From the Bishops Pope Pius XII

Jun 11, 2009

The recent visit by Pope Benedict XVI to Jordan, Israel, and the Palestine territories has brought renewed focus on Pope Pius XII and his support for the Jewish people in the face of Nazi atrocities.

For many years following the end of World War II, Pope Pius XII received the highest respect and acclaim for the heroic work he spearheaded to protect and save Jews. Many Jewish and Israeli leaders, including Golda Meir; Albert Einstein; and Dr. Nahum Goldman, President of the World Jewish Congress, wrote forcefully of their gratitude to and appreciation for the Pope. The Chief Rabbis of Egypt, London, and France recorded their esteem for him on the occasion of his death in 1958. After the war, the Chief Rabbi of Israel thanked Pius XII for what he had done. The Chief Rabbi of Rome became a Catholic and took the name Eugenio, in honor of Eugenio Pacelli, Pope Pius XII.

In 1963, controversy arose. Rolf Hochhuth, a German Communist playwright, produced "The Deputy," a fictitious play which denounced Pius XII for not speaking out more against the Nazi regime. The play had wide influence.

At this point, we thank Gary Krupp, who is Jewish and who with his wife, Meredith, founded the Pave the Way Foundation to bring light and truth to the issues. In "Stop Persecuting Pius," an article he wrote for the Sunday News this past May 3, Mr. Krupp reported that the highest ranking KGB agent ever to defect from the Soviet Union (Lieutenant General Ion Mihai Pacepa) had recently written an article detailing how the KGB planned, financed, and edited this play in a secret plot to manipulate Vatican documents and discredit the Holy See in international public opinion. The operation was called, "Seat Twelve." Mr. Krupp says, "This illicit KGB effort to discredit the Church has been the most successful character assassination of the 20th century."

Thanks to Pope Benedict’s order in 2007, the Vatican secret archives up to 1939 and other sections up to 1947 have been opened. The remainder of the war years’ archives are to be opened as soon as possible. Hundreds of pages of documentation are available online, at www.pavethewayfoundation.org, pointing to the thousands of Jewish lives saved by Pius XII during World War II and illustrating his effective protection of Jews for two decades before he became Pope.

The question as to whether Pope Pius XII should have spoken more directly in his public statements about Nazi horrors has been debated over the years. Beginning with his first encyclical in 1939, the Pope did speak against the National Socialist regime, and his convictions were recognized by both sides.

At the same time, there was the question of judgment as to how directly the public statements could attack. Religious protests consistently brought about horrible reprisals. Pope Pius XII did denounce directly the Nazi invasion of Holland, Belgium, and Luxemburg on May 10, 1940. Prisoners in concentration camps prayed that there would not be more direct attacks against Hitler, particularly coming from the Vatican. The consequences for them were devastating. Cardinal Sapieha, the Archbishop of Kraków who ordained the future Pope John Paul II a priest, begged Pius XII not to make public protests, because they only increased the persecution of his people.

The Catholic bishops of Holland in 1942 wrote a public pastoral letter against the treatment of Jews. The result was mass arrests of Catholics and Jews, including Dr. Edith Stein, a convert to Catholicism and a Carmelite nun, who was sent to Auschwitz to be martyred. She is now venerated as Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. The World Council of Churches and the International Committee of the Red Cross refrained from public statements of attack for fear that the relief work they were rendering would be destroyed.

In making public statements, we must always be mindful of the principle, "to avoid the greater evil." What is clear, and becoming clearer with the release of archival material from the Vatican, adding to that of Israeli archives, is that Pope Pius XII saved hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives in the protection and rescue work he supervised. The evidence comes from so many places: Italy, Romania, Hungary, Turkey, Slovakia, Poland, France, Germany, Brazil, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, and the list goes on.

When Pius XII died, Pinchas Lapide, the Israeli scholar, historian, and diplomat, stated that there were various voices recommending that a forest of some 860,000 trees be planted in the Judean hills to represent the Jews that the Catholic Church under Pius saved from the Nazis. Gary Krupp sums up his report: "Pope Pius should be commended for his courageous actions that saved more Jewish lives than all the world’s leaders combined."

Printed with permission from the Catholic Transcript, newspaper for the Archdiocese of Hartford.

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