More Evidence Pius XII Was Not Hitler's Pope - German Files Point to a Russian Plot

Zenit News Agency ^ | April 2, 2007

[NYer]

ROME, APRIL 2, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Adolf Hitler's No. 1 enemy was the Vatican's secretary of state, Eugenio Pacelli, future Pope Pius XII, according to documents recently found in Europe.

In an article published last Thursday by La Repubblica, reporter Marco Ansaldo announced that he has a dossier on Pius XII that complements documentation found in the Vatican Archives.

According to the newly discovered documents, Pius XII was considered an enemy of the Third Reich. Memos and letters unearthed at a depot used by the Stasi, the East German secret police, show that Nazi spies within the Vatican were concerned at the Pope's efforts to help displaced Poles and Jews.

One document from the head of Berlin's police force tells Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Third Reich's foreign minister, that the Catholic Church was providing assistance to Jews "both in terms of people and financially."

Russia's motives

In a commentary on the new documents, Sister Margherita Marchione, author and expert on Pius XII, explains the campaign against the Pope was the work of the Soviets.

"Russia's plans were to control Europe after the war. The only outspoken obstacle to Russia's plan in Europe was the Catholic Church," Sister Marchione wrote.

"The first attacks claiming that the Church had endorsed silently the atrocities of the Nazis came from Communist Russia," she explained. "Soon to control Poland, and other vast areas in Eastern Europe, Russia saw the need to break the loyalty to the Pope of Catholic majorities in those countries.

"The plan was a simple one: convince everyone that the Pope supported the hated Nazis during the war and, therefore, neither he nor the Church could be trusted after the war. The destruction of the Church would leave the field wide open for Russian influence and control."

[Uncle Chip]

During the war, the Ustashe were repudiated personally by Archbishop Stepinac during the war

And just when did he resign his position as the Supreme Apostolic Vicar of the Ustasha Army???

Was he not referred to by the diplomats of Europe as "the most compromised hierarch of the Catholic Church"??? That's quite a compliment and sure grounds for sainthood. Do you pray to him regularly?

[Uncle Chip]

You comments are revealing. It gives a glimpse of what you think of Catholics. I've been reading this thread, and all I can perceive is unalterated hatred towards the Church and Catholics.

Your post is revealing. It shows your inability to objectively analyze the facts without whining about Catholic bashing.

This thread has been about Pius XII who is refered to in the article as an enemy of the Third Reich. Was he really an enemy of the Third Reich??? Is that statement true of false??? Where is all this evidence that he was an enemy of the Third Reich???

Did he ever tear up his Concordat with Hitler when he saw his atrocities??? Did he ever excommunicate Hitler and any of those collaborating with him??? Did he do anything to stop the slaughter of the Serbs by the Ustasha??? Did he ever plead for mercy for their victims as he plead for mercy for Hitler and Mussolini???

If you want to have a thread to plead for Pius XII's sainthood, then make it a Catholic Caucus thread where you can bat around all your excuses for his actions and inactions on behalf of the Third Reich along with all those manufactured documents for which the Vatican is so famous.

[Uncle Chip]

The Concordat brought Hitler to power in Germany? As if the Vatican had to power to make by treaty Hitler the dictator of Germany. Germany was two-thirds Protestant.

45% of Germany was Catholic --- and of course Hitler, Goering, Himmler, and many others in the high command were "sons of the Catholic Church", as Generalissimo Franco put it, none of whom were ever excommunicated for their unChristianlike activities.

[Dominick]

Supreme Apostolic Vicar of the Ustasha Army

There was no such position, he was the Archbishop of Zagreb, and was know firsthand to have sheltered refugees from the Ustashe, this would be a strange activity for a collaborator.

The Ustashe pushed for his removal as Bishop in 1942. The Chief Rabbi in Zagreb also stated that Stepinac assisted Jews in an escape.

After the war many clergy were executed by Tito in the chaos that followed. Some corrupt, some were innocent. The loyalty of the Church was expressed in the creation of a separate Croatian state, that the Ustashe took over immediately. After the war the regime and other states passed from fascist to communist hands, and both regimes used the same methods. Pretty much Tito could not stomache that the Church supported a Croat state, since the croatian people are mostly Catholic.

After this people like you repeat the Tito inspired propaganda painting the Church as a genocidal cooperator, when the actions of the Clergy were directly opposed to the state at the time.

[Uncle Chip]

There was no such position, he was the Archbishop of Zagreb, and was know firsthand to have sheltered refugees from the Ustashe, this would be a strange activity for a collaborator.

Not so strange --- he was just covering his tail end as he saw the handwriting on the wall. Furthermore after the war, he like Pius XII, tried to take credit for the heroic actions of those nuns, priests, and others who independently and against the wishes of their superiors acted to save some from the poglavnik's knife and the deportation trains. Surely those nuns and priests deserve the credit for their actions on behalf of those they sheltered ---- but not the compromised Pius XII and "Saint" Stepinac.

[Pyro7480]

Your post is revealing. It shows your inability to objectively analyze the facts without whining about Catholic bashing.

Yeah, like your "facts" are objective. (sarcasm)

[Dominick]

The testimony of those he saved firsthand isn't enough for you. Multiple people have attested that they were saved by these two, before and after the Pope and the Archbishop died. The conviction of Stepinac have been repudiated and characterized as a show trial by numerous parties, and officially condemned by the Croatian Parliament.

Show me one prohibition signed by the Pope or the Archbishop against saving refugees from the war. I don't expect you will, as you only seem to sling mud without a shred of proof.

[RobbyS]

Hitler, Goebbels , Himmler et al. were baptized Catholics but openly apostate. If you have read anything by Dr. Goebbels, you know that he despised Catholicism. His god was Adolph Hitler. As for Germany, it was founded on the Prussian state, which did its best to suppress papal authority. But the empire was federal in character, which enabled Catholics to form a bloc, the center Party, in the diet. After World War I, the Center and the Social Democrats fomed the basis of the Weimar Governments, which eventually collapsed under the twin pressures of the Nazis and the Communists, and from the undermining by the Nationalists. If you want to criticise anyone, Criticize the leadership of the Center leadership for caving and agreeing to Hitler’s Enabling Act, leaving only the Social Democrats in opposition. However, don’t forget the thousand priests who were rounded up and sent to concentration camps for opposing the regime. The Concordat was an effort to save Catholic social services, especially the schools, from being absorbed by the state. It was a deal like that earlier made with Mussolini. In a way, it WAS cynical, because many in the Church knew that the Nazis were acting in bad faith. In fact, it was naive, because they thought that Hitler was no worse than Mussolini— a thug who would be content with a pound of flesh—when he was worse even than Stalin.

[AnAmericanMother]

Your "review" consists merely of a rehash of your lies, which have been disproved on this thread over and over again.

It's plain that your hatred for the Church has overcome your reason, your memory, and your charity. Shame that you allow such a bestial emotion to rule your life.

[Petronski]

...those nuns, priests, and others who independently and against the wishes of their superiors acted to save some...

Like to see you prove that one, Comrade Titovitch.

You have become incoherent with hate.

[Petronski]

...and of course Hitler, Goering, Himmler, and many others in the high command were "sons of the Catholic Church"...

They were avowed atheists at the time of their crimes, just like Stalin and Tito.

I hesitate to call you a smear artist, because your smears are so terribly incompetent.

[Campion]

Goering was a nominal Lutheran.

Himmler was openly pagan.

Hitler described himself to friends (at one point) as "a pure heathen". At another point, he told another group that he planned to "stay a Catholic" because "only a Catholic can destroy Catholicism".

Canon law (both today and then) provides for latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication for committing violent acts against priests or religious. Thousands of priests and religious died in the Holocaust, so, if Hitler was still a Catholic (which is open to question), he was excommunicated many times over. Of course, he stopped practicing Catholicism at 15 or 16, so excommunication didn't change anything as far as he was concerned.

[Campion]

heroic actions of those nuns, priests, and others who independently and against the wishes of their superiors

When Angelo Roncalli (later Pope John XXIII; during the war, Papal nuncio in Istanbul) was complimented for saving thousands of Jews by issuing them false baptismal certificates, he said "Everything I have done, I have done in obedience to the Pope."

Jews were sheltered in the Pope's own estate at Castel Gandolfo. Are you going to try to pretend that wasn't on Pius XII's direct orders?

[Petronski]

Are you going to try to pretend that wasn't on Pius XII's direct orders?

It's worse than that. He's claiming it was done in defiance of Pius XII.

[Uncle Chip]

Show me one prohibition signed by the Pope or the Archbishop against saving refugees from the war.

Show me all those proclamations from the Pope and Archbishop calling for the end of the slaughter of the Jews and Serbs.

[Religion Moderator]

Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.

I would pull challenges if there were no ongoing secular debate on how to interpret the words and actions of Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli, before and after he became Pope Pius XII.

Interpretations of the Hitler era historical events involved among Catholics, Jews and Protestants cannot be assumed to be unbiased.

If the parties to the debate wish to elevate as much as possible as closed, historical fact - then I suggest everyone work together to develop a timeline of sourced documentary evidence on the one hand - and a timeline of sourced testimony evidence on the other hand. The resulting table could be considered "settled" for the purpose of future discussions on this Religion Forum.

Even so the interpretation of such a table would remain in the 'eyes of the beholder.'

[Uncle Chip]

They were avowed atheists at the time of their crimes

And yet they thought that they were doing the Vatican a favor in exterminating the Jews and Serbs. And just how many of these "avowed atheists" were assisted by the Vatican ratlines to escape justice for their crimes, like Ante Pavelich?

[Pyro7480]

And yet they thought that they were doing the Vatican a favor in exterminating the Jews and Serbs.

That's the most absurd statement you've made so far.

[AnAmericanMother]

The so-called debate is fueled by discredited writers such as Hochhuth (the communist and son of an SS officer, who is now revealed to have been funded by the Soviets) and Cornwell (a failed seminarian and anti-Catholic crusader). And the media, who love to attack the Church. And of course Jack Chick, who believes that the Vatican has the name of every Protestant in a monster computer in the depths of St. Peter's.

Ranged against that we have such luminaries as Albert Einstein, Golda Meir, and the Chief Rabbis of Rome and Jerusalem, who were united in their praise of Pope Pius's efforts to save Italian Jews. Are those people "biased" as you suggest?

That's not "debate" -- that's character assassination on one side against overwhelming evidence of the praiseworthy efforts of a good man.

Would you tolerate such slanders if directed at a Jewish leader, accusing him of complicity in the Nazis' crimes? I'm sure we can find some anti-Semitic authors, no matter how discredited, to accuse rabbis and Jewish community leaders of crimes against their own people.

[Titanites]

and Cornwell (a failed seminarian and anti-Catholic crusader)

Who has admitted his mistakes in Hitler's Pope, and retracted, even though it is too late and the damage has been done.