Free Republic

On Jan. 9, 2005 the New York Times published a prominent article entitled "Saving Jewish Children, But At What Cost?" in which it accuses the Vatican and Pope Pius XII of having given instructions not to allow Jewish children who had been sheltered by Catholics during the war to return to their own families. A serious accusation, indeed, If it is true. But it is bogus. Story Continues Below On Jan. 10, the independent Panel investigating a segment of the CBS "60 minutes" program in what is known as Rathergate came to the conclusion that the broadcast was unfair and...

1946 Document on Jewish Children Tells a Different Story Undercuts Tale That Vatican Tried to Keep Them From Their Families ROME, JAN. 12, 2005 (Zenit.org).- The latest in a series of accusations about Pope Pius XII's behavior vis-à-vis the Jews and Nazi persecution seems to have little basis in fact. The latest round began Dec. 28 when an Italian newspaper published passages of an alleged 1946 Vatican document that supposedly aimed to keep baptized Jewish children from being returned to their families. The text, as stated in Il Corriere della Sera by Alberto Melloni, director of the G. Dossetti Library...

Pope Pius XII told French churches not to return Jewish war babies By Israel Insider staff and partners December 31, 2004 The Vatican instructed the Catholic church in France not to return baptized Jewish children to their families after the Holocaust, according to a letter dated November 20, 1946, published Tuesday in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera. Many such children had been placed by Jewish parents in the Church's care to protect them from deportation by the German. After the war, the Pope instructed that they should be returned to surviving parents only if they had not been baptized....

Experts React to a Row Over Jewish Children Rescued by Church Doubts Raised About Alleged Vatican Document ROME, JAN. 11, 2005 (Zenit.org).- A controversy has been brewing over an article in the Italian press that contends the Vatican tried to keep baptized Jewish children from rejoining their families after World War II. It started Dec. 28 when Alberto Melloni published an article in Il Corriere della Sera entitled, "Pius XII to Nuncio Roncalli: Do Not Return the Jewish Children." The subheadline referred to an alleged document of the Holy Office, dated Oct. 20, 1946, which "reveals new aspects of a...

The Vatican secretly issued instructions to the Catholic church in France not to return Jewish children to their families after the second world war, it emerged on Tuesday. The children were entrusted to the church's care to save them from the death camps. But if the parents survived the war and came forward to reclaim their sons or daughters, the children were only to be returned "provided [they] have not received baptism", the Vatican ordered. The instructions, contained in a letter dated October 20 1946, were sent by the Holy Office, the Vatican department responsible for church discipline, to the...