http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0004.html
SR. MARGHERITA MARCHIONE argues that he ordered the church to provide sanctuary for any Jew who knocked on the door in Italy.
Here’s an excellent article presenting the facts about the Catholic Church during the Holocaust. The record is clear: tens of thousands of lives saved at great risk. After the war, many prominent Jews came forward to thank Pope Pius XII for what he had done during the war.
The above article attributes the false beliefs about the church during that period to a play by Rolf Hochhuth, a German writer who may have had ties to communism. I’m not sure if the entire blame can be laid on him, however. There is rarely a shortage of anti-Catholic propaganda anywhere.
And I suppose now is as good a time as any to mention that thousands of Catholics were sent to the gas chambers for being Catholic, a fact which somehow gets omitted from many accounts of the Holocaust.
I think the question is something of a strawman. I doubt many people seriously claim that the Pope did nothing in response to the Holocaust. The question is whether the actions he took were proportionate to the enormity of the evil being committed.
I’ll admit my personal opinion is that the answer is no, the Pope didn’t do enough. I’ll concede that taking a serious stand would have been a risk for him but that’s the responsibility you assume when you accept the job as moral leader and God’s representative on Earth. You’re not supposed to duck the tough calls.
And many of those who were aided by the Vatican during WWII were helped by Hugh O’Flaherty. Iwould argue that he did far more than Pius.
It seems like he did more than many…but not nearly as much as he should have.
well, “Mit Brenneder Sorge” was a clear condemnation.
This article poitns to the fact that , in many cases, it was the affected catholics themselves who asked the Pope to keep a lower proifle.
This other article, even mention that the New York Times said on Dec 25 1941 “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 put himself squarely against Hitlerism… he left no doubt that the Nazi aims are also irreconcilable with his own conception of a Christian peace.”
Could he have done more? Definitely. Did he do too little? No.
Catholics openly declaring their support for the Pope? Astonishing!
Wasn’t a lot of what O’Flaherty did with Pius’s knowledge and approval? I mean, he couldn’t have done that sort of stuff without it.
I think this question has to be divided into several.
- What the Pope could practicably have done in regards to the holocaust
- What he morally had the responsibility to do.
- What he actually did do.
Well the argument put forth by Sr. Marchione is that it would have been WORSE for the people he spoke out for on their behalf if he had done that. They wouldn’t have been able to save the people that they did save.
Would you care to speculate as to what he ‘should’ have done?
It basically seems like Pius XII gets a lot of crap from Jews even though he was one of the best friends they had in the holocaust. ‘He didn’t do enough.’, though it seems like he did more than just about anyone else.
And as I pointed out, a Catholic nun may not be an unbiased commentator on this issue.
Her claim is that thousands of people were saved by the Pope’s actions during the war. That’s probably true. But keep in mind that millions of people were killed. A more active stand by Pius might have endangered some of the thousands he protected. But it might also have saved some of the millions who died.
This is just silly. There were plenty of people who were actively resisting the Nazis. Hell, Joseph Stalin saved more Jews than Pius did (admittedly to further his own purposes).
Yes, and that’s an ad hominem, and has no place in the discussion. IMO.
No one has specified what that should be? It’s been pointed out that he:
- Condemned Nazism early.
- He condemned anti-semitism early.
- He lifted the cloister in an unprecedented act to save Jews.
How many divisions does the Pope have? -Joseph Stalin
And he killed plenty himself. This is ridiculous. :rolleyes:
I wouldn’t say that Pius XII, personally, did more than a lot of other people. Individual diplomats such as Raoul Wallenberg and the Japanese Consul in Lithuania had greater personal impact in terms of saving the lives of Jews, but then again they were in a position to provide documents and safe passage in a way the Pope may not have been. He seems to have had an inconsistent attitude towards the situation, sometimes extending a hand, sometimes remaining ‘neutral’. He spoke out against the racial laws in Italy, but told Vichy that theirs were OK as long as administered with ‘charity’, whatever that means. He was in a tough spot. He no doubt could have done more, and chose not to, probably out of practical concern, and concern more for Catholics than for Jews. Whilst that may be disappointing to me, it doesn’t make him evil.
I resent the implication that ‘Jews’ ignore the Catholics killed. In any discussion of the Holocaust it is always stated that ‘the Jews’ should spend time acknowledging the non-Jews killed, and in my experience most of the time this is done. But I’m not sure why ‘the Jews’ are responsible for bringing it up every time and spending lots of time talking about it.
I am pleased that now there is much more discussion of those who did help, from all countries, races and creeds. Focussing on those who did right in the face of extreme pressure to allow evil – people like Hugh O’Flaherty (or Karol Wotyla for that matter) – is a good thing to do.
DaphneBlack The ‘he should have done more’ meme seems to me to be rather backhanded. It downplays what he DID do, and also doesn’t recognize that there are those who downright villify and hate him as though he had some magical power over Hitler that he didn’t exercise. He’s the Pope of the Catholic church not the Pope of Neo-Teutonic Pagan Nationalism. Hugh O’Flaherty and Karol Wojtyla were not in the same position, they didn’t have a responsibility to the whole of Catholicism that the Pope had. It just strikes me as downright unfair.
I didn’t say he should have done more, I said he could have done more. Which is certainly true.
I know there are those who hate him. That’s not really appropriate, in my opinion, but it doesn’t change what happened. I think it’s possible to point out that that is perhaps not fair without invalidating the point that his chosen actions were inconsistent, and sometimes disappointing.
His responsibility for the whole of Catholicism is the point I think. If he had come out more strongly than he did – perhaps more strongly than anyone did – he might have been able to change things for the better. That he chose not to use all of his resources to fight Nazism is understandable to me, but disappointing.
People keep saying that, but they don’t say what he could have done.
Maybe. Again: How many divisions does the Pope have? -Joe Stalin
That’s pure speculation, no one as yet has put forward an argument that tells me why they believe this is true. Just that they do.
What more could he have done? He could have forcefully and consistently condemned what the Nazis were up to, and been specific about it. He could have told Catholics to resist the Nazis with all their might. Again, I understand why he did not, but he certainly could have.
Why did he speak out against the Italian laws, but say the Vichy laws were fine?
I know the Pope had no army. I’m not sure he would have been able to change things. I know it’s speculative whether he could have changed anything, because he chose to remain neutral. If he hadn’t, things would certainly have been different, though.
Yes, I suppose he could have done that.
I don’t know, maybe he worked within the constraints that the facts on the ground in each place imposed.
Yes, things would have been different, but there was also the fact that it was a lot of competing nationalism going on, and the reality is there were no ‘good guys’ despite what historical revisionism tells us. Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Churchill were all proven megalomaniacal and murderous tyrants before the war began. That’s one of the great travesties of the 20/20 hindsight, everyone looks at it like the evil was cut and dry Nazis = Gravest evil the world has ever known, but at the time that wasn’t clear, and hell it’s not even as clear now as people like to make it out to be. The Communists were just as bad if not worse than the Nazis, and the British Imperialists while not AS bad were pretty much the archetype of nasty authoritarian rule. The United States was just through its own genocide within living memory. So there are a lot of balance of power issues at play regarding a bunch of nasty murderous regimes pointed at each other. The Holocaust tends to single the Nazis out as the greatest of all evils, but the reality is anti-semitism in Europe was rampant from one end to the other.
How would history view Pius XII if he had told the Catholics to resist the Nazis and then it brought Communist rule even farther into Western Europe? If he also asked them to resist that how would history view him as being the Pope who breathed new life into the church militant? If Catholics organized to fight the Nazis who is to say that the Catholics wouldn’t have marched across Europe in the name of the church?