# Was Pope Pius XII actually passive in the holocaust? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 8, 2009, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-pope-pius-xii-actually-passive-in-the-holocaust/495798 "2009-05-08T22:23:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-pope-pius-xii-actually-passive-in-the-holocaust/495798/21 "2009-05-09T21:42:16Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > 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. Of course. I’m saying, though, that he was mostly the brains of the operation, the one out there risking his own life. AND the one later bestowed the honor of “Righteous Among Nations.” What he “should” have done is speak out more, as others have pointed out. I do not believe, however, that he was “Hitler’s Pope”, nor was he as evil, or did nothing. Of course, this is all speaking from hindsight. However, I do think that had it been John XXIII in there, he would have been more pro-active. Pius was too quiet. (As would be John Paul II, in the face of communism and the Soviets) ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2009, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-pope-pius-xii-actually-passive-in-the-holocaust/495798/22 "2009-05-10T00:01:56Z")
> [@DaphneBlack](#): > > 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… His name was Sugihara, for those who are interested - an amazing story: [Chiune Sugihara - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugihara_Chiune) ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2009, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-pope-pius-xii-actually-passive-in-the-holocaust/495798/23 "2009-05-10T00:33:26Z")
D’oh! BTW, what I meant to say was that JP II was more pro-active when it came to defying the Soviets and their cronies – I was trying to compare him to John XXIII, not Pius. That if JP had been in charge during WWII, he probably would have been more defiant to Hitler. ---
**Author:** ![DaphneBlack](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daphneblack/32/5389_2.png) [@DaphneBlack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaphneBlack)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2009, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-pope-pius-xii-actually-passive-in-the-holocaust/495798/24 "2009-05-10T00:39:28Z")
JP was pretty defiant to Hitler in his work as a priest! **Elendil’s Heir** , thanks for the elaboration. I’d forgotten his name. It is truly an amazing story. Simon Wiesenthal Centre calculates that over 40,000 people are alive today because of Sugihara’s actions to save their ancestors. I also just read that Helena Bonham Carter’s grandfather was a Spanish diplomat who did something similar, granting visas for Jews to escape through Portugal against the instruction of the (Franco) government. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2009, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-pope-pius-xii-actually-passive-in-the-holocaust/495798/25 "2009-05-10T02:43:45Z")
> [@](#): > > Yes, and that’s an ad hominem, and has no place in the discussion. IMO. I said Sister Margherita Marchione is a Catholic nun. She is a Catholic nun. What part of that is an ad hominem attack? > [@](#): > > No one has specified what that should be? Fair enough. He could have openly stated that genocide is a sin and directed Catholics not to aid in it. He could have gone on to tell them to resist it as much as possible and help save anyone who was threatened by the Nazi extermination plans. Going further, a lot of Germans have said they felt bound by the oaths of obedience that they were required to swear to Hitler starting in 1934. (These oaths were pledged to Hitler personally, by name, not to Germany or the office of chancellor.) Pius could have excommunicated Hitler and announced that Catholics were no longer bound to obey him. Pius could have renounced the Lateran Pact of 1929 and gone back into “exile” in the Vatican City in protest of Mussolini’s support of the Nazis. Instead what Pius did was negotiate an agreement with Hitler. The Reichskonkordat of 1933 was an agreement whereby Hitler recognized some privileges for the Catholic Church in exchange for them not making any political protests against the Nazis. As Hitler himself said, the agreement was \*“especially significant in the struggle against international Jewry.” \* Michael Cardinal von Faulhaber, Archbishop of Munich, acknowleged the danger that Catholics could face by opposing Hitler. He wrote _“We bishops are being asked why the Catholic Church, as often in its history, does not intervene on behalf of the Jews. This is not possible at this time because the struggle against the Jews would then, at the same time, become a struggle against the Catholics.”_ But Cardinal Faulhaber also wrote _“At a time when the heads of the major nations in the world faced the new Germany with cool reserve and considerable suspicion, the Catholic Church, the greatest moral power on earth, through the Concordat expressed its confidence in the new German government. This was a deed of immeasurable significance for the reputation of the new government abroad.”_ And even after threats were made against his life, he said _“I have deemed it my duty to speak out in this ethico-legal, non-political question, for as a Catholic bishop I may not remain silent when the preservation of the moral foundations of all public order is at stake.”_ Cardinal Faulhaber understood that protecting the legal status of the church was meaningless if it came at the cost of abandoning its moral authority. And he understood that some moral stands were worth dying for if it came to that. (Although as it turned out, the Nazis weren’t willing to risk alienating Catholics by killing a prominent church leader. Cardinal Faulhaber survived the war and lived until 1952.) ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2009, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-pope-pius-xii-actually-passive-in-the-holocaust/495798/26 "2009-05-10T06:06:45Z")
He did say in his 1939 _Summi Pontificatus_ > [@](#): > > 1. The first of these pernicious errors, widespread today, is the forgetfulness of that law of human solidarity and charity which is dictated and imposed by our common origin and by the equality of rational nature in all men, to whatever people they belong, and by the redeeming Sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ on the Altar of the Cross to His Heavenly Father on behalf of sinful mankind. . . . > > 2. In accordance with these principles of equality, the Church devotes her care to forming cultured native clergy and gradually increasing the number of native Bishops. And in order to give external expression to these, Our intentions, We have chosen the forthcoming Feast of Christ the King to raise to the Episcopal dignity at the Tomb of the Apostles twelve representatives of widely different peoples and races. In the midst of the disruptive contrasts which divide the human family, may this solemn act proclaim to all Our sons, scattered over the world, that the spirit, the teaching and the work of the Church can never be other than that which the Apostle of the Gentiles preached: “putting 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). > > 3. Nor is there any fear lest the consciousness of universal brotherhood aroused by the teaching of Christianity, and the spirit which it inspires, be in contrast with love of traditions or the glories of one’s fatherland, or impede the progress of prosperity or legitimate interests. For that same Christianity teaches that in the exercise of charity we must follow a God-given order, yielding the place of honor in our affections and good works to those who are bound to us by special ties. Nay, the Divine Master Himself gave an example of this preference for His Own country and fatherland, as He wept over the coming destruction of the Holy City. But legitimate and well-ordered love of our native country should not make us close our eyes to the all-embracing nature of Christian Charity, which calls for consideration of others and of their interests in the pacifying light of love. . . > > 4. Venerable Brethren, the hour when this Our first Encyclical reaches you is in many respects a real “Hour of Darkness” (cf. Saint Luke xxii. 53), in which the spirit of violence and of discord brings indescribable suffering on mankind. Do We need to give assurance that Our paternal heart is close to all Our children in compassionate love, and especially to the afflicted, the oppressed, the persecuted? The nations swept into the tragic whirlpool of war are perhaps as yet only at the “beginnings of sorrows” (Saint Matthew xxiv. 8), 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, written in indelible characters in the annals of history, 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. > > 5. But there is yet another error no less pernicious to the well-being of the nations and to the prosperity of that great human society which gathers together and embraces within its confines all races. It is the error contained in those ideas which do not hesitate to divorce civil authority from every kind of dependence upon the Supreme Being - First Source and absolute Master of man and of society - and from every restraint of a Higher Law derived from God as from its First Source. Thus they accord the civil authority an unrestricted field of action that is at the mercy of the changeful tide of human will, or of the dictates of casual historical claims, and of the interests of a few. > > 6. Once the authority of God and the sway of His law are denied in this way, the civil authority as an inevitable result tends to attribute to itself that absolute autonomy which belongs exclusively to the Supreme Maker. It puts itself in the place of the Almighty and elevates the State or group into the last end of life, the supreme criterion of the moral and juridical order, and therefore forbids every appeal to the principles of natural reason and of the Christian conscience. We do not, of course, fail to recognize that, fortunately, false principles do not always exercise their full influence, especially when age-old Christian traditions, on which the peoples have been nurtured, remain still deeply, even if unconsciously, rooted in their hearts. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2009, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-pope-pius-xii-actually-passive-in-the-holocaust/495798/27 "2009-05-10T06:39:21Z")
I think a simple “Hey, stop killing those Jews!” would have been more direct. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2009, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-pope-pius-xii-actually-passive-in-the-holocaust/495798/28 "2009-05-10T07:47:45Z")
Ok. So it would have gone like this? Pius XII: “Stop killing those Jews!” Hitler: “No.” According to Dan Kurtzman’s “A Special Mission”, the Pope had a conversation with Harold Tittmann, US special envoy to the Vatican, where he says why he wouldn’t be more explicit: > [@](#): > > When Tittmann told the Pope in the fall of 1942 that the broadcasts [condemning Nazism] were too vague and that “we need something more explicit,” he replied: > > "Well, I am sorry. I cannot do it…There are over forty million German speaking Catholics. If I should denounce the Nazis by name as you desire and Germany should lose the war, Germans everywhere would feel that I contributed to the defeat, not only of the Nazis, but of Germany itself; for the German population not to make the distinction between the Nazis and the Fatherland would be only human in the confusion and distress of defeat. > > "I cannot afford to risk alienating so many of the faithful. One of my predecessors, Pope Benedict XV in the First World War, through an unfortunate public statement of the type you now wish me to make, did just this and the interests of the Church in Germany suffered as a result. If you have the chance, you should read the book. It argues that Hitler, upset with what he saw as Pius’s role in the overthrow of Mussolini and Pius’s anti-Nazi and pro-Jewish sentiment, ordered SS General Wolff to kidnap the Pope, and that Wolff, along with General Dollmann, and the German Ambassador to the Vatican, von Weizsaecker, plotted to save the Pope by getting the Pope to remain silent during the roundup of the Roman Jews. It’s not a bad book, and chapter 13 deals with the debate over Pius’s role in the Holocaust. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2009, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-pope-pius-xii-actually-passive-in-the-holocaust/495798/29 "2009-05-10T09:48:59Z")
**Little Nemo** Pointing out that she is a Nun isn’t an ad hominem, claiming that it casts doubt upon her opinion is an ad hominem. I’ll get to the rest of your post later, as it was a good one. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2009, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-pope-pius-xii-actually-passive-in-the-holocaust/495798/30 "2009-05-10T10:31:34Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Ok. So it would have gone like this? > > Pius XII: “Stop killing those Jews!” > Hitler: “No.” > > According to Dan Kurtzman’s “A Special Mission”, the Pope had a conversation with Harold Tittmann, US special envoy to the Vatican, where he says why he wouldn’t be more explicit: > > If you have the chance, you should read the book. It argues that Hitler, upset with what he saw as Pius’s role in the overthrow of Mussolini and Pius’s anti-Nazi and pro-Jewish sentiment, ordered SS General Wolff to kidnap the Pope, and that Wolff, along with General Dollmann, and the German Ambassador to the Vatican, von Weizsaecker, plotted to save the Pope by getting the Pope to remain silent during the roundup of the Roman Jews. It’s not a bad book, and chapter 13 deals with the debate over Pius’s role in the Holocaust. Pardon me, but Pius’ reasoning here seems remarkably wishy-washy. If he were really serious about doing all that he could to stop Hitler, he could’ve excommunicated him. Hitler was Catholic after all. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2009, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-pope-pius-xii-actually-passive-in-the-holocaust/495798/31 "2009-05-10T15:05:14Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > **Little Nemo** Pointing out that she is a Nun isn’t an ad hominem, claiming that it casts doubt upon her opinion is an ad hominem. Not really. They’re not saying her opinion should be discounted–just showing that she may be biased. If we were looking at a website that said that abortion causes death and emotional distress and then we saw that it was made by pro-lifers and re-evaluated it in that light, is that an ad hominem? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2009, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-pope-pius-xii-actually-passive-in-the-holocaust/495798/32 "2009-05-10T15:32:22Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > Pardon me, but Pius’ reasoning here seems remarkably wishy-washy. If he were really serious about doing all that he could to stop Hitler, he could’ve excommunicated him. Hitler was Catholic after all. Ths comes up a lot and shows a serious misunderstanding of the situation. Excommunication is typically made public when the church wants to encourage a person to return to the church and follow its rules. Since Hitler had stopped any pretense at being an active Catholic years before he became Chancellor of Germany, it would have been a pretty hollow gesture. No one in the 1930s or 1940s actually considered him to be a Catholic. Beyond that, what does anyone think excommunication would have done? Napolean got excommunicated. Victor Emmanual got excommunicated. Neither one stopped their political and military activities and neither one lost the support of their mostly Catholic countries. How much less would have happened with Hitler, who was already considered outside the church, in a country with a large Protestant population? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2009, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-pope-pius-xii-actually-passive-in-the-holocaust/495798/33 "2009-05-10T16:48:11Z")
> [@](#): > > Beyond that, what does anyone think excommunication would have done? Napolean got excommunicated. Victor Emmanual got excommunicated. Neither one stopped their political and military activities and neither one lost the support of their mostly Catholic countries. How much less would have happened with Hitler, who was already considered outside the church, in a country with a large Protestant population? I certainly agree that Hitler himself would be unmoved by excommunication. But what’s your opinion on the point I made early about the obedience oaths? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2009, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-pope-pius-xii-actually-passive-in-the-holocaust/495798/34 "2009-05-10T18:20:54Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I certainly agree that Hitler himself would be unmoved by excommunication. But what’s your opinion on the point I made early about the obedience oaths? That a declaration of excommunication would have had no effect. The oaths were not sworn as part of a Catholic rite, so declaring Hitler outside the church, (where he had been for more than a decade), would have no affect on any oath sworn to him. And, as noted, the Italians and French certainly did nothing to stop following their leaders in actions that were taken directly against the church after the leaders were excommunicated; why would excommunication have had an effect on actions against Jews, the Rom, or homosexuals–the first two are not Catholic and the last are “sinners.” The claims of Hochhuth and his supporters that the pope did notyhing or even aided the Nazis are bullshit. The claims of others that the pope could do no more are clearly lopsided apologies. The discussion appears to be about what more could or should the pope have done. That point will always be a matter of debate. Here are three views from the Jewish Virtual Lbrary: [One condemnation](http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/pius.html) [one Catholic defense](http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/piusdef1.html) [one Jewish defense](http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/piusdef2.html) ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2009, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-pope-pius-xii-actually-passive-in-the-holocaust/495798/35 "2009-05-10T19:40:02Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > That a declaration of excommunication would have had no effect. The oaths were not sworn as part of a Catholic rite, so declaring Hitler outside the church, (where he had been for more than a decade), would have no affect on any oath sworn to him. Right. Germany in the 1930s and 40s was largely a secular society (and the Nazis made it even more so, stripping both the Catholic and Protestant churches of most of their influence). German Catholics were Germans first and Catholics second, and if Pius had ordered Germans to rebel against Nazism, the German Catholics likely would have ignored him and wondered why the Pope was betraying them (and it would have given the German government cause to take even stronger actions against the church than it did.) ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2009, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-pope-pius-xii-actually-passive-in-the-holocaust/495798/36 "2009-05-10T21:08:00Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Not really. They’re not saying her opinion should be discounted–just showing that she may be biased. If we were looking at a website that said that abortion causes death and emotional distress and then we saw that it was made by pro-lifers and re-evaluated it in that light, is that an ad hominem? Yes, it is an _ad hominem_ by definition. Here you are propping up one logical fallacy with another. Now you’ve created a pro-life straw man to contend with. > **[Ad hominem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem)** > > Ad hominem (Latin for 'to the person'), short for argumentum ad hominem, refers to several types of arguments where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than the substance of the argument itself. This avoids genuine debate by creating a diversion often using a totally irrelevant, but often highly charged attribute of the opponent's character or background. The most common form of this fallacy is "A" makes a claim of "fact",... An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: “argument to the man”, “argument against the man”) consists of **replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief of the source making the argument or claim** , rather than _by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim_. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2009, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-pope-pius-xii-actually-passive-in-the-holocaust/495798/37 "2009-05-10T22:57:08Z")
A critical part of the Pope’s (correct) understanding was that German nationalism was very strong. Within Germany, he had the support of most of the priesthood, as well as monastic orders. However, there was a serious and significant threat in that most German Catholics (as with most Germans, Christian and otherwise) were extremely obedient of civil authority, or outright “Germans First, Christians Second.” Repeatedly, small groups acted against Hitler (such as Dietrich Bonhoffer, to name a Protestant), but the majority of Germans were quite willing to obey. That’s how the entire mess got started in the first place. The Pope knew this. He also knew that the Church does not contest civil power openly and as a unified power. The power of the Church is the power of weakness, and while it can undermine almost anything, it’s not capable of radically and _quickly_ changing the world. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-pope-pius-xii-actually-passive-in-the-holocaust/495798/38 "2009-05-11T01:29:17Z")
> [@](#): > > An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: “argument to the man”, “argument against the man”) consists of replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief of the source making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim. Only if the characteristic or belief isn’t relevant to the issue. If I said a Catholic nun’s opinions on baseball might be biased then that would be an ad hominem argument. But saying that a Catholic nun’s opinions on the leadership of the Catholic church might be biased is a relevant point. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-pope-pius-xii-actually-passive-in-the-holocaust/495798/39 "2009-05-11T02:19:23Z")
Is this hijack about the interpretations of fallacies really relevant to this thread? ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-pope-pius-xii-actually-passive-in-the-holocaust/495798/40 "2009-05-11T02:21:51Z")
Most nations at that time did absolutely nothing to save the Jews. Nothing. So why pick on the Pope? Most nations today are completely passive when it comes to humanitarian crisis like Iraq or Darfur. Seventy years ago there was less information about what was happening and a more insular feeling that other people’s problems did not affect us. America rejected Jewish refugees just because. [American Wartime Indifference to the Plight of the European Jews](http://history.hanover.edu/hhr/94/hhr94_5.html). Maybe the Pope was not perfect but he comes out above the other countries who actually had the means to do something and did not do it. Pretty much nobody today cares or does anything about the huge humanitarin crisis in Iraq, Darfur or other places and we are going to second guess the Pope Pius XII? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-pope-pius-xii-actually-passive-in-the-holocaust/495798.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-pope-pius-xii-actually-passive-in-the-holocaust/495798.md?page=3)