Pope Benedict will not visit Israeli museum which denigrates Pius XII

CatholicNewsAgency ^ | Rome, Italy, Mar 7, 2009

[GonzoII]

Pope Benedict will not visit Israeli museum which denigrates Pius XII

Pope Benedict XVI

Rome, Italy, Mar 7, 2009 / 07:18 pm (CNA).- The Israeli ambassador to the Holy See on Friday said that Pope Benedict XVI will not visit Israel’s Holocaust Museum which accuses Pope Pius XII of inaction on the Holocaust. The news comes as a researcher announced on Friday that he had discovered a message from Pius XII that ordered monasteries to give refuge to Jews.

During the Pope’s May 8-15 trip, the pontiff will attend a memorial ceremony at the Yad Vasdhem site but will not visit the museum itself, Ambassador Mordechai Levi told the Italian news agency ANSA. Instead, the Pope, accompanied by Israeli President Shimon Peres, will light a remembrance fire and make a speech.

A caption of a Pope Pius XII exhibit at the museum reads:

“Even when reports about the murder of Jews reached the Vatican, the pope did not protest, either verbally or in writing. In December 1942, [Pius XII] abstained from signing the Allied declaration condemning the extermination of the Jews. When Jews were deported from Rome to Auschwitz, the pope did not intervene.

"The pope maintained his neutral position throughout the war, with the exception of appeals to the rulers of Hungary and Slovakia toward its end. His silence and the absence of guidelines obliged churchmen throughout Europe to decide on their own how to react."

Despite Pope Pius XII’s wartime actions which saved many Jews from Nazi persecution, he has been persistently attacked by some critics who adopt the same line of attack as the caption in Yad Vashem.

The Holy See’s representative to Israel has objected to the caption, as have other Catholics. Ambassador Levi’s comments came after reports that the exhibit caption might be changed.

A debate at Yad Vashem will reportedly take place on Sunday and Monday. The gathering will look at Pius XII in light of the latest historical evidence.

Organizers said the conference will see “if there is something new or something which has to be completely revised” because of new research, ANSA reports.

Recently, Fr. Peter Gumpel, the promoter of Pope Pius XII’s cause of beatification, revealed a note by Pope Pius XII from the archives of a Roman monastery which directly ordered monasteries to shelter persecuted Jews.

“The Holy Father wishes to save his children, the Jews as well, and orders that the Monasteries provide hospitality to these persecuted people,” the November 1943 note reads.

Speaking to Vatican Radio, Fr. Gumpel said there are “numerous oral testimonies” from priests, nuns and others about the Pope’s actions during World War II, but Pius XII’s detractors often demand written evidence.

Fr. Gumpel argued that it would have been dangerous to commit such orders to paper in a time of war and hostility.

He said the rediscovered note could be useful in countering “those who persistently denigrate Pius XII and attack the Catholic Church.”

Yad Vashem’s controversial caption appeared in 2005 when a new museum was unveiled. In 2007, Vatican Ambassador to Israel Archbishop Antonio Franco refused to attend the annual Holocaust remembrance ceremony at Yad Vashem because of the caption.

Copyright @ CNA
(http://www.catholicnewsagency.com)

[GonzoII]

Once again, Holy Father, demonstrating character.

[vladimir998]

Pius XII saved 860,000 Jews at one time or another. That is if you believe Jews like Pinchas E. Lapide (an Israeli diplomat!) and Jeno Levai. Israel doesn’t believe Jews apparently.

[agere_contra]

No-one should go to Yad Vashem until it stops being a mockery of itself. Pius XII saved over 860,000 Jews from the concentration camps. Yad Vashem has betrayed its own purpose by spouting this alternate, revisionist version of history.

[sobieski]

Holocaust denial - rampant in both the US and Israel - requires maintaining the myth that the Nazis targetted only Jews when in fact they were a minority in a much larger project, which was the elimination of non aryan people, Jews as well as Slavs and Gypsies. Demonization of Pius XII is part of that project.

[Zionist Conspirator]

"The Holocaust" (Churban 'Europa') was the attempted annihilation of the Jewish People, at least in Europe, and possibly in the world. While other "non-Aryans" were certainly victims, the Nazis were absolutely fixated on The Jews whom they regarded as the source of all the evils in the world. The idea that the Nazis wanted to exterminate all "non-Aryans" is ridiculous when you consider their "non-Aryan" allies (Japanese and Arabs).

There were also collaborators in almost all the occupied non-Nordic countries.

In a way I don't have a dog in this fight, as I object to both the idea that defense of Pius XII is an essential component of conservatism and to Jews who want to turn belief in the Holocaust into a religious dogma while not giving a flip about liberal theologians who deny the Biblical events. However, some FReepers are playing a very dangerous game here. If "the Holocaust" encompassed everyone persecuted by the Nazis (and the Jews were targeted for extermination, not persecution), then you might as well add the homosexuals as well (which they themselves have been loudly doing for some time now).

[sobieski]

That is the myth, that they were fixated only on the Jews. They managed to kill 9 million Slavs and Gypsies; seems like they were fixated on eliminating lots of people. Of course the real Holocaust - not the myth propogated in US schools - was all non combatants that were targetted by the Nazis. Yes, homosexuals too - homosexuality is not a capital crime, for goodness sake. Why would a real history of the Nazi crimes ignore the larger part of it?

Or are you saying that 9 million souls don’t count?

There are always collaborators, like the Jews who dominated Soviet and East European secret police.

[Zionist Conspirator]

1)Homosexuality is a capital crime under the laws of G-d.

2)While the Nazis certainly thought Germans were superior to all non-Germans, they were fixated on the Jews. The Jews were the absolute center of their worldview. This is because the Nazis were `Amaleq. In fact, the hanging of the ten Nazi war criminals was encoded prophetically in the Book of Esther over two thousand years ago. Just as Haman (mach shemo!) wanted to annihilate the Jews before they could return to the Holy Land, so did the Nazis attempt to destroy `Am Yisra'el before they could return to their G-d-given Homeland.

I will say this again: while I am disgusted at how the Holocaust outranks the Biblical events for so many Jews, FReepers who play this "the Holocaust included everyone killed by the Nazis" card are playing a very dangerous game. This is a card that belongs at Original Dissent, Liberty Forum, or Stormfront, not at Free Republic.

I beg the moderators to take note of this.

[sobieski]

Uncovering Holocaust Denial is important. The Pagan Hitler declared war against many enemies, including the Catholic Church, Jews, Slavs, Gypsies and homosexuals. Sorry, but homosexuality is not a capital crime - except in backward societies like the Islamic.

Israel’s calumny against Pope Pius XII is Holocaust denial. Saying that Hitler fixated on the Jews, while managing to exterminate 9 million others, is ridiculous. You seem to have imbibed at the well of Holocaust Denial USA Style.

My children went through public school cirriculum, where the Denialist position is featured. It is wrong.

[ml/nj]

I find it strange that I tend to be critical of those who take their cheap/easy shots at Pius XII, but I have also visited Yad Vashem twice and not noticed that it portrays him in a negative light. To be sure the first time I was there, the museum did not yet exist; and the second time I was there I took a guided tour of the museum. On the tour I took, the guide basically focused on her selected fraction of the displays; so she could have chosen to bypass what some seem to be referring to here. What I did notice about my guide was that she was extremely committed to her scholarship concerning the Holocaust. The natural assumption for me was that she was representative of the staff at Yad Vashem.

I guess my point is that I do not feel Yad Vashem is about bashing Pope Pius XII or anyone else. They seem to me to be about accurately presenting the history of the events they study.

ML/NJ

[Zionist Conspirator]

I'll say it again: homosexuality is a capital crime, and the only real laws are G-d's laws.

You may resent the attention paid to the Hitler's Jewish victims. That is up to you. Unfortunately, the enemies of religion have decided to seize on Jewish suffering as an argument against religion, turning Jewish history into a sort of "passion play" (lehavdil) wherein the "death burial, resurrection" of the Jewish People allegedly redeems the world from religion. But in a sense they have to do this, because otherwise they would have to interpret Jewish survival as a evidence for the existence of G-d, and this they cannot do. Therefore they turn G-d into an anti-Semite and the Jews into His victims and hail Jewish survival as a vindication of "reason" and secularism.

Moreover, the Jewish People are at the very center of world history and this cannot be denied or changed. Since secularists cannot remove the Jewish People from the center of world history, they give this centrality a new interpretation which favors their ideology.

The Jews are at the center of everyone's worldview: traditional chr*stian, Biblicist chr*stian, moslem, Nazi, you name it. All are fixated on the Jews, for either good or ill.

This is the final time I will say this: this is a dangerous game FReepers are playing. It will discredit Free Republic. It doesn't belong here. It belongs on Stormfront.

And homosexuals weren't victims of "the Holocaust."

[sobieski]

I don’t ‘resent’ it, I do wonder what is the point of such revisionist history. Why the Holocaust denial as US policy? Why do our tax dollars support a mythical version of events? Why were my children not taught the entire history of the Holocaust? 9 million souls cry out for rememberance, not denial. Demonizing the Pope gives in small insight into the mind-set.

I’m sorry that you think that homosexuality is a capital offense. That is a sin, yes, but not a reason for a death sentence. Or do you mean you approve of the Hitler Program in that instance?

The Jewish people are the root of Christianity, and the founders were Jewish. But in 2,000 years and thanks to St. Paul, it is now a universal religion focused on itself and its own doctrines.

I don’t understand what is the dangerous game? And what is Stormfront? Perhaps your unstated assumptions are why I don’t understand what you mean.

[Religion Moderator]

Stormfront is a white supremacist organization which is disallowed here along with all white supremacy (e.g. KKK, Aryan Nations), hate mongering (e.g. false Jesuit Oath, Jack Chick) and anti-Semitism (e.g. Holocaust denial.)

All posts which diminish the suffering of the Jews in WWII raise red flags to me - in precisely the same way that white supremacist theology (e.g. Christian Identity) raises red flags.

When supremacists try to infiltrate a website they'll often mask their true beliefs, like a Trojan horse, presenting but a smidgen whether theology or history as if they believed they could convince others by rational argument.

For instance, once a poster says that "Adam" means "white," he is on my short list for banishment. And a few years back, we had a group which came here posting extreme preterist doctrine. After a few posts giving them the opportunity to deny that they were Christian Identity and condemn white supremacy - and their failure to do so - they were banned as a group.

[Zionist Conspirator]

Thank you, RM. Since the departure of the unlamented "palaeos" who used to infest this site I haven't really stressed the conventional "Jewish" issues and have had the luxury to concentrate on defenses of the Hebrew Bible. And I am a critic of Jews who think denying Moses is just fine and dandy but denying the Holocaust should be a crime. But I must confess that I am deeply troubled by the recent attempt to pin the label "Holocaust" onto every death caused by the Nazis.

I wasn't kidding when I said that this worries me. Please, RM, this is not my forum and it's not for me to say who posts here and who doesn't (else all the atheists would be as absent as the neo-Nazis), but please keep an eye on this tendency. It's really something we don't need.

I know being a moderator is a hard and thankless job. Thank you for doing it.

[topher]

Maybe Catholics should be more vocal in criticizing this museum...

Israel is about to attack Iran because Iran is about to upgrade its air defenses.

Israel does not want to make MORE ENEMIES at this point.

I think there should be a place of honor for Pope Pius XII in this museum.

Israel should do that while asking for help in its upcoming attempts to halt Iran's nuclear weapons programs...

[GonzoII]

Do you two have some references?

When began the term Holocaust?

Was it originally used only in reference to the Jews?

How are we to label the other deaths of non-Jews in concentration camps?

[sobieski]

How does a full discussion of the history of all 15 million genocidal victims of Nazism diminish the suffering of 6 million Jews? I would think that denial of the 9 million is more of a problem than discussion of them. Or do you think that the 9 million do not count at all?\ That sounds like Holocaust denial to me...

[Zionist Conspirator]

That sounds like Holocaust denial to me...

May I point out that the use of the specific term "Holocaust denial" to refer to Jews and Israelis is on a par with comparing them to "Nazis" and Israeli tactics with "blitzkrieg?" And I'm not even into the "Holocaust denial" thing.

Please keep a close eye on this development. It doesn't bode well for Free Republic.

I wish wideawake were here!

[Zionist Conspirator]

The term "Holocaust" is itself controversial, though you'd never know it from the liberals. It is from the Setuagint Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible's term `olah, which is the "whole burnt offering" offered in the Temple. The Hebrew term is Sho'ah, though I myself prefer the term used by religious Jews: Churban 'Europa').

What is the term for people slaughtered by Stalin? By Genghis Khan? By Attila the Hun? By Mao? By Pol Pot? By Basil the Bulgar Slayer?

No one is denying that millions and millions of non-Jews were killed by Hitler (though he still never approached the numbers achieved by Stalin and Mao). What I am saying is that the term "Holocaust" and its equivalents refer specifically to the attempt to eradicate the Jewish People from all of Europe, and perhaps from the rest of the world as well. It was an attempt by the Biblical `Amaleq to succeed in his history-long mission just as he has tried on so many numerous other occasions.

I regard liberal criticism of Pius XII as pure unadulterated hypocrisy, considering their idolatry of FDR. Though I must admit to not being a fan of the Pope myself for other reasons than the subject of this discussion. But I am not dealing with any of those other issues. I am dealing solely by the anti-Semitic inversion of the term "Holocaust denial" to refer to Jews and Israelis. And btw, liberal Jews are only too happy to share their martyrdom with the homosexuals. Thank G-d Yad VaShem has never gone along with this (unlike other "Holocaust museums" in other parts fo the world).

[sobieski]

OK, play it your way Genocide denial.

[sobieski]

Thank you. You should also keep an eye on someone who thinks that homosexuality is a capital crime in the name of religion.