'Hitler's Pope' tried to help Jews, say documents

The Sunday Telegraph ^ | February 16, 2003 | Michael Burleigh

[MarMema]

But you've shown yourself to be an anti-Catholic bigot time and time again. Why complain when you're called on it?

When I post facts, I hear a lot of whining from those like yourself who want history to make their church look better. But the truth is the Catholic church, as an institution, not as individuals, and often in the name of Catholicism, has hurt and killed people, over and over again. Jews, Orthodox, Protestants, and gypsies.....who knows what other groups?

My opinion is that we need to keep you and your leaders from doing it again. And make sure the truth is told when you and your friends try to whitewash it.

Lots of times when I post about Croatia I get freepmail from freepers who just lurked and had known nothing about it till they read what I posted. That's enough to make it worthwhile right there. Your insults are worthless by comparison.....

The Croatian Holocaust was among the most brutal slaughterings in history, the utashe horrified even the Nazis with their brutality and sadism.

[AnAmericanMother]

Damn' Nazi cartoons always make me want to take a shower.

The upper caption reads "The Cardinal's Journey to France." The little bottles read "anti-Nazi" and "abominable lies". "Volksfront" is "People's Front".

IIRC, this cartoon was from Himmler's SS newspaper Schwarze Korps, attacking Cardinal Pacelli during his official visit to France. Humanite is the French Communist Party newspaper. It still exists.

The Nazis repeatedly attacked Pacelli while he was a cardinal and while he was Pope. Their internal correspondence showed that they were very worried about him and his influence on German Catholics.

My dad was in Italy during the war, and conditions were unsettled there to say the least. The Germans would "disappear" people or just put them up against the wall and shoot them, and then the partisani would return the favor. (Somewhere my dad has photos (taken with his totally unauthorized camera) of Mussolini and his girlfriend Clara Petacci hanging by their heels from the roof of a gas station in Milan.)

It's very easy for us to sit here in our easy chairs and say that Pope Pius "could have done more" or "didn't do enough."

[safisoft]

Yeah, buddy, it goes both ways.

I believe you misread my post. It is the "official" deeds of an organization against Jews that were the focus of my posts - exactly which Jewish organization has so persecuted Catholics? Come to think of it, can you name even a "group" of Jews that have treated Catholics anything like the 1,900 years that Jews enjoyed the attention of the Catholic church? There are bad people on all sides... the question is which side are you?

[safisoft]

Enjoy being a victim much?

You think because I read history and understand the atrocities committed against the Jewish people by the official Catholic church that I am Jewish? I am flattered.

[safisoft]

and then went to Jerusalem to grovel

Unfortunately, there has never been a "pope" who groveled in Jerusalem. Someday there will be many who grovel in Jerusalem at the feet of the Messiah of the whole Earth as He sits on His throne and rules with a rod of iron.

[safisoft]

How so? Or is this just a hit and run, as is par for the course.

Sorry, didn't know you had been out of touch of recent events. Hmm. Where to start? How about this for starters - constant and persistent support for the Paliterrorists, and constant and persistent attacks on Israel for defending itself.

Can you list some clear support for Israel on the part of the "vatican" over the years? Sheesh. They wouldn't even recognize Israel's right to exist until very recently. Let's see, Iraq is recognized by the "vatican" but Israel had to gain some special status in the "vatican's" eyes to be granted recognition.

[Campion]

I believe you misread my post.

I believe you miswrote your post, then. You said "these Catholics". I really don't think you meant some particular anti-Semite lost to history. I think you meant every Catholic here who is defending his faith, and the former leader of his faith, from what is, at least in part, an unjustified calumny.

IOW, pal, you're trashing all of us, not any "official deeds of an organization".

It is the "official" deeds of an organization against Jews that were the focus of my posts

I hate to break it to you, but the Holocaust was an "official" deed of quasi-pagan, and venomously anti-Christian and anti-Catholic, nation. There are plenty of qualified Jewish historians who can explain to you that Hitler's anti-Semitism had nothing to do with Catholicism, and in fact had nothing to do -- at least on its surface -- with Judaism as a religion.

can you name even a "group" of Jews that have treated Catholics anything like the 1,900 years that Jews enjoyed the attention of the Catholic church?

I believe we've made it pretty clear -- at "official" levels, BTW -- that grave wrongs have been done, both in the name of the Church and by Catholics doing evil on their own.

That doesn't give you justification to slander us with wrongs we didn't commit. I would also remind you that there is no such thing as "inherited guilt". (Sound familiar?) It's not inherited through blood, and it's not inherited through religious affiliation either. Jews preaching hatred against Catholics because of the Inquisition is not really a big improvement on Catholics preaching hatred against Jews as "Christ-killers".

[Campion]

They wouldn't even recognize Israel's right to exist until very recently.

Wrong. Not extending formal diplomatic recognition is not the same thing as "not recognizing Israel's right to exist".

I suppose you would conclude that the US does not recognize Taiwan's right to exist, hmm, since we don't have formal diplomatic relations with them?

[Campion]

Someday there will be many who grovel in Jerusalem at the feet of the Messiah of the whole Earth as He sits on His throne and rules with a rod of iron.

Happens at every Mass, every day, all over the world. Sorry, we've beaten you to that particular punch.

[Campion]

But the truth is the Catholic church, as an institution, not as individuals, and often in the name of Catholicism, has hurt and killed people, over and over again. Jews, Orthodox, Protestants, and gypsies.....who knows what other groups?

And the truth is that the Orthodox church, as an institution, not as individuals, and often in the name of Orthodoxy, has hurt and killed people, over and over again. Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists ... who knows what other groups?

Maybe you'd like to talk about the 13 Ukrainian Catholic martyrs of Pratulin, shot by the Tsar's troops on the steps of their church for refusing to convert to Orthodoxy? This happened in 1876, BTW. The rest of their village was exterminated, as well; only the men who died protecting their church are formally commemorated as saints.

This particular example of the benevolence of the "Holy Orthodox Tsar" was part of a campaign of -- get this -- forcible conversion to Orthodoxy in the Western Ukraine.

I don't particularly care to dredge stuff like that up. It would be nice if we could forgive and forget. But you don't seem to want to go there.

"Let the one among you who is without sin, cast the first stone."

[safisoft]

I believe we've made it pretty clear -- at "official" levels, BTW -- that grave wrongs have been done, both in the name of the Church and by Catholics doing evil on their own.

I humbly apologize then. I did not see those posts. Please point them out to me.

That doesn't give you justification to slander us with wrongs we didn't commit. I would also remind you that there is no such thing as "inherited guilt".

I did not blame you, nor any others who are "catholic" - I simply found it ironic that some catholics want the inherited benefit of somehow doing something good for Jews, and yet seem to not apparently deal with what those who went before did wrongly.

By the way, you may need to read a little of your Bible on the question of "inherited" guilt. It may not be as clear cut as you believe.

"Now the Lord had said to Abram:... I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.'" Genesis 12:1, 3

With a little historical reading in the Bible you will quickly discover that those blessings and curses are indeed inherited particularly when considering groups of people or nations. To remove such a curse, Scripture requires true repentance and deeds reflecting such repentance.

"'Will I not in that day,' says the Lord, 'Even destroy the wise men from Edom, and understanding from the mountains of Esau? Then your mighty men, O Teman, shall be dismayed, To the end that everyone from the mountains of Esau may be cut off by slaughter. For violence against your brother Jacob, shame shall cover you, and you shall be cut off forever." Obadiah 1:8-9

Yassar Arafat claims to be an Edomite.

"The Portion of Jacob is not like them, for He is the Maker of all things; and Israel is the tribe of His inheritance. The Lord of hosts is His name. 'You are My battle-ax and weapons of war: For with you I will break the nation in pieces; with you I will destroy kingdoms;... 'And I will repay Babylon and all the inhabitants of Chaldea for all the evil they have done in Zion in your sight,'" says the Lord." Jeremiah 51:19-20, 24

BTW, I am not Jewish, but thanks for assuming that I am.

[safisoft]

Happens at every Mass, every day, all over the world. Sorry, we've beaten you to that particular punch.

Then I laud you for that. Shout it from the mountaintops, if you indeed worship a Jewish King.

[Campion]

I simply found it ironic that some catholics want the inherited benefit of somehow doing something good for Jews

Nobody said anything about "inherited benefits". We just don't want to see a man -- a dead man, at that, who cannot defend himself -- unjustly calumniated. Because that particular dead man was the (earthly) leader of our faith, an calumny against him calumniates the entire group.

With a little historical reading in the Bible you will quickly discover that those blessings and curses are indeed inherited particularly when considering groups of people or nations.

Divine blessings and curses aren't the same thing as guilt before men and before human courts for crimes committed against men, which is what I was referring to.

[Campion]

Then I laud you for that. Shout it from the mountaintops, if you indeed worship a Jewish King.

Next time you see a Catholic crucifix, note the sign with the letters "INRI" at the top.

INRI = Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum. "Jesus the Nazorean, the King of the Jews".

[BlackVeil]

I agree with rmlew, that the interwar conversions of certain prominent Jewish people, is not the cause of these recent antagonisms toward Pius XII. During the 1920s-1940s - when conversions by Jewish people to Catholicism seem to have been more common (although rare in absolute terms) - there was much less hostility toward the Vatican. This ill-feeling is recent, and has gathered pace from 1990 onwards.

It is amazing that there is no literature, no discussion, on the role of the Lutheran Church during WW2. As it was the predominant religion in German politics and life, one would think it important. When one raises the subject of the Lutheran church in some of these seminars, many people barely know what it is, and show no interest. Yet they are avid readers of books about the Church and the Holocaust.

[nmh]

It really doesn't matter who did what or what wasn't done. God knows and since this man is deceased has judged him accordingly.

[rmlew]

Most sources I have read (even those sympathetic to Pius XII) noted his relative inaction prior to 1941.

[rmlew]

The Catholic Church was not the only organization that "failed to condemn the Holocaust" -- the Church's official response to the Holocaust was identical to that of the International Red Cross, and yet I've never heard anybody complain that the Red Cross "failed to condemn the Holocaust."

I have nothing but disdain for the Red Cross in World War 2. They continueto abet anti-Semetism today.

In all of the things I've read about Edith Stein, I don't think I've ever seen a reference to her as a "martyr" -- at least in the formal sense from the perspective of the Catholic Church.
What is the basis of her beatification?

Maximilian Kolbe was one such person -- he was one of the first saints canonized by Pope John Paul II in the late 1970s.

And many more, some of whom were recognized and many more who were not.

[nickcarraway]

Do you know who wrote, ``Mit Brennender Sorger?''

[nickcarraway]

You also changed the question. he wasn't Papal Nuncio until 1941.