Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust

[Meshuga]

This is a good article from the Jewish Virtual Library about Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust.

The article concludes:

The Pope's reaction to the Holocaust was complex and inconsistent. At times, he tried to help the Jews and was successful. But these successes only highlight the amount of influence he might have had, if he not chosen to remain silent on so many other occasions. No one knows for sure the motives behind Pius XII's actions, or lack thereof, since the Vatican archives have only been fully opened to select researchers. Historians offer many reasons why Pope Pius XII was not a stronger public advocate for the Jews: A fear of Nazi reprisals, a feeling that public speech would have no effect and might harm the Jews, the idea that private intervention could accomplish more, the anxiety that acting against the German government could provoke a schism among German Catholics, the church's traditional role of being politically neutral and the fear of the growth of communism were the Nazis to be defeated. Whatever his motivation, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the Pope, like so many others in positions of power and influence, could have done more to save the Jews.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/pius.html

[hedgehog]

1. No matter what he may or may not have done in secret, he did

not speak out publicly.

[brendan120678]

2. That's true.

He may have secretly hated the Nazis. He probably did. The Nazis certainly weren't thrilled with his election to the papacy.

Who knows why he didn't speak out in public more vociferously.

Was he afraid of the Vatican being invaded by Mussolini or Hitler if he criticized them too much?
It's not like the Vatican could have held back an invasion from one or both of those armies.

[hedgehog]

3. So, he failed the test that Peter passed: Quo Vadis?

Understandable, but anyone who tries to pretend he was a heroic figure is kidding themselves.

[struggle4progress]

4. He wrote Mit brennender Sorge for Pius XI:

MIT BRENNENDER SORGE
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XI
ON THE CHURCH AND THE GERMAN REICH
... The experiences of these last years have fixed responsibilities and laid bare intrigues, which from the outset only aimed at a war of extermination ... Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community - however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things - whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds ... None but superficial minds could stumble into concepts of a national God, of a national religion; or attempt to lock within the frontiers of a single people, within the narrow limits of a single race ... Should men, who are not even united by faith in Christ, come and offer you the seduction of a national German Church, be convinced that it is nothing but a denial of the one Church of Christ and the evident betrayal of that universal evangelical mission, for which a world Church alone is qualified and competent. The live history of other national churches with their paralysis, their domestication and subjection to worldly powers, is sufficient evidence of the sterility to which is condemned every branch that is severed from the trunk of the living Church ... Human laws in flagrant contradiction with the natural law are vitiated with a taint which no force, no power can mend. In the light of this principle one must judge the axiom, that "right is common utility," a proposition which may be given a correct significance, it means that what is morally indefensible, can never contribute to the good of the people. But ancient paganism acknowledged that the axiom, to be entirely true, must be reversed and be made to say: "Nothing can be useful, if it is not at the same time morally good" (Cicero, De Off. ii. 30). Emancipated from this oral rule, the principle would in international law carry a perpetual state of war between nations; for it ignores in national life, by confusion of right and utility, the basic fact that man as a person possesses rights he holds from God, and which any collectivity must protect against denial, suppression or neglect. To overlook this truth is to forget that the real common good ultimately takes its measure from man's nature, which balances personal rights and social obligations, and from the purpose of society, established for the benefit of human nature ... Thousands of voices ring into your ears a Gospel which has not been revealed by the Father of Heaven. Thousands of pens are wielded in the service of a Christianity, which is not of Christ. Press and wireless daily force on you productions hostile to the Faith and to the Church, impudently aggressive against whatever you should hold venerable and sacred ... No one would think of preventing young Germans establishing a true ethnical community in a noble love of freedom and loyalty to their country. What We object to is the voluntary and systematic antagonism raised between national education and religious duty ...
Given at the Vatican on Passion Sunday, March 14, 1937
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_14031937_mit-brennender-sorge_en.html

This is, of course, a very Catholic text, which was written in German (instead of the usual Latin) and which by Vatican instruction was read aloud from every Catholic pulpit in Germany in March 1937. It cannot be understood without considering the audience to whom it was addressed and the context in which it was read: for that audience, it was a clear renunciation of Nazi ideology, values, and methods; it explicitly warns that the Nazis are dishonest and that the Nazi's state church and Nazi version of Christianity were unacceptable. It was widely known at the time that Pacelli, rather than Pius XI, was the author of the piece, and when he became Pope two years later everyone knew his attitude towards the Nazis. If that were sufficiently unclear, he promptly issued his own encyclical, Summi Pontificatus, which clearly criticizes the Nazi hostility towards Christian humanitarian ideals of love and charity and the ideology of a totalitarian state. Seventy years later, of course, the natural verdict is that such pronouncements were inadequate, but we say this with the advantage of knowing what befell our predecessors, whereas our predecessors did not know what would happen to them. The Vatican clearly was not alone in its failure to address the Nazi threat appropriately: in fact, almost the entire European world (still horrified by the memory of the Great War) made similar mistakes

The Encyclical That Infuriated Hitler
ROME, APRIL 4, 2007 (Zenit.org).- On Palm Sunday of 1937, Pope Pius XI's encyclical "Mit Brennender Sorge" was read in all the parishes of Germany ... On Jan. 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler became chancellor and, as early as April, offered a concordat to the Holy See on his own initiative. The Holy See did not believe or trust Hitler, but it found itself in the difficult situation of being unable to refuse what appeared to be a very favorable agreement, Father Gumpel explained. The Holy See therefore signed the concordat even though everyone in the Roman Curia knew that Hitler would not follow or respect the agreements. A few weeks after the signing of the concordat, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, then-secretary of state, was asked by a British diplomat whether Hitler would respect the concordat. Cardinal Pacelli replied: "Absolutely not. We can only hope that he will not violate all the clauses at the same time" ... Pius XI signed the definitive text of the encyclical on March 14, 1937. Printed copies were brought by diplomatic briefcase to the nuncio in Berlin. He passed these on to the bishop of Berlin, who had them distributed by secret couriers to all the German prelates. Twelve printers reproduced the text under the noses of the Gestapo. Several bishops had copies printed in the hundreds of thousands. Afterward, again in total secrecy, the text was distributed to every parish priest, chaplain and convent, and the encyclical was read in every church on March 21, 1937, Palm Sunday ... The language was clear and explicit: Hitler was deceiving the Germans and the international community. The encyclical affirmed that the Nazi leader was perfidious, untrustworthy, dangerous and determined to take the place of God. The Jesuit observed that "the reaction of Catholics was enthusiastic" while "Hitler was furious." It was said that, in fact, Hitler was so beside himself that for three days he did not want to see or receive anyone. A print shop employee informed the Gestapo about the encyclical on the Saturday evening prior to Palm Sunday, but it was already too late to stop anything ... Still, there were Gestapo guards in front of the churches on Sunday morning, checking to see if anyone had a copy in hand. Anyone found possessing a copy was arrested. The 12 print shops were taken without reimbursement and some people ended up in jail ... http://www.zenit.org/article-19328?l=english

SUMMI PONTIFICATUS
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XII
ON THE UNITY OF HUMAN SOCIETY
... Among the many errors which derive from the poisoned source of religious and moral agnosticism, We would draw your attention, Venerable Brethren, to two in particular ... The first of these pernicious errors, widespread today, is the forgetfulness of that law of human solidarity and charity which is dictated and imposed by our common origin and by the equality of rational nature in all men, to whatever people they belong ... Such is the marvelous doctrine of love and peace which has been such an ennobling factor in the civil and religious progress of mankind. And the heralds who proclaimed it, moved by supernatural charity, not only tilled the land and cared for the sick, but above all they reclaimed, moulded and raised life to divine heights ... Venerable Brethren, forgetfulness of the law of universal charity - of that charity which alone can consolidate peace by extinguishing hatred and softening envies and dissensions - is the source of very grave evils for peaceful relations between nations ... To consider the State as something ultimate to which everything else should be subordinated and directed, cannot fail to harm the true and lasting prosperity of nations. This can happen either when unrestricted dominion comes to be conferred on the State as having a mandate from the nation, people, or even a social order, or when the State arrogates such dominion to itself as absolute master, despotically, without any mandate whatsoever ... http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_20101939_summi-pontificatus_en.html

Newspaper reports Hitler ordered kidnapping of Pope Pius XII <2005>
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Adolf Hitler personally ordered one of his senior Nazi officers to arrange the kidnapping of Pope Pius XII toward the end of World War II, according to new information cited by an Italian newspaper. Instead of carrying out Hitler's order, the officer met secretly with the pope in May 1944 to warn him of the plot. A month later, the Nazis were fleeing Rome, and Hitler's plan could not be carried out ... According to Avvenire, church experts in Germany looking into the canonization cause of the wartime pope received sworn testimony March 24, 1972, from Gen. Karl Friedrich Otto Wolff, head of the Waffen SS, or Nazi elite guard, in Italy. Wolff said that in 1943 Hitler had first raised the idea of abducting Pope Pius and removing him from the Vatican, but his aides were able to talk him out of the idea. Then in 1944, as German forces were in retreat, Wolff met with Hitler again in his general quarters in Germany. "I received a personal order from Hitler to kidnap Pope Pius XII," Wolff told the church investigators.
http://www.georgiabulletin.org/world/2005/01/17/WORLD-2/