Pope Pius XII and Historical Revisionism
One of the most crass and inexplicable examples of historical revisionism is the ex post facto treatment of Eugenio Pacelli or Pope Pius XII. During his lifetime, he was viewed as a brilliant, holy, warm, generous and God-given human being. When he died, the immediate reaction was that there could never be anyone like him. The universal love which his successor, John XXIII, instantly generated showed, of course, the Providence of the Lord but in no way detracted from the spectacular and courageous reign of Pacelli.
I remember being in an audience with him at Castelgandolfo (1955) when he was an old man but exuding such warmth and inspiration that my own ferociously American mother cheered and screamed " Viva il Papa." He utterly radiated sheer goodness. This was the general perception of the world !
But suddenly, in the 1960's the perception of Pacelli changed. A German playwright, Rolf Hochuth accused the Pope of cowardice and complicity in the Holocaust. Among the many protestors against this charge was Sir d' Arcy Osborne, British envoy to the Vatican during the War, who violently disagreed and labeled Hochuth as an amateur in history. Hochuth was publicly disgraced when he tried similarly to defame Winston Churchill and was subsequently discredited. Yet the irresponsibilities of this man and others, like Robert Katz and Gunther Lewy, continue to infect and distort the minds of many good if uninformed people. I ask myself how can this be ? Why are they doing this to the memory of a sainted man who was such a great friend of the European Jewish Community?
I am particularly sensitive to this charge since I, myself, had a Jewish parent and would have been oven fodder in the Nazi years in Germany. But, also, I am incensed at the monstrous crime of the Holocaust and understand the justified reactions of Jews to what millions of our people have endured and suffered.
I say " inexplicable" in the light of the following factors:
On 12 October, 1945, The World Jewish Congress made a gift of 2,000,000 lire to the Vatican AS A TOKEN OF GRATITUDE. Among those who mourned the death of PP XII that day, and making notable pronouncements, were President Ben Zevi of Israel, Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Jewish Congress and the World Zionist Organization, and Rabbi Dr. Israel Goldstein of New York City. Golda Meir cabled the Vatican saying ".......when fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, THE VOICE OF THE POPE WAS RAISED FOR THE VICTIMS.......a voice speaking out on the great moral truths above the tumult of daily conflict."
Also, in 1945. Mose Sharett, Israel's first Prime Minister reported that "..... I told him that my FIRST duty was to thank him ( PPXII) and through him, the Catholic Church, on behalf of the Jewish public, for all they had done in various countries to rescue Jews, to save children and Jews in general." ( reported by Peter Gumpel in America magazine, 1999). Pinchas Lapide, researcher of Jewish sources, claims that the Catholic Church, at the order of the Pope, saved between 700,000 and 850,000 Jewish lives. Why don't we hear about this?
Further, why don't we hear today about the Israeli Philharmonic's performance of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony on May 26,1955 in the presence of Pope Pius XII at Rome? BECAUSE THE CONCERT WAS EXPRESSLY GIVEN IN GRATITUDE TO HIM FOR SAVING SO MANY JEWISH LIVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is history being revised to meet a contemporary agenda? What is going on?
One of the most telling examples of this historical distortion is that which is exposed by Fr. R. Graham SJ ( internationally recognized and respected historian specializing in this Nazi period) who reviewed the work of Gunther Lewy, THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND NAZI GERMANY. Graham says that "he is amazed at the extraordinary credulity of Lewy where the Nazi documents about the Vatican are concerned. Nowhere does he display any awareness that he is dealing with tendentious and mendacious documents... the liberties he takes is an insult to serious historians."
A further discredit follows: ".......never have I found such massive uncritical use of primary sources... ill formed commentary.... such carelessness in checking basic facts on which speculation is based. So many irrelevancies erected into significant events..." This is merely one example of a plethora of unfair, unscholarly and false imputations against Pacelli. Dr. Robert Kempner, fugitive from Nazi Germany and later deputy chief US prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, strongly defended PPXII and the Catholic church. He dismissed, out of hand, both Lewy and Saul Freidlander. He further attested that the Pope protested against the persecution of the Jews but that the Pope's protests could have stopped Hitler "...is completely unfounded."
One most reliable source seems to have been overlooked ( for some obscure reason) by the critics of Pacelli. This is : ACTES ET DOCUMENTS DU SAINT SIEGE RELATIFS A LA SECONDE GUERRE MONDIALE which contains 12 volumes and 5,100 documents with exacting scientific standards. People, for some time, have been demanding that the Vatican publish these documents but they do not seem to know that they have been open and available for years. While some researchers have candidly admitted that they have not studied this source, others didn't even know it existed. Nor did they know of the Acts of the Nuremberg trials. No wonder PPXII is falsely accused and no wonder that accusations against him are ROUTINELY repeated in the media. Over and over again. Simply taken for granted.
There are endless favorable testimonies by contemporaries and survivors of the Nazi persecution which today are largely ignored or discounted by many who were still children or not yet born at that time. Why is this? Why is it that in the late 1930's and early 1940's, the New York Times would editorialize that the ONLY voice raised in Europe on behalf of the Jews was that of Pope Pius XII and yet in the 21st century would allow scurrilous, poorly substantiated attacks on this man's memory to be printed on its pages?
The calumny is that of an alleged silence on the part of the Pope relative to the persecution of the Jews. The truth: PPXII repeatedly condemned the persecution of an innocent people ".....for the sole reason of their race..." Everyone knew this, especially the Nazis who called the Pope "....the mouthpiece of the Jewish war-mongers..." Cf. Hitler's conversations; Goebbels' writings (Diaries) and Bormann's diaries. The Nazi hostility to PPXII is obvious. In his Christmas radio messages of '41,'42 and ' 43, the Pope denounced theories that attribute rights to a " particular race." He preached that hundreds of thousands of people through no fault of theirs, sometimes only because of nationality or race, were destined to die...."
Fr. Graham insists that although the Pope never used the actual word "JEW", he knew Hitler's sick anti-Semitism! Hitler raged at the very name and would subsequently intensify his hatred in more violent persecution. Vehement public declarations never saved a single Jewish life but only triggered more brutal treatment.
We recall the obvious example of the well intentioned but disasterous, fiery denunciation of the Dutch Bishops in July 1942 as a consequence of which Jews who had become Catholics were immediately deported i.e. to the camps for extinction. Other religions which did not denounce the sin of anti-semitism were not so punished.(?) Jews who had become Catholics were henceforth to be considered "......our worst enemies."
Interestingly enough, Sr. Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) would NOT have been deported to Auschwitz were it not for the PUBLIC STATEMENT. It was not only because she was Jewish but that she had become Catholic and that she was swept up in the Gestapo reaction to PUBLIC statements. This did not escape the eye of PPXII. Like the International Red Cross, the World Council of Churches and others, the Pope saw that-to really help-one avoids the public denunciation but secretly shields Jews from the Nazis. Some of the Polish Bishops who remained in Poland and who had to deal with the Nazis urged the Pope NOT to speak out against Hitler lest his words be used as a pretext for savage reprisal.
As a point of historical interest, we can note that the Moscow declaration signed by the Big Three, FDR, Churchill and Uncle Joe never mentioned JEWS ! The Big Three signed away any kind of problem. All Jews became Poles so the horror of the Final Solution was lost at that time. The WJC violently protested-with little result.`
Rabbi David Dalin defended PPXII in the WEEKLY STANDARD (2/2/01) saying "...faced with such misuse of the Holocaust, how can we not object?" He called the Pope a "....righteous Gentile..." Michael Novak states "....there is no need for Catholics to be defensive about Pius XII. But there is need to defend the truth...the more some of us who earlier were predisposed to blame PIUS XII study this question, the better Pius XII looks and the weaker the case against him..."
We know from critical study of documents that the Pope knew what the Nazis were doing to Jews but also to priests and nuns. His strategy was considered to be wise by contemporaries. Enunciate moral principles . Avoid provocation. Strive for neutrality between belligerents. Issue information about Nazi terrorism in Osservatore Romano and on the Radio. But implement extensive relief efforts during the War and after. AND save thousands of Jews and other refugees !!!!! This he did in what was called the strong lonely voice !
Dr. Eugene Fisher of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations sent a letter to the New York Times (5/9/01) that the phrase "..silence of Pope Pius XII should be placed in the trash heap of the discarded language of racial, religious and ethnic bigotry."
Dr. Daniel Lipshutz was a young US Army officer assigned to help the Pope in hiding and saving thousands of Jews. He frequently spoke of ".... The Pope's courageous work as one of the great accomplishments and stories of World War II." ( M.Marchione in her work " Shepherd of Souls")
What more does one need for a fair appraisal of a GOOD MAN? Even the chief Rabbi of Rome, Israel Anton Zolli, was so touched by Pacelli's concern and goodness, that he, himself, became a Roman Catholic-at some great personal cost !
But perhaps the factual and the fair are not the point. As has been said in another context: For those who believe, no proof is needed. For those who do not believe, no proof is enough.
May it be simply a case of ignorance or misinterpretation or some kind of trendy tendency to judge the past retroactively according to current knowledge and standards. But, God forbid, that it should be bigotry. That would need the forgiveness of the Holy Spirit beyond doubt.