Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Norman Bates
Here's where Pius was wrong:

1)During the war, the Pope followed a policy of neutrality mirroring that of Pope Benedict XV during World War I.

2)In March 1942, Pius XII established diplomatic relations with the Japanese Empire and received ambassador Ken Harada, who remained in that position until the end of the war.

3)When asked by French Marshal Philippe Pétain if the Vatican objected to anti-Jewish laws, Pius responded that the church condemned antisemitism, but would not comment on specific rules. Similarly, when Pétain's puppet government adopted the "Jewish statutes," the Vichy ambassador to the Vatican, Léon Bérard, was told that the legislation did not conflict with Catholic teachings.

4)In October 1941 Harold Tittman, a U.S. delegate to the Vatican, asked the pope to condemn the atrocities against Jews; Pius replied that the Vatican wished to remain "neutral," reiterating the neutrality policy which Pius invoked as early as September 1940.

5)Pinchas Lapide, a Jewish theologian and Israeli diplomat to Milan in the 1960s, estimated that Pius "was instrumental in saving at least 700,000 but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands." Some historians have questioned this number, which Lapide reached by "deducting all reasonable claims of rescue" by non-Catholics from the total number of European Jews surviving the Holocaust

Your 800,000 figure is disputable.Nice propaganda, though, if you are an apologist for Pius.

The guy was wrong. To err is human. That applies to Benedict as well.Popes are only infallible when it comes to dogma. Not politics.

129 posted on 04/19/2008 5:27:41 PM PDT by buccaneer81 (Bob Taft has soiled the family name for the next century.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 128 | View Replies ]


To: buccaneer81

Pope Pius saved over 800,000 Jews. Tell me what so moved the chief Jewish Rabbi of Rome to convert to Catholicism after the war? It was Pius’ holiess and his salvation of Jews. He had the perspective of being there. The propaganda book Hitler’s Pope which you no doubt admire has been roundly debunked.

Pope Pius did everything he could to save Jews without putting many more Catholic clergy in grave danger (which onlly a great fool would do or require as a prerequisite for right judgment). In a perfect world perhaps you can issue edicts roundly condemming whatever you please but in the heart of militant facisism it is much more delicate for real Popes. Pius was a great and holy man, and one of wisdom and intelligence. Your arrogance to summon the typical hit-and-run potshot at a man who bore responsibility for guiding millions of souls, physically saved hundreds of thousands, and who is surely in Heaven is sick and ludicrous. I put it in the Phony Catholic category.


130 posted on 04/19/2008 6:44:32 PM PDT by Norman Bates (Freepmail me to be part of the McCain List!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 129 | View Replies ]

To: buccaneer81

Anyone can claim online to be a Catholic.


153 posted on 04/21/2008 4:12:57 PM PDT by Petronski (Vivat Benedict XVI!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 129 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson