Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust

[The Duke]

I've been reading about Pope Pius XII and the holocaust.  Pius of course has been criticized for nto speaking out against the holocaust.

From what I've read, he in fact did speak out against the holocaust and he used the institutions of the Church to protect Jews from extermination, by hiding them in monastaries and convents and by smuggling them out of the Europe.

I don't think the criticisms of Pius XII are very fair, and I wondered what everyone here thought?

[MasterJedi]

If that's true then then the criticisms aren't very valid. And if he was speaking out against it publically and everybody could hear him what was to really stop the Germans or Italians for going in and silencing him?

[J. J.]

Well, the Vatican did speak out against the Nazis prior to the Holocaust.

I should also note that the Catholic Church did not speak with one voice; there were elements actively supporting the Holocaust, at the same moment other elements actively opposing it.

[kashifsakhan]

one of the reasons why he didnt do anything was because of the concordat that the vatican had signed with nazi germany. it basically said that if the vatican kept its mouth shut hitler would allow the catholics to practise their religion in germany without any risk of persecution.

[Jake]

He did do something though, rendering your statement foolish and uninformed.

[kashifsakhan]

He did do something though, rendering your statement foolish and uninformed.

what did he do? whatever he said had no effect, the catholics didnt rally around him and take a stand against the holocaust, so in effect whatever he DID do did not matter, cuz it lead to nothing.

[The Duke]

He did do something though, rendering your statement foolish and uninformed.

what did he do? whatever he said had no effect, the catholics didnt rally around him and take a stand against the holocaust, so in effect whatever he DID do did not matter, cuz it lead to nothing.

It did have an effect.  By smuggling Jews out of Europe, they saved lives.

[12th Doctor]

It is well documentedhat the Vatican spoke out against the Nazis prior to WWII and that they acted against the Nazis during WWII.

There are many common attacks that are made against the Vatican during this period which can be easily defused.

1) "The Vatican signed a treaty with Hitler, proving that the German regime had the approval of the Vatican."

This is one of the most common, and most idiotic of the arguments that are presented.  First off, France, England, the United States and most of the Western European nations signed similar treaties assuring the protection of their property and citizens in the Third Riech.  The treaty the Vatican signed was different in no way from those treaties, and no one can make the argument that any of those governments were endorsing Hitler.

2) "Hilter was a Catholic."

While Hitler was baptized a Catholic, his ideology, and the ideology of the Nazi Party no way resemble Catholic teaching.  While it is true that Hitler used Christianity, tacitly, to insight against the Jews, Hitler was, from the time of his youth, an accultist.  He believed in, and worshiped the pegan god Wotan (or Odin) and was an avid subscriber to Ostara (sp) which was a magazine printed by Guido von Listin, a pagan practisioner.  In fact, Hitler was such an avid read that, he acctually contacted Listin personally, on a few occations, in order to get back issues of the magazine.  Nazi ideology was deeply steeped in occult ideas and practices, such as the "Hiel" greeting which was a pagan mainstay before Hitler.

3) "The Catholic Church has a long record of Jew bashing"

While this is undeniably true of many individuals in the Church, and occationally, the high officials of the Church itself, it was not true by the 1930's.  Pope Pius XI wrote an encyclical (the name is not occuring to me at the moment) specifically aimed at the German public in the 1930's condeming anti-semitism and hatred against "the race once choosen by God to preserve and spread His holy name."  Eugene Cardinal Pachelli, then the Vaticans ambassador to Germany, ordered that pamphlets be made and distributed to every Church going Catholic in Germany, and that it be read from the pulpit in every Church accross the Riech.  Pachelli, of course, later became Pius XII.

4) "Pius XII could have done more to stop the Nazis.  Instead, he turned a blind eye to Jewish suffering and did nothing."

This is blatantly untrue.  First of all, the Church spoke out to a high degree against the Nazis prior to WWII.  However, once Germans occupied Italy, and the Vatican was locked down, it would have been foolish to speak out.  It is a shame that we put such high priority on words, and not actions, these days.  Pius XII acctually did a lot to help out the Jews in Italy, and aliied POW's.  The Vatican was acctually a focal point for a massive network of spies and safe houses which helped protect Jewish lives and transmit intellegence back to the allies.

I read an article recently, that suggested that, had Pius XII told the allies about the shipments of Jews, by train, to the Death Camps, then the allies could have used that information to track down the trains and stop them before they could get to their final destination.

This claim shows quite a bit of revisionist history.  First off, the Vatican did, in fact, relay this information to the UK, through their Irish ammbasador. 

Second, the Holocoust was not even a concern to allied planers, until after they discovered the camps.  Over night, the holocaust became the justification for WWII.  FDR himself said that he couldn't talk about the camps, because no one in the US would fight a war to save Jews.

Third, the head Jewish authorities of Rome were hidden in the basement of the Vatican, along with many other Jews and POW's.  The Pope acctually conducted private meetings with the head Jewish authorities, in his private bathroom for the duration of the war.

Fourth, when the Jews of Rome were about to be deported to the death camps, the head of the Gestopo told them that they would not be sent away, if they could raise 200 lbs of gold in only two days.  The Catholic Churches of Rome polled their collective resources to raise the gold, including items used in religious services.  The gold was raised, but they were still deported a week later, anyway.

5) "Well, if it isn't true, then why is it such an accepted fact?"

It wasn't, prior to the 1980's.  In fact, in the post-war era, the Church enjoyed the best relations it had ever had with the Jewish community.  Both Pius' were hailed as heros.  The head Jewish Rabbi of Rome converted to Catholicism to show his appreiciation for the fact that Pius XII had done so much to save Jewish lives. 

There is a wall in Israel which features the names of heros of the Holocaust.  Both Pius's are on it.

There was a bill proposed to the Israeli paralament which proposed the planting of a memorial forest in the honor of Pius XII, with 180,000 trees.  Each tree represnted the esstimated number of Jewish lives the Pius XII was credited with being directly involved in saving.  The bill lost narrowly, because it was seen as being too impractical.

So, how did all of this start?  Well, there was no talk of Pius's accecptance of, or involvment in the Holocaust  until the irntroduction of a German play, called The Deputy.  The author, Rolf Hocath (sp), released the play during all the contraversy surrounding Vatican II, when people were hungary for news on the Church.  As a German Protestant, Hocath was an anti-Catholic who painted a picture of a Pope who was cold to the suffering of the Jews.  This idea later evolved into the all-out approval of the Holocaust by Pius XII.  The work was total fiction... and the author admited it at first.  However, seeing that the play was picking up popularity, he pulled and Dan Brown and started to claim that there was something behind it.

[12th Doctor]

He did do something though, rendering your statement foolish and uninformed.

what did he do? whatever he said had no effect, the catholics didnt rally around him and take a stand against the holocaust, so in effect whatever he DID do did not matter, cuz it lead to nothing.

Completely untrue.  There were Catholic groups (and, to their credit, Protestant groups) all over Europe that were devoted to causing problems for the Nazis and protecting Jews.  There was a monastery (once again, I forget the name, though, if you really want me to look up any of this stuff, I can) in France, that hid about 400 Jews during the war.  It was not the only such place.  The only place were their was wide-spread Catholic persecution of the Jews was in Poland, were fully half of the Jews who were sent to the death camps, orginated from.  This was nto because of the approval of clergy (quite the opposite, JPII was part of a network of Catholic clergy that fought against the Nazis) but because of long standing animosity between Jews and non-Jews in Poland.  Unfortunat, but you can't blame the Church for it, or use it as the prime example for your arguments.