Posted on 04/12/2007 2:24:24 PM PDT by Alex Murphy
JERUSALEM -- The Vatican and Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial got into a public spat Thursday over the wartime conduct of Pope Pius XII during the Nazi genocide, threatening to upset fragile relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the Jewish state.
Separately, church officials announced new developments Thursday in the Vatican's case to make Pius a saint. A massive dossier on Pius' virtues -- some six volumes of 3,000 pages -- was handed over to a panel of bishops and cardinals earlier this month to study, they said.
At issue in the Yad Vashem-Vatican dispute is a photograph of Pius in Yad Vashem's museum in Jerusalem with the caption: "Even when reports about the murder of Jews reached the Vatican, the pope did not protest," refusing to sign a 1942 Allied condemnation of the massacre of Jews during World War II.
Pius "maintained his neutral position" with two exceptions, the caption reads, criticizing "his silence and absence of guidelines." The exceptions were appeals to the rulers of Hungary and Slovakia toward the end of the war, the caption says.
The Vatican's ambassador to Israel, Monsignor Antonio Franco, confirmed Thursday that he would not attend Yad Vashem's annual memorial service for Holocaust victims next week because of the Pius photograph.
"I don't intend to go to Yad Vashem if things remain the way they do," he said.
The memorial service is traditionally attended by all foreign ambassadors to Israel or their representatives. Yad Vashem said this would mark the first case in which a foreign emissary deliberately skipped the ceremony.
Yad Vashem is "shocked and disappointed" by Franco's decision, said spokeswoman Iris Rosenberg.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Yariv Ovadia said the Holocaust "was one of the most traumatic events to befall the Jewish people ... and it is their decision whether they want to pay respect to the victims or not."
The disputed photo caption first appeared in 2005, when Yad Vashem opened its new museum. Shortly after, the previous Vatican ambassador asked that the caption be changed.
Yad Vashem has not done so, insisting its research on the pope's role was accurate.
Yad Vashem said it would be ready to re-examine Pius XII's conduct during the Holocaust if the Vatican opened its World War II-era archives to the museum's research staff and new material emerged. Despite frequent requests from Holocaust researchers, the Vatican has denied access to major parts of its archives, including wartime papers.
Rosenberg said the museum "would continue to present the historical truth on Pius XII as it is known to scholars today."
The Vatican has struggled to defend its wartime pope, insisting Pius spearheaded discreet diplomacy that saved thousands of Jews.
Franco said in his letter to Yad Vashem that he found the Pius XII caption offensive to Catholics.
"I respect the memory of the martyrs of the Holocaust but also the memory of the pope," he said. "The right of one does not infringe on the right of the other."
In Rome, the Rev. Peter Gumpel, who is spearheading Pius' sainthood cause, said he was "shocked" by Yad Vashem's portrayal of Pius.
He maintained that historians "say they find it difficult to understand how people can say that Pope Pius XII did nothing for the Jews. To present him now this way, I find it very difficult to understand."
Gumpel said he hoped the panel of bishops and cardinals would decide on Pius' case this year. If the clerics approve the dossier, they will pass their recommendations on to Pope Benedict XVI, who could then sign a decree on Pius' virtues, the first major step toward possible beatification. The Vatican would then have to confirm a miracle attributed to Pius' intercession for him to be beatified, and a second miracle for him to be canonized.
Israel and the Vatican established diplomatic relations in 1994, after hundreds of years of painful relations between Catholicism and Judaism.
Rabbi David Rosen, who helped negotiate the 1994 agreement, said the relationship remains strong, despite Israel's failure to keep key promises to the Vatican on issues including taxation.
Rosen, in charge of interfaith relations at the American Jewish Committee, said the dispute over the pope should have been resolved quietly, not in public.
"It is certainly very regrettable and will leave a bad taste on both sides," he said, adding that he did not expect lasting damage to the relationship.
I'll admit I didn't fully understand the backlash myself, before I read this in the article...
Separately, church officials announced new developments Thursday in the Vatican's case to make Pius a saint. A massive dossier on Pius' virtues -- some six volumes of 3,000 pages -- was handed over to a panel of bishops and cardinals earlier this month to study, they said.
The dispute revolves around a paragraph-long picture caption of Pius XII that was installed when the newly-designed Yad Vashem museum was opened in 2005. The previous Vatican ambassador sent a letter of complaint about the text a year ago and now Monsignor Franco has complained again.The text notes that Pius XII's reaction to the Holocaust is controversial and states: "When he was elected Pope in 1939, he shelved a letter against racism and anti-semitism that his predecessor had prepared. Even when reports about the murder of Jews reached the Vatican, the Pope did not protest either verbally or in writing." The description also says Pius XII chose not to sign a December 1942 Allied declaration condemning the extermination of Jews and did not intervene when Jews were being deported from Rome to Auschwitz.
It is not the first criticism of Pius XII, who has long been regarded as one of the Catholic church's most controversial leaders. In the past, critics have dismissed him as "Hitler's Pope" for failing to speak out against the Holocaust and suggested his silence was aimed at averting a Communist takeover in Europe. However, others have sought to exonerate him, arguing instead that he was trying to defend a Catholic minority in Germany from the Nazis and suggesting he should be fast-tracked for canonisation.
Monsignor Franco, an Italian who has been a Vatican diplomat for 35 years, accepted there was debate and disagreement about the part played by the Pope during the second world war, but said he opposed the wording of the text at Yad Vashem....
...."Yad Vashem is shocked by, and regrets, that the Vatican's delegate to Israel has chosen not to respect the memory of the Holocaust and not to participate in the official ceremony in which the state of Israel and the Jewish people join in memory of the victims," Iris Rosenberg, a spokeswoman for the museum, said in a statement.
"The Holocaust history museum presents the historical truth on Pope Pius XII as it is known to scholars today," she said. "It is unacceptable to use diplomatic pressure when dealing with historical research."
Probably not that much of an effect on those committing these crimes against humanity, like Adolph Eichman, who knew that they were going to be able to escape the consequences for their actions through those covert Ratlines of Pius XII's Vatican.
Not enough, not soon enough!
Isn't the point to try and look objectively at the history to learn and not fall into a pattern of repetition.
Don't we face the same struggle today with the new totalitarian extremists, the muslims. Aren't we falling into the same pattern as what happened in the 1930's, with appeasement and not confronting the evil?
Isn't the RCC making the same mistake of appeasement as well, arguing that this WOT is not a just war?
The encyclical in question had some anti-Semitism issues of its own, and Pius XII was right to put it aside.
I find it fascinating that we refuse to see the parallels to today.
Beatification dossier answers critics of Pius XII, official says
Rome, Apr. 13, 2007 (CWNews.com) - The Vatican directly addresses questions about the wartime conduct of Pope Pius XII in a document prepared for his beatification cause, an official of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints has reported.
Father Peter Gumpel, SJ, said that the 3,000 page positio on the life of Pope Pius XII is now ready for submission. The document, he said, provides answers to the complaints that Pope Pius was indifferent to the Holocaust.
The controversy that has existed for years about the actions of Pope Pius XII flared again this week, when the apostolic nuncio in Israel threatened to boycott a Holocaust memorial service because of an exhibit in the Yad Vashem museum that renews the charges against the Pontiff.
Defenders of Pope Pius XII have cited both the statements of Jewish leaders during World War II, and the work of historians in more recent years, to show that the Pontiff worked quietly but effectively to protect Jews from the Nazi extermination drive. Only after the war did rumors emerge charging that the Pope had failed to act; some of these rumors were apparently the product of a Soviet disinformation campaign.
Last October, Father Gumpel reacted angrily to a statement by Oded Ben Hur, the Israeli ambassador to the Holy See, who had said that the cause of beatification of Pius XII had been “stalled” because of questions about his role during the Holocaust. That statement, the Jesuit priest said, was “irresponsible” and inaccurate. The weight of evidence continues to support the Pontiff’s cause, he said, citing the words of the British historican Martin Gilbert, who concluded: “I believe, all things considered, morally and politically, Pius XII acted appropriately and made the right decisions.”
I know. The sad fact is that this earnest Franciscan who loves his flock and knows they survive by tourism has seen a quantum shift that is unlikely to shift back anytime soon.
I myself would hold off for the time being unless those in the State Department could assure me that things are reasonably safe. Having said that, I have a friend who visited Egypt a few times when I had told her it was not safe. She had zero problems on each trip and enjoyed her stays immensely.
Sorry but this is day two of a multiple day marathon with your very point being the focus of contention. The best evidence for your hypothesis is found here. Also, ping Sandyeggo who has accumulated quite an extensive list to buttress your point.
A distinction without a difference. "FDR and those in Washington" were duly elected to represent Americans.
To attempt to construe my position as that of minimizing the sacrifice of Americans in Europe during WWII signifies one of two things.
1) You're being deliberately obtuse.
2) Your reading comprehension is at the third grade level.
Either way, one wonders whether it's even worth responding.
The issue on this thread is who did what to attempt to save the Jews from the assault of the Third Reich which began shortly after Hitler assumed power in 1933, not the liberation of Normandy which took place over a decade later and in which so many Americans died.
And while you're shedding crocodile tears over "indifference" to Hitler, ask yourself this question; if the Japanese had not attacked us in December 1941, exactly when would America have entered this war, if ever? Exactly what would Hitler have had to do in order to get us involved?
We came in because of Japan, right?
A bit of noblesse-oblige by the editors on Christmas? A scrap for the poor?
Very generous, kind sirs.
Apparently they did it again in 1942. And they printed the full text of Pius' Christmas Messages in both years. (1941 p. A20 1942 p. A10)
The editorials were commentaries on articles contained in the front section of the paper.
I had never read the editorials until your comment prompted me to look for them:
The Pope’s Message
The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas. The Pope reiterates what he has said before. In general, he repeats, although with greater definiteness, the five-point plan for peace which he first enunciated in his Christmas message after the war broke out in 1939. His program agrees in fundamentals with the Roosevelt-Churchill eight-point declaration. It calls for respect for treaties and the end of the possibility of aggression, equal treatment for minorities, freedom from religious persecution. It goes farther than the Atlantic Charter in advocating an end of all national monopolies of economic wealth, and so far as the eight points, which demands complete disarmament for Germany pending some future limitation of arms for all nations.
The Pontiff emphasized principles of international morality with which most men of good-will agree. He uttered the ideas a spiritual leader would be expected to express in time of war. Yet his words sound strange and bold in the Europe of today, and we comprehend the complete submergence and enslavement of great nations, the very sources of our civilization, as we realize that he is about the only ruler left on the Continent of Europe who dares to raise his voice at all. The last tiny islands of neutrality are so hemmed in and overshadowed by war and fear that no one but the Pope is still able to speak aloud in the name of the Prince of Peace. This is indeed a measure of the "moral devastation" he describes as the accompaniment of physical ruin and inconceivable human suffering.
In calling for a "real new order" based on "liberty, justice and love," to be attained only by a "return to social and international principles capable of creating a barrier against the abuse of liberty and the abuse of power," the Pope put himself squarely against Hitlerism. Recognizing that there is no road open to agreement between belligerents "whose reciprocal war aims and programs seem to be irreconcilable," he left no doubt that the Nazi aims are also irreconcilable with his own conception of a Christian peace. "The new order which must arise out of this war," he asserted, "must be based on principles." And that implies only one end to the war.
On Christmas Day, 1942, the Times once again editorialized on the papal Christmas Message and again praised Pius XII for his moral leadership:
The Pope’s Verdict
No Christmas sermon reaches a larger congregation than the message Pope Pius XII addresses to a war-torn world at this season. This Christmas more than ever he is a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent. The Pulpit whence he speaks is more than ever like the Rock on which the Church was founded, a tiny island lashed and surrounded by a sea of war. In these circumstances, in any circumstances, indeed, no one would expect the Pope to speak as a political leader, or a war leader, or in any other role than that of a preacher ordained to stand above the battle, tied impartially, as he says, to all people and willing to collaborate in any new order which will bring a just peace.
But just because the Pope speaks to and in some sense for all the peoples at war, the clear stand he takes on the fundamental issues of the conflict has greater weight and authority. When a leader bound impartially to nations on both sides condemns as heresy the new form of national state which subordinates everything to itself: when he declares that whoever wants peace must protect against "arbitrary attacks" the "juridical safety of individuals:" when he assails violent occupation of territory, the exile and persecution of human beings for no reason other than race or political opinion: when he says that people must fight for a just and decent peace, a "total peace" — the "impartial judgment" is like a verdict in a high court of justice.
Pope Pius expresses as passionately as any leader on our side the war aims of the struggle for freedom when he says that those who aim at building a new world must fight for free choice of government and religious order. They must refuse that the state should make of individuals a herd of whom the state disposes as if they were a lifeless thing.
I couldn’t say it better myself. Germany had military divisions around Rome with snipers pointed at the Vatican. I suppose Pope Pius XII could have called on some flock of Angels in the Vatican basement and invaded Germany.
Let’s be real people here it doesn’t work that way. It was a real wartime situation and the Pope had no bullets to fire against the German war machine.
Israel should practice what it preaches instead of lecturing the world about a WW2 Pope. We don’t see Israel today condeming let alone acting to prevent atrocities anywhere in the world except if it involves their own country or other Jews in the world. Nobody else on earth seems to have any worth. Israel is one of the largest nuclear powers on earth now and those are real bullets.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.