removed, was “anti-Semitic” in nature.