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Blessed Pius XII? But First of All, Get Him Right The rabbi of Haifa protests, and "La Civiltà Cattolica" bridles. But the beatification of Pope Eugenio Pacelli continues to draw near. And history will also have to do him justice, according to Paolo Mieli, a secular Jew, in "L'Osservatore Romano" by Sandro Magister ROMA, October 10, 2008 – Celebrating the Mass for the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Pius XII yesterday at St. Peter's, Pope Joseph Ratzinger invited all to pray "that his beatification cause may proceed smoothly." It was Paul VI himself, in the hall of Vatican Council...

On July 7, after years of media-generated confusion, Christoph Cardinal Schonborn, a theologian who helped author the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church, wrote in the New York Times clarifying the Church’s understanding of human origins.  Since 1996, the world’s secular media have claimed that Pope John Paul II endorsed Darwinian evolution as being “more than a hypothesis.” The remark, taken out of context, established in some minds that the Catholic Church was ready to abandon its adherence to the notion of a personal God who created life, the universe and everything.  In his article, Schonborn said, that the “defenders...

“Be proud to be a Jew!” Those were the reassuring words of Pope Pius XII as he offered consolation to a distressed Jew in 1941 according to a new report issued by Zenit News. Historically, Pope Pius XII has been vilified in modern times as the pope who did nothing to stop the Germans from persecuting the Jews, in turn allowing the genocide of the Jews in Germany during World War II. In point of fact, Pope Pius XII is estimated to have saved anywhere from 400,000 to 700,000 Jews from Nazi Germany. He was awarded a medal by the...

Among the most heated debates of the last 40 years has been the debate over Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust. What did he do when the greatest evil of his day engulfed Christian Europe? Was he "Hitler's Pope," as the name of a widely read book about him charged? Was he too reticent in speaking out against Nazism and the Nazi extermination of Europe's Jews? Was he perhaps even a Nazi sympathizer? Or was he in fact a great friend of Europe's Jews who did whatever he could to save tens of thousands of Jews, especially in Italy, opening...

AS A HISTORIAN OF THE HOLOCAUST, I frequently receive requests from Jewish educators, seeking support for grant applications for their Holocaust programs. Almost all these applications include a sentence about how the new program will inform students that the Pope, and the Vatican, "did nothing" during the Holocaust to help Jews. The most recent such portrayal reached me while I was writing this review. It is part of a proposal to a major Jewish philanthropic organization, and contains the sentence: "Also discusses the role of the Vatican and the rabidly anti-Semitic Pope Pius XII, who were privy to information regarding...

The "Siri Thesis" Unravels - by Inside the Vatican staff In our confusing times, many otherwise faithful traditional Catholics have denounced and broken with "conciliar Rome," including the "conciliar Popes." But that has not ended the confusion... "It has been very well observed that there is no such thing as an impartial historian. Every man who sets out to trace the development of life, whether in politics, religion, or art, is bound to do so with some theory in his mind... The historian, or the theologian, who is most nearly impartial is not he who has no view, but he...

"I thank Ronald Rychlak for picking up this challenge. We are all in his debt. He has made an enormous contribution to the healing of relations among Catholics and Jews, and to the possibility of discussing important parts of our mutual past in a factual and discriminating way." - Michael Novak Forward by Michael Novak Ron Rychlak's Hitler, the War, and the Pope blew me away by its lawyerly orderliness. It was just the book I had needed for many years and had not had. I had not even imagined that a hook that good could be written. What had...

Newsflash > "I will not die before I canonize Pope Pius XII “I will not die before I canonize Pope Pius XII” Five days ago, we reported that Pope John Paul II was 10 minutes from death the night he was hospitalized (February 1).Now, in the very different context of an 84-year-old Pope on the mend, we consider one of the most controversial issues he will have to face in the months ahead, and reveal that he himself has already, according to our sources, made up his mind on the matter.Our sources tell us they believe that John Paul...

On Jan. 9, 2005 the New York Times published a prominent article entitled "Saving Jewish Children, But At What Cost?" in which it accuses the Vatican and Pope Pius XII of having given instructions not to allow Jewish children who had been sheltered by Catholics during the war to return to their own families. A serious accusation, indeed, If it is true. But it is bogus. Story Continues Below On Jan. 10, the independent Panel investigating a segment of the CBS "60 minutes" program in what is known as Rathergate came to the conclusion that the broadcast was unfair and...

The Catholic Church and the Holocaustby Michael E. TelzrowThe unjust vilification of Pope Pius XII and the Catholic Church for supposed collaboration with the Nazis during World War II is only part of a broader campaign to condemn all Christians.In an editorial published on March 18, 1998, the New York Times took up the subject of Pope Pius XII and the activities of the Catholic Church regarding the Nazis during World War II. "A full exploration of Pope Pius’s conduct is needed...," stated the Times’ editorial writer. "It now falls to John Paul and his successors to take the...

A New York Times story smearing Pope Pius XII had about as much truth in it as the notorious 60 Minutes Rathergate story that was based on forged documents, new facts show. The story in question is a piece in the January 9 Times about an article in an Italian newspaper claiming to have uncovered a 1946 document implicating Pope Pius XII in a scheme not to return baptized Jewish children (who were hidden by the Vatican from the Nazis during the Holocaust) to their parents after the war. That story has now been totally discredited and has raised the...

In 1941, when Abraham Foxman was a year old, his parents and a nursemaid carried him east from his Polish homeland to Vilna in an effort to outrun the Nazis. But they failed, and the Nazis ordered his parents and the other Jews of Vilna into a ghetto. “My parents decided to leave me with the nanny, a decision that ultimately saved my life and their lives because they were able to care for themselves rather than being tied to a child,” Foxman said. The nanny, Bronislawa Kurpi, had Foxman baptized Henrik Stanislous Kurpi and for the next four years...

1946 Document on Jewish Children Tells a Different Story Undercuts Tale That Vatican Tried to Keep Them From Their Families ROME, JAN. 12, 2005 (Zenit.org).- The latest in a series of accusations about Pope Pius XII's behavior vis-à-vis the Jews and Nazi persecution seems to have little basis in fact. The latest round began Dec. 28 when an Italian newspaper published passages of an alleged 1946 Vatican document that supposedly aimed to keep baptized Jewish children from being returned to their families. The text, as stated in Il Corriere della Sera by Alberto Melloni, director of the G. Dossetti Library...

- ROME - Scholars and historians anxiously await the expected opening Saturday of Vatican archives that document pre-World War II relations between the church and Germany. In a highly unusual move, the Vatican is releasing papers of Pope Pius XII, the World War II- era leader of the church who has been criticized by Jews for failing to speak out or take action against Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. The documents and letters will cover the years from 1922 to 1939, before the pope took office and when he worked in Germany as the Vatican's ambassador and later secretary of...

Pope Pius XII is once more accused of being lenient towards Hitler. John Laughland meets the man who can prove his innocence When you visit a senior official in the Vatican, you expect to enter a world of ancient traditions: you do not expect to encounter practices which died out in 1950. Yet when I called on Peter Gumpel, SJ in his office in Borgo Santo Spirito early one morning, his first question was, ‘Would you care for a cigarette?’ A selection of three different brands was produced out of a drawer. ‘Holy smoke!’ I thought, and chose Dunhill. As...