Vatican acknowledges pope's shortcomings during Holocaust

Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet) ^

[RCW2001]

Story from AFP / Bruno Bartoloni
Copyright 2002 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)

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VATICAN CITY, Dec 20 (AFP) - The Vatican has for the first time acknowledged the shortcomings during the Holocaust of controversial wartime Pope Pius XII, who is accused by critics of not speaking out against the Nazi extermination of the Jews.

"Pius XII probably did not possess the qualities of a prophet," influential Italian Jesuit magazine Civilita Cattolica, which is controlled by the Vatican, said in its Friday edition.

Many historians and Jewish groups accuse the pope of failing to use his position to head off the extermination of European Jews by the Nazis, although his supporters say he used quiet diplomacy to help them.

Civilita Cattolica said documents by diplomats and prelates in Rome in 1942 showed that Pius, who was pope from 1939 until his death in 1958, was perfectly aware that Jews were being deported and exterminated.

By the end of 1942, the Vatican knew two million Jews had already been killed in Europe, gas chambers were being used in Poland and between 70,000 to 80,000 Jews had been deported from Czecheslovakia, the magazine said.

But the strongest public statement Pius made on the Holocaust was a Christmas 1942 message that merely talked of innocents dying and never specifically mentioned the persecution of the Jews.

The pope's message alluded to "hundreds of thousands of people who are destined to die or waste away without having committed any error, sometimes merely because of their nationality or origins".

Civilita Cattolica quoted witnesses as saying the pope believed he had done his best and was furious when the then Polish president, Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz, wrote to him in January 1943 asking him to intervene on behalf of the Jews.

"I wonder if the president read my (Christmas) message. I am surprised and vexed. Yes, vexed. Not a single word of gratitude or recognition that I said everything, everything. I was clear and precise," Pius told the Polish ambassador to Rome, according to an account by the latter found by Civilita Cattolica in London.

One prominent Jewish historian described the pope's vague Christmas message as "one of the darkest moments of his pontificate", said the article's author, Father Giovanni Sale.

Sale said the Vatican may have downplayed the "extremely significant" information it received on the persecution of Jews out of "excessive caution" or a belief that the reports were "somewhat exaggerated".

He pointed out that the training Catholic priests received at that time was deeply anti-semitic and the Church saw Jews as "Christ killers", a belief only abolished in the 1960s.

Secret Vatican archives on Pius XII's activities when he was a cardinal in pre-war Germany are due to be made public in 2003 and could shed further light on the Catholic Church's role during World War II.

The documents concern the conduct of Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, who was the Vatican's representative in Germany from 1922-1929 before he became Pope Pius XII at the outbreak of the war in 1939.

bb/gil/txw

Vatican-Holocaust

[ultima ratio]

Utterly untrue. The Church spoke out against Nazism early on. It is true the immediate danger was the persecution of religion by the Communists, but the Church warned the public of the evils of Nazism even before it came to power. This article is such tired stuff. Its contents are constantly refuted, but people who hate Catholicism want it all to be true, so they keep repeating this crap, hoping some of it will stick.

[fatima]

And?

[fatima]

Thank you dear souls,eternal rest.

[fatima]

Prove it .

[ultima ratio]

The record speaks for itself, regardless of what Paul Johnson says. Pius XII gave the COMMAND that all monasteries and convents were to hide Jews--at risk of their own lives. He himself hid thousands in the Vatican. He falsified papers and passports and distributed them to Jews across Europe. He organized food deliveries and each day the vans were secretly dispatched to deliver food throughout Italy--to feed Jewish refugees. Pius XII himself would not eat or drink anything not available for refugees. When the war was over he was hailed as a hero by Einstein, by Golda Meir, by the chief rabbi of Rome, among other Jewish leaders of that time. No one did more to rescue Jews. It is estimated he saved about 800,000+, conservatively, more than any other individual. Do you think a stronger speech would have helped? The Catholic hierarchy tried that and precipitated a catastrophe in the Netherlands. When its bishops publicly denounced Nazism for its barbaric treatment of Jews, the Nazis immediately ordered the roundup of hundreds of thousands of Dutch Jews. The Jews themselves begged the Church to keep a low profile since to speak out made matters worse. It was an evil time beyond imagining.

[Maynerd]

No disrespect, but Paul Johnson is not a half baked political hack writing an op ed piece to gain attention. If anything Johnson is inherently biased in favor of conservatism and the church.

I realize there is a trememdous media bias against the Catholic Church. However the church is not without influence and has more than its share of political machinations. The truth will declare itself eventually.

[wideawake]

I mean he buys the thesis that there was some kind of natural animosity in temper and doctrine between Pius XII and John XXIII and to praise the one is to spurn the other.

Pius XII and John XXIII were Popes, but they were men also. There is a sentiment among Catholics of a certain generation that John XXIII was a prophet sent by the Holy Spirit - the "sweetness-and-light" I was referring to.

[wideawake]

Prove it.

Read Johnson's History of Christianity and compare his respective assessments of Pius IX and John XXIII.

[ladyjane]

Merry Christmas Maynerd

[ET(end tyranny)]

The truth will declare itself eventually.

Slowly but surely, it is.

[Maynerd]

Thankyou and likewise.

[fatima]

Crap.

[tiki]

I don't think so. When the pope spoke out there was retribution. Diplomacy is used for a reason, sometimes to soothe feelings until you have the power to do something about it. The vatican didn't fight in the war and it is a fact that the vatican and many priests did as much as they possibly could to save Jews including giving their lives. This problem with Pacelli is just revisionist history. Someone wants to make a political point and others follow along like sheep because that is what they want to think anyway, anything to discredit the Catholic Church. But that's ok Jesus said it would be under attack and we naturally expect it.