By Ronald Rychlak, Ph.D.

(Our Sunday Visitor, 2000)

In October 2000, the International Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission released to great publicity a “preliminary report” of its investigation into the actions of Pope Pius XII and the role of the Vatican in responding to the horror of the Nazi Holocaust during World War II. The committee‘s report was presented to the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations. Below, Professor Ronald J. Rychlak responds to the committee’s questions based on his research for Hitler, the War and the Pope (Our Sunday Visitor 2000).

For the most part, the Committee asked in their questions for additional documentation, assuming that the documentation on these matters as supplied in the 11-volume set of documents assembled from 1965 through 1981 (Actes et Documents du Saint Siege relatifs a la seconde guerre mondiale — ADSS) are lacking, or that more documentation exists. The Committee also asked in many cases for “confirmation” to questions where numerous witnesses have already supplied testimony. The questions concerning additional documentation when documentation already exists are not dealt with below, as well as questions asking for documents that may not exist within the Vatican archives. Additionally, Professor Rychlak has combined redundant or similar questions to answer together.

The questions from the committee are repeated in bold face followed by Professor Rychlak’s response. Editing for clarification is included in certain of the questions and is printed in lightface. Professor Rychlak begins with an overall response, then deals with questions singularly or combined:

I have set forth many of the 47 questions drafted by the committee and a number of points in response. In some cases, my responses are not full answers because there can be no answer to many of these questions. In too many of the questions, the Holy See is asked to disprove negative charges. They ask, for example, whether Pope Pius XII gave thanks for matters before they took place or whether the testimony of numerous witnesses, all of who support one another, can be confirmed. Under those conditions, what further confirmation would be acceptable? The committee also seems to expect to find documents that do not exist. Additionally, they raise questions about the veracity of four Jesuit priests who compiled the 11 volumes of documents, without themselves having each read the 11 volumes.

The point of this committee according to Dr. Eugene Fisher, who was one of the coordinators of the project representing the National Conference of Catholic Bishops of the United States, was to raise the level of the discussion. I think the committee has accomplished the opposite. The study group has – from the very beginning – rejected its charge. This interim report is a polemic aimed at the Holy See and Pope Pius XII. It has raised the heat of the debate, not the level of it.

Questions and Responses:

#2. In 1938, after the Kristallnacht pogrom, only one prominent German prelate, Bernhard Lichtenberg, rector of Saint Hedwig’s cathedral in Berlin, had the courage to condemn the outrages publicly. (Cardinal Eugenio) Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII)was given a detailed report by the papal nuncio in Berlin but there appears to have been no official reaction by the Vatican. This issue is especially important because Archbishop Amleto Cicognani, Apostolic Delegate to the United States certainly informed the Vatican of the public broadcast of the American bishops= condemnation of Kristallnacht. Do the archives reveal internal discussions among Vatican officials, including Pacelli, about the appropriate reaction to this pogrom?

Point:

Pope Pius XI had issued a strong condemnation of Hitler only a few days before the infamous Kristallnacht of November 1938. On October 21, in one of his last public appearances, Pius XI personally attacked Hitler, likening him to Julian the Apostate (Roman Emperor Flavius Claudius Julianus), who attempted to “saddle the Christians with responsibility for the persecution he had unleashed against them.”

Following Kristallnacht, for three days the Vatican’s official newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, ran a series of articles reporting on the anti-Semitic atrocities. For instance, such an article ran on November 13, under the headline “Dopo le manifestazioni antisemite in Germania” (After the manifestation of anti-Semitism in Germany).

The same month that Kristallnacht took place in Germany, racial laws in Italy were tightened with passage of the “law for the defense of the Italian race.” That law prohibited interracial marriages involving Italian Aryans, and declared that such marriages would not be recognized. Civil recognition of Church marriages had been one of the most important aspects of the Lateran Treaty, and this seemed a clear breach, despite Benito Mussolini’s attempts to argue otherwise. Pope Pius XI was the first official to file a protest, but he had no influence with the Fascists or the Nazis. His protests, however, may have been part of the reason why Italians were never very willing to enforce racial laws. In addition, Vatican leaders set the example of helping Jews. Pursuant to the orders of Cardinal Pacelli, and with the agreement of Jewish leaders, the Torah and other Jewish ritual objects were removed from synagogues and transported for safe-keeping by Church officials.

# 4. A substantial part of Volume 6 (of the ADSS) is devoted to the aborted efforts to obtain Brazilian visas for Catholics of Jewish origin. Numerous questions have been raised concerning the failure of this project. In addition, it is known that a part of the money destined for the refugees came from funds raised by the United Jewish Appeal in the United States. Is there further documentation as to why this money was allocated to the attempted rescue of converted Jews rather than to Jews?

Point:

The Vatican provided papers indicating Latin American citizenship to many Jews in occupied France. When the papers were discovered to be illegal, the Latin American countries withdrew recognition of them. This made the Jews subject to deportation to the concentration camps. Pursuant to a request from the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, and working in conjunction with the International Red Cross, the Vatican contacted the countries involved and urged them to recognize the documents, “no matter how illegally obtained.”

#5. From the outbreak of the war, appeals rained down upon the Vatican for help on behalf of the population of Poland, brutally victimized in a cruel and bloodthirsty occupation. And from the earliest days of the fighting, observers, ranging from the exiled Polish government to the British and French ambassadors to the Vatican, recounted the opinion of many Catholic Poles, both inside and outside Poland, that the Church had betrayed them and that Rome was silent in the face of their national ordeal. Is there any further documentation beyond what is already in the volumes concerning deliberations within the Vatican with regard to these insistent appeals on behalf of the Poles?

Point:

On January 19, 1940 Pope Pius told Msgr. Giovanni Battista Montini, the future Pope Paul VI, that Vatican Radio must broadcast a report on the conditions of the Catholic Church in German-occupied Poland. The first report, broadcast in German, took place on January 21. Two days later, in England, the Manchester Guardian reported: “Tortured Poland has found a powerful advocate in Rome…. [Vatican Radio has warned] all who care for civilization that Europe is in mortal danger.” On January 26, Vatican Radio broadcast in English that “Jews and Poles are being herded into separate ghettos, hermetically sealed and pitifully inadequate.” The story was reported in the January 23 edition of the New York Times under the headline: “Vatican Denounces Atrocities in Poland; Germans Called Even Worse than Russians.” (A separate story in that same edition of the Times reported that a Soviet newspaper had labeled Pius the “tool of Great Britain and France.”) The Vatican report confirmed that “the horror and inexcusable excesses committed on a helpless and a homeless people have been established by the unimpeachable testimony of eyewitnesses.” This same month, Pope Pius XII ordered the publication of a large volume (565 pages) of eyewitness accounts of the German efforts to crush the Church.

These broadcasts created a great deal of controversy. In the West, newspapers editorialized that Vatican Radio had set forth “a warning to all who value our civilization hat Europe is under a mortal danger.” The Germans, on the other hand, sent a representative to the Holy See to file a protest and warn that such broadcasts could lead to “disagreeable repercussions.” According to John Cornwell, Vatican Radio “attracted a flow of protest implying that the Holy See was continuously breaking the terms of the Reich Concordat” by its reporting on events in Poland. In fact, the Germans ultimately decided that due to the hostile and anti-German attitude of the Vatican’s press and radio, Catholic priests and members of religious orders in occupied Poland would be prohibited from leaving that country.

Pius had condemned German abuses in his first encyclical, Summi Pontificatus, and he was behind the radio broadcasts of Vatican radio. While he wanted to be more outspoken, he decided to personally maintain a lower profile because he thought that was his duty. On February 20, 1940, Pius wrote: “When the Pope would like to shout out loud and clear, holding back and silence are unhappily what are often imposed on him; where he would like to act and help, it is patience and waiting (that are imposed on him).” Nevertheless, it was clear by now that the Church was strongly opposed to Hitler’s National Socialism. On January 26, an American Jewish newspaper reported: “The Vatican radio this week broadcast an outspoken denunciation of German atrocities in Nazi [occupied] Poland, declaring they affronted the moral conscience of mankind.” This same month, the United Jewish Appeal for Refugees and Overseas Needs donated $125,000 to help with the Vatican’s efforts on behalf of victims of racial persecution. This was reported in the Jewish Ledger (Hartford, Conn), on Jan. 19, 1940, which called it an “eloquent gesture” which “should prove an important step in the direction of cementing bonds of sympathy and understanding” between Jews and Catholics.

#6.On November 23, 1940, Mario Besson, Bishop of Lausanne, Fribourg, and Geneva, sent a letter to Pope Pius XII expressing deep concern at the grave conditions of thousands of prisoners, including Jews, in concentration camps in southwest France. In his report he pressed for a public appeal by the Pope against the persecutions and a more active Catholic defense of the rights of all the victims. We know that it must have been taken seriously by the Vatican, especially since its observations were confirmed by the papal nuncio to Switzerland, Archbishop Filippo Bernardini, who forwarded Besson’s message to the Pope. The subsequent responses by Luigi Maglione, Secretary of State, also indicate that he considered it worthy of attention, and he certainly would have discussed it with the Holy Father. Is there any evidence that Pius XII, Maglione or any other high Vatican official considered, then or subsequently, responding in the manner requested by Besson?

# 20 In August and September 1942, there were vigorous protests against the deportations of Jews from France by Archbishop Saliège of Toulouse, Bishop Théas of Montaubon, and Cardinal Gerlier of Lyons. According to The New York Times, in an article published 10 September 1942, the Pope “sent to Marshal Pétain (Henri Philippi Petain of the Nazi puppet Vichy government in “unoccupied” France) a personal message in which he intimated his approval of the initiative of the French Cardinals and Bishops on behalf of the Jews and foreigners being handed over to the Germans. It is understood the Pope asked the French Chief of State to intervene.” Is there confirmation in the Vatican archives of this news account?

Point:

From the very first day the opposition between the orientation of the Vichy government and the thought of Pius XII was evident. Shortly after the Germans took over, Pius XII sent a secret letter to Catholic bishops of Europe entitled Opere et Caritate (“By Work and By Love”). In it, he instructed the bishops to help all who were suffering racial discrimination at the hands of the Nazis. They were instructed to read the letter in their Churches in order to remind the faithful that racism is “incompatible with the teachings of the Catholic Church.”

From the summer of 1941 on, foreign Jews were rounded up and deported from Vichy with the full cooperation of Vichy officials. Eventually, some 40,000 citizens were murdered and 60,000 more deported to concentration camps for “Gaullism, Marxism or hostility to the regime.” One hundred thousand others were deported on racial grounds.

The highest dignitaries of the Church immediately denounced the deportations and the treatment of Jews. As reported by The Tablet (London), on July 10 Pope Pius XII “spoke with exceptional decisiveness against the over-valuation of blood and race.” Nuncio Valeri contacted Pétain, demanding that the deportations end. Pétain reportedly said: “I hope that the Pope understands my attitude in these difficult circumstances.” The nuncio replied: “It is precisely that which the Pope cannot understand.” Vatican Radio condemned “this scandal… the treatment of the Jews.”

The Papal Secretary of State, Cardinal Maglione, told the French Ambassador to the Vatican “that the conduct of the Vichy Government toward Jews and foreign refugees was a gross infraction” of the Vichy Government’s own principles, and was “irreconcilable with the religious feelings which Marshal Pétain had so often invoked in his speeches.” A French Jesuit priest, Fr. Michel Riquet, who was imprisoned for his work in support of Jews later said: “Throughout those years of horror when we listened to Vatican Radio and the Pope’s messages, we felt in communion with the Pope, in helping persecuted Jews and in fighting Nazi violence.”

On July 16, 1942, at 3:00 in the morning, French police officers spread out through Paris, rounded up 13,000 Jews, and locked them in a sports facility known as the Vélodrome d=Hiver. The French bishops issued a joint protest that stated:

“The mass arrest of the Jews last week and the ill-treatment to which they were subjected, particularly in the Paris Vélodrome d’Hiver, has deeply shocked us. There were scenes of unspeakable horror when the deported parents were separated from their children. Our Christian conscience cries out in horror. In the name of humanity and Christian principles we demand the inalienable rights of all individuals. From the depths of our hearts we pray Catholics to express their sympathy for the immense injury to so many Jewish mothers.”

At the direction of Pope Pius XII, the protests from French bishops were broadcast and discussed for several days on Vatican Radio. Never, however, did mere words deter the Nazis from their goals. In fact, the statements of protest from Catholic leaders in France angered Pierre Laval of the Vichy leadership, and he reaffirmed his decision to cooperate in the deportation of all non-French Jews to Germany.

On August 6, 1942, a New York Times headline proclaimed: “Pope is Said to Plead for Jews Listed for Removal from France.” Some writers have questioned this protest, but it is confirmed in a telegram sent from the German ambassador to France. Ambassador Abetz in Paris to the Office of Foreign Affairs, dated August 28, 1942, Akten Zur Deutschen Auswärtigen Politik, 1918-1945, Series E, Band III, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht in Göttingen (1974) no. 242 (discussing a protest from the Nuncio regarding the treatment of the Jews, instructions from the Archbishop of Toulouse telling priests “to protest most vehemently from the pulpit against the deportation of the Jews,” and Laval’s protest to the Vatican). Three weeks later, a headline in the New York Times told the story: “Vichy Seizes Jews; Pope Pius Ignored.”

The Pope issued a formal protest to Pétain, instructed the nuncio to issue another protest, and recommended that religious communities provide refuge to Jewish people. In fact, the American press reported that the Pope protested to the Vichy government three times during August 1942, but Vichy officials tried to keep this from the public. This same month, Archbishop Jules Gérard Saliège, from Toulouse, sent a pastoral letter to be read in all churches in his diocese. It said: “There is a Christian morality that confers rights and imposes duties…. The Jews are our brothers. They belong to mankind. No Christian can dare forget that!” L’Osservatore Romano praised Saliège as a hero of Christian courage, and as soon as the war was over, Pope Pius XII named him a cardinal.

According to the Geneva Tribune of September 8, 1942, Vichy ordered the French press to ignore the Pope’s protest concerning the deportation of Jews. Despite this order, word spread rapidly due to the courageous attitude of members of the French resistance, who knew that they had the blessing of Rome.

The Canadian Jewish Chronicle, referring to Vichy leader Pierre Laval, ran the following headline on September 4, 1942: “Laval Spurns Pope: 25,000 Jews in France Arrested for Deportation.” In an editorial dated August 28, 1942, The California Jewish Voice called Pius “a spiritual ally” because he “linked his name with the multitude that are horrified by the Axis inhumanity.” In a lead editorial, The Jewish Chronicle (London) said that the Vatican was due a “word of sincere and earnest appreciation” from Jews for its intervention in Berlin and Vichy. The editorial went on to say that the rebuke that Pius received from “Laval and his Nazi master” was “an implied tribute to the moral steadfastness of a great spiritual power, bravely doing its manifest spiritual duty.” The Tablet (London), quoting an article from The Jewish Chronicle, reported that “Catholic priests have taken a leading part in hiding hunted Jews, and sheltering the children of those who are under arrest or have been deported to Germany.”

Late in June, 1943, the Vatican Radio warned the French people that “he who makes a distinction between Jews and other men is unfaithful to God and is in conflict with God’s commands.” The impact of any statement, however, was limited. A censorship order to the press said, “No mention is to be made of the Vatican protest to Marshal Pétain in favor of the Jews.”

As it did in other nations, the Church in France helped produce thousands of false documents that were used to deceive the Germans, and special efforts were made to protect Jewish children. Working with Jewish groups, French Christian organizations saved an estimated 7,000 Jewish children in France. At one point, a force of Protestant and Catholic social workers broke into a prison in Lyon and “kidnapped” ninety children who were being held with their parents for deportation. The parents were deported the next day. The children were sheltered in religious institutions under the protection of Cardinal Pierre Gerlier with the assistance of Father Pierre Chaillet, a member of the cardinal’s staff. When Cardinal Gerlier refused an order to surrender the children, Vichy leaders had Father Chaillet arrested. He served three months in a “mental hospital” before being released. On April 16, 1943, the Australian Jewish News ran an article quoting Cardinal Gerlier to the effect that he was simply obeying Pius XII’s instruction to oppose anti-Semitism.

#7. In August 1941 the French head of state, Marshal Philippe Pétain, asked the French ambassador to the Holy See, Léon Bérard, to ascertain the views of the Vatican on the collaborationist Vichy government’s efforts to restrict the Jews through anti‑Jewish legislation. The response came, reportedly from Giovanni Montini, substitute Secretary of State, and Domenico Tardini, Secretary of the Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, who stated that there was no objection to these restrictions so long as they were administered with justice and charity and did not restrict the prerogatives of the Church. Was the Pope consulted on this matter? Are there any additional materials in the archives regarding this issue that are not contained in the ADSS?

Point:

In the July-August 1999 issue of Commentary, Robert S. Wistrich (a member of the committee) made reference to a memorandum sent from the French ambassador to the Vatican back to the Vichy leaders, the so-called “Bérard Report.” Wistrich used that memorandum to argue that the Vatican originally supported Vichy’s anti-Semitic legislation, and when the “Vatican’s posture shifted” and it started opposing anti-Semitic legislation, it was disregarded by Vichy leaders because of this earlier report. I later wrote him with the details set forth below.

De Lubac has two chapters about the Bérard Report in his book, Christian Resistance to Anti-Semitism: Memories from 1940-1944. De Lubac explains that Pétain was being pressured by the Catholic hierarchy in France to abandon the anti-Semitic laws, and Bérard wanted a statement from the Vatican that he could use to silence French Catholics. Thus, in a letter dated August 7, 1941, he asked for a report on the Holy See’s attitude towards the new legislation.

The response came in a long memorandum, dated on September 2, from Léon Bérard, French ambassador to the Holy See. The key phrase is as follows: “As someone in authority said to me at the Vatican, he will start no quarrel with us over the statute for the Jews.” The ambassador was assured that “the Holy See had no hostile intention.” He was persuaded that it did not wish to “seek a quarrel.”

Rather than providing the official position of the Holy See, Bérard cited the above-mentioned “someone in authority,” and also gave a long justification for that position, based on Church history, including the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas. It seems highly suspect for a diplomatic report to go into historic Church teaching rather than relying on diplomatic sources. Moreover, the historic discussion omitted many more recent authoritative statements on anti-Semitism. Authoritative statements, however, would not have served Pétain’s purposes.

It is certainly reasonable to conclude that Bérard drafted this memorandum to meet Pétain’s needs, not to reflect the Church’s actual position. As De Lubac says, “[i]f the ambassador had been able to obtain from any personage at all in Rome a reply that was even slightly clear and favorable, he would not have taken so much trouble to ‘bring together the elements of a well-founded and complete report’ obviously fabricated by himself or by one of his friends.”

Bérard’s report was dated Sept. 2, 1941. On September 13, at a reception at the Parc Hotel in Vichy, the apostolic nuncio, Bishop Valerio Valeri, criticized the anti-Semitic legislation. Pétain, citing the Bérard Report, replied that the Holy See found certain aspects of the laws­ a bit harsh, but it had not on the whole found fault with the laws. Valeri replied that the Holy See had made clear its opposition to racism, which was at the basis of this legislation. Pétain then suggested that the nuncio might not be in agreement with his superiors.

Bishop Valeri immediately wrote the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Maglione, and asked for more information. Then, around September 26, ­Valeri called upon Pétain and was shown Bérard’s report­. The nuncio judged it to be “more nuanced” than Pétain had led him to believe, and he gave Pétain a note concerning the “grave harms that, from a religious perspective, can result from the legislation now in force.” Pétain replied that he too disagreed with some of the anti-Jewish laws, but that they had been imposed under pressure from the Germans.

On September 30, Valeri wrote to Maglione, enclosing a copy of the Bérard Report. He explained the conversation at the Parc Hotel as follows: “I reacted quite vigorously, especially because of those who were present [ambassadors from Spain and Brazil]. I stated that the Holy See had already expressed itself regarding racism, which is at the bottom of every measure taken against the Jews….”

The Secretary of State wrote back on ­October 31 explaining that Bérand had made exaggerations and deductions about Vatican policy that were not correct. He fully approved of the note that Valeri had given to Pétain and encouraged him to continue efforts designed to at least tone down the rigid application of the anti-Semitic laws. Actes et Documents, vol. 8, no. 189. Valeri then drafted a note of protest that he sent to Pétain.

As such, it is clear that if Pétain ever thought that Bérard’s accounting of the situation was legitimate, the “shift” in the Vatican’s position was immediately brought to his attention. As De Lubac concludes, “from the very first day… the opposition between the orientation of the Vichy government and the thought of Pius XII was patent.”

#8. In Romania, where Catholics were a small but significant minority, both the local Catholic authorities and the Vatican clung to the concordat of 1929 as defining the relationship between the Church and the dictatorial regime of Marshal Ion Antonescu. During 1940 and 1941, as persecution of the Jews intensified, the Vatican received a stream of communications from the nuncio, Archbishop Andrea Cassulo, relaying the strain that the anti‑Jewish laws put upon what the Church saw as its prerogatives among others, the protection of the civil and religious rights of Catholics who had converted from Judaism. Cassulo repeatedly reported on his efforts to secure the “freedom of the Church” by insisting upon the need to exempt converts from anti‑Jewish laws, their rights to attend schools and vocational institutions. Did Cassulo or his interlocutors in the Vatican view these interventions as the only practical means by which a blanket of protection, or at least some protection, might be extended to Jews who were not converts? Are there any further documents to elucidate this issue?

#31. During the war the Vatican followed its traditional policy that Jews who had converted to Catholicism were full members of the Church, and therefore entitled to its protection. This protection was sometimes guaranteed by concordats, thereby according to the Church the means by which to intervene in specific and general cases. Was the recourse to such interventions derived purely from considerations of efficacy or were there moral or other considerations that were discussed among Vatican officials? Was there a broad strategy, policy guidelines, or theological discussions among Vatican officials to determine what principles should be applied to such interventions on behalf of converted Jews?

#32. In the repeated interventions against the application of racial laws and appeals on behalf of some of the deportees that appear in these volumes, the emphasis upon “non‑Aryan Catholics” or converted Jews is striking to the contemporary reader. This is all the more so because of the lasting resentment, among Jews, of the Church’s promotion and encouragement of such conversions. From the standpoint of the Vatican, of course, the purported reasons for this emphasis are threefold: first, what the Church understood as its responsibility to look after its own; second, that the Vatican did not believe that Jewish organizations took care of Jewish converts to Catholicism; and third, the claim that it was only in the cases of this particular class of “Jews” that the Vatican had locus standi with aggressive and dictatorial regimes and hence some prospect of success. To what degree was the latter a rationale for inattention to Jews qua Jews? And how accurate was it to refer, as many regularly do, to interventions on behalf of “Jews” when that term frequently connoted baptized Jews? Are there any documents that would clarify this ambiguous use of terminology?

#46. In countries in which Vatican representatives clashed with the local authorities over the application of racial laws, there are repeated references to conversions. Governments, occupation authorities, nuncios, the Secretariat, and local Churches all raised questions about the sincerity of these conversions. Were such conversions a means to avoid the disabilities of discriminatory laws, regulations, and even worse, deportation and murder? To anyone familiar with the wartime persecution of the Jews, and this must include Vatican officials whose voices are represented here, such questions may appear cruel, or at best naïve. In light of certain Church officials issuing false identity papers to unconverted Jews, were such Vatican expressions of concern that conversions be “sincere” intended to hold persecuting and even murderous officials at bay? Or were these rather a genuine reflection of the priorities of the Church jealously guarding the integrity of its sacramental life, especially baptism, and unhesitatingly promoting, even in the midst of the Holocaust, what it felt to be its apostolic mission for the souls put in its care? Are there any documents that could shed light on this issue?

Point:

Many Jews were quickly converted for the purpose of avoiding Nazi persecution. Undoubtedly Church leaders would have been glad to welcome converts to Christianity. However, in a great many more cases, false baptismal documents were provided so that Jewish people could avoid persecution, even though they had not actually converted. This indicates compassion for the human suffering, regardless of religion.

Sometimes Church officials were embarrassed about how quickly they would convert Jews to Catholicism for the purpose of avoiding persecution. One small church in Budapest averaged about four or five conversions a year before the occupation. In 1944, those numbers shot up dramatically. Six were converted in January, 23 in May, 101 in June, over 700 in September, and over 1,000 in October. Three thousand Jews became Catholics at this one small church in 1944. The Nazi occupying forces soon recognized that these conversions were being done only to avoid deportation, so they started persecuting the “converts.” Since it no longer assured protection, the flood of conversions dried up.

The Catholic Church was so open to Jewish converts that some have argued that during the war this was the Church’s primary interest. In a Papal Allocution of October 6, 1946, Pope Pius addressed the charge that the Church had engaged in “forced conversions.” He found the best evidence to be a memorandum, dated January 25, 1942, from the Vatican Secretariat of State to the Legation of Yugoslavia to the Holy See. The Pope read from that document:

“According to the principles of Catholic doctrine, conversion must be the result, not of external constraint, but of an interior adherence of the soul to the truths taught by the Catholic Church.

“It is for this reason that the Catholic Church does not admit to her communion adults who request either to be received or to be readmitted, except on condition that they be fully aware of the meaning and consequences of the step that they wish to take.”

A slant on this claim relates to children, particularly those under the age of six. The surest way to protect such young children from the Nazis was by actually baptizing and indoctrinating them, in case they were ever challenged. This practice could create resentment among some surviving Jews, especially when Christian clergy encouraged the children to adopt this outward behavior. This probably varied from location to location, but the evidence suggests that most clergy did not undertake these conversions lightly.

In fact, classes were established to let the children study their own religion. (In parts of France and Belgium, Church officials forbade the actual baptism of Jewish children. Outward appearances were thought sufficient to deceive the Nazis. Even when parents requested the baptism, it was recognized that this was simply a matter of duress.)

During the winter of 1943-44, the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem, under the patronage of the High Commander for Palestine, sponsored a memorial evening to recognize and honor the Pontiff’s efforts on behalf of Jewish children. Dignitaries from throughout the city, including the apostolic delegation, were in attendance.

The Secretary General of the World Jewish Congress reported on a meeting with Pius XII after the war to thank him for helping hide Jewish children. Pius promised to cooperate with returning the children to their communities. Chief Rabbi Herzog of Palestine also announced that he had the Vatican’s promise of help in bringing “converted” Jewish children back into the Jewish fold. In 1964, Dr. Leon Kubovitzky, who directed this project, reported that there were almost no cases of Catholic institutions resisting the return of Jewish children.

#11.The Cardinal Archbishop of Krakow, Adam Sapieha, in a letter of February 1942 to the Pope, vividly described the horrors of the Nazi occupation, including the concentration camps that destroyed thousands of Poles. However, neither in this nor in any other communication to Rome, of which we are aware, did Sapieha make any specific reference to the Jews. Nor, to the best of our knowledge, did the Vatican ever request any information on the subject from him. Yet Sapieha undoubtedly knew what was happening in Auschwitz, which was within his archdiocese. Was there any unpublished communication of Sapieha to Rome in which he alluded to the fate of the Jews? Can the archives tell us more regarding the interaction on this and related matters between the Vatican and Polish church leaders?

Point:

Early in the war, Sapieha had asked the Pope for a forceful statement, but he later changed his mind and recalled his letter. Sapieha worked to help Jews escape Nazi persecution. After the war, Pius made Sapieha a cardinal.

In 1943, a bishop wrote a memo from London urging the Pope to intervene in the matter, but it was then retracted by Adam Sapieha, the Archbishop of Krakow, who was still in Poland.

Certain Polish bishops, exiled in London, called for stronger statements by the Pontiff. Those who remained in Poland like Archbishop Sapieha, however, urged him not to speak.

On June 2, 1943 (the feast day of St. Eugenio), in an address to the cardinals which was broadcast on Vatican Radio and clandestinely distributed in printed form within Poland, the Pope, at the request of Polish Archbishop Sapieha, expressed in new and clear terms his compassion and affection for the Polish people and predicted the rebirth of Poland.

“No one familiar with the history of Christian Europe can ignore or forget the saints and heroes of Poland… nor how the faithful people of that land have contributed throughout history to the development and conservation of Christian Europe. For this people so harshly tried, and others, who together have been forced to drink the bitter chalice of war today, may a new future dawn worthy of their legitimate aspirations in the depths of their sufferings, in a Europe based anew on Christian foundations.”

Archbishop Sapieha wrote from Kracow that: “the Polish people will never forget these noble and holy words, which will call forth a new and ever more loyal love for the Holy Father… and at the same time provide a most potent antidote to the poisonous influences of enemy propaganda.” He also said that he would try to publicize the speech as much as possible by having copies printed, if the authorities would permit it.

Bishop Stefan Sapieha of Kracow wrote a letter to Pius, dated October 28, 1942, in which he said: “It displeases us greatly that we cannot communicate Your Holiness’ letters to our faithful, but it would furnish a pretext for further persecution and we have already had victims suspected of communicating with the Holy See.” Pius would later cite this experience in a letter to Bishop Preysing of Berlin:

“We leave it to the [local] bishops to weigh the circumstances in deciding whether or not to exercise restraint, ad maiora mala vitanda [to avoid greater evil]. This would be advisable if the danger of retaliatory and coercive measures would be imminent in cases of public statements by the bishop. Here lies one of the reasons We Ourselves restrict Our public statements. The experience We had in 1942 with documents which We released for distribution to the faithful gives justification, as far as We can see, for Our attitude.”

#12.On 18 May 1941, Pope Pius XII received the head of the Croation fascist state, Ante Pavelic. While the Vatican had received Pavelic as an individual Catholic, not as head of state, there were political implications as a result of this reception. Before his reception, the Yugoslav minister to the Holy See brought to the Vatican’s attention Pavelic’s involvement in committing atrocities against the Serbs and protested the reception of Pavelic in any capacity because he was the head of an “illegitimate” puppet state. Subsequently, Pavelic’s regime was responsible for the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, gypsies, and partisans. It is not known how the Pope reacted to these atrocities. Are there any archival materials that can illuminate this issue?

#13.Many unanswered questions also surround the Archbishop of Zagreb, Aloysius Stepinac, beatified in 1999. While in 1941 he initially welcomed the creation of a Croatian state, he subsequently condemned atrocities against Serbs and Jews and established an organization to rescue Jews. Are there any archival documents or materials from the beatification process that can illuminate this matter?

Point:

Croatia came into being during the war. On March 25, 1941, Italy, Germany, and Yugoslavia signed an agreement bringing Yugoslavia into the Axis. Two days later, a group of Serbian nationalists seized control of Belgrade and announced that they were siding with the Allies. As a result, Hitler invaded Yugoslavia. Croat Fascists then declared an independent Croatia. The new Croat government was led by Ante Pavelic and his supporters, the Ustashe.

There had been a long history of hatred in this part of the world between Croats (predominantly Catholic) and Serbs (mainly Orthodox). The Ustashi government exacted revenge against the Serbs for years of perceived discrimination. According to some accounts, as many as 700,000 Serbs were slaughtered. Among the charges against the Catholic Church in Croatia are that it engaged in forcible conversions, that Church officials hid Croat Nazis after the war, that Nazi gold made its way from Croatia to the Vatican, and that Catholic leaders in Croatia supported the governments brutality toward the Serbs.

While some of these charges are recent in origin (and from suspect sources), there is no credible evidence that the Pope or the Vatican behaved inappropriately. For instance, the Vatican expressly repudiated forcible conversions in a memorandum, dated January 25, 1942, from the Vatican Secretariat of State to the Legation of Yugoslavia to the Holy See (addressing conversions in Croatia). In August of that year, the Grand Rabbi of Zagreb, Dr. Miroslav Freiberger, wrote to Pius XII expressing his “most profound gratitude” for the “limitless goodness that the representatives of the Holy See and the leaders of the Church showed to our poor brothers.” [Actes et Documents, vol. VIII, no. 441. See also id. vol. VIII, no. 537 (report on Vatican efforts to alleviate the sad conditions of the Croatian Jews); id. vol. VIII, no. 473 (efforts to find sanctuary for Croatian Jews in Italy); id. vol. VIII, no. 557 (insistence on “a benevolent treatment toward the Jews”).] In October, a message went out from the Vatican to its representatives in Zagreb regarding the “painful situation that spills out against the Jews in Croatia” and instructing them to petition the government for “a more benevolent treatment of those unfortunates.” In December 1942, Dr. Freiberger wrote again, expressing his confidence “in the support of the Holy See.”

The Cardinal Secretary of State=s notes reflect that Vatican petitions were successful in getting a suspension of “dispatches of Jews from Croatia” by January 1943, but Germany was applying pressure for “an attitude more firm against the Jews.” Maglione went on to outline various steps that could be taken by the Holy See to help the Jews. Another instruction from the Holy See to its unofficial representatives (since there were no diplomatic relations) in Zagreb directing them to work on behalf of the Jews went out on March 6, 1943. On September 24, 1943, Alex Easterman, the British representative of the World Jewish Congress, contacted Msgr. William Godfrey, the apostolic delegate in London and informed him that about 4,000 Jewish refugees from Croatia were safely evacuated to an island in the Adriatic Sea. “I feel sure that efforts of your Grace and of the Holy See have brought about this fortunate result,” wrote Easterman.

Croatian Archbishop Alojzij Stepinac originally welcomed the Ustashi government, but after he learned of the extent of the brutality, and after having received direction from Rome, he condemned its actions. [The British Minister to the Holy See during the war years, Sir Francis D’Arcy Osborne, wrote that Stepinac always acted according to the “well-intended dictates of his conscience.”] A speech he gave on October 24, 1942, is typical of many that he made refuting Nazi theory:

“All men and all races are children of God; all without distinction. Those who are Gypsies, Black, European, or Aryan all have the same rights…. for this reason, the Catholic Church had always condemned, and continues to condemn, all injustice and all violence committed in the name of theories of class, race, or nationality. It is not permissible to persecute Gypsies or Jews because they are thought to be an inferior race.”

The Associated Press reported that “by 1942 Stepinac had become a harsh critic” of that Nazi puppet regime, condemning its “genocidal policies, which killed tens of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and Croats.” He thereby earned the enmity of the Croatian dictator, Ante Pavelic.

Although Cornwell argues that the Holy See granted de facto recognition to the Ustashi government, in actuality the Vatican rebuked Pavelic and refused to recognize the Independent State of Croatia or receive a Croatian representative. [Actes et Documents, vol. IV, no. 400 (“Pavelic is furious… because… he is treated worse by the Holy See than the Slovaks”).] When Pavelic traveled to the Vatican, he was greatly angered because he was permitted only a private audience rather than the diplomatic audience he had wanted. He might not even have been granted that privilege, but for the fact that the extent of the atrocities that had already begun were not yet known.

#14.On several occasions Konrad von Preysing, Bishop of Berlin, had vainly appealed to the Pope to protest specific Nazi actions, including those directed at the Jews. On 17 January 1941 he wrote to Pius XII, noting that “Your Holiness is certainly informed about the situation of the Jews in Germany and the neighboring countries. I wish to mention that I have been asked both from the Catholic and Protestant side if the Holy See could not do something on this subject, issue an appeal in favor of these unfortunates.” This was a direct appeal to the Pope, which bypassed the nuncio. What impression did von Preysing’s words make on Pius XII; what discussions if any, took place about making such a public appeal as the German bishop requested, and was any further information about Nazi anti‑Jewish policy sought?

Point:

Pius always was close to Preysing, but beginning in 1942, he really began to follow Preysing=s lead. Preysing, of course, was a recognized opponent of Nazism. Not only did the Pope send a message congratulating Preysing for his defense of the rights of all people, he also took Preysing’s advice when selecting episcopal candidates, avoiding those whom Preysing felt were sympathetic toward the Nazis.

In April 1943, Pius wrote encouraging Preysing to continue his work on behalf of the Jews: “For the non-Aryan Catholics as well as for Jews, the Holy See has done whatever was in its power, with charitable, financial and moral assistance…. Let us not speak of the substantial sums which we spent in American money for the fares of emigrants…. We have gladly given these sums, for these people were in distress…. Jewish organizations have warmly thanked the Holy See for these rescue operations…. As for what is being done against non-Aryans in the German territories, we have said a word in our Christmas radio message. The mention was short, but it was understood.”

#15.On 6 March 1943, von Preysing asked Pius XII to try and save the Jews still in the Reich capital, who were facing imminent deportation which, as he indicated, would lead to certain death: “The new wave of deportations of the Jews, which began just before 1 March, affects us particularly here in Berlin even more bitterly. Several thousands are involved: Your Holiness has alluded to their probable fate in your Christmas Radio Broadcast. Among the deportees are also many Catholics. Is it not possible for Your Holiness again to intervene for the many unfortunate innocents? It is the last hope for many and the profound wish of all right‑thinking people.” On 30 April 1943, the Pope indicated to von Preysing that local bishops had the discretion to determine when to be silent and when to speak out in the face of the danger of reprisals and pressures. Although he felt that he had to exercise great prudence in his actions as Pope, he made it clear that he felt comforted that Catholics, particularly in Berlin, had helped the “so‑called non‑Aryans” (sogenannten Nichtarier). He particularly singled out for “fatherly recognition” Father Lichtenberg, who had been imprisoned by the Nazis and who would die shortly afterwards. Are there earlier examples in the archives of the Pope’s solicitude for Father Lichtenberg or any reference to the bishops’stand against the persecution of the Jews going back to 1938? Is there any evidence of discussion in the Vatican regarding the deportations from Berlin?

Point:

Shortly after Austria was annexed, the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Theodor Innitzer, met with Hitler and, based on outward appearances and a German radio broadcast, he welcomed the Anschluss. [The report, translated into English, was sent to Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy by Cardinal Pacelli, who strongly disassociated it from the Vatican’s position.] Austrian bishops also issued a public statement praising the achievements of Nazism. This was in accord with much of the feeling throughout Austria, where the German troops had been greeted as heroes rather than conquerors. Vatican Radio, however, immediately broadcast a vehement denunciation of these actions, and Pacelli ordered the Archbishop to report to Rome. [Internal German records reflect that Nazi leadership wanted to “encourage Cardinal Innitzer and the Austrian bishops in their patriotic attitude.”]

Before meeting with the Pope, Innitzer met with Pacelli, who had been outraged by the German cardinal. This has been called one of the “most tempestuous” meetings of the whole pontificate. Pacelli made it clear that Innitzer had to retract his statements. He was made to sign a new statement, issued on behalf of all of the Austrian bishops, which provided: “The solemn declaration of the Austrian bishops on 18 March of this year was clearly not intended to be an approval of something that was not and is not compatible with God=s law.” The Vatican newspaper also reported that the bishops’ earlier statement had been issued without approval from Rome.

A German official in Rome, who saw Innitzer shortly after his meetings, reported: “I have the impression that the Cardinal, who seemed very exhausted from the conversations in the Vatican, had had a hard struggle there.” The same official reported later the same day that the retraction of the earlier statements “was wrested from Cardinal Innitzer with pressure that can only be termed extortion.” Before long, however, Innitzer was recognized as a true enemy of the Nazis.

#17.The Pope’s reply to von Preysing did not give a specific commitment to make any public appeal for the Jews. But on 2 June 1943, just over a month later, the Pope in a speech to the Sacred College of Cardinals did elusively refer to those “destined sometimes, even without guilt on their part, to exterminatory measures.” This was the second and last occasion on which Pope Pius XII would make any (indirect) reference to the Holocaust during the war years. Its proximity in time to his reply on 30 April 1943 to von Preysing suggests that there may have been a connection, though once again only a closer investigation of the Vatican archives could reveal whether this was the case. What unpublished documents regarding the Pope’s speech and his reply to von Preysing do the archives contain?

Point:

The question refers to the Pope’s speech to the College of Cardinals as his “second and last” reference to the Holocaust. There are so many statements that he made. Let us start with an encyclical from that same month (June 1943), Mystici Corporis Christi (“On the Mystical Body”). It was an obvious attack on the theoretical basis of National Socialism.

In Mystici Corporis Christi, Pius wrote: “the Church of God… is despised and hated maliciously by those who shut their eyes to the light of Christian wisdom and miserably return to the teachings, customs and practices of ancient paganism.” He wrote of the “passing things of earth,” and the “massive ruins” of war, including the persecution of priests and nuns. He offered prayers that world leaders be granted the love of wisdom and expressed no doubt that “a most severe judgment” would await those leaders who did not follow God’s will.

Pius appealed to “Catholics the world over” to “look to the Vicar of Jesus Christ as the loving Father of them all, who… takes upon himself with all his strength the defense of truth, justice and charity.” He explained, “Our paternal love embraces all peoples, whatever their nationality or race.” Christ, by his blood, made the Jews and Gentiles one “breaking down the middle wall of partition… in his flesh by which the two peoples were divided.” He noted that Jews were among the first people to adore Jesus. Pius then made an appeal for all to “follow our peaceful King who taught us to love not only those who are of a different nation or race, but even our enemies.” As Pinchas E. Lapide, the Israeli consul in Italy, wrote: “Pius chose mystical theology as a cloak for a message which no cleric or educated Christian could possibly misunderstand.”

In June, Vatican Radio followed up with a broadcast that expressly stated: “He who makes a distinction between Jews and other men is unfaithful to God and in conflict with God’s commands.” On July 28, 1943, a Vatican Radio broadcast further reported on the Pope’s denunciation of totalitarian forms of government and support for democratic ideals. It said:

“The life and activities of all must be protected against arbitrary human action. This means that no man has any right on the life and freedom of other men. Authority… cannot be at the service of any arbitrary power. Herein lies the essential differences between tyranny and true usefulness…. The Pope condemns those who dare to place the fortunes of whole nations in the hands of one man alone, a man who as such, is the prey of passions, error and dreams.”

Adolf Hitler’s name was not used, but there was no doubt to whom the Pope was referring.

Jewish organizations had taken note of Pius XII’s efforts, and they turned to him in times of need. In June, Grand Rabbi Herzog wrote to Cardinal Maglione on behalf of Egyptian Jews expressing thanks for the Holy See’s charitable work in Europe and asking for assistance for Jews being held prisoner in Italy. The Rabbi, in asking for assistance, noted that Jews of the world consider the Holy See their “historic protector in oppression.” The following month he wrote back thanking Pius for his efforts on behalf of the refugees that “had awoken a feeling of gratitude in the hearts of millions of people.” On August 2, 1943, the World Jewish Congress sent the following message to Pope Pius:

“World Jewish Congress respectfully expresses gratitude to Your Holiness for your gracious concern for innocent peoples afflicted by the calamities of war and appeals to Your Holiness to use your high authority by suggesting Italian authorities may remove as speedily as possible to Southern Italy or other safer areas twenty thousand Jewish refugees and Italian nationals now concentrated in internment camps… and so prevent their deportation and similar tragic fate which has befallen Jews in Eastern Europe. Our terror-stricken brethren look to Your Holiness as the only hope for saving them from persecution and death.”

Later that same month, Time magazine reported: “…no matter what critics might say, it is scarcely deniable that the Church Apostolic, through the encyclicals and other Papal pronouncements, has been fighting totalitarianism more knowingly, devoutly, and authoritatively, and for a longer time, than any other organized power.”

In September, a representative from the World Jewish Congress reported to the Pope that approximately 4,000 Jews and Yugoslav nationals who had been in internment camps were removed to an area that was under the control of Yugoslav partisans. As such, they were out of immediate danger. The report went on to say:

“I feel sure that the efforts of your Grace and the Holy See have brought about this fortunate result, and I should like to express to the Holy See and yourself the warmest thanks of the World Jewish Congress. The Jews concerned will probably not yet know by what agency their removal from danger has been secured, but when they do they will be indeed grateful.”

In November, Rabbi Herzog again wrote to Pius expressing his “sincere gratitude and deep appreciation for so kind an attitude toward Israel and for such valuable assistance given by the Catholic Church to the endangered Jewish people.” Jewish communities in Chile, Uruguay, and Bolivia also sent similar offers of thanks to the Pope.

August 1944 was the month when a group of Roman Jews came to thank Pius for having helped them during the period of Nazi occupation. In response, the Pontiff reaffirmed his position: “For centuries, Jews have been unjustly treated and despised. It is time they were treated with justice and humanity. God wills it and the Church wills it. St. Paul tells us that the Jews are our brothers. They should also be welcomed as friends.”

Similar acts and statements continued throughout the war. Details can be found in my book.

#21.Casimir Papée, the Polish ambassador to the Holy See, on 28 April 1943, sent Maglione an extract from a Zurich newspaper, describing the martyrdom of many Polish priests interned at Dachau. He reminded the Cardinal of the sentiments awakened among all civilized and Christian nations by German cruelty in the occupied territories adding: “My colleagues and I never failed to draw Your Eminence’s attention to these painful facts.” In concluding his letter, Papée asked what the Holy See had been able to do “to save lives precious to the Church,” and which measures it proposed to take “in the face of so much injustice.” There is no evidence of a reply in the ADSS, though the grievances of the Poles were noted on several occasions. Appeals such as these had been coming to the Vatican since 1939. Are there any materials in the archives regarding internal discussions as to how the Vatican was to respond?

Point:

In 1940, the Germans decided to put all priests from the concentration camps into one location where they could be tightly controlled. They were kept together in Dachau Barracks 26, 28, and 30 (later they were squeezed into barracks 26 and 28 which had room and beds for 360, even though there were rarely fewer than 1,500 priests interred there). These barracks were ringed with a barbed‑wire fence, which restricted the ability of priests to minister to other prisoners during their few free hours.

These Dachau priests worked in the enormous S.S. industrial complex immediately to the west of the camp, but the Nazis had other uses for them as well. Some were injected with pus so that the Nazi doctors could study gangrene; others had their body temperature lowered to study resuscitation of German fliers downed in the North Atlantic; one German priest was crowned with barbed wire and a group of Jewish prisoners was forced to spit on him. Fr. Stanislaus Bednarski, a Pole, was hanged on a cross. In November 1944, three priests were executed “not because they were criminals,” as one judge stated, “but because it was their tragedy that they were Catholic priests.”

As the tide of the war began to turn, and the Germans needed to get all the labor possible out of the prisoners, the S.S. decided to use these generally well-educated prisoner/priests as secretaries and managers. With priests in the offices where they could manipulate labor schedules, they were able to engage in forms of sabotage. Thus, a planned gas oven at Dachau never became functional due, at least in part, to the efforts of these imprisoned Catholic priests.

In an allocution to the Sacred College on June 2, 1945, which was also broadcast on Vatican Radio, Pius noted the death of about 2,000 Catholic priests at Dachau and described National Socialism as “the arrogant apostasy from Jesus Christ, the denial of His doctrine and of His work of redemption, the cult of violence, the idolatry of race and blood, the overthrow of human liberty and dignity.” With “the satanic apparition of National Socialism” out of the way, Pius expressed his confidence that Germany would “rise to a new dignity and a new life” He went on to point out that Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church both in Germany and occupied nations had been continuous, and that he had been aware of Nazism’s ultimate goal: “its adherents boasted that once they had gained the military victory, they would put an end to the Church forever. Authorities and incontrovertible witnesses kept Us informed of this intention”

The Vatican’s efforts to win freedom for its bishops and priests imprisoned in Dachau were all frustrated, but no one really doubts the Holy See’s desire to win their freedom. Pius, by the way, used no different technique in this effort than he did when trying to help Jews. As one bishop who was imprisoned at Dachau reported:

“The detained priests trembled every time news reached us of some protest by religious authority, but particularly by the Vatican. We all had the impression that our wardens made us atone heavily for the fury these protests evoked… whenever the way we were treated became more brutal, the Protestant pastors among the prisoners used to vent their indignation on the Catholic priests: ‘Again your big naive Pope and those simpletons, your bishops, are shooting their mouths off… why don’t they get the idea once and for all, and shut up. They play the heroes and we have to pay the bill.’”

With concerns like this, Pope Pius XII had to weigh carefully the force of his words.

#24.In February 1944, the Pontifical Commission for the Vatican City State (Pontificio Commissione per lo Stato della Città del Vaticano), the administrative agency of Vatican City, recorded the presence of Jews and others who were given refuge within the Vatican. Are Pontifical Commission records and communiqués available with respect to the housing of refugees? Are there records of other people finding refuge in pontifical institutions, for example, the papal villa at Castelgondolfo?

I can send slide photographs of people sleeping and eating in the Vatican at this time.

#26.Rotta was the only nuncio to cooperate with the diplomatic representatives of neutral states, Spain, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland. On three occasions in late 1944, he and his diplomatic colleagues submitted protests to the Hungarian government in defense of Jews and took active measures to save them. The Vatican expressed its approval of Rotta’s actions at this juncture. Is there evidence of earlier Vatican approval or encouragement of Rotta’s activities?

Point:

In March 1944, Germany invaded Hungary on the pretext of safeguarding communications, and the last great nightmare of the war began. Hungary had been a haven for refugee Jews. The Nazis immediately issued anti-Jewish decrees. After several oral protests, the papal nuncio, Monsignor Angelo Rotta, was the first foreign envoy to submit a formal note expressing Pope Pius XII’s protest. Shortly thereafter, Rotta received a letter of encouragement from Pius XII in which the Pope termed the treatment of Jews as “unworthy of Hungary, the country of the Holy Virgin and of St. Stephen” From then on, acting always in accordance with instructions from the Holy See and in the name of Pope Pius XII, Rotta continually intervened against the treatment of the Jews and the inhuman character of the anti-Jewish legislation.

Of course there was no encouragement prior to this 1944 action. The Nazis were not yet there.

The question states that, “Rotta was the only nuncio to cooperate with the diplomatic representatives of neutral states, Spain, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland.” I want to see their evidence of this allegation.

#27.In 1933, Edith Stein wrote to Pius XI asking him to issue an encyclical condemning anti-Semitism. This may have been the first of many appeals made to the Vatican for intervention on behalf of the Jews. Though the date falls beyond the parameters of our mandate, the document is relevant because of its content. How was this letter received? Is the letter itself in the archives, and if so may we see it?

Point:

Her letter resulted eventually in Mit brenender Sorge. Mit brennender Sorge was one of the strongest condemnations of any national regime that the Holy See ever published. It condemned not only the persecution of the Church in Germany, but also the Neo-paganism of Nazi theories. “Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State… above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God,” wrote the Pope. There was even a brazen swipe at Hitler:

“None but superficial minds could stumble into concepts of a national God, of a national religion; or attempt to lock within the frontiers of a single people, within the narrow limits of a single race, God, the Creator of the universe, King and Legislator of all nations before whose immensity they are ‘as a drop of a bucket’ (Isaiah XI, 15).”

The encyclical concluded that “enemies of the Church, who think that their time has come, will see that their joy was premature.”

Unlike most encyclicals, which are written in Latin, Mit brennender Sorge was written in German for wider dissemination in that country. It was smuggled out of Italy, copied and distributed to parish priests to be read from all of the pulpits on Palm Sunday, March 14, 1937. No one who heard the Pontifical document read in church had any illusion about the gravity of these statements or their significance. Certainly the Nazis understood their importance.

An internal German memorandum dated March 23, 1937, called Mit brennender Sorge“almost a call to do battle against the Reich government.” All available copies were confiscated. German printers who had made copies were arrested and the presses were seized. Those convicted of distributing the encyclical were arrested, the Church-affiliated publications which ran the encyclical were banned, and payments due to the Church from the Government were reduced.

The day following the release of Mit brennender Sorge, a Nazi newspaper, the Voelkischer Beobachter, carried a strong counterattack on the “Jew-God and His deputy in Rome.” Das Schwarze Korps, official paper of the SS, called it “the most incredible of Pius XI’s pastoral letters; every sentence in it was an insult to the new Germany.” The German ambassador to the Holy See was instructed not to take part in the solemn Easter ceremonies, and German missions throughout Europe were informed by the Nazi Foreign Office of the “Reich’s profound indignation” They were also told that the German government “had to consider the Pope’s encyclical as a call to battle… as it calls upon Catholic citizens to rebel against the authority of the Reich.”

Hitler verbally attacked the German bishops at a mass rally in Berlin, and he dictated a letter of protest to the Pope, complaining that the Vatican had gone to the people instead of coming to him. Vatican Secretary of State, Eugenio Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII), rebuffed German protests, noting that the German government had not been cooperative in the past when the Vatican complained about the various matters (including the Nazis treatment of Jews). In May, Hitler was quoted in a Swiss newspaper saying, “the Third Reich does not desire a modus vivendi with the Catholic Church, but rather its destruction with lies and dishonor, in order to make room for a German Church in which the German race will be glorified.”

#30.Finances are occasionally mentioned in the context of the relief of civilian suffering. For example, an accounting of the disbursement of funds is given in cases where Jewish organizations donated funds to the Vatican for relief and rescue. However, the volumes contain no documents regarding the Vatican’s own financial transactions relating to such efforts. Is there any archival evidence to indicate how the Vatican collected and disbursed its own or other funds in carrying out such activities, such as the annual Peter’s Pence collection?

Pius spent his entire private fortune on their behalf. Pius spent what he inherited himself, as a Pacelli, from his family. This was apparently not an insubstantial amount. According to John Cornwell, the future Pope inherited $100,000 in the mid-1930s.

#34.On March 18, 1942, Gerhart Riegner of the World Jewish Congress and Richard Lichtheim, representing the Jewish Agency for Palestine, sent a remarkably comprehensive memorandum on the fate of Jews in Central and Eastern Europe to Archbishop Filippo Bernardini, the nuncio in Switzerland, and a day later Bernardini forwarded the document to Maglione himself. While the report gave no clear sense of a European-wide “final solution,” it left little to the imagination in its description of horrors organized on a continental scale. Is there any indication in the archives about what response, if any, was made to this report? For example, did the Holy See notify hierarchies or its diplomatic representatives regarding the contents of the report?

Point:

Gerhard Riegner’s memorandum to the Holy See was dated March 18, 1942. It described Nazi persecution of Jewish people, and it was not published by the Vatican in its collection of wartime documents (Actes et Documents). By the same token, the letter of thanks that Riegner sent to Nuncio M. Philippe Bernadinion April 8, 1942 was also not published. In that letter, Riegner stated:

“We also note with great satisfaction the steps undertaken by His Excellence the Cardinal Maglione, with authorities of Slovakia on behalf of the Jews of that country, and we ask you kindly to transmit to the Secretariat of State of the Holy See the expression of our profound gratitude.

“We are convinced that this intervention greatly impressed the governmental circles of Slovakia, which conviction seems to be confirmed by the information we have just received from that country….

It appears… that the Slovak Government finds it necessary to justify the measures in question. One might therefore conclude that it might be induced – in the application of these measures – to conform more closely to the wishes expressed by the Holy See which desired to revoke the recent measures against the Jews.

“In renewing the expressions of our profound gratitude, for whatever the Holy See, thanks to your gracious intermediation, was good enough to undertake on behalf of our persecuted brothers, we ask Your Excellency to accept the assurance of our deepest respect.”

The reason that neither the memo nor the letter of thanks were printed in the Actes et Documents collection is that they were classified as “unofficial.” Moreover, the memo was rather long and did not report a definite source of information, but reported on persecutions that were “more or less known to the public at large.” (Judging Pius XII, Inside the Vatican, February 2000, at 61, 66, quoting Father Blet, who noted that the memorandum had been published in a well-known book prior to the Vatican’s collection being published). Riegner’s memo is, however, mentioned in the Actes et Documents collection. Le nonce à Berne Bernardini au Cardinal Maglione, March 19, 1942, Actes et Documents, vol. VIII, no. 314, p. 466. In fact, a footnote was added just to draw attention to receipt of the memo. It was certainly never hidden, concealed, or missing.

#35. There is evidence that the Holy See was well-informed by mid-1942 of the accelerating mass murder of Jews. Questions continue to be asked about the reception of this news, and what attention was given to it. How thoroughly informed was the Vatican regarding details of Nazi persecution and extermination? What was the Holy See’s reaction, and what discussions followed the reports that flowed in describing evidence of the “Final Solution”? What, more specifically, were the steps leading up to the Pope’s Christmas message of 1942? Are there drafts of this message?

#36. In light of the above, in September 1942 there were requests for a papal statement from the British, Belgian, Polish, Brazilian and American diplomatic representatives to the Holy See. In Volume 5 of the ADSS, only the response to Myron Taylor, the American representative to the Pope, is published. Might the responses to the other representatives be made available?

Point:

In September 1942, President Roosevelt sent a message to the Pope detailing reports from the Warsaw ghetto and asking whether the Vatican had any information that would tend to confirm or deny the reports of Nazi crimes. In mid-October, the Holy See replied, stating that it, too, had reports of “severe measures” taken against the Jews, but that it had been impossible to verify the accuracy of the reports. The statement went on, however, to note that “the Holy See is taking advantage of every opportunity offered in order to mitigate the suffering of non-Aryans.”

At their annual meeting in November 1942, in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Bishops released a statement:

“Since the murderous assault on Poland, utterly devoid of every semblance of humanity, there has been a premeditated and systematic extermination of the people of this nation. The same satanic technique is being applied to many other peoples. We feel a deep sense of revulsion against the cruel indignities heaped upon Jews in conquered countries and upon defenseless peoples not of our faith…. Deeply moved by the arrest and maltreatment of the Jews, we cannot stifle the cry of conscience. In the name of humanity and Christian principles, our voice is raised.”

For his part, in late 1942, Pius sent three letters of support to bishops in Poland. The letters were intended to be read and distributed by the bishops to the faithful. The bishops all thanked the Pontiff, but responded that they could not publish his words or read them aloud, because that would lead to more persecution of Jews and of Catholics.

With the Vatican having recognized Nazi atrocities earlier than many other nations and having assisted western powers early during the hostilities, Allied leaders sought to have the Pope join in a formal declaration concerning the atrocities taking place in Germany and in German-occupied areas. In a message dated September 14, the Brazilian ambassador, Ildebrando Accioly, wrote: “It is necessary that the authorized and respected voice of the Vicar of Christ be heard against these atrocities.” On that same day, British Minister D’Arcy Osborne and American representative Harold H. Tittmann requested a “public and specific denunciation of Nazi treatment of the populations of the counties under German occupation.” Interestingly, neither Tittmann nor Accioly mentioned the treatment of Jews by the Nazis. Osborne, who did mention the treatment of Jewish people in his request to the Pope, reported back to London that the coordinated requests to the Pontiff looked like an effort to involve the Pope in political and partisan action.

Pius was non-committal in response to these requests, and a few weeks later President Roosevelt’s representative, Myron Taylor, renewed the request on behalf of the Allies. American representatives ultimately reported back that the Holy See was convinced that an open condemnation would “result in the violent deaths of many more people.” A secret British telegram from this same time period reported on an audience with the Pope:

“His Holiness undertook to do whatever was possible on behalf of the Jews, but His Majesty’s Minister doubted whether there would be any public statement.”

The Pope did not join in this condemnation, perhaps because as a New York Times editorial concluded, the joint statement was “an official indictment.” Pius did not want to breach the Church’s official neutrality by joining in a declaration made by either side, and he was concerned that the Allies’ statement would be used as part of the war effort (as happened with some of his earlier radio broadcasts). He did, however, make his own statement.

In his 1942 Christmas statement, broadcast over Vatican Radio, Pope Pius XII said that the world was “plunged into the gloom of tragic error,” and that “the Church would be untrue to herself, she would have ceased to be a mother, if she were deaf to the cries of suffering children which reach her ears from every class of the human family.” He spoke of the need for mankind to make “a solemn vow never to rest until valiant souls of every people and every nation of the earth arise in their legions, resolved to bring society and to devote themselves to the services of the human person and of a divinely ennobled human society.” He said that mankind owed this vow to all victims of the war, including “the hundreds of thousands who, through no fault of their own, and solely because of their nation or race, have been condemned to death or progressive extinction.” In making this statement and others during the war, Pius used the Latin word “stirps,” which means race, but which had been used throughout Europe for centuries as an explicit reference to Jews.

Pius also condemned totalitarian regimes and acknowledged some culpability on the part of the Church: “A great part of the human race, and not a few – We do not hesitate to say it – not a few even of those who call themselves Christians, bear some share in the collective responsibility for the aberrations, the disasters, and the low moral state of modern society.” He urged all Catholics to give shelter wherever they could.

The Polish ambassador thanked the Pontiff, who “in his last Christmas address implicitly condemned all the injustices and cruelties suffered by the Polish people at the hands of the Germans. Poland acclaims this condemnation; it thanks the Holy Father for his words….” British records reflect the opinion that “the Pope’s condemnation of the treatment of the Jews & the Poles is quite unmistakable, and the message is perhaps more forceful in tone than any of his recent statements.” The Pope informed the United States Minister to the Vatican that he considered his recent broadcast to be clear and comprehensive in its condemnation of the heartrending treatment of Poles, Jews, hostages, etc. And to have satisfied all recent demands that he should speak out.

A Christmas Day editorial in the New York Times praised Pius XII for his moral leadership:

“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.”

The London Times also ran an editorial expressing similar sentiments about the Pope’s statements since his coronation:

“A study of the words which Pope Pius XII has addressed since his accession in encyclicals and allocutions to the Catholics of various nations leaves no room for doubt. He condemns the worship of force and its concrete manifestation in the suppression of national liberties and in the persecution of the Jewish race.”

To the Axis leaders the Pope’s Christmas message was not hard to decipher. Mussolini was greatly angered by the speech. The German ambassador to the Vatican complained that Pius had abandoned any pretense at neutrality and was “clearly speaking on behalf of the Jews.” An American report noted that the Germans were “conspicuous by their absence” at a Midnight Mass conducted by the Pope for diplomats on Christmas Eve. One German report stated:

“In a manner never known before, the Pope has repudiated the National Socialist New European Order…. It is true, the Pope does not refer to the National Socialist in Germany by name, but his speech is one long attack on everything we stand for… God, he says, regards all people and races as worthy of the same consideration. Here he is clearly speaking on behalf of the Jews… he is virtually accusing the German people of injustice toward the Jews, and makes himself the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals.”

German Ambassador Bergen, on the instruction of Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, immediately warned the Pope that the Nazis would seek retaliation if the Vatican abandoned its neutral position. When he reported back to his superiors, the German ambassador stated: “Pacelli is no more sensible to threats than we are.”

#37.Questions have been raised regarding the attitude of the Vatican toward a Jewish national home in Palestine during the Holocaust period. Maglione generally responded to requests for assistance in sending Jews to Palestine by reminding appellants of all that the Holy See had done to help the Jews, and of its readiness to continue to do so. But in internal notes published in the volumes, meant only for Vatican representatives, the Secretary of State and his aides explicitly reaffirmed the Vatican’s opposition to significant Jewish immigration to Palestine, stating that “the Holy See has never approved of the project of making Palestine a Jewish home. Palestine is by now holier for Catholics than for Jews.” The documents also reveal that Angelo Roncalli (the future Pope John XXIII), apostolic delegate to Istanbul, aided Jews to reach Palestine notwithstanding his uneasiness concerning Jewish political aspirations there. Is there documentation regarding guidelines for rescue efforts and their implications concerning the Vatican policy with regard to Palestine?

Point:

Angelo Roncalli (the future Pope John XXIII), war time apostolic delegate in Istanbul, was thanked for his work on behalf of Jewish refugees. He replied: “In all these painful matters I have referred to the Holy See and simply carried out the Pope’s orders: first and foremost to save Jewish lives.”

In 1955, when Italy celebrated the tenth anniversary of its liberation, Italian Jewry proclaimed April 17 as “The Day of Gratitude.” That year, thousands of Jewish people made a pilgrimage to the Vatican to express appreciation for the Pope’s wartime solicitudes. The Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra even gave a special performance of Beethoven’s ninth symphony in the Papal Consistory Hall as an expression of gratitude for the Catholic Church’s assistance in defying the Nazis. (According to the Jerusalem Post of May 29, 1955, “Conductor Paul Klecki had requested that the Orchestra on its first visit to Italy play for the Pope as a gesture of gratitude for the help his church had given to all those persecuted by Nazi Fascism.”) Before the celebration, a delegation approached Msgr. Montini, the director of Vatican rescue services who later became Pope Paul VI, to determine whether he would accept an award for his work on behalf of Jews during the war. He was extremely gratified and visibly touched by their words, but he declined the honor: “All I did was my duty,” he said. “And besides I only acted upon orders from the Holy Father. Nobody deserves a medal for that”

#38.On March 12, 1943, a consortium of rabbis in North America sent a passionate appeal to Maglione, describing the horrors in Poland and the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto, and asking for help from Rome. It is curious that there are no references in the volumes to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Are there any documents relating to this event in the archives?

Point:

On April 19, 1943, Jewish residents of Warsaw staged a desperate uprising in the ghetto. The Nazis countered with a block-to-block search, but they found it difficult to kill or capture the small battle groups of Jews, who would fight, then retreat through cellars, sewers, and other hidden passageways. On the fifth day of the fighting, Himmler ordered the S.S. to comb out the ghetto with the greatest severity and relentless tenacity. S.S. General Juergen Stroop decided to burn down the entire ghetto, block by block. Many victims burned or jumped to their death, rather than permit themselves to be caught by the Nazis.

The Jews in Warsaw resisted for a total of 28 days. On May 16, General Stroop reported that “the former Jewish quarter of Warsaw is no longer in existence. The large-scale action was terminated at 2015 hours by blowing up the Warsaw synagogue…. Total number of Jews dealt with 56,065, including both Jews caught and Jews whose extermination can be proved.” (About 20,000 Jews were killed in the streets of Warsaw and another 36,000 in the gas chambers.) Polish sources estimated that 300 Germans were killed and about 1000 were wounded.

Not only in Warsaw, but throughout Poland, Jewish people were in hiding. About 200 convents hid more than 1,500 Jewish children, mainly in Warsaw and the surrounding area. This was especially difficult, because Polish nuns in German-occupied areas were often persecuted and forced into hiding themselves. (In a small town near Mir, Poland, the Nazis executed 12 nuns in one day for suspicion of harboring Jews.) Nuns who lived in Soviet-occupied areas did not have it much better. They were sent to work for the Soviets, in areas as far away as Siberia. As such, the courage of the priests and nuns who provided shelter to Jewish people was truly admirable.

Why did people take these risks? Roncalli (the future Pope John XXIII) and Montini (the future Pope Paul VI) both gave all credit to Pope Pius XII. The end of the war saw Pius hailed as “the inspired moral prophet of victory,” and he “enjoyed near-universal acclaim for aiding European Jews through diplomatic initiatives, thinly veiled public pronouncements, and, very concretely, an unprecedented continent-wide network of sanctuary.” He made hiding Jews on the run the thing to do.

#41.The Vatican radio from time to time addressed issues relating to Nazi persecution, and extracts from these broadcasts appeared in the London Tablet. It is said that Pius XII may have written or edited the texts for some of these broadcasts. Is there any documentary evidence regarding Pius XII’s role and are the original broadcast transcripts available?

Point:

During the war it was not known how involved the Pope was with Vatican Radio. These broadcasts were so strongly worded and partisan that they regularly prompted vigorous protests from Mussolini and the German Ambassador to the Holy See. (Later, the Polish bishops would complain that papal statements created problems for them by infuriating the Nazis.) Vatican officials responded that Vatican Radio was run by the Jesuits as an independent concern. Recently, however, researchers discovered that Pius XII personally authored many of the intensely anti-German statements beamed around the world. In other cases, directives were found from the Pope regarding the content of the broadcasts. The late Father Robert A. Graham, one of the people assigned to go through the Vatican’s wartime records, told The Washington Post: “I was stupefied at what I was reading. How could one explain actions so contrary to the principle of neutrality?”

#42.The case has repeatedly been made that the Vatican’s fear of communism prompted it to mute and limit its criticism of Nazi atrocities and occupation policies. We are struck by the paucity of evidence to this effect and to the subject of communism in general. Indeed, our reading of the volumes presents a different picture, especially with regard to the Vatican promotion of the American bishops’ support for the alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union in order to oppose Nazism. Is there further evidence on this question?

Point:

Despite his concern over the spread of Communism, Pius recognized that Nazism presented a similar threat. He continued to condemn Communism, but as an observer of that time noted, “(w)ith it he bracketed Nazism in the same breath, for it strikes, no less ruthlessly, at the individuality of the home, the very heart of religion. Both are tyrannically pagan.” In 1942, Pius told a Jesuit visitor, “the Communist danger does exist, but at this time the Nazi danger is more serious. They want to destroy the Church and crush it like a toad.” When the Allies sought to have him speak out against Nazi Germany, he said he was unwilling to do so without also condemning the atheistic government of the Soviet Union, but he also refused Axis requests to bless their attack on the Soviet Union. In fact, by cooperating with Roosevelt’s request that he encourage American Catholics to support extending the lend-lease program to the Soviets, Pius actually gave economic and military aid to the Soviets.

In the British Public Records Office, there is a short message dated May 10, 1943, from the British Embassy in Madrid. It reports on a message that had been forwarded by a member of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to this report, “In a recent dispatch the Spanish Ambassador reported that in conversation with the Pope[,] the latter informed him that he now regarded Nazism and Fascism, and not Communism, as he used to, as the greatest menace to civilization and the Roman Catholic Church.” Others were also aware of the Pope’s view. According to a post-war interrogation of Nazi official Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler thought that the Catholic Church sometimes worked with the Communists. As such, the record simply does not support the conclusion that hatred of Communism blinded Pius XII to the evils of Nazism.

#43.In several of the volumes, the editors cite hundreds of documents which are not themselves published. For example, in Volume 10 alone the editors list 700 such documents. In some cases, the documents are briefly summarized or quoted. It would be helpful if these documents could be made available.

It would be helpful if scholars would read the documents that have been made available. Each member of the study group was assigned only two books out of the 11-volume set. One member reportedly read a third volume. Apparently none of them were very familiar with these documents prior to this project. At least they seem not to have had access to any other set. (The commission had one set to share. For a while, no one had volume 6.) I, at least, own a complete set.

#44.The Poles were major victims of the Nazis. Members of the Polish Government in Exile in London and some Polish bishops were often very vocal in their criticism of Pius XII’s role. It has been reported that the Vatican commissioned the Jesuits to prepare a defense of its Polish policy. Is this correct and, if so, may we see the report? More generally, the subject of Vatican-Polish relations is an essential element for understanding the role of the Holy See during the Holocaust period and deserves further investigation in the Vatican archives. Is there other pertinent information on this subject in the archives that is not in the volumes, and may we see it?

I have a copy of the report from the Jesuits. America Press published it in English in 1942. A copy can be found in the New York City public library.

#45.The volumes contain urgent appeals to the Vatican for assistance, articulated by desperate Jewish petitioners. These petitions frequently are couched in language of effusive praise as well as gratitude for actions already undertaken. Yet the volumes contain few examples of the assistance already given that gave rise to such expressions of praise and gratitude. What information can be obtained from either the archives or other sources concerning the concrete assistance already given which gave rise to these expressions of gratitude?

The best evidence, of course, is the testimony of these people who were there – which is what the study group seeks here to confirm. There are also 98 deposition transcripts from witnesses who saw things first-hand and testified under oath. This question, like many others, takes on the feel of the famous: “When did you stop beating your wife?”

#47.Did Pope Pius XII have serious doubts about the wisdom or correctness of his policy of “impartiality,” whether it related to Jews, Poles or any other victims of the Nazis? The published documents unfortunately provide little evidence, although Volume 2 gives us a valuable insight into his thinking during the wartime period, especially about the German Church, to which he felt particularly close. In his diary, Roncalli reports of an audience on 11 October 1941 with the Pope who asked whether his “silence” concerning Nazism would be badly judged. Are there any personal papers of Pius XII or records of his discussions with leading advisers, diplomats or important foreign visitors that would illuminate this issue, and, if so, could we see them?

There are occasional reports of expressions of concern over the course he chose. However in his first encyclical, Summi Pontificatus (“Darkness over the Earth”), released in 1939, Pope Pius XII set forth his position on Hitler, the war, and the role that he would play. He stayed true to that position throughout the war.

This encyclical made reference to “the ever-increasing host of Christ’s enemies” (paragraph 7), and noted that these enemies of Christ “deny or in practice neglect the vivifying truths and the values inherent in belief in God and in Christ” and want to “break the Tables of God’s Commandments to substitute other tables and other standards stripped of the ethical content of (Christianity).” In the next paragraph, Pius charged that Christians who fell in with the enemies of Christ suffered from cowardice, weakness, or uncertainty.

In paragraph 13, Pius wrote of the outbreak of war: “Our paternal heart is torn by anguish as We look ahead to all that will yet come forth from the baneful seed of violence and of hatred for which the sword today ploughs the blood drenched furrow.” In the next paragraph, he wrote of the enemies of Christ (an obvious reference to Hitler’s National Socialists) becoming bolder.

Paragraphs 24 through 31 laid out the Pope’s belief that prayer (not public condemnation) was the only appropriate response for the Bishop of Rome. Obviously, Pius viewed this as an important act of faith. Moreover, it was the lack of Christianity that he identified as the cause of the “crop of such poignant disasters.” Faith and prayer were the things he could contribute to the world at that time, not political or military strength.

Pius also expressed his belief in redemption. Thus, even though the enemies of Christ were committing horrible atrocities, it was still possible for even these very evil people to be redeemed. It was fundamental to the Pope’s faith that anyone could ask and be forgiven.

Paragraphs 45 to 50 of the encyclical deal with racial matters and expressed the Pope’s belief that the Church could not discriminate against any given race of people. This would have to be seen as a slap at the racial policies in both Germany and Italy. Pius expressly stated that all races and nationalities were welcome in the Church and had equal rights as children in the house of the Lord. In paragraph 48, he put meaning to those anti-racist statements by naming new bishops of different races and nationalities. Moreover, he expressly said that the Church must always be open to all:

“The spirit, the teaching and the work of the Church can never be other than that which the Apostle of the Gentiles preached: Aputting on the new (man) him who is renewed unto knowledge, according to the image of him that created him. Where there is neither Gentile nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free. But Christ is all and in all” (Colossians iii. 10, 11).

The equating of Gentiles and Jews would have to be seen as a clear rejection of Hitler’s fundamental ideology.

Paragraphs 51 to 66 seem to be Pius XII’s view of a just society. Here he asserts that the first reason for the outbreak of war is that people have forgotten the law of universal charity. The second reason is the failure to put God above civil authority. He argues that when civil authority is placed above the Lord, the government fills that void, and problems develop. This is exactly what Hitler had done. (This analysis would likely also apply to Pius XII’s view of the Soviet Union, which at that time had an agreement with Hitler.)

Pius said that nations must have a religious basis. He wrote that the goal of society must be development of the individual, not the power of the state. Again, this was a slap at Hitler’s dismantling of religious institutions and development of the state in Germany. In fact, paragraph 60 was a direct answer to Hitler’s view of the state as set forth in Mein Kampf:

“To consider the State as something ultimate to which everything else should be subordinated and directed, cannot fail to harm the true and lasting prosperity of nations. This can happen either when unrestricted dominion comes to be conferred on the State as having a mandate from the nation, people, or even a social order, or when the State arrogates such dominion to itself as absolute master, despotically, without any mandate whatsoever.”

Similarly, Pius presented an answer to Hitler’s views of the family and of education in this section of the encyclical.

Pius made note of how “powers of disorder and destruction” stand ready to take advantage of sorrow, bitterness, and suffering in order to make use of them “for their dark designs.” This would seem to be a description of how Fascists in Italy and Nazis in Germany took advantage of the chaos following the First World War to rise to power. Pius also responded to the demands of Hitler and Mussolini (and, for that matter, Stalin) for stronger central governments. While acknowledging that there may be difficulties that would justify greater powers being concentrated in the State, the Pope also said that the moral law requires that the need for this be scrutinized with greatest rigor. The State can demand goods and blood, but not the immortal soul.

Paragraphs 73 to 77, dealt with the Pope’s ideas relating to international relations. Here, he wrote:

“Absolute autonomy for the State stands in open opposition to this natural way that is inherent in man… and therefore leaves the stability of international relations at the mercy of the will of rulers, while it destroys the possibility of true union and fruitful collaboration directed to the general good.”

Pius stressed the importance of treaties and wrote of an international natural law which requires that all treaties be honored. With Hitler having recently breached several treaties and the concordat, this must be seen as another swipe at the Nazi leader.

Interestingly, in paragraph 85, Pius accurately described the challenges he would face, and he set forth the code of conduct that he followed throughout the rest of the war:

“And if belonging to (the Kingdom of God), living according to its spirit, laboring for its increase and placing its benefits at the disposition of that portion of mankind also which as yet has no part in them, means in our days having to face obstacles and oppositions as vast and deep and minutely organized as never before, that does not dispense a man from the frank, bold profession of our Faith. Rather, it spurs one to stand fast in the conflict even at the price of the greatest sacrifices. Whoever lives by the spirit of Christ refuses to let himself be beaten down by the difficulties which oppose him, but on the contrary feels himself impelled to work with all his strength and with the fullest confidence in God.

In paragraphs 93 to 95, Pius expressed the importance that he attached to the spirit as opposed to the physical world. Here he made clear that the most important thing would be to open people to Christ. He said that the Church must be protected so that it can fulfill its role as an educator by teaching the truth, by inculcating justice, and by inflaming hearts with the divine love of Christ. Indeed, throughout the war, he would protect the Church so that it could carry out its life and soul-saving functions.

Paragraphs 101 to 106 drew distinctions between the Vatican and other secular nations and explained the Church’s special role in the world. The Church “does not claim to take the place of other legitimate authorities in their proper spheres.” Instead, Pius wrote, the Church should be a good example and do good works. The Church:

“spreads it maternal arms towards this world not to dominate but to serve. She does not claim to take the place of other legitimate authorities in their proper spheres, but offers them her help after the example and in the spirit of her Divine Founder Who “went about doing good” (Acts x. 38).

This same thought was expanded upon when Pius wrote “render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” In other words, the Church plays an important, but limited role in resolving disputes in the secular world. His obligation was to pray for peace and offer comfort to the afflicted.

Pius expressed his confidence that the Church would always prevail in the long run. Any structure that is not founded on the teaching of Christ, he wrote, is destined to perish. Read in context, this was a promise of the ultimate failure of Nazism. In fact, he expressly foresaw that Poland would be resurrected:

“This… is in many respects a real ‘Hour of Darkness,’… in which the spirit of violence and of discord brings indescribable suffering on mankind…. The nations swept into the tragic whirlpool of war are perhaps as yet only at the ‘beginnings of sorrows,’… but even now there reigns in thousands of families death and desolation, lamentation and misery. The blood of countless human beings, even noncombatants, raises a piteous dirge over a nation such as Our dear Poland, which, for its fidelity to the Church, for its services in the defense of Christian civilization… has a right to the generous and brotherly sympathy of the whole world, while it awaits, relying on the powerful intercession of Mary, Help of Christians, the hour of a resurrection in harmony with the principles of justice and true peace.”

The reference to Poland resolved any doubts about to whom Pius was referring.

In paragraphs 107 to 112, Pius wrote that it was his duty to try for peace, and that duty had to be fulfilled even if it meant that the Church was misunderstood in the effort:

“While still some hope was left, We left nothing undone in the form suggested to us by Our Apostolic office and by the means at Our disposal, to prevent recourse to arms and to keep open the way to an understanding honorable to both parties. Convinced that the use of force on one side would be answered by recourse to arms on the other, We considered it a duty inseparable from Our Apostolic office and of Christian Charity to try every means to spare mankind and Christianity the horrors of a world conflagration, even at the risk of having Our intentions and Our aims misunderstood.” He encouraged people to keep faith that good will prevail, and he once again expressed his faith in the ultimate triumph of God’s will.

This encyclical shows that Pius did not waver in his approach to Hitler and the Nazis. In 1939 he laid out his vision, which he followed for the rest of the war. Thus, it was not a matter of fear, nor did Pius change after he learned of the Nazi abuses. All along he thought that the best way to assure peace was through prayer. All along he thought that the best way to assure peace was through prayer. He charted his course and stayed with it.

By Robert P. Lockwood

(March 2000)

Pope John Paul II recently issued a half-hearted apology for Catholics’ failure to oppose the torture and killing of six million Jews during the horrible Holocaust, but at the same time he tried to excuse Pius XII, the pope at the time, for his silence and collaboration.” – Dr. Al Snyder writing in Thea Times Examiner, Greenville, North Carolina, March 16, 2000

The failure to utter a candid word about the Final Solution in progress proclaimed to the world that the Vicar of Christ was not moved to pity and anger. From this point of view he was the ideal Pope for Hitler’s unspeakable plan. He was Hitler’s pawn. He was Hitler’s Pope.” – John Cornwell, Hitler’s Pope (Viking Press, 1999)

For nearly 20 years after World War II, Pope Pius XII (1939-1958) was honored by the world for his actions in saving countless Jewish lives in the face of the Nazi Holocaust. His death on October 9, 1958 brought a moment of silence from Leonard Bernstein while he conducted at New York’s Carnegie Hall.1 Golda Meir, future Israeli Prime Minister and then Israeli representative to the United Nations, spoke on the floor of the General Assembly: “During the ten years of Nazi terror, when our people went through the horrors of martyrdom, the Pope raised his voice to condemn the persecutors and commiserate with the victims.”2 In his book Hitler, the War and the Pope (Genesis Press, August 2000), author Ronald Rychlak provides a sampling of some of the Jewish organizations that praised Pope Pius XII at the time of his death for saving Jewish lives during the horror of the Nazi Holocaust: the World Jewish Congress, the Anti-Defamation League, the Synagogue Council of America, the Rabbinical Council of America, the American Jewish Congress, the New York Board of Rabbis, the American Jewish Committee, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the American Jewish Committee, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the National Conference of Christians and Jews and the National Council of Jewish Women.

Yet, over 40 years after the death of Pius XII, he is condemned for his “shameful silence”3 in the face of the Holocaust. He is commonly accused of not only silence, but actual complicity in the Holocaust, as charged by Dr. Snyder above, and called “Hitler’s Pope” in a best-selling book released by a major American publisher. When critics are reminded of the universal praise he received from Jewish organizations in life and death, such praise is dismissed as merely “political” statements, as if those Jews who had lived through the Holocaust would insult the memory of the millions killed for some ephemeral political gain.

Reading commentaries and news reports in the new Millennium, it may seem that the Church under Pius XII was as responsible for the Holocaust as the Nazis who carried it out. In reporting and editorials on the Holocaust, it is routinely presented as historical fact that Pius XII and the Church were, at best, stonily silent, or, at worst, aided and abetted the Nazi killing machine. Many Catholics in America simply accept these contemporary charges, and are silent at the mere mention of Pius XII.

The historical reality of the pontificate of Pius XII has nearly been lost in the face of the strident campaign against him. Nearly lost as well has been the reality of how contemporaries – friends and enemies – viewed his papacy and actions during World War II and the depth and breadth of Catholic action in response to the Holocaust.

Anti-Catholicism thrives on invented history that becomes part of the accepted cultural corpus. The corruption and nadir of the faith prior to the Reformation, the “black legend” of the Spanish in the New World, papal promotion of the slave trade, the purely sectarian nature of the Inquisition, the Church as anti-science as evidenced in the Galileo affair, unendingly scandalous papal lives: our understanding of so much of history has been colored by a campaign meant to influence the outcome of theological and political disputes between Protestants and Catholics in the 19th century. America was highly influenced by the post-Reformation British propaganda meant to create a myth of an evil Catholicism out to destroy free and Protestant England. Legends of the evil-doing of the pope and his minions established in Western thinking an assumption of anti-Catholicism as not only normative for right-thinking people, but correct and historically valid.4 Conventional wisdom is more often the creation of propaganda than fact.

The purpose here is not to supply a definitive biographical treatment of Pope Pius XII, nor review the complicated political environment of Europe from World War I through the pontiff’s death. Additionally, the impact on the life of the Church of the pontiff who was the “father of Vatican II” awaits a more detailed biography. Here we will confine ourselves to an understanding of the roots of the accusations against Pius, and review his career and wartime pontificate in light of the horror of the Holocaust.

The Creation of Conventional Wisdom

It is becoming more evident where the conventional wisdom lies in regard to Pope Pius XII. When Pope John Paul II issued his historic apology for mistakes and errors in Christian history, he was savaged by pundits and news reports for his “silence” in regard to the “silence” of Pope Pius XII.5 Lance Morrow in Time magazine, referred to the Church’s “terrible inaction and silence in the face of the Holocaust” and described any defense of Pius or the Church as “moral pettifogging.”6 He made such statements without the need for substantiation because the charges against Pius XII are simply accepted as “fact” and any disagreement becomes on a par with those who deny the reality of the Holocaust itself.

Routine accusations against the Church in World War II dominated coverage of the pope’s Lenten Millennial pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The television show “60 Minutes” just prior to the papal trip ran a detailed propaganda piece accusing Pius XII not only of silence during the Holocaust, but virtual complicity that stemmed from personal anti-Semitism and the desire to expand papal power. Contemporary Catholics are witnessing the creation of a myth in regard to Pius XII, a propaganda campaign as relentless as any created by 19th century anti-Catholic apologists.

The view of Pius XII as Nazi collaborator did not begin as a case study of historical revisionism. It did not even begin within historical studies themselves or from available historical documentation, including transcripts of the Nuremberg trials, or government records made public. The myth of Pius XII began in earnest in 1963 in a drama created for the stage by Rolf Hochhuth, an otherwise obscure German playwright born in 1931. Hochhuth was part of a post-World War II trend in theatre called “Documentary Theatre” or “Theatre of Fact.” The trend grew out of an American form of theatre popularized during the Depression. The point was to adapt social issues to theatrical presentation by utilizing factual reports or documentation. The “facts” would be more important than artistic presentation. Documentation and transcripts would provide the script for the play. It was seen in more recent times with Vietnam war morality plays based on the Pentagon Papers, or presentations whose dialogue is directly culled from the White House tapes of Richard Nixon.

In post-war Germany, Hochhuth and others employed the “Theatre of Fact” as a means to explore and expose Nazi history. Peter Weiss’s “The Investigation,” for example, used excerpts from testimony provided from officials of the Auschwitz death camp. Hochhuth, however, created a more traditional theatrical presentation, though it was presented in the style of “Theatre of Fact.” Turgid in length, in 1963’s Der Stellvertreter (The Representativeor The Deputy) Hochhuth charged through a fictional presentation that Pius XII maintained an icy, cynical and uncaring silence during the Holocaust. More interested in Vatican investments than human lives, Pius was presented as a cigarette-smoking dandy with Nazi leanings. (Hochhuth also authored a play charging the complicity of Winston Churchill in a murder. No one paid much attention to that effort.)

The Deputy, even to Pius’ most strenuous detractors, is readily dismissed. John Cornwell in Hitler’s Pope describes Der Stellvertreter as “historical fiction based on scant documentation…(T)he characterization of Pacelli (Pius XII) as a money-grubbing hypocrite is so wide of the mark as to be ludicrous. Importantly, however, Hochhuth’s play offends the most basic criteria of documentary: that such stories and portrayals are valid only if they are demonstrably true.”7

Yet The Deputy, despite its evident flaws, prejudices and lack of historicity, laid the foundation for the charges against Pius XII, five years after his death. There was fertile ground. Pius XII was unpopular with certain schools of post World War II historians for the anti-Stalinist, anti-Communist agenda of his later pontificate. This was a period where leftist sentiments in the West were still tied to a flirtation with Stalinism, though Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev’s opening up to the world of the true Stalin legacy would slowly erode such views. In the heady atmosphere of leftist academic circles, particularly in Italy in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, the general charge against Pius was that while he was not pro-Nazi during the war, he hated Bolshevism more than he hated Hitler. For the most part, this was based on the pope’s opposition to the Allied demand for unconditional German surrender. He believed such a condition would only continue the horror of the war and increase the killing. That stand was later interpreted as a desire on the pontiff’s part to maintain a strong Germany as a bulwark against communism. The pope was also blamed for helping to create the anti-Soviet atmosphere that resulted in the “Cold War” in the late 1940s and 1950s. Hochhuth’s charge of papal “silence” fit the theory that Pius refused to publicly criticize Germany in order that the country could serve effectively as an ongoing block to Soviet expansion.

The theory, of course, was as much fiction as Hochhuth’s play. There was no documentary evidence to even suggest such a papal strategy. But it became popular, particularly among historians with Marxist sympathies in the 1960s. Even this theory, however, did not extend to an accusation that the Pope “collaborated” in the Holocaust, nor to any charge that the Church did anything other than save hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives. The evidence was simply too clear on that saving work for refutation. However, it did provide a mercenary rationale of “politics over people” in response to the Holocaust and applied such barbarous reasoning to the pope.

The Deputy, therefore, took on far greater importance than it deserved. Leftists used it as a means to discredit an anti-Communist papacy. Instead of Pius being seen as a careful and concerned pontiff working with every means available to rescue European Jews in the face of complete Nazi entrapment, an image was created of a political schemer who would sacrifice lives to stop the spread of Communism. The Deputy was merely the mouthpiece for an ideological interpretation of history that helped create the myth of a “silent” Pius XII doing nothing in the face of Nazi slaughter.

There was also strong resonance within the Jewish community at the time The Deputyappeared. The Jewish world had experienced a virtual re-living of the Holocaust in the trial of Adolf Eichmann. A key figure in the Nazi Final Solution, Eichmann had been captured in Argentina in 1960, tried in Israel in 1961 and executed in 1962. For many young Jews, Eichmann’s trial was the first definitive exposure to the horror that the Nazis had implemented. At the same time, Israel was threatened on all sides by the unified Arab states. War would erupt in a very short time. The Deputy resonated with an Israel that was surrounded by enemies and would be fighting for its ultimate survival.

Despite the fact, therefore, of a two-decades-old acknowledgment of papal support and assistance to the Jews during the War, Hochhuth’s unfounded charges took on all the aspects of revelation. In a column after Pope John Paul II’s apology, Uri Dormi of Jerusalem fittingly described this impact: “The Deputy appeared in Hebrew and broke the news about another silence, that of Pope Pius XII about the Holocaust. The wartime Pope, who on Christmas Eve 1941 was praised in a New York Times editorial as ‘the only ruler left on the continent of Europe who dares to raise his voice at all,’ was exposed by the young, daring dramatist.”8

It seems ludicrous that a pope praised for his actions in 1941 – and by all leading Jewish organizations throughout his life – could be discredited based on nothing more than a theatrical invention. Yet, that is what took place and has taken place since. A combination of political and social events early in the 1960s, biased historical revisionism, and an exercise in theatrical rhetoric, created the myth of the uncaring pontiff in contradiction to the clear historical record. The myth thrived because people want to believe it rather than because it was believable.

Today, that myth serves its own ideological purposes. Like many of the anti-Catholic canards rooted in the culture, the myth of Pius XII is raised to attack a host of Catholic positions on issues, whether it be gay rights, a pro-abortion agenda, or even aid to parochial school parents. In Cornwell’s book, it is utilized to take sides in intramural Catholic disagreements, an obscene exploitation of the Holocaust.

The myth of papal complicity in the Holocaust is certainly damaging and libelous to the memory of Pius XII. But it has also had a terribly negative impact on Catholic-Jewish relations. Beginning with the papacies of Pius XI and Pius XII, proceeding through the Vatican Council and Paul VI, great strides had been made in Catholic-Jewish relations. The papacy of John Paul II has seen one historic event after another, celebrating the Church’s understanding that all Christians are “spiritual Semites.” Yet the myth of the silence of Pius XII has overshadowed all these historic developments. It has helped to entrench a persistent anti-Catholicism within elements of the Jewish community, while creating in certain Catholic circles a deep resentment that can only be harmful for all. While nothing can fully destroy the enormous strides taken by Pope John Paul II, leaving this myth unanswered and accepted can only do great damage to what should be a deep and close relationship between Catholics and Jews, generated in part by the heroism of Pope Pius XII in saving Jewish lives during the Holocaust.

Eugenio Pacelli

Eugenio Pacelli was born in Rome on March 2, 1876 to a family of 19th century Vatican lawyers. His grandfather began l’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper still published today. His father was an important financial consultant to the Vatican. Pacelli was ordained to the priesthood on Easter Sunday, 1899. He received his doctorate in Canon Law three years later, after his appointment to what would become the Vatican secretariat of state. He spent the next 15 years of his career serving a project to organize the Code of Canon Law. At the same time, he became involved with the workings of the papal diplomatic corp. By World War I he would work with the Vatican Secretary of State on maintaining contact with Church leadership on both sides in the first world war, coordinating relief work, and assisting prisoners. 9

In 1917 Pacelli was consecrated a bishop and assigned to Munich as papal representative to Bavaria. Two years later, a short-lived communist uprising in Munich would find Pacelli facing down a gun-barrel when revolutionaries invaded the nunciature. Pacelli did not back down and, when order was re-established later, refused to press charges against his assailants. As papal representative, Pacelli would witness the chaos that was post-war Germany. Serving in Munich, Pacelli was responsible for attempting to forge “concordats” between the Holy See and various German states and he carried out such agreements with Baden, Prussia and Bavaria. Concordats were treaties of agreement that spelled out the rights of the Church within a given state or country. Pacelli’s goal with such concordats – under the direction of Pope Pius XI – was to assure non-interference in the life of the Church from state authorities, and to secure traditional support for Church services in matters such as education and marital law.

Hitler’s ascent began in a post-war Germany torn apart by economic, social and political strife. Based on a program involving nationalism, racial pride, socialism and anti-Semitism, Hitler took a small Bavarian racist political party in the early 1920s and rose to power in the early 1930s. In regard to Hitler or the Nazis in Bavaria, Pacelli would have little to do with what appeared at the time to be one of any number of fringe political parties. When Hitler was jailed in 1923 after an unsuccessful coup in Munich (the so-called “Beer Hall Putsch”) his career seemed finished. Recalling those early days, Pacelli noted that he – and the rest of the foreign diplomatic corps – paid scant attention to the Munich ruffian. He explained, “In those days, you see, I wasn’t infallible.”10

In 1925, Pacelli moved from Munich to Berlin. By now, however, Pacelli had grown more concerned about the Nazi threat and he reported to Rome that Hitler was a violent man who “will walk over corpses” to achieve his goals. In 1928, the Holy office issued a strong condemnation of the anti-Semitism foundational to the Nazis: “(T)he Holy See is obligated to protect the Jewish people against unjust vexations and…particularly condemns unreservedly hatred against the people once chosen by God; the hatred that commonly goes by the name anti-Semitism.”

Pacelli successfully concluded a concordat with the Prussian State in 1929. That year, he returned to Rome to serve as Secretary of State under Pope Pius XI and was named a cardinal. As Secretary of State in the 1930s, Pacelli would be responsible for dealing with both the Fascist government of Italy and Adolf Hitler in Germany.

Though the Vatican had negotiated a concordat with Italy in 1929, ending the decades-long break between Italy and the Church, the relationship between Pope Pius XI and Benito Mussolini’s fascist government was anything but cordial. The Church was vociferous in its criticism of Fascist ideology both before and after the concordat. But little attention was paid to such criticism, particularly in the Western countries where Mussolini was viewed as somewhat a hero, both for his stabilization of the Italian economy and his tweaking of the papal nose. Anti-fascist statements by Catholic leadership were viewed as counter-revolutionary, and when Mussolini concluded the concordat, he was criticized outside Italy for his compromise with the Church. In 1931, Pius XI responded to ongoing attacks on the Church by Mussolini’s goons with “Non Abbiamo Bisogno,” (“We have no Need”) an encyclical written in Italian, smuggled out of Italy by Msgr. Francis J. Spellman of New York to be printed and released in Paris. In the encyclical, Pius XI condemned the pagan worship of the state that was central to Fascist ideology.11 Again, the encyclical received scant attention outside of Italy.

Despite vocal opposition from the Catholic Church in Germany where National Socialism’s racist views were routinely condemned as contrary to Catholic principles and Catholics were ordered not to support the party, by 1933 Hitler had become German chancellor. Immediately, persecution of the German Jewish population began. Pacelli was dismayed with the Nazi assumption of power and by August of 1933 he expressed to the British representative to the Holy See his disgust with “their persecution of the Jews, their proceedings against political opponents, the reign of terror to which the whole nation was subjected.” When it was stated that Germany now had a strong leader to deal with the communists, Cardinal Pacelli responded that the Nazis were infinitely worse.12

At the same time, however, the Vatican was forced to deal with the reality of Hitler’s rise to power. In June 1933 Hitler had signed a peace agreement with the western powers, including France and Great Britain, called the Four-Power Pact. At the same time Hitler expressed a willingness to negotiate a statewide concordat with Rome. The concordat – highly favorable to the Church – was concluded a month later. In a country where Protestantism dominated, the Catholic Church was finally placed on a legal equal footing with the Protestant churches. The accusation is often made that the concordat negotiated by Cardinal Pacelli gave legitimacy to the Nazi regime. Forgotten is the fact that it was preceded both by the Four-Power Pact and a similar agreement concluded between Hitler and the Protestant churches. The Church had no choice but to conclude such a concordat, or face draconian restrictions on the lives of the faithful in Germany. Cardinal Pacelli denied that the concordat meant Church recognition of the regime. Concordats were made with countries, not particular regimes. Pius XI would explain that it was concluded only to spare persecution that would take place immediately if there was no such agreement. The concordat would also give the Holy See the opportunity to formally protest Nazi action in the years prior to the war and after hostilities began. It provided a legal basis for arguing that baptized Jews in Germany were Christian and should be exempt from legal disabilities. Though the Concordat was routinely violated before the ink was dry, its existence allowed for Vatican protest, and it did save Jewish lives.

In the early years of the Holocaust, prior to the outbreak of war, the Nazi program against the Jews (who numbered about 500,000 in Germany, about one percent of the population) involved economic persecution and boycotts. Jews were denied public jobs and, in 1935, were stripped of their rights as citizens. Violence and murder soon followed, culminating in the horror of Kristallnacht in November, 1938, and the first major deportations to concentration camps.13 About half the Jewish population fled Germany during the period between 1933 and 1938, though many would not escape death at Nazi hands as they settled in countries that would eventually be occupied by German forces in the war.

The Holy See had begun to lodge protests against Nazi action almost immediately after the concordat was signed. The first formal Catholic protest under the concordat concerned the anti-Jewish boycotts. Numerous protests would follow over treatment of both the Jews and the direct persecution of the Church in Nazi Germany. The German foreign minister would report that his desk was stuffed with protests from Rome, protests rarely passed on to Nazi leadership.

In March 1937, Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical Divini Redemptoris, a scathing attack on atheistic communism. The encyclical was immediately followed by Mit Brennender Sorge(“With Burning Concern”), written by Cardinal Pacelli. Mit Brennender Sorge was written in German and secretly distributed to parish priests throughout the country. The encyclical condemned the racist principles of Nazism and the slavish worship of the state. The German government described it as a “call to battle against the Reich.” The Nazi press condemned the “Jew-God and His deputy in Rome” while the government threatened to cancel the concordat. In a Europe still committed to appeasing Hitler, the Church was the only voice speaking out strongly against the Nazis.

Also in 1937, Cardinal Pacelli spoke at Notre Dame Cathedral in France and attacked Nazi leadership and the pagan cult of race they espoused. In 1938 when Hitler took over Austria and the Anschluss was welcomed by the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Pacelli brought the archbishop to Rome and demanded a retraction of his statement. Even as the health of Pius XI waned, he stepped up his attacks on Italian Fascism and Nazism. Cardinal Pacelli wrote to archbishops throughout the world in early January 1939 “instructing them to petition their governments to open their borders to Jews fleeing persecution in Germany. The following day Pacelli wrote to American cardinals, asking them to assist exiled Jewish professors and scientists.”14

On February 10, 1939 Pius XI died. In response, the Nazi press called him the “Chief Rabbi of the Western World.”15

In the years between Pacelli’s birth up to the death of Pius XI, there is no record of anti-Semitism on his part.16 With the birth of Nazism, the Church early became a voice strongly in opposition to its racist theories, its worship of the state, and its attacks on the Jews. Pacelli was strongly involved at the highest levels in the papacy of Pius XI that led a vociferous campaign against Fascism in Italy and Nazism in Germany. The Church had become directly involved in the defense of Jews in Germany and had begun to offer its services to refugees fleeing persecution.

The Nazis knew Cardinal Pacelli as an ally of Pius XI and a foe. “On February 16, 1939, the German Ambassador to the Holy See…addressed the Sacred College of Cardinals in what was expected to be a customary expression of sympathy over the death of Pius XI. Rather than merely offering condolences, however, the ambassador made…a clear request for a Pope more sympathetic to Hitler’s expansionist plans. The British Legation to the Holy See reported back to London that (the speech)… ‘was a veiled warning against the election of Cardinal Pacelli.’”17 The cardinals ignored the advice. On March 2, 1939 Pacelli was elected and took the name Pius XII. Much of the world cheered while the Nazis were unimpressed. Jewish groups hailed the election, citing Pacelli’s long public record on Nazism and his strong hand in writing Mit Brennender Sorge.

The Papacy of Pope Pius XII

In the first months of his papacy, Pius XII would focus his efforts on preventing what seemed an inevitable outbreak of war. Pius XII attempted to arrange a summit in May of the major European powers, but his proposal was turned down. Papal attempts to move Italy and France to negotiations failed. The British and French had assured Poland of assistance if attacked by Germany. Nazi leadership appeared convinced that the two powers would not interfere. On August 21, 1939, the German government announced a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union. The world was shocked while the Vatican was not surprised. France and Britain wanted the pope to make a strong pro-Polish statement, but, fearing the impact on the millions of German Catholics, he chose to maintain a neutral stance and on August 24th gave a solemn radio talk begging for peace and negotiation. He initiated various approaches to the Polish, British, French, German and Italian governments to attempt to ward off the inevitable invasion of Poland. It was to no avail as there was a general unwillingness to negotiate with a Germany that had proven to be insatiable. On September 1, 1939, Hitler’s troops smashed into Poland from the west while the Soviet Union would quickly begin a land-grab in the east. On September 3, France and Great Britain declared war on Germany.18

Within a month the Polish army was defeated and the true Holocaust began. Polish leadership was killed, along with many Catholic priests. Large segments of the Polish population were resettled and thousands of Poles, including Jews, were herded into concentration camps. While most of Europe would experience the Nazi horror, Poland would live it the longest and suffer the greatest. Poland would also be the site for the Nazi death camps. Jews from all over Europe would be transported to these camps in Poland, and six million would die. Of the total Polish population, three million would die in the death camps, another two million would serve as slave labor in Germany.

In the early months of the war, the Pope began to establish committees to help both Catholic and Jewish war refugees and began the Vatican Information Bureau to track down missing civilian population and prisoners. On October 20, 1939, Pope Pius XII issued his first encyclical, Summi Pontificatus. In this encyclical he lashed out at the dictators of Europe – “an ever-increasing host of Christ’s enemies” – and reminded the world of St. Paul’s vision that was neither Gentile nor Jew. The Gestapo labeled the encyclical a direct attack, while the French had copies printed and dropped by air over western Germany. The New York Timessummarized the encyclical as a call for the restoration of Poland and an uncompromising attack on racism and dictators.19

One of the more surprising developments that came to light only later was papal involvement as a middleman between anti-Hitler elements of the German military and the British government. Over the course of several months, Pope Pius XII relayed messages between the anti-Hitler conspirators and the British government. The pope also received information on German military plans that were forwarded on to the Allies, including advance notice of the invasion of France, Luxembourg, Holland and Belgium. While the conspiracy against Hitler did not succeed, it was a startling act of papal intervention.20

Through its sources, the Vatican was growing aware of the Nazi slaughter taking place in Poland. In January, 1940, Vatican Radio was instructed by the pope to broadcast – in German – a detailed report on attacks on the Church and civilians in Poland. A week later, Vatican Radio broadcast to an unbelieving world in English that “Jews and Poles are being herded into separate ghettos” where starvation, disease and exposure would kill tens of thousands. Shortly thereafter, the German Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, demanded a papal audience. On March 11, the pope met with the foreign minister who assured him that a German victory was inevitable in 1940.21 The pope responded with a detailed list of Nazi atrocities in Poland and to German Jews. The New York Times described the meeting with the headline “Pope is Emphatic about Just Peace: Jews’ Rights Defended.”22

On May 10, 1940, the German invasion of France, Holland, Luxembourg and Belgium began. The pope sent telegrams to the three neutral states condemning the unwarranted invasion. The Italian government protested what it saw as a direct attack on its German ally and copies of l’Osservatore Romano containing the texts of the telegrams were seized. Soon after, Mussolini would enter the war.

Within a month, France was defeated. In reaction to the Vatican press and radio broadcasts concerning Poland, Germany announced that priests and religious would not be able to leave Poland. Persecution was stepped up. Pius XII issued instructions to the Catholic bishops of Europe to help all suffering at the hands of the Nazis and to remind their people than any form of racism is contrary to Church teachings.23

Pius XII faced an occupied Europe. His focus in the last half of 1940 was on the dreadful situation in Poland, but the Nazi puppet Vichy government in France, and the occupied Benelux nations, were of growing concern. Pius understood the Vichy government’s status in relation to the Nazis and was in opposition virtually from its inception. By the summer of 1941 Vichy would be deporting Jews over strong Vatican protests. In his Christmas message of 1940, the pope once again condemned the war and pleaded for aid to the suffering.

In the early months of 1941, the Vatican worked to assure that Spain would not enter the war. It served to mediate a potentially dangerous dispute with the United States and was instrumental in keeping Spain neutral. When Vichy France began to deport Jews Spain would become a haven. It is estimated that Franco’s Spain – though vilified for its fascist leanings and alliance with Hitler during its own revolution – provided safe refuge for possibly a quarter of a million Jews. Hitler would complain about Franco and his “Jesuit swine” foreign minister.

In late March 1941, Vatican Radio launched a series of attacks on Nazi Germany, denouncing its principles of racial hatred. A series of misstatements and misuse of Vatican Radio reports, however, raised a concern that the Holy See could be seen as the “enemy” of Germany. Pius XII resisted any perception of the violation of the Holy See’s neutrality in the conflict, though German leadership had decided long ago that the pope was an undeclared enemy. In any case, Vatican Radio was instructed, in the words of Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Luigi Maglione to “let the facts speak for themselves” and not to enhance or editorialize. The British – who reused edited texts from the Vatican broadcasts for propaganda purposes – protested when such “silencing” was discovered. While the Vatican responded that its broadcasts were being twisted for propaganda purposes, the extent of continued persecution led Vatican Radio to sustained criticism of Nazi tactics, particularly in its persecution of the Jews.24

After Hitler ordered the invasion of the Soviet Union in June, the question quickly arose over aiding communists in the war against the Nazis. The 1937 encyclical of Pius XI appeared to ban any such cooperation. The issue became particularly important in the United States where aid was routinely supplied to the Allies and was to be extended to the Soviet Union. A number of bishops raised the issue and, very quickly, Pius XII settled the affair noting that aid to the “people” of the Soviet Union was not aid to communism. Despite later propaganda, it was clear that even an anti-religious Stalinist Soviet Union was viewed by the pontiff as far less an enemy than the German Third Reich.25

In his Christmas message of 1941, Pius XII issued another forceful call for peace and condemned the atrocities of the war, particularly involving civilian populations. Germany heard it as another attack on Nazism. The New York Times wrote a long editorial, calling Pius “the only ruler left on the Continent of Europe who dares to raise his voice at all.” Noting that “the Pope put himself squarely against Hitlerism…he left no doubt that the Nazi aims are also irreconcilable with his own conception of a Christmas peace.”26

The Final Solution

In January 1942, the most horrifying stage in the Final Solution began at the Wannsee Conference in Germany. On January 20th, Gestapo officials under Hitler’s expressed direction formalized plans for the “Final Solution” of the Jewish population of Europe. Just two days later, Vatican Radio launched an attack on conditions in Poland under the Nazis. The Polish bishops, however, began to quietly urge the Vatican to avoid such public pronouncements.27 The pope was notified that the Gestapo said that Vatican Radio had called for Polish resistance and for “the Polish people to rally around its priests and teachers. Thereupon, numerous priests and teachers were arrested and executed, or were tortured to death in the most terrible manner, or were even shipped to the far east.”28

After the Wannsee conference, the Nazis began to step up the deportation of Jews in occupied territories. Since the beginning of Nazi atrocities against the Jews, the Vatican had pursued attempts to help Jews emigrate from German-controlled areas. It now became clear that the goal must be to prevent deportation. Reports had begun to reach the Vatican that there was a gruesome end to such deportations. Those deported virtually vanished. Relatives received no news of their family.

In early March 1942, a major deportation was begun in Slovakia. The Vatican, through the local nuncio, desperately protested but to no avail. Reports from the nuncio within Germany told of the horrible situation of the remaining Jews, whether they be Catholics through Baptism or not. Protests by the nuncio were dismissed, the Nazis unwilling to even address where those deported had been sent, let alone their faith. As Father Blet described the Vatican’s frustration, in Germany “any step was fruitless and even dangerous.”

In France, as the deportations began, Church authorities with the support of Pius XII protested throughout the summer of 1942. Vatican Radio and l’Osservatore Romanoreported on powerful statements such as that of Archbishop Jules Saliege in Toulouse who complains that “frightful things are taking place. The Jews are our brothers. They belong to mankind. No Christian can dare to forget that!” In July, the bishops and cardinals of France signed a formal protest to the government over the deportations. Angered at Church intervention, Vichy authorities dismissed the Church’s protest and the arrests and deportations continued.

In Holland, the bishops spoke out forcefully against the deportation of the Jews with disastrous results. The Catholic archbishop of Utrecht released a forceful letter to all the Catholic churches protesting the deportations of the Jews. The Gestapo responded by revoking the exception that had been given to Jews who had been baptized and a round up was ordered. Caught in the web was Edith Stein, a Jewish convert who had become a nun. She, her sister, and 600 Catholic Jews were transported to Auschwitz, where she died.29 The deportations of all Jews were expanded and by the end of the war virtually the entire Jewish population of Holland had been wiped out.

The disaster in Holland and the ineffectiveness of the French intervention did not deter Pius XII from continuing to work in whatever way possible to assist the persecuted Jews. They did, however, confirm the view that dramatic public statements in specific situations should be avoided. Such statements were easy to make, Pius believed, but could cause untold suffering. For the most part, Pius would rely on Church authorities on the scene to determine the best action and follow their course. This included the web of nuncios reporting directly to Rome from capitals throughout Europe who would become the primary source of papal action and activity. It would be these nuncios under papal direction that would save untold Jewish lives in the years ahead. Additionally, there was the practical realization that it was virtually impossible to deal with the Nazi authorities. Greater success was possible in working in occupied countries with their own governments in place. One could at least approach the Vichy government, for example. One could do nothing in Germany.

In September 1942, Pius XII was approached by the Allies to join in a statement condemning the Nazi atrocities. This was to be an official statement of the Allied governments and it was impossible for Pius XII, representing a neutral state, to join the effort. However, in his annual Christmas message of 1942, Pius XII would speak out once again forcefully. Without specifically mentioning Hitler, Pius condemned totalitarian regimes and mourned the victims of the war: “the hundreds of thousands who, through no fault of their own, and solely because of their nation or race, have been condemned to death or progressive extinction.” He called on Catholics to shelter any and all refugees. The statement was loudly praised in the Allied world. In Germany, it was seen as the final repudiation by Pius XII of the “new order” imposed by the Nazis. “(H)e is virtually accusing the German people of injustice toward the Jews, and makes himself the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminal.”30

Beginning in 1943, evidence mounted of the mass extinction of the Jews under Nazi control, particularly of the use of gas chambers in concentration camps. Though the allied governments refused to acknowledge such a reality, a desperation is evidenced in the Vatican and throughout the nunciatures. With Germany beginning to experience defeat on the battlefield, pressure was stepped up on the puppet regimes to facilitate the Final Solution by increased deportations. On February 19, Vatican Radio condemned deportations and promised “the curse of God” on those who did such things.31

In Poland, the Church had virtually been destroyed by mid 1943. The Vatican prepared a detailed report of its plight and sent it on in protest to the German authorities, who refused to even acknowledge its receipt. In June, Pius XII publicly lamented the “tragic fate” of the Polish people. There was no longer structure to contact or an organization through which the Church could work. By the “second half of 1943 communications became more and more uncertain between the Poles in Poland and the Holy See, which was progressively losing all contact with the bishops…Contact with eastern Poland, which was already almost completely under the control of the Red Army, was even more difficult.”32

“(I)n Germany…papal interventions were simply useless…They were predestined to failure in the face of the inflexible decisions made by the national-socialist state. But between the two Axis powers…there were also regions that in various degrees had fallen under control of the Reich and within which the Holy See nonetheless felt it could exercise an influence and counteract the designs of the Berlin government. This was true for the…Axis satellites, namely Slovakia, Croatia, Romania and Hungary.”33

In Slovakia, the Holy See faced the unique difficulty of its president, Joseph Tiso, being a Catholic priest. In September 1941 the Vatican was informed that laws against the Jews were to be passed. The nuncio was instructed to protest immediately, reminding Tiso that such legislation was “directly opposed to Catholic principles.” The protest was ignored and in early 1942, the nuncio informed the Vatican that deportations, in which the Germans promised to “treat the Jews humanely,” would be forthcoming. Cardinal Maglione protested to the Slovakian representative while the nuncio was to protest to Tiso. Tiso promised to spare as many as possible. The bishops of Slovakia released an officially edited pastoral letter with one important sentence retained: “The Jews are also people and consequently should be treated in a humane fashion.”

While the intervention helped to save baptized Jews and those married to non-Jews, thousands were deported in 1942. In 1943, when rumors of a new deportation surfaced, the Vatican again sharply protested. The government responded that rumors of internment camps and executions were “Jewish propaganda.” The Vatican refused to let up and the deportation orders were lifted. As the summer of 1944 ended, there was an uprising in Slovakia that was crushed by German troops. The Jews were under great threat and the nuncio once again appealed to Tiso. Tiso blocked some deportations at first, then relented to German pressure. Pope Pius XII drafted a personal appeal to Tiso to be handed on by the nuncio. It accomplished nothing.34

In Croatia, the position of the 40,000 Jews was more precarious. The attempt was made through Cardinal Maglione to bring the Jewish population to Italy. Those Croatian Jews in territories occupied by Italian troops were protected. In the summer of 1942, the papal envoy to Croatia protested to the president about the treatment of the Jews. In a strange meeting, the president stated that Jews had been transferred to Germany where the government had recently “destroyed” two million. The horrified nuncio reported this to the Holy See. Shortly thereafter, he could report that he had some limited success in obtaining exceptions to additional deportations of Jews, including many that had not been baptized. In 1943, the situation appeared to have improved until Croat authorities lashed out at Vatican intervention when the nuncio protested a new Jewish round up. While the Vatican was able to save a small number of Jews, most were subsequently deported.35

Throughout June 1943 Vatican Radio called for an end to attacks on Jews, particularly in the Axis satellites. At the demand of the Holy See the papal nuncio to Germany, Cesare Orsenigo, was finally granted an audience with Hitler. His instructions were to plead for better treatment for the Jews in Germany and the occupied territories. He reported to the Vatican: “A few days ago I was…received by Hitler; as soon as I touched upon the Jewish question, our discussion lost all sense of serenity. Hitler turned his back on me, went to the window and started to drum on the glass with his fingers…while I continued to spell out our complaints. All of a sudden, Hitler turned around, grabbed a glass off a nearby table and hurled it to the floor with an angry gesture…”36

In Romania, the Vatican had the benefit of a concordat, though the Catholic population was small. By 1941, anti-Semitic legislation was already in place when the government announced a law forbidding Jews to change their religion. At the request of Cardinal Maglione, the nuncio protested and the restriction was lifted. For obvious reasons, the number of Jews requesting baptism rose rapidly and in the Spring of 1942 the government protested. The nuncio responded that Pius XII could not refuse any request for admission to the Church.

The nuncio intervened often to prevent as much as possible attacks on the non-baptized Jews and developed a close relationship with the leadership of the Romanian Jews. Romanian Jews never faced deportation to Poland. Under the direction of Cardinal Maglione “to mitigate those measures so opposed to the teaching of Christian morality,” the nuncio in 1943 protested a deportation of Jews, many of them orphaned children, to the coast. He also continued to protest any government attempt to limit or interfere with Jews who requested instruction and baptism. By 1944, the fear was real that with a deteriorating military situation, the Jews within internal Romanian camps would fall under German control, including thousands of Jewish orphans. Through the Holy See’s intervention, a number were transported safely to Istanbul.

While anti-Jewish legislation was a part of Hungarian life as early as 1939, “mass deportations of Jews did not take place till the Reich had taken complete control of the country in 1944.”37 The nuncios to both Hungary and Romania were warned by the Secretary of State that the German presence meant increased pressure for complete deportation of the two million Jews combined in each country. In Hungary, the nuncio bitterly complained of the planned deportation to Auschwitz to the prime minister, charging such persecution as contrary to natural law. The minister refused any consideration, including exemption for baptized Jews. At the instruction of the Vatican the nuncio forcefully repeated the request, demanding humane treatment of the Jews and exemption for those Jews who had been baptized. The deportations continued and the nuncio recommended a direct and public intervention from the Holy See. On June 12, 1944, Pope Pius XII addressed an open telegram to Admiral Horthy, regent of Hungary, requesting an end to the deportations and the sufferings “endured by a large number of unfortunate people due to their nationality or race.” Horthy discontinued the deportations and it estimated that 170,000 Hungarian Jews were saved.

Horthy, however, was losing control in Hungary. Soon, limited deportations began again and the nuncio mobilized a large diplomatic protest. Horthy responded that he would continue to resist German demands for deportations. Shortly thereafter, Horthy announced an armistice with the Soviet Union. He was immediately arrested and the Nazis assumed command. Rumors spread that 300,000 Jews were to be deported. The Pope again issued a public plea, joined with that of the Hungarian bishops, to support and give all possible assistance to the Jews, baptized or not. In November 1944, the nuncio continued to publicly protest and joined with five neutral powers to present a formal letter of protest over the treatment of the Jews. The nuncio’s office supplied over 13,000 letters of protection, which held off the deportation of many Jews. With the Red Army at the very gates of Budapest, anti-Jewish deportations continued and the nuncio continued to protest.

“(T)he Jewish leaders recognized the pope’s efforts on behalf of their persecuted communities, and that despite repeated failures and limited results, the Holy See’s actions were not completely in vain. Still more remarkable in a way is that, despite the fact that so many repeated interventions ended with only tenuous results in comparison with the efforts expended, the Vatican in the midst of the uncertainty and the darkness within which it had to take action, continued its lifesaving work to the end.”38

In Italy, the situation for the Jews was far better than on most of the continent. While anti-Semitic laws were enacted prior to the war, the Holy See successfully fought for many exemptions. Mussolini’s government was for the most part not strongly committed to anti-Semitic persecution, and the Italian people themselves even less so. During the early stages of the war, many Jews fleeing the Nazis would come to Italy, though this immigration would end over time. The Italian government would for the most part refuse to deport those Jews under its authority.

In June 1943, the Allied invasion of Italy began and by July, Mussolini’s government had fallen. A new regime took his place and in September would sign an armistice and in October declare war on Germany. The Germans, however, remained and put up strong resistance. That summer, 60,000 German troops entered Rome. “This is when the Church undertook a relief effort which has been called ‘probably the greatest Christian program in the history of Catholicism.’ Pius sent a letter by hand to the bishops instructing them to open all convents and monasteries throughout so that they could become safe refuges for Jewish people. All available church buildings – including those in Vatican City – were put to use. One hundred and fifty such sanctuaries were opened in Rome alone. Castel Gondolfo, the Pope’s normal summer home, was used to shelter about 500 Jews, and several children were born in his personal apartment…Almost 5,000 Jews, a third of the Jewish population of Rome, were hidden in buildings that belonged to the Catholic Church.”39 Throughout Italy, Jews were hidden, disguised (some were dressed as clerics and taught Gregorian chant) and provided with false documents to escape to Spain or Switzerland.

On Saturday, October 16, 1943, the Gestapo in Rome began a round up of those Jews not in hiding. Within a short time, 1,259 Jews were captured. Upon being informed, Pope Pius XII immediately filed a protest with the German ambassador, Ernst von Weizsäcker. The ambassador had little interest in encouraging Nazi persecution. He assured Cardinal Maglione that a number of the Jews had already been released and the arrests would cease. The ambassador warned Pius XII through the cardinal not to make a public demonstration as this would only serve to inflame the Nazi authorities and threaten the lives of the Jews in hiding throughout Rome. Weizsacker would purposely downplay to German authorities the pope’s complaints and often pocket protests to avoid increased persecution.

It is estimated that 40,000 Jewish lives were saved in Italy through the intervention of Pius XII.

Pius XII and the Holocaust

The major accusation made against Pius XII in regard to the Holocaust is that the pope refused to speak out publicly and if he had done so, lives would have been saved. Both points are flawed. Pope Pius XII did speak out long before any statements were made, even by Allied governments. There was no “papal silence” and that is a canard created by an anti-Catholic dramatist two decades later. At the same time, however, Pius XII did not believe that words were the most appropriate means to save lives. He believed in action and work behind the scenes and at the scene through the papal nuncios. Issuing thunderbolts from the safety of the Vatican aimed at the Nazis would have done nothing to end the “Final Solution” and could have severely limited, if not ended altogether, the Church’s capacity to save lives, particularly in the Axis satellite states.

CBS correspondent Edward Bradley in the “60 Minutes” report on Pius XII argued that Pope Pius XII should have stood in front of the train that deported a thousand captured Roman Jews, arguing that a saint would have done just that. Ambassador Weizsacker had his own response from the very time it took place: “A ‘flaming protest’ by the Pope would not only have been unsuccessful in halting the machinery of destruction but might have caused a great deal of additional damage – to the thousands of Jews hidden in the Vatican and the monasteries…and – last but not least – to the Catholics in all of Germany-occupied Europe.”40 The pope himself, possibly foretelling today’s accusations, once noted after the war, “No doubt a protest would have gained me the respect of the civilized world, but it would have submitted the poor Jews to an even worse fate.”

History is what history was. Would incessant public statements from the lips of Pius XII have accomplished a greater good? Cornwell argues that such statements could have led to a “Catholic uprising” that could have halted Hitler. That is highly doubtful conjecture. What the Church was able to accomplish in World War II under the direction of Pius XII was what no other agency, government or entity at the time was able to accomplish: saving Jewish lives. Pulitzer Prize winning historian John Toland, no friend of Pius XII, summed it up: “The Church, under the Pope’s guidance…saved the lives of more Jews than all other churches, religious institutions and rescue organizations combined…The British and the Americans, despite lofty pronouncements, had not only avoided taking any meaningful action but gave sanctuary to few persecuted Jews.” 41

“Lofty pronouncements” saved no lives during the horror of the Holocaust. Action did so. Pinchas Lapide, Israeli consul in Italy, estimated that the actions of Pius II saved over 800,000 Jewish lives during World War II. If that were an exaggeration by half, it would record more Jewish lives saved than by any other entity at the time.

A note on sources

This Catholic League documentation relied heavily on important direct research accomplished by others, including the magazine Inside the Vatican whose editors put together a strong special issue in October 1999 on the topic of Pius XII and the Holocaust. Sister Margherita Marchione has written Yours Is a Precious Witness and Pius XII: Architect for Peace (available from Paulist Press). Both are remarkable studies on Church efforts to save Jewish lives and the pontificate of Pope Pius XII. Also available from Paulist Press isPius XII and the Second World War, a translation by Lawrence J. Johnson of Father Pierre Blet’s extraordinary study of the Vatican archival record of the war years. Finally, Hitler, the War and the Pope (Genesis Press, August 2000) by Ronald Rychlak is the definitive popular history of the papacy of Pope Pius XII in the shadow of Nazism. Without recourse to rhetoric, Rychlak gives a well-documented and clear-headed defense of Pius XII. His book also provides a detailed response to John Cornwell’s Hitler’s Pope. Rychlak’s work puts the claim of the “silence” of Pope Pius XII in the face of the Holocaust to rest.

SUMMARY POINTS

*For nearly 20 years after World War II, Pope Pius XII (1939-1958) was honored by the world for his actions in saving countless Jewish lives in the face of the Nazi Holocaust.

*A sampling of some of the Jewish organizations that praised Pope Pius XII at the time of his death for saving Jewish lives during the horror of the Nazi Holocaust: the World Jewish Congress, the Anti-Defamation League, the Synagogue Council of America, the Rabbinical Council of America, the American Jewish Congress, the New York Board of Rabbis, the American Jewish Committee, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the American Jewish Committee, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the National Conference of Christians and Jews and the National Council of Jewish Women.

*When critics are reminded of the universal praise he received from Jewish organizations in life and death, they are dismissed as merely “political” statements, as if those Jews who had lived through the Holocaust would insult the memory of the millions killed for some ephemeral political gain.

*Contemporary Catholics are witnessing the creation of a myth in regard to Pius XII, a propaganda campaign as relentless as any created by 19th century anti-Catholic apologists.

*The myth of Pius XII began in earnest in 1963 in a drama created for the stage by Rolf Hochhuth, an otherwise obscure German playwright born in 1931. In The DeputyHochhuth charged through a fictional presentation that Pius XII maintained an icy, cynical and uncaring silence during the Holocaust. More interested in Vatican investments than human lives, Pius was presented as a cigarette-smoking dandy with Nazi leanings.

*Even John Cornwell in Hitler’s Pope describes The Deputy as “historical fiction based on scant documentation…(T)he characterization of Pacelli (Pius XII) as a money-grubbing hypocrite is so wide of the mark as to be ludicrous. Importantly, however, Hochhuth’s play offends the most basic criteria of documentary: that such stories and portrayals are valid only if they are demonstrably true.”

*The Deputy was used as a means to discredit an anti-Communist papacy. Instead of Pius being seen as a careful and concerned pontiff working with every means available to rescue European Jews in the face of complete Nazi entrapment, an image was created of a political schemer who would sacrifice lives to stop the spread of Communism.

*When The Deputy appeared the Jewish world had experienced a virtual re-living of the Holocaust in the trial of Adolf Eichmann. For many young Jews, Eichmann’s trial was the first definitive exposure to the horror that the Nazis had implemented. In the United States Jewish community, as well as in Israel, Hochhuth’s charges of a papal “silence” and indifference during the Holocaust were readily accepted. Despite the fact of a two-decades-old acknowledgment of papal support and assistance to the Jews during the War, Hochhuth’s unfounded charges took on all the aspects of revelation.

*While nothing can fully destroy the enormous strides taken by Pope John Paul II, leaving this myth unanswered and accepted can only do great damage to what should be a deep and close relationship between Catholics and Jews.

*Eugenio Pacelli reported to Rome from Germany that Hitler was a violent man who “will walk over corpses” to achieve his goals. In 1928, the Holy office issued a strong condemnation of the anti-Semitism foundational to the Nazis: “(T)he Holy See is obligated to protect the Jewish people against unjust vexations and…particularly condemns unreservedly hatred against the people once chosen by God; the hatred that commonly goes by the name anti-Semitism.”

*Pacelli was dismayed with the Nazi assumption of power and by August of 1933 he expressed to the British representative to the Holy See his disgust with “their persecution of the Jews, their proceedings against political opponents, the reign of terror to which the whole nation was subjected.” When it was stated that Germany now had a strong leader to deal with the communists, Cardinal Pacelli responded that the Nazis were infinitely worse.

*The Holy See had begun to lodge protests against Nazi action almost immediately after the concordat was signed with Germany. Its first protest concerned the government-directed anti-Jewish boycotts. Numerous protests would follow over treatment of both the Jews and the direct persecution of the Church in Nazi Germany. The German foreign minister would report that his desk was stuffed with protests from Rome, protests rarely passed on to Nazi leadership.

*In 1937, Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge (“With Burning Concern”). Drafted by Cardinal Pacelli, Mit Brennender Sorge was written in German and secretly distributed to parish priests throughout the country. The encyclical condemned the racist principles of Nazism and the slavish worship of the state. The German government described it as a “call to battle against the Reich.” *The Nazi press condemned the “Jew-God and His deputy in Rome” while the government threatened to cancel the concordat. In a Europe still committed to appeasing Hitler, the Church was the only voice speaking out strongly against the Nazis.

*Cardinal Pacelli wrote to archbishops throughout the world in early January 1939 instructing them to petition their governments to open their borders to Jews fleeing persecution in Germany. The following day Pacelli wrote to American cardinals, asking them to assist exiled Jewish professors and scientists.

*On October 20, 1939, Pope Pius XII issued his first encyclical, Summi Pontificatus. In this encyclical he lashed out at the dictators of Europe – “an ever-increasing host of Christ’s enemies” – and reminded the world of St. Paul’s vision of neither Gentile nor Jew. The Gestapo labeled the encyclical a direct attack, while the French had copies printed and dropped by air over western Germany. The New York Times summarized the encyclical as a call for the restoration of Poland and an uncompromising attack on racism and dictators.

*In January, 1940, Vatican Radio was instructed by the pope to broadcast – in German – a detailed report on attacks on the Church and civilians in Poland. A week later, Vatican Radio broadcast to an unbelieving world in English that “Jews and Poles are being herded into separate ghettos” where starvation, disease and exposure would kill tens of thousands.

*In 1940, Pius XII issued instructions to the Catholic bishops of Europe to help all suffering at the hands of the Nazis and to remind their people than any form of racism is contrary to Church teachings.

*In the early months of 1941, the Vatican worked to assure that Spain would not enter the war. It served to mediate a potentially dangerous dispute with the United States and was instrumental in keeping Spain neutral. When Vichy France began to deport Jews Spain would become a haven. It is estimated that Franco’s Spain – though vilified for its fascist leanings and alliance with Hitler during its own revolution – provided safe refuge for possibly a quarter of a million Jews.

*After Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, questions were raised concerning aid to the Communist nation, particularly in the United States. A number of bishops raised the issue and, very quickly, Pius XII settled the affair noting that aid to the “people” of the Soviet Union was not aid to communism. Despite later propaganda, it was clear that even an anti-religious Stalinist Soviet Union was viewed by the pontiff as less an enemy than the German Third Reich.

*In his Christmas message of 1941, Pius XII issued another forceful call for peace and condemned the atrocities of the war, particularly on the civilian populations. *Germany fumed over another attack on Nazism. The New York Times wrote a long editorial, calling Pius “the only ruler left on the Continent of Europe who dares to raise his voice at all.” Noting that “the Pope put himself squarely against Hitlerism…he left no doubt that the Nazi aims are also irreconcilable with his own conception of a Christmas peace.”

*Since the beginning of Nazi atrocities against the Jews, the Vatican had pursued attempts to help Jews emigrate from German-controlled areas. In 1942, it became clear that the goal must be to prevent deportation. Reports had begun to reach the Vatican that there was a gruesome end to such deportations. Those deported virtually vanished.

*In France, as the deportations began, Church authorities with the support of Pius XII protested throughout the summer of 1942. Vatican Radio and l’Osservatore Romanoreported on powerful statements such as that of Archbishop Jules Saliege in Toulouse who complains that “frightful things are taking place. The Jews are our brothers. They belong to mankind. No Christian can dare to forget that!” In July, the bishops and cardinals of France signed a formal protest to the government over the deportations.

*In Holland, the bishops spoke out forcefully against the deportation of the Jews with disastrous results. The Gestapo responded by revoking the exception that had been given to Jews who had been baptized and a round up was ordered. Caught in the web was Edith Stein, a Jewish convert who had become a nun. She, her sister, and 600 Catholic Jews were transported to Auschwitz, where she died. The deportations of all Jews were expanded and by the end of the war virtually the entire Jewish population of Holland had been wiped out.

*After Holland, Pope Pius XII was convinced that dramatic public statements in specific situations should be avoided. Such statements were easy to make, Pius believed, but could cause untold suffering. For the most part, Pius would rely on Church authorities on the scene to determine the best action and follow their course. This included the web of nuncios reporting directly to Rome from capitals throughout Europe who would become the primary source of papal action and activity. It would be those nuncios working with the Vatican that would save hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives.

*In his annual Christmas message of 1942, Pius XII condemned totalitarian regimes and mourned the victims of the war: “the hundreds of thousands who, through no fault of their own, and solely because of their nation or race, have been condemned to death or progressive extinction.” He called on Catholics to shelter any and all refugees. The statement was loudly praised in the Allied world. In Germany, it was seen as the final repudiation by Pius XII of the “new order” imposed by the Nazis. “(H)e is virtually accusing the German people of injustice toward the Jews, and makes himself the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminal.”

*On February 19, 1943 Vatican Radio condemned deportations and promised “the curse of God” on those who did such things.

*In Germany papal interventions were simply useless. They were predestined to failure in the face of the inflexible decisions made by the national-socialist state. But between the two Axis powers, there were also regions that in various degrees had fallen under control of the Reich and within which the Holy See nonetheless felt it could exercise an influence and counteract the designs of the Berlin government. This was true for the Axis satellites, namely Slovakia, Croatia, Romania and Hungary.

*As the summer of 1944 ended, there was an uprising in Slovakia that was crushed by German troops. The Jews were under great threat and the nuncio appealed to Tiso. Tiso blocked some deportations at first, then relented to German pressure. Pope Pius XII drafted a personal appeal to Tiso to be handed on by the nuncio. It accomplished nothing.

*On June 12, 1944, Pope Pius XII addressed an open telegram to Admiral Horthy, regent of Hungary, requesting an end to the deportations and the sufferings “endured by a large number of unfortunate people due to their nationality or race.” Horthy discontinued the deportations and it estimated that 170,000 Hungarian Jews were saved.

*The Jewish leaders recognized the pope’s efforts on behalf of their persecuted communities, and that despite repeated failures and limited results, the Holy See’s actions were not completely in vain. Still more remarkable in a way is that, despite the fact that so many repeated interventions ended with only tenuous results in comparison with the efforts expended, the Vatican in the midst of the uncertainty and the darkness within which it had to take action, continued its lifesaving work to the end.

*In the summer of 1943, 60,000 German troops entered Rome. This is when the Church undertook a relief effort which has been called “probably the greatest Christian program in the history of Catholicism.” Pius XII sent a letter by hand to the bishops instructing them to open all convents and monasteries throughout so that they could become safe refuges for Jewish people. All available church buildings – including those in Vatican City – were put to use. One hundred and fifty such sanctuaries were opened in Rome alone. Castel Gondolfo, the Pope’s normal summer home, was used to shelter about 500 Jews, and several children were born in his personal apartment. Almost 5,000 Jews, a third of the Jewish population of Rome, were hidden in buildings that belonged to the Catholic Church.

*It is estimated that 40,000 Jewish lives were saved by the action of Pius XII in Italy.

*Pope Pius XII spoke out long before any statements were made, even by Allied governments. There was no “papal silence” and that is a canard created by an anti-Catholic dramatist two decades later. At the same time, however, Pius XII did not believe that words were the most appropriate means to save lives. He believed in action and work behind the scenes and at the scene through the papal nuncios.

*What the Church was able to accomplish in World War II under the direction of Pius XII was what no other agency, government or entity at the time was able to accomplish: saving Jewish lives. Pulitzer Prize winning historian John Toland, no friend of Pius XII, summed it up: “The Church, under the Pope’s guidance…saved the lives of more Jews than all other churches, religious institutions and rescue organizations combined…The British and the Americans, despite lofty pronouncements, had not only avoided taking any meaningful action but gave sanctuary to few persecuted Jews.”

FOOTNOTES

1Yours Is a Precious Witness, Margherita Marchione (Paulist Press, 1997), p.57.

2Cited in numerous references, including “The Selling of a Myth,” Ronald Rychlak, Inside the Vatican, October, 1999.

3New York Times, March 14, 2000, p. 28.

4See Faith and Treason, Antonia Fraser (Doubleday, 1996).

5New York Times, March 14, 2000.

6″Is It Enough to be Sorry?” Lance Morrow, Time magazine, March 27, 2000.

7Cornwell, p. 375.

8″Another Pope Visits Jerusalem” Uri Dromi, The Miami Herald, March 20, 2000.

9There is not presently available in English a scholarly biography of Pope Pius XII. Biographical resources for this paper were taken from Catholic Almanac 2000 (Our Sunday Visitor), The Catholic Encyclopedia (Catholic University of America, 1967), and Hitler, the War and the Pope, Ronald Rychlak (Genesis Press, August 2000).

10Cited in Pius XII: Greatness Dishonored, Michael O’Carroll (Laetare Press, 1980) p. 33.

11Rychlak

12Ibid.

13Adolf Hitler, John Toland (Ballantine Books, 1984) pp. 363-376.

14Rychlak

15Ibid.

16In Hitler’s Pope Cornwell quotes from a report within the Vatican archives by Pacelli in his early years at Munich. The letter from Pacelli reports on a meeting his associate had with the violent revolutionaries that had assumed power briefly in Munich in 1919. The letter notes that the revolutionaries were Jews. Cornwell contends that the reference to their Jewishness is representative of “stereotypical anti-Semitic contempt.” Such an interpretation is Cornwell’s alone. The report reads as an objective – if excited – description of what in fact took place and the personalities involved. For a public life of 82 years, no evidence has ever been found of anti-Semitic expression or beliefs in Pius XII. Even Hochhuth at his most vindictive never claimed that Pius was personally anti-Semitic.

17Rychlak

18See William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (Simon and Schuster, 1959 and later editions), pp. 513-597.

19New York Times, January 23, 1940.

20See Toland, pp. 427-428.

21Pius XII and the Second World War, by Pierre Blet, SJ (Paulist Press, 1999). Father Blet’s work is a detailed study of the archives of the Vatican during World War II and a vital source for a proper understanding of the diplomatic activity of the Holy See during the war.

22New York Times, March 14, 1940.

23Cited in Inside the Vatican, October, 1999.

24Blet, pp. 97-104.

25Ibid. pp. 119-127.

26New York Times, December 25, 1941.

27Rychlak

28Ibid.

29She was canonized a martyr/saint by Pope John Paul II in 1998.

30Rychlak

31Inside the Vatican, October 1999.

32Blet, p. 91.

33Ibid. p. 168.

34Ibid. pp. 168-178.

35Ibid. pp. 178-181.

36Rychlak

37Blet, p. 189

38Ibid. p. 200.

39Rychlak

40Cited in Rychlak.

41Toland, p. 549.

By Sr. Margherita Marchione, Ph.D.

(Paulist Press, 2000)

In the last 30 years, above all with the pontificate of John Paul II, giant steps have been made toward progress in dialogue between Jews and Catholics. To prepare a serious scholarly analysis on Pius XII, several scholars were called to participate in a Commission in order to examine the Vatican documents of the Holy See during the Second World War. This group’s assignment as scholars was to analyze documents already published. The group consisted of three Catholics: Eva Fleischner, Gerald Fogarty, and John Morley; and three Jews: Michael Marrus, Bernard Suchecky, and Robert Wistrich.

Marrus was interviewed by Paolo Mastrolilli, an Italian journalist. “We must not fall into the error of evaluating facts that occurred more than 50 years ago with today’s sensitivity,” Marrus stated. …”Vatican Council II has enormously changed relations between Jews and Catholics, and therefore now certain attitudes may seem strange. During the period of Pius XII, the reality of the times was different.”

According to Fogarty, “Pius XII believed more in diplomacy than in public declarations and he behaved himself accordingly. His priority was to stop Nazism and for this reason he also accepted in silence the alliance with Russia, reserving for himself the fight against Communism at a latter date. The American Secret Services have documents that judge in a very positive way the actions of the Vatican during the war, but until now they have remained secret. The Holy See was careful to preserve its neutrality, but there exists proofs of the help offered to several German generals, who in the Spring of 1940 had planned a plot to free themselves of Hitler: therefore, what counts more, the public words of the Pope, or the acts accomplished to stop Nazism?”

Fogarty also said that “the panel has still not succeeded in overcoming the widespread myth in Anglo-Saxon culture which believes that there are important unpublished documents in the Vatican Archives. If such files existed, other proofs of those documents would have been found in the studies I have carried out in archives all over Europe.” In order to help his colleagues understand that the opening of the Vatican Archives does not answer these questions definitively, he gave this example: “In the spring of 1940 there was an attempt to oust Hitler by a group of generals who later tried to surrender to the English. The negotiations took place with the Vatican’s mediation and the knowledge of Pius XII. However, there are no documents on this case in the Vatican.”

There was no guarantee that the Nazis would have respected the Vatican. One can readily understand that, when the Nazis occupied Rome and the SS and the Gestapo were searching for Jews throughout the Rome area, it was necessary to destroy whatever documentation might have affected Vatican neutrality.

Apparently, the Commission members did not research the existing material that would have answered, at least in part, some of the 47 questions. Some of this information may be found in other archives. A typical example is Number 44. It reads: “The Poles were major victims of the Nazis. Members of the Polish Government in Exile in London and some Polish bishops were often very vocal in their criticism of Pius XII’s role. It has been reported that the Vatican commissioned the Jesuits to prepare a defense of its Polish policy. Is this correct and, if so, may we see the report? More generally, the subject of Vatican-Polish relations is an essential element for understanding the role of the Holy See during the Holocaust period and deserves further investigation in the Vatican archives. Is there other pertinent information on this subject in the archives that is not in the volumes, and may we see it?”

Obviously the members of the Commission did not complete their homework. The documentation they requested may be found in the New York Public Library. Indeed, millions of Jews and non-Jews were brutally victimized and exterminated by the Nazis. The document, “Pope Pius and Poland,” published by The American Press should have enlightened the Commission members. Copies have been available. With the imprimatur of Cardinal Francis J. Spellman, Archbishop of New York, this documentary outline of papal pronouncements and relief efforts in behalf of Poland since 1939, was published in 1942, and made available at 10 cents per copy.

In the Foreword, Francis X. Talbot, S.J., editor-in-chief, states: “To those who love and seek the truth, here is the truth. History will record the truth that Pope Pius XII stands united with Poland, as Poland and the Polish people everywhere are united with the Pope.” This pamphlet is a schematic outline of the evidence available that shows the fatherly affection and deep understanding which His Holiness revealed toward the Polish people. It is based on what has been published in newspapers and other periodicals or announced on the radio. (See The New York Times, Vatican Radio and L’Osservatore Romano.)

The day after his election, March 3, 1939, Pius XII pleaded for peace and diplomatic efforts to prevent the outbreak of hostilities. (See Acta Apostolicae Sedis, XXXI (1939), pp. 86, 87.) Other statements followed on Easter Sunday (Ibid., p. 145ff.) and June 2, 1939, to the Sacred College of Cardinals [See L’Osservatore Romano, June 3, 1939.]

On August 29, 1939, in his radio appeal Pius XII pleaded: “…Humanity craves justice, bread and liberty, not the sword that kills and destroys. Christ is with us; for brotherly love was made by Him a solemn and fundamental commandment…” (Acta Apostolicae Sedis, XXXI, 1939, pp. 333, 335)

On August 31, 1939, the Pope called the ambassadors of Germany, France, Italy and Poland to his study and the Cardinal Secretary of State distributed to each a copy of his pontifical message: “The Holy Father is unwilling to abandon the hope that the present negotiations may issue in a just and peaceful solution such as the whole world continues to implore. In the name of God, therefore, His Holiness exhorts the Governments of Germany and Poland to do everything possible to avoid incidents of every kind and to forego every measure that might aggravate the present tension. He begs the Governments of England, France and Italy to second this request. (Ibid., pp. 335-336)

Already on September 3, 1939, many Polish cities were burning and the country was bathed in blood and tears. The Pope received a group of Polish refugees at Castelgandolfo and tried to comfort them, pointing out that the Fatherly Providence of God was the fundamental guarantee of the indestructibility of the nation and of its rebirth after the passing calamities of the moment. Christ… “one day will reward the tears you shed over your beloved dead, and over a Poland that shall never perish.” (Ibid., pp. 393-396)

The Commission questions Pius XII’s reaction to Kristallnacht (“The Night of the Broken Glass”). Did the members read the articles in the Vatican newspapers, L’Osservatore Romano, reporting on the anti-Jewish atrocities committed on Kristallnacht? This newspaper, describing the crimes of November, 1938, with headlines such as, “Dopo le manifestazion antisemite in Germania,” and “La ripercussione delle manifestazion antisemite in Germania,” was the voice of Pope Pius XII.

As Andrea Tornielli, in Il Giornale, November 13, 1998, points out: “It is ironic that Meir Lau, Israel’s Chief Rabbi, denounced the silence of Pope Pius XII after Kristallnacht on November 9, 1938.” The Rabbi questioned: “Where was Pius XII in November of 1938.” “Why didn’t he denounce the violence of that night?” Torniello writes: “Eugenio Pacelli was not yet Pope. He was in Rome, Secretary of State to Pius XI who did not hesitate to condemn racial hatred during an audience, stating: Spiritually we are all Semites.” [The Rabbi seems to have forgotten that Eugenio Pacelli had not yet been elected to the Chair of Peter which took place on March 2, 1939.]

What was Pacelli doing in the Vatican? Even before Kristallnacht he was assisting the Pontiff in writing the encyclical Mit brenneder Sorge (March 14, 1937), with which the Catholic Church condemned Nazism. This was a denunciation that provoked Hitler’s anger. It was written in German because the Vatican wanted it read in all the churches in Germany on Palm Sunday, March 21, 1937. In fact, the following day, the National Socialist Party newspaper Volkischer Beobachter published a poisonous counterattack to the “Jewish God and his vicar in Rome.”

Tornielli belongs to a group of Jewish and Christian writers who want to spread the truth. However, the difficulty lies with the fact that prejudice regarding the “silence” of the Pontiff is a very popular theme. Apparently, the media refuses to acknowledge the truth.

The facts cannot be denied. Sixty years ago on Kristallnacht, the Nazis destroyed 1,400 synagogues and stores belonging to Jewish citizens in Germany and Austria. The following days German newspapers published statements by Lutheran theologians who, far from condemning the violence, were pleased that the persecution began on Martin Luther’s birthday.

According to Andrea Tornielli’s article, Hitler’s followers executed the program found in Luther’s book Von den Juden und ihren Lugen (1543), translated from German into Latin by Justus Jonas. In 1936 it was circulated in a version edited by the evangelical theologian Dr. Linden. An Italian edition with commentary by Attilio Agnoletto, was published in 1997.

In this book, Luther advises that “under pain of death the Rabbis should not be allowed to teach and Jews should be denied the public trust and safe-conduct.” He also states that “work should be imposed on all young and robust Jews, men and women, so that they will earn their bread with the sweat of their brow.”

It is not difficult to imagine that the Nazis would find these words the legitimization of the concentration camps. But it is strange that during the commemoration of Kristallnacht, the one to be accused has been Pope Pius XII. Instead, not a word about the theologians who applauded and reprinted the ferocious anti-Jewish libel.

By Sr. Margherita Marchione, Ph.D.

Pope Pius XII was not a German collaborator nor was he pro-Nazi. Neither was he inactive nor silent. As a member of the Catholic Church, I resent the blatant accusations against the diplomacy of the Pope and the Church during World War II. This is not only indecent journalism but it also an injustice toward a man who saved more Jews than any other person, including Oscar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg. Unfortunately even in the new Holocaust Museum at Battery Park in New York City the Pope is unjustly criticized. It is historically inaccurate to charge him with “silence.”

Should the media be allowed to perpetuate such falsehoods? Documents prove that these misrepresentations are untrue. Pius XII spoke out as much as he could, and was able to do more with actions than with words. To the very end, he was convinced that, should he denounce Hitler publicly, there would be retaliation. And there was. Whenever protests were made, treatment of prisoners worsened immediately. Robert Kempner, the American who served as deputy chief of the Nuremburg war-crimes tribunal, wrote: “All the arguments and writings eventually used by the Catholic Church against Hitler only provoked suicide; the execution of Jews was followed by that of Catholic priests.”

Pius XII—through his public discourses, his appeals to governments, and his secret diplomacy—was engaged more than any other individual in the effort to curb the war and rebuild the peace. Documents show that Pius XII was in contact with the German generals who sought to overthrow Hitler. Documents also show that the Jewish community received enormous help: Pius XII’s personal funds ransomed Jews from Nazis. Papal representatives in Croatia, Hungary, and Romania intervened to stop deportations. The Pope called for a peace conference involving Italy, France, England, Germany, and Poland in 1939, in a last-minute bid to avert bloodshed.

An interesting document is the testimony of Albert Einstein who, disenchanted by the silence of universities and editors of newspapers, stated in Time magazine (December 23, 1940): “Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing truth. …The Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom.” Indeed, executing the directives of Pope Pius XII, religious men and women opened their doors to save the Jews.

Never were the Jews and the Vatican so close as during World War II. The Vatican was the only place on the continent where they had any friends. Pope Pius XII’s response to the plight of the Jews was to save as many as possible. Yet little has been done to stop the criticism of Pius XII that began in 1963, when Rolf Hochhuth portrayed him as a Nazi collaborator in the play “The Deputy.” In contrast to the image suggested by this play, Vatican records indicate that the Church operated an underground railroad that rescued 800,000 European Jews from the Holocaust. After a careful study of available documents, whoever is interested in the truth will no longer condemn the actions of Pope Pius XII’s words and the Catholic Church during this tragic period.

An honest evaluation of Pope Pius XII’s words and actions will exonerate him from false accusations and show that he has been unjustly maligned. The Pope neither favored nor was favored by the Nazis. The day after his election (March 3, 1939), the Nazi newspaper,Berliner Morganpost stated its position clearly: “the election of Cardinal Pacelli is not accepted with favor in Germany because he was always opposed to Nazism.”

The New York Times editorial (December 25, 1942) was specific: “The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas…He is about the only ruler left on the Continent of Europe who dares to raise his voice at all.” The Pope’s Christmas message was also interpreted in the Gestapo report: “in a manner never known before…the Pope has repudiated the National Socialist New European Order [Nazism]. It is true, the Pope does not refer to the National Socialists in Germany by name, but his speech is one long attack on everything we stand for. …Here he is clearly speaking on behalf of the Jews.” Perhaps the rest of the world should interpret the Pope’s words as they were meant and, undoubtedly, correctly understood by the Nazis, i.e.: POPE PIUS XII WAS ALWAYS OPPOSED TO NAZISM.

The Jewish Community publicly acknowledged the wisdom of Pope Pius XII’s diplomacy. In September 1945, Dr. Joseph Nathan—who represented the Hebrew Commission—stated “Above all, we acknowledge the Supreme Pontiff and the religious men and women who, executing the directives of the Holy Father, recognized the persecuted as their brothers and, with great abnegation, hastened to help them, disregarding the terrible dangers to which they were exposed.” In 1958, at the death of Pope Pius XII, Golda Meir sent an eloquent message: “We share in the grief of humanity. …When fearful martyrdom came to our people, the voice of the Pope was raised for its victims. The life of our times was enriched by a voice speaking out about great moral truths above the tumult of daily conflict. We mourn a great servant of peace.”

On the Church and the Holocaust

Excerpts from books and periodicals that have covered this subject:

• The foremost Jewish Scholar of the Holocaust at its height in Hungary, Jeno Levai, insisted some years ago that it was a “particularly regrettable irony that the one person in all of occupied Europe who did more than anyone else to halt the dreadful crime and alleviate its consequences is today made the scapegoat for the failures of others.”
  
• The Israeli diplomat and scholar Pinchas Lapide concluded his careful review of Pius XII’s wartime activities with the following words: “The Catholic Church under the pontificate of Pius XII was instrumental in saving lives of as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands.” He went on to add that this “figure far exceeds those saved by all other Churches and rescue organizations combined.”After recounting statements of appreciation from a variety of preeminent Jewish spokespersons, he noted. “No Pope in history has been thanked more heartily by Jews . . . .Several suggested in open letters that a Pope Pius XII forest of 860,000 trees be planted on the hills of Judea in order to fittingly honor the memory of the late Pontiff (“Three Popes and the Jews” pp. 214–215).” Levai in his own book did not hesitate to argue that the attacks on the Pope’s wartime record are“demonstrably malicious and fabricated . . . . The archives of the Vatican of diocesan authorities of Ribbentrop’s foreign ministry, contain a whole series of protests—direct and indirect, diplomatic and public, secret and open. The nuncios and bishops of the Catholic Church intervened again and again on the instructions of the Pope,” he wrote. Their interventions were just as unsuccessful as the demands and threats of the British and American governments. Moreover, the delicacy of the matter was often heightened by the fact that such protests could put Jews themselves and their protectors at additional corporal risk.
• Hungarian Jews and the Papacy: The former chief rabbi of Rome during the German occupation, Emilio Zolli, concluded his firsthand account of wartime events thus:“Volumes could be written on the multiform works of Pius XII, and the countless priests, religious and laity who stood with him throughout the world during the war.” “No hero,” he said, “in all of history was more militant, more fought against, none more heroic, than Pius XII in pursuing the works of true charity . . . and thus on behalf of all the suffering children of God.” Zolli was so moved by Pius XII’s work that he became a Catholic after the war and took the Pope’s name (Before the Dawn). Lapide acknowledged in his book that the Church“in an endless flood of sermons, allocutions, pastoral letters and encyclicals was a clear and unrelenting foe to all forms of racism at the time, and everyone knew it—Jews, Poles, Russians and most ominously the Nazi secret police.” Their files mention recalcitrant Catholic clergy in this regard more than any other group.
• The New York Times in its Christmas editorials of 1941 and 1942 praised Pius XII for his moral leadership as a “lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent”and for, among other things, assailing “the violent occupation of territory, and the exile and persecution of human beings, for no other reason than race.” No other institution produced more heroes during the Holocaust than the Church: Italian, Slovak, French, Hungarian priests, nuns, and laypersons who risked and often gave their lives for the sake of persecuted Jews. This too deserves remembrance and respect.
• Golda Meir, Israel’s representative to the United Nations, was the first of the delegates to react to the news of Pope Pius XII’s death. She sent an eloquent message: “We share in the grief of humanity at the passing away of His Holiness, Pope Pius XII. In a generation afflicted by wars and discords he upheld the highest ideals of peace and compassion. When fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, the voice of the Pope was raised for its victims. The life of our times was enriched by a voice speaking out about great moral truths above the tumult of daily conflict. We mourn a great servant of peace.”
  
• Leonard Bernstein, on learning of Pope Pius XII’s death while conducting his orchestra in New York’s Carnegie Hall, tapped his baton for a moment of silence to pay tribute to the Pope who had saved the lives of so many people without distinction of race, nationality, or religion.
• The great Jewish physicist, Albert Einstein, who himself barely escaped annihilation at Nazi hands, made the point well in 1944 when he said, “Being a lover of freedom, when the Nazi revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, but the universities were immediately silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers, but they, like the universities were silenced in a few short weeks. Then I looked to individual writers . . . . they too were mute. Only the Church,” Einstein concluded, “stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing the truth. . . . I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel great affection and admiration . . . . and am forced thus to confess that what I once despised, I now praise unreservedly.”

Catalyst, December 1999

John Cornwell’s new book, Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, turns out to be a deeply flawed attack on Pope John Paul II. That’s right, the final chapter is actually an attack on the current plaintiff. Cornwell is disturbed by John Paul’s “conservative” positions on celibate clergy, women priests, artificial contraception, and abortion. He is especially concerned about the Pope’s opposition to direct political activity by the clergy.

Cornwell apparently decided that the easiest way to attack the Pope of today was to go after Pius XII. If he can prove that Pius was flawed, then he establishes that popes can be wrong. If that is the case, then he can argue that John Paul II is wrong about the whole catalogue of teachings that tend to upset many modern Catholics.

Cornwell’s thesis is that Eugenio Pacelli–Pope Pius XII–was driven by the desire to concentrate the authority of the Church under a strong, central papacy. Cornwell argues that as Pacelli worked toward that end, he created a situation that was easy for Hitler to exploit. Cornwell denies that Pacelli was a “monster.” In fact, he recognizes that Pacelli “hated” Hitler. His theory, deeply flawed though it may be, is that Hitler exploited Pacelli’s efforts to expand Roman influence. Unfortunately,   many reviews, like those in the New York Postand the London Sunday Times, missed that point. They simply reported that “Pius XII helped Adolf Hitler gain power,” as if the two worked together. That is certainly not Cornwell’s point.

Some of the mistakes reported in the press are obvious to anyone who read Cornwell’s book. For instance, The Indianapolis News reported that Pius knew of Hitler’s plan for the Final Solution “in 1939 when he first became involved with the German leader.” First of all, the Nazis did not decide on the course of extermination until 1942. Perhaps more telling, this statement is at odds with two things in the book: 1) Cornwell argues that Hitler and the future Pope Pius XII first “became involved” in the early 1930s, and 2) Cornwell expressly notes that Pius XII’s first reliable information concerning extermination of the Jews came in the spring of 1942, not 1939.

Similarly, the New York Post reported in a couple of different editions that “Pacelli… met with Hitler several times.” This is not true. The two men never met, and Cornwell does not claim that they did. The most common error by made reviewers was that of accepting Cornwell’s assertions without checking out the facts. On some of these points, the reviewer’s oversight might be forgiven. For instance, Viking Press has marketed this book as having been written by a practicing Catholic who started out to defend Pius XII. One is always reluctant to say what another person’s beliefs are, so reviewers could be forgiven had they simply remained silent about that issue. Instead, the vast majority took delight in calling Cornwell a good, practicing Catholic.

Having decided to report on Cornwell’s religious beliefs, the reviewers might have noted that his earlier books were marketed as having been written by a “lapsed Catholic for more than 20 years” and that reviewers said he wrote “with that astringent, cool, jaundiced view of the Vatican that only ex-Catholics familiar with Rome seem to have mastered.” They might also have reported that during the time he was researching this book he described himself as an “agnostic Catholic.” Finally, it might have been worth noting that in a 1993 book he declared that human beings are “morally, psychologically and materially better off without a belief in God.” Instead, they presented only that side of the story that Cornwell and his publisher wanted the public to hear.

The Vatican had not yet spoken, so a reviewer might be excused for not knowing that Cornwell lied about being the first person to see certain “secret” files and about the number of hours that he spent researching at the Vatican. When, however, he claimed that a certain letter was a “time bomb” lying in the Vatican archives since 1919, a careful reviewer might have mentioned that it had been fully reprinted and discussed in Germany and the Holy See: Pacelli’s Nunciature between the Great War and the Weimar Republic, by Emma Fattorini (1992).

That letter at issue reports on the occupation of the royal palace in Munich by a group of Bolshevik revolutionaries. Pacelli was the nuncio in Munich and a noted opponent of the Bolsheviks. The revolutionaries sprayed his house with gunfire, assaulted him in his car, and invaded his home. The description of the scene in the palace (which was actually written by one of Pacelli’s assistants, not him) included derogatory comments about the Bolsheviks and noted that many of them were Jewish. Cornwell couples the anti-revolutionary statements with the references to Jews and concludes that it reflects “stereotypical anti-Semitic contempt.” That is a logical jump unwarranted by the facts. Even worse, however, is the report in USA Today that Pacelli described Jews (not a specific group of revolutionaries) “as physically and morally repulsive, worthy of suspicion and contempt.” Again, it is a case of the press being particularly anxious to report the worst about the Catholic Church.

Cornwell claims that he received special assistance from the Vatican due to earlier writings which were favorable to the Vatican. Many reviewers gleefully reported this and his asserted “moral shock” at what he found in the archives. A simple call to the Vatican would have revealed that he received no special treatment. If the reviewer were suspicious about taking the word of Vatican officials, a quick consultation of Cornwell’s earlier works (or easily-available reviews thereof) would have revealed that he has never been friendly to the Holy See.

Cornwell stretched the facts to such a point that any impartial reader should be put on notice. For instance, Cornwell suggests that Pacelli dominated Vatican foreign policy from the time that he was a young prelate. One chapter describes the young Pacelli’s hand in the negotiation of a June 1914 concordat with Serbia (he took the minutes), and leaves the impression that he was responsible for the outbreak of World War I.

Certainly Cornwell, who describes Pope Pius XI as “bossy” and “authoritarian,” knows that Pacelli was unable to dominate Vatican policy as Secretary of State, much less as nuncio. Any fair reviewer should have at least questioned this point.

Another point that would be a tip-off to any critical reviewer is Cornwell’s handling of the so-called “secret encyclical.” The traditional story (and the evidence suggests that it is little more than that) is that Pius XI was prepared to make a strong anti-Nazi statement, and he commissioned an encyclical to that effect. A draft was prepared, but Pius XI died before he was able to release it. His successor, Pius XII, then buried the draft.

One of the problems that most critics of Pius XII have with this theory is that the original draft contained anti-Semitic statements. These critics are reluctant to attribute such sentiments to Pius XI. Cornwell resolved this problem by accusing Pacelli of having written the original draft (or of having overseen the writing) when he was Secretary of State, then burying it when he was Pope. It is really such a stretch that any good reviewer should have questioned it. Instead, most merely took Cornwell at his word and reported that an anti-Semitic paper was written by Pacelli or under his authority. (In actuality, there is no evidence that either Pope ever saw the draft.)

Perhaps more startling than anything else is the way reviewers avoided any mention of the last chapter of Cornwell’s book, entitled “Pius XII Redivivus.” In this chapter, it becomes clear that the book is a condemnation of Pope John Paul II’s pontificate, not just that of Pius XII. This chapter also reveals a serious flaw in Cornwell’s understanding of Catholicism, politics, and the papacy of John Paul II.

Cornwell argues that John Paul II represents a return to a more “highly centralized, autocratic papacy,” as opposed to a “more diversified Church.” The over-arching theory of the book, remember, is that the centralization of power in Rome took away the political power from local priests and bishops who might have stopped Hitler. Accordingly, Cornwell thinks that John Paul is leading the Church in a very dangerous direction, particularly by preventing clergy from becoming directly involved in political movements, including everything from liberation theology to condom distribution.

Cornwell, of course, has to deal with the fact that John Paul II has played a central part in world events, including a pivotal role in the downfall of the Soviet Union. Cornwell’s answer is that John Paul was more “sympathetic to pluralism” early in his pontificate, but that he has retreated into “an intransigently absolutist cast of mind” and has hurt the Church in the process.

Cornwell misses the important point that is so well explained in George Weigel’s new biography of John Paul II, Witness to Hope. John Paul’s political impact came about precisely because he did not primarily seek to be political, or to think or speak politically. The pontiff’s contribution to the downfall of Soviet Communism was that he launched an authentic and deep challenge to the lies that made Communistic rule possible. He fought Communism in the same way that Pius XII fought Nazism: not by name-calling but by challenging the intellectual foundation on which it was based.

John Paul has recognized the parallels between his efforts and those of Pius XII, perhaps better than anyone else. He, of course, did not have a horrible war to contend with, nor was he threatened with the possibility of Vatican City being invaded, but given those differences, the approach each Pope took was similar. As John Paul has explained: “Anyone who does not limit himself to cheap polemics knows very well what Pius XII thought of the Nazi regime and how much he did to help countless people persecuted by the regime.” The most disappointing thing is that the modern press seems unable to recognize cheap polemics, at least when it comes to the Catholic Church.

___________________________

Ron Rychlak is a Professor of Law and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Mississippi School of Law. His book, Hitler, the War, and the Pope, is scheduled for publication by Genesis Press in June 2000.

Catalyst, June 1998

With the issuance of the Vatican document, “We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah,” voices adversely judging Pope Pius XII’s alleged “silence” have increased. Some writers are igniting flames of hatred by claiming that the Catholic Church is responsible for the Holocaust. The evidence is overwhelmingly to the contrary.

Through public discourses, appeals to governments, and secret diplomacy, Pope Pius XII was engaged more than any individuals or agencies combined in the effort to curb the war and rebuild the peace; and in alleviating the sufferings of Jews and other refugees during the Holocaust.

Except to the extent that he did, how could Pope Pius XII have prevented a world power, with military domination over a continent, from murdering the civilians it defined as its enemies? Would Adolf Hitler, an apostate Catholic who despised Christianity for its Jewish origins, have obeyed a directive from the Vatican? The undeniable historic realities persuasively say “No.” In fact, they point to certain disastrous retaliatory reaction, with awesome responsibility upon the Pope, which was fortunately avoided.

It is doubtful that even the most flaming papal protest would have slowed the Holocaust. What is certain is that such a protest would have risked the lives of countless Jews hidden in Church institutions. Could things possibly have bee made any worse? Of course. And, in this fickle world, Pope Pius XII would have been blamed for it.

The Vatican is accused of complicity because it entered into the Concordat with the Nazis in 1933. Actually the Concordat was suggested by Hitler. The record indicates that at the time Pius XI was faced with entering into an agreement defining the rights of the Church (which the Nazis shortly thereafter violated), or the virtual elimination of the Catholic Church in Germany.

The Concordat was not a political document, nor did the Catholic Church thereby compromise its principles against racial persecution and genocide as set forth in the encyclical, “Mit Brennender Sorge” issued in 1937. As Secretary of State, the future Pope Pius XII played an important part in drafting the document. In fact, upon its publication, the Nazi press carried vulgar cartoons and claims that “Pius XI was half Jewish and Cardinal Pacelli was all Jewish.” Two months before that anti-semitic horrors of Kristallnacht (The Night of the Broken Glass), Pius XI stated: “Anti-Semitism is inadmissible; spiritually we are all Semites.” (Pius XII: Greatest Dishonoured, 1980, p.45)

The day after Cardinal Pacelli’s election to the Papacy, the Nazi newspaper Berliner Morgenpost (March 3, 1939) stated its position clearly: “The election of Cardinal Pacelli is not accepted with favor in Germany because he was always opposed to Nazism and practically determined the policies of the Vatican under his predecessor.”

With the start of the war in September 1939, Pius XII pleaded that “in occupied territory the lives, the property, the honor, the religious convictions of the inhabitants will be respected.” The following month he issued “Summi Pontificatus,” the encyclical condemning radicalism.

In his 1939 Christmas message to the Cardinals, Pius XII referred to the invasion of Poland and related events: “We have been forced to witness a series of acts which are irreconcilable, both with the practices of international law, and with the principles of natural right based on the elementary feelings of humanity; acts which demonstrate in what chaotic and vicious circles we are now living….

“We find premeditated aggression against a small work-loving, peaceful people on the pretext of a threat which never existed nor was possible. We find atrocities and illicit use of means of destruction against old men, women and children. We also find contempt for freedom and for human life, from which originate acts which cry to God for vengeance.” (The Tablet of London, December 30, 1939, p. 748)

On January 27, 1940, Vatican Radio proclaimed to the world the dreadful cruelties marked with uncivilized tyranny that the Nazis were inflicting on the Jewish and Catholic Poles. The German ambassador protested while the Nazis jammed the broadcasts.

Among the ninety-three Papal communications to German bishops in World War II, a letter from Pius XII to Bishop von Preysing of Berlin is dated April 30, 1943: “It was for us a great consolation to learn that Catholics, in particular those of your Berlin diocese, have shown such charity towards the sufferings of the Jews. We express our paternal gratitude and profound sympathy for Monsignor Lichtenberg, who asked to share the lot of the Jews in the concentration camps [Dachau] and who spoke up against their persecution in the pulpit.

“As far as episcopal declarations are concerned, We leave to local bishops the responsibility of deciding what to publish from Our communications. The danger of reprisals and pressures – as well perhaps of other measures due to the length and psychology of the war – counsel reserve. In spite of good reasons for Our open intervention, there are others equally good for avoiding greater evils by not interfering Our experience in 1942, when We allowed the free publication of certain Pontifical documents addressed to the Faithful justifies this attitude.” [The Dutch bishops’ declaration on behalf of the Jews, resulted in the deportation from Amsterdam to Auschwitz of ninety per cent of them, including baptized Jews.]

Cardinal Paolo Dezza, S.J., wrote: “Pius XII did a great deal to help the Jews persecuted by the Nazis and the Fascists. He abstained from making public declarations in favor of both Catholics and Jews who were being persecuted by Hitler because, whenever he did speak, Hitler had his revenge by committing worse acts of violence against them. The clergy and bishops in Germany begged him to keep silence’ (Letter to Margherita Marchione, July 25, 1995)

The truth is that Pope Pius XII, though his inspiring actions and moral leadership, saved many thousands of Jews and countless other refugees from deportation to concentration camps, torture and death. Details of the Vatican’s humanitarian work are available to all who seek the truth: in the records of the Vatican’s activities during World War II, in the preserved accounts of individual witnesses to some of its tragic events and, as those occurrences were reported in the newspapers.

It is well known that, in consonance with the Pope’s direct urging, hundreds of convents, monasteries, and other religious buildings were opened, not only in Italy, but also in Poland, France, Belgium and Hungary, to shelter and hide thousands of men, women, and children from Nazi cruelties.

Everywhere those protecting Jews and other refugees were not immune from suspicion and arrest, were sent to prison, and were treated with brutality and contempt. Many were murdered in reprisal killings. Priests and nuns were also arrested, imprisoned, and subjected to brutal interrogation. Many were sent to concentration camps and gas chambers.

In his book The Last Three Popes and the Jews (Souvenir Press, London, 1967), Jewish historian Pinchas Lapide concludes that during the Nazi period “Pius XII, the Holy See, the Vatican’s Nuncios, and the whole Catholic Church saved between 700,000 and 850,000 Jews from certain death.”

It is incomprehensible that a negative portrayal of Pius XII should be given credibility among many Jewish leaders and be accepted as fact in a large part of the Jewish Community.

One must not confuse the religious anti-Semitism of historic Christianity with the racial anti-Semitism of the Nazis. There is evidence that whatever our Christianforebearers thought of Judaism as a religion, they consistently opposed genocide, and never would have sanctioned the extermination of Jews as a racial group.  To charge that anti-Semitism, which is inconsistent with the basic tenets of Christianity, is part of Church teaching, is without foundation.

Pope Pius XII was not anti-Semitic. He recognized the evil doctrines of Nazism and strongly opposed them. No pontiff in history received as many manifestations of gratitude and affection from the Jewish community.

Jewish physicist Albert Einstein testified to his appreciation of Pius XII’s actions in an article published in Time magazine (December 23, 1940, p.40): “Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing truth. I had never any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom.”

Marc Saperstein, a professor of Jewish history and director of the program in Judaic studies at the George Washington University wrote: “The suggestion that Christian doctrines or practice led directly to the Nazi death camps is misleading and inappropriate…. The fundamental responsibility for the Holocaust lies with the Nazi perpetrators. Not with Pope Pius XII. Not with the Church. Not with the teachings of the Christian faith.” (Washington Post, April 1, 1998)

Only by becoming more sensitive to each other can Jews and Catholics improve their relationship and achieve reconciliation and peace. This requires authentic dialogue, profound understanding, and mutual respect.

This is a plea for brotherhood and peace, for Jews and Catholics to build together a human bridge of love and understanding. It is also a call for justice toward the memory of Pope Pius XII. Finally, it is a prayer for the Catholic Church during World War II, in light of the documentation that has been ignored.

By James Bogle

Reprinted with permission from The Salisbury Review, Sp

Over the last year a number of commentators have sought to rehash old and ill-informed accusations in an attempt to undermine the reputation of Pope Pius XII. His war-time effort to save Jewish lives has, amazingly, been the principal area of attack. The BBC programReputations, repeated on 14^th February 1996, was one especially virulent attack. It was followed by a review in The Times by religious affairs correspondent, Ruth Gledhill, which attacked Pius XII apparently on the strength of the BBC program alone. Later, the producer of the program, Jonathan Lewis, attempted to explain his position in the liberal Catholic Journal The Tablet.

Pius XII was one of the few world leaders outside Jewry itself who was quick to recognize the danger of Nazism. Former Israeli diplomat Pinchas Lapide, in his book The Last Three Popes and the Jews demonstrates convincingly the consistent and active protection provided to Jews in Europe by the papacy. He does not shrink from strong criticism of other parts of the Catholic Church where necessary and of some Catholic governments in particular. Further, he commands respect from those reading from a Jewish perspective.

It is estimated that the actions of Pius XII directly led to the saving of 800,000 Jewish lives during the war. The estimate of 800,000 Jewish lives is based upon the testimony of the post-war government of the recently created State of Israel which recognized and honored that pope’s contribution. The Israelis recognized the figure and a forest of as many trees was planted in commemoration in the Negeb, SE of Jerusalem, and was shown to Pope Paul VI with some ceremony on his first state visit to Israel. Rev. Fr. Jean Charles-Roux, now a Rosininian priest living in London and whose father was French Ambassador to the Holy See in the 30’s, lived with his family in Rome during the fateful pre-war period. He recalls that the Pope told his father as early as 1935 that the new regime in Germany was “diabolical.” The Ambassador frequently warned his government but the general reaction in France seems to have been that it was good to see the back of the Prussian militarist and that it was no bad thing that an Austrian-Czech house painter was now Chancellor.

The reaction in the USA and Britain was scarcely different at that time; and even later when they must have begun to know about the camps. The U.S. government accepted a total of 10,000 – 15,000 Jewish refugees throughout the war. — a truly scandalous statistic.

Britain was little better and before the war the government had been full of “appeasers,” the Duke of Windsor visited Hitler and Lloyd George even went so far as to call him “the greatest living German”!

Ambassador Charles-Roux’s own government in Paris (and the British government) were deaf to the pleas of the Vatican to assist the German internal resistance to the Nazi government. From the very beginning Pius XII tried to persuade the Allied governments to support the German opposition to Hitler, but since they would not listen to men like the Anglican Bishop Bell of Chichester or to the few Jews who had escaped from Germany to Britain and America, they would not and did not listen to a Pope. Men like Adam von Trott zu Sulz (he had been a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol), Peter Yorek von Wartenburg and many other leading Germans who later formed the Kreisau circle, made continuous, repeated, energetic and ultimately futile attempts to reach and persuade the British government to back, or even talk with, the German resistance to Hitler. They were all killed in the 20^th July plot to assassinate Hitler, the last in a long line of foiled attempts to get rid of the dictator, which was triggered by the Roman Catholic officer, Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg. Stauffenberg was shot out of hand. Other conspirators were not so lucky. They were tried by the infamous “People’s Court” and hanged by piano wire from butchers’ hooks of Ploetzensce prison. This was filmed on Hitler’s orders so that he could watch it himself later.

Count von Galen, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Munster, was another outspoken critic of the racial and eugenic policies of the Nazis and would undoubtedly have been liquidated by them if not for the prominence and prestige of his position.

In August 1943 Pius XII received a plea from the World Jewish Congress to try to persuade the Italian authorities to remove 20,000 Jewish refugees from internment camps in Northern Italy. “Our terror-stricken brethren look to Your Holiness as the only hope for saving them from persecution and death” they wrote. In September 1943, A.L. Easterman on behalf of the WJC reported to the Apostolic Delegate in London (there was no Nuncio since the British government always refused to recognize the diplomatic rights of the Holy See—a hangover from our anti-

Catholic past). He reported that the efforts of the Holy See on behalf of the Jews had been successful and wrote, “I feel sure that the efforts of your Grace, and of the Holy See have brought about this fortunate result, and I should like to express to the Holy See and yourself the warmest thanks of the World Jewish Congress.”

Around the same time, the German Chief of Police in Rome threatened to send some 200 Jews to the Russian front unless they produced within 36 hours 50 kg of gold or equivalent in currency. The Chief Rabbi approached the Holy See which immediately placed 15 kg at his disposal and lent the necessary money free of charge. More than half the Jews of Rome were sheltered in ecclesiastical buildings opened on the express instructions of Pius XII himself. The Vatican Secretariat of State saved more Jews by faking their baptisms and sending lists of “baptized” Jews to the German Ambassador, Weizsacker, so that they could be evacuated. Many of those saved were helped to escape by the massive over-issuing of Vatican passports, particularly in the latter half of 1944, and records exist of many of these. However, this had perforce to be handled with little or no ordinary documentary evidence since the Nazis would without doubt have crushed this means of escape immediately if they had become aware of the extent to which it was being used to facilitate the rescue of Jews.

In November, 1943 Chief Rabbi Herzog wrote to Cardinal Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, then Apostolic Delegate for Turkey and Greece, saying: “I take this opportunity to express to your Eminence my sincere thanks as well as my deep appreciation of your very kindly attitude to Israel and of the invaluable help given by the Catholic Church to the Jewish people in its affliction. Would you please convey these sentiments which come from Sion, to His Holiness the Pope (Pius XII) along with the assurances that the people of Israel know how to value his assistance and his attitude.” The American Jewish Welfare Board wrote to Pius XII in July 1944 to express its appreciation for the protection given to the Jews during the German occupation of Italy. At the end of the war, the World Jewish Congress expressed its gratitude to the Pope and gave 20 million Lire to Vatican charities. A former Israeli diplomat in Italy claimed that: “The Catholic Church saved more Jewish lives during the war than all the other Churches, religious institutions and rescue organizations put together. Its record stands in startling contrast to the achievements of the International Red Cross and the Western Democracies.”

The Pope protested particularly against the deportations of Jews in Slovakia, Hungary and Vichy, France, since these were formerly Catholic countries where Fascists had gained control and they still had a majority of Catholic citizens. In Hungary the Nunciature used thousands of blank and forged forms to help Jews escape. A Red Cross worker even complained that the use of forged documents was against the Geneva Convention! Happily this rather officious complaint did not prevent the Nuncio’s covert operation continuing.

Pope Pius XII knew Germany well, having previously been papal Nuncio there. It was he himself who wrote (after reading the first draft by Cardinal Faulhaber of Munich) the criticism of racial policies in the Encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge (which means “with burning anxiety” i.e. about the Nazi threat to racial minorities and specifically the Jews) addressed directly to the German people during the pontificate of Pope Pius XI. He wrote that Catholics must never be anti-Semitic because “we are all Semites spiritually” and ought to hold the Jewish people in high regard accordingly.

As a matter of simple historical fact, Rabbi Israel Zolli, the Chief Rabbi of Rome, was received into the Catholic Church in 1945 after the war was over. He was baptized entirely of his own free will and asked Pius XII, with whom he had worked closely in the saving of Jewish lives, to be his godfather. Dr. Zolli chose the name Eugenio a his baptismal name precisely because it was Pius XII’s own name.

These facts are rarely mentioned by commentators, yet they are clearly vital to any assessment of the reputation of Pius XII. Instead an insidious campaign has been maintained against the good name of that Pope, largely centering around the accusation that he kept silent during the war about the plight of the Jews and refused to mention them by name. It is now generally implied by some that this was so because he was racist and an anti-Semite. It is difficult to conceive of a more detestable lie.

Pius XII, as Cardinal Pacelli, had a hand in writing the encyclical Non Abbiamo Bisognowhich condemned Italian Fascist doctrines, as well as Divini Redemptoris which opposed Soviet Communism and the massacres and starvation that were being perpetrated in its name in Russia (e.g. the 10 million peasants starved to death in the Ukraine). Pius XII was a highly active, energetic and zealous opponent of totalitarianism and oppression. Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical letter Mit Brennender Sorge in 1937 because he was the ruling Pope; but it was Cardinal Pacelli, later Pius XII, who wrote it. The German Roman Catholic hierarchy thanked Pope XI for the letter, which condemned racism and anti-Semitism roundly, and the Pope pointed to Cardinal Pacelli saying it was he who had been responsible for it. Pius XII’s first encyclical in 1939, Summi Pontificatus, repeated the theme and the Gestapo were immediately given orders by the Nazi leadership to prevent its distribution.

Thereafter, Pius XII adopted his policy of not naming the Jews explicitly. This was partly because his experience of the diplomatic “deafness” of the Allied governments and partly because of his knowledge and experience of the increased persecution of Jews which followed the condemnatory statements made in the two mentioned encyclicals.

He devoted himself instead to the covert rescue operation to save Jewish lives, which was probably the most successful of all those attempted particularly if one takes into account the saving of the Hungarian Jews and the joint actions of the Vatican and the papal Nuncio in Hungary at that time. It is well recognized that the saviors of the Hungarian Jews were the papal Nuncio and the Swedish Embassy (in the person of Raoul Wallenberg), both seeking to outwit the Chief Nazi murderer, Adolf Eichmann.

Pius XII followed the Dutch Roman Catholic hierarchy’s plan to name the Jews explicitly in their condemnation of Nazi deportations and intended to issue a similar statement himself. The Nazis threatened to arrest more Jews. The Dutch Reformed Church agreed not to protest openly but the Roman Catholic hierarchy issued, in May 1943, their famous protest against the deportations. The Nazis then launched an all-out offensive against Jews (except those who had converted to the Dutch Protestant Reformed Church). Ironically, it was the Dutch hierarchy’s letter of open condemnation which led to the arrest and execution of Edith Stein, the Jewish Roman Catholic nun and philosopher.

The news of the increased persecution reached Pius XII. His own protest was due to go intoL’Osservatore Romano that very evening but he had the draft burnt saying “If the protest of the Dutch Bishops has cost the lives of 40,000 people, my intervention would take at least 200,000 people to their deaths.” (See II Seitimanale, 1 March 1975, p.40.) Such was the result of openly naming the Jews; more death from vain gestures.

There is no doubt that if Pius XII had made such a vain gesture, instead of saving more Jewish lives, he would then have been open to the criticism of having made the situation worse by vain and inopportune public statements. Those who now criticize him for not saying enough would then have attacked him for saying too much.

It is easy to forget that there was only so much that the Pope could do. He had no Army or police beyond the Swiss Guard and he was not listened to by the Allied powers. Under constant surveillance and threats from the Nazis when they occupied Rome, his statements were seized and destroyed by the Gestapo. As for his influence with loyal Roman Catholics, he had already spelt out precisely and forthrightly what his views and those of the Church were in the two above-mentioned encyclicals and in constant re-affirmations of his position in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatoire. No loyal Roman Catholic need have been in any doubt at the time what the Catholic Church’s views on Nazism and racism were. The fact that some bad Catholics allowed themselves to become involved with the Nazi terror cannot be blamed on Pope Pius XII—any more than the fact that there were Jewish Kapos and a Jewish police helping the Nazis enforce their extermination policies can be blamed upon Jewish religious leaders. Pius XII plainly repudiated the perverted doctrines of the Nazis and also the immoral Fascist doctrines of Benito Mussolini (which had been condemned in the encyclical Non Abbiamo Bisogno meaning “we have no need” i.e. of Fascist doctrines).

He is also sometimes criticized for not excommunicating Hitler, but Hitler was already excommunicated ipso facto for a whole range of crimes and could only have returned to the Catholic faith, even assuming that he would ever have wanted to, by having his excommunication lifted by the Pope himself. The lifting of the sentence was reserved to the Holy See, latae sententiae. Besides, the complaint assumes that Hitler took some notice of the Holy See and the Catholic Church. Insofar as he did, it was for purely political reasons, since he was forced to recognize the influence of the Catholic Church and the papacy. Hitler described himself as “a complete pagan” (see Hitler’s Table Talk) and regarded the Catholic Church as his greatest enemy, which he would destroy when he had the opportunity.

One must remember, too, that the Pope had a duty to his own flock, who were in equal danger if they spoke out against the Nazis. Prince Sapicha, the Cardinal of Cracow in Poland, told the Pope, perfectly accurately, that if there were open public denunciations Catholics and Jews would be massacred in Poland. It was better to try and rescue as many as possible through the religious houses and allow the opposition Army to build up (which it did — the Armija Krajowa, the secret underground Army under General Bor-Komorowski which was later betrayed by the soviets and massacred by the Nazis). In 1940, 800 priests died in Buchenwald, 1,200 in 1942 and 3,000 in 1943. And that was just Buchenwald.

Later, after the war was over, Pius XII received a large delegation of Roman Jews in the Vatican and ordered that the Imperial steps be opened for them to enter by. These steps were usually reserved for crowned Heads of State (although they were later opened once for President Charles de Gaulle). The Pope received them in the Sistine chapel and, seeing that his Jewish visitors felt uncomfortable in that place, he came down from his throne and warmly welcomed them telling them to feel completely at home, saying “I am only the Vicar of Christ but you are His very kith and kin”. Such was his great love for the Jewish people, augmented by his knowledge of their terrible sufferings.

Oskar Schindler, a Roman Catholic, is regarded as a “righteous gentile” by many Jews for saving the lives of some 3,000 – 4,000 Jews in his factories. Why then is Pope Pius XII so unjustly criticized, despite saving 800,000 Jewish lives?

Christmas 1941 and 1942

On Christmas Day, 1941, the New York Times, commenting on Pius XII’s Christmas Message, carried the following editorial:

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 o 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.