Posted on 01/15/2005 3:47:45 PM PST by Notwithstanding
Zenit, the international news agency that covers the Vatican, learned that the origins of the document extend to a letter written in 1946 by Isaac Herzog, chief rabbi of Jerusalem, to Pius XII. In it, Herzog thanked the pope for helping Jews during the Holocaust and for sheltering ‘thousands of children who were hidden in Catholic institutions.’ He then requested that these children be returned to their original families. Which, as we now know, is what happened.
“In short, what the critics of Pius XII are suffering from is a heady dose of Rathergate: they willingly took the bait and now look rather foolish.”
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicleague.org ...
TH1S THR3AD R0X0RZ1!
t0t411y l33t!
What's with the leetspeak in the title? I'm pretty sure the original title didn't have a bunch of numbers...
! 1337 j00 n00b
:P
What, is this spam?
I see - some pope whose name you don't recall did something but you can't remember what it was or whether the allegation is contrary to all the evidence.
Just the info I was looking for. I just posted on another thread, "Weren't there numerous instances of Catholic convents hiding Jews?"
One of my coworkers was one of those children, a Sephardic Jew. She was hidden in a convenant in Italy where the good sisters continued her public school education and her Jewish lessons as well. She and her family were very greatful to the pontiff for saving their lives.
Catholic Ping - please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
Whatever you heard was wrong.
You do NOT want to go there Sparky, trust me on this...
It reminds me of the FR33 V14GR4, V1C0D1N, C14L1S, and C4N4D14N 50M4 junk mail I get.
You seem to have a lot to say about something you know very little about.
Then maybe you should think before you speak.
That's the only thing correct about your post.
Many quacks have planted malicious defamatory stories about Pius XII, but the ones who know best are the thousands of Jews in Italy whom he is personally responsible for saving.
You've fallen victim to the liberal news media which are constantly trying to smear the Catholic church. Why? Think about it: it's a major organization which opposes abortion, euthanasia, the homosexual agenda, and the secularization of society.
I posted this earlier today on a semi-duplicate thread. It pretty much explains why you THINK you heard this somewhere.
H.H. Pius XII spoke out VERY forcefully against Hitler even before he was Pope. He was the principal author of Pius XI's encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge ("With Burning Concern") which was delivered in German rather than Latin and explicitly condemned the persecution of the Jews and said that those who did so blasphemed God and his plan of salvation.During the war, when it became obvious that Jews were being rounded up and shipped off, the Dutch bishops spoke out publicly against the Nazis. In retribution, the Nazis rounded up and exterminated Dutch Jews and prominent Catholics who had spoken out. At that point, the Pope realized that public pronouncements were worthless and even counterproductive. Thereafter, he concentrated on concealing as many Jews as possible in monasteries, convents, and even in the Vatican itself, creating false identity cards, baptismal certificates, and passports for them, and when able smuggling them out of the reach of the Nazis.
Immediately after the war, Pius XII was praised by such prominent Jews as Golda Meir, Albert Einstein, and the Chief Rabbi of Rome. Jewish leaders credited him with saving several hundred thousand lives by his actions, and that number of trees were planted in his name in Israel.
The idea that he was silent out of cowardice and did nothing to aid the persecuted Jews began with a fictional play written by the son of an SS officer (and a Hitler Youth member) named Hochhuth, Der Stellvertreter ("The Deputy") which was written and performed in the 1960s IIRC. More recently, a failed seminarian and lapsed Catholic wrote a book called Hitler's Pope that was pretty much lies and inaccuracies from beginning to end. (For example, the cover of the book shows Pius XII when he was Papal Nuncio in Germany, being saluted by helmeted German soldiers, which of course everyone associates with the Nazis. But the picture was taken in 1929, 4 years before Hitler came to power.)
Pope Pius saved thousands of Jews. In fact, I believe there is a memorial to him in Tel-aviv. (sp?)
He's one of true heroes of the twentieth century.
OK Dan, the gig is up...
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