Posted on 10/16/2005 10:26:03 AM PDT by Rodney King
In keeping with the solemnity of the Yom Kippur holiday, though, I spent my time after services reading David Dalin's new book The Myth of Hitler's Pope. It's a short book but in just a very few pages succeeds (or so it seems to me) in proving that Pope Pius XII has been horribly traduced by his many critics.
There are spots where Rabbi Dalin's enthusiasm gets the better of him. I think it is hard to deny that the Vatican willingly cooperated with antidemocratic forces in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. And Dalin's own evidence makes clear that the pope's supreme priority was always the protection of the institutional interests of the church.
Within those limits, though, Dalin proves and more than proves:
1) that both Pius XII and his predecessor Pius XI abhorred and repeatedly condemned Nazi doctrine;
2) that Pius XII used his diplomatic power to protect Jewish communities in Catholic countries like Hungary and Slovakia - with a measurable impact on the survival rate of the Jews in those countries;
3) that Pius XII defied the very real risk of his own abduction and arrest by the Nazis to protect the Jewish communities of Rome and Italy, including sheltering some 3,000 Roman Jews in his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo during the German occupation of Rome in 1943;
4) that the many Roman Catholic clerics who risked their lives to rescue Jews during World War II testified again and again that they were acting on the orders of the pope - and that letters in Pius XII's own handwriting confirm the claim;
5) that even by the most conservative estimate of the effect of his actions, Pius XII's personal interventions saved the lives of more European Jews than any other person outside the governments and armed forces of the allied powers - more than Oskar Schindler, more than Raoul Wallenberg.
Just this very year, the pope's memory was attacked by a new story: a claim that Catholic institutions that housed Jewish orphans refused to deliver the rescued children to their families after war's end, but instead tried to keep and raise them as Catholics. Dalin demonstrates convincingly that the documents on which the story was founded were forged.
The debate over Pius XII is not, Dalin argues, ultimately a debate about history at all. It is an internal debate over the character and future of the Roman Catholic Church - a debate in which attacks on the war record of Pius XII function as coded attacks upon Pius' great successor, John Paul II.
That debate should at least be carried out without injustice to the memory of the voiceless dead. At this season of soul-searching and atonement, it seems clear to me that Dalin has exposed a very great injustice - and that Pius XII deserves to be numbered prominently among those honored in the Yad Vashem memorial to the righteous gentiles who saved Jewish lives during the Nazi Holocaust.
But as we've been saying all week: Don't trust me. Read the evidence for yourself. As Michael Novak says on the book's dustjacket: "This is a stunning book. I wish I had known more of this material years ago."
What was the population of Europe at that time?
You might want to check some population statistics on medieval Europe a little more attentively. No serious historian supports that claim.
Does the book mention anything about the Ustachi and Catholic priests in soldier's uniforms torturing and killing millions of Serbs during World War II?>>
No. The information it contains is only truth, not lies.
60 million? How many people do you think even lived in Europe during the middle ages? Your source is on crack.
He got it with the aid of a proctologist with a flashlight.
It's amazing that the human race survived the Catholic Church. So far, roadtest has thrown around incredible accusations without the least bit of support.
It works out to 40,000 a year, every year.
FWIW.
My sentiments exactly. I'll be reading the book as soon as possible.
Let's see, you posted:
"Does the book mention anything about the Ustachi and Catholic priests in soldier's uniforms torturing and killing millions of Serbs during World War II?""BTW, that's why the Serbs attacked the Croatians when they got a chance."
"It's just that, if the Vatican killed up to 60,000,000 Christians, Jews and others through the Dark and Middle Ages and into the Reformation because they wouldn't convert, then I don't think that should be lied about."
By adding little comments to your unsubstantiated remarks like... “ I'm getting two 180 degree opposite reports of history” or “I'm not wanting to make anybody feel personally attacked,” doesn't make you less of a disrupter. So prove me wrong.
You might want to differentiate between the Inquisition and the Spanish Inquisition--two entirely different "purges." But 60 million executions is beyond ludicrous. It was impossible. There weren't 60 million people in all of Spain, France, and Italy in the 15th century--much less "infidels."
Thanks. This book is already on my reading list (along with The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam).
RK: Thanks for posting this.
Much obliged for the post.
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