I suppose because well, he’s the Pope. He’s supposed to be an example of morality, not so much the head of a government. The church is supposed to be a refuge for those in need.
As such, he should have spoken out more than he did.
The debate, then, becomes whether one thinks that he should have made his objections more public or whether he was actually more effective trying to work while keeping a low profile.
Note the differences between Shira Schoenberg’s condemnation and Thomas Craughwell’s defense. Ms. Schoenberg makes a point of noting all the times when help was requested to be met with silence while Mr. Craughwell makes the point that in several similar instances, help was offered, if hidden from the Nazis. In how many cases is the actual help rendered overstated by Mr. Craughwell? In how many cases where Ms. Schoenberg claims silence is it simply a matter of her ignorance of actual efforts undertaken in secret? We have a ways to go before we actually know the answers.
A separate situation is the battle that only arose after Hochhuth’s The Deputy about the duty of open opposition. Numerous accounts–many published prior to Hochhuth’s play and many more published in response to it–indiacte that the victims, themselves, preferred silence since speaking out tended to exacerbate the situation. Against that position is the claim that there is a moral duty to speak out regardless of the consequences. I suggest that if one chooses one side or the other in that discussion, it is appropriate to actually build a thesis on which to build it rather than simply asserting one’s own personal beliefs.
Unequivocal condemnation of Nazism from St. Peter’s, calling upon all Catholics to resist Nazism and aide the Allies and refuse to carry out the anti Semitic policies, and a prohibition from joining/interdict on all Catholic members of the Nazi party and excommunication of all Catholic officers and officials in the Nazi party would all have been a good start that I think would have had some effect.
The issue was raised. And I hope you agree that discussing the possible pre-existing biases of a commentator is a legitimate issue when discussing their opinion. In this post, we have links that supposedly show that the head of the Catholic church did the right thing in World War II. I think it’s relevant to point out that the links go to websites titled the Catholic Education Resource Center, Defending the Faith, the Catholic News Agency, and Catholic Response. This doesn’t mean they’re necessarily wrong but I think it’s hard to dispute they have a dog in this fight.
Raising the issue of bias is legitimate–although demonstrating it with examples of how one source varies from known facts would seem to be a better approach than just saying “Well, they might be biased.”
Niggling among posters about whether any given statement is or is not ad hominem is a waste of space and a hijack.
I have no dog in this fight but whats confusing me is how Concentration Camp inmates who were tortured, starved then gassed and their bodies cremated could have their conditions worsened ?
Frankly for a leader of a world religion who should have no fear of death his stance doesn’t come across as very impressive.
A few thousand saved out of millions.
Is there any truth that he helped wanted SS officers escape allied justice when the war finished?
Thats not a rhetorical question , I genuinly dont know.
I wonder how many people here would have acted any differently if they were in Pius’s position. So much easier to have said that he “should have done more”, when shielded by distance of space and time, when Himmlers little cronies were actually masters of Europe. IO know I would have been far less proactive then he was.
Its like the old question, would you have hidden the Jews in the celler. Well ignoring the fact that I am of an ethnicity that would have been targeted as well, the answer is no… hell I would have probably turned in anyone if it would have advanced my cause. And I am pretty sure that most people would have done the same. I like to think that I would have acted differently, but the truth of the matter is, I really don’t think I have that moral fibre. When you actually face the jackboot as opposed to theory of it, most people will act differently. Pius XII did all he could and I applaud him for it.
I think another thing worthy of consideration is the extent to which the Pope should prioritise spirituality over the temporal effects of the Nazi regime. Is he more beholden to the lives or the souls of the people of the world? Becase if it’s the latter, then we can’t just judge effectiveness in terms of temporal aid. Judging how much help he gave to people in need of it is something we can do for any people in positions of power able to help; in this case, it’s worth looking whether he was an active Pope, not just an active person.
When you take on rank you take on responsibility.
He voluntarily accepted the position of Leader of one of the worlds major religions,in fact he actively sought it.
As a senior religious leader he should be the last person to fear death or suffering,he KNOWS for a fact that after death he’s going to sit at gods right hand in eternal glory etc.etc. well thats what he and his colleagues are always telling the rest of us.
So he should have been much more outspoken and done a lot more to oppose the Nazis,we’re not talking about some ordinary joe running a shoeshop here.
He comes across as a coward.
A wonderful point.
After all, history is very harsh in its judgment of the Allies for having stopped Hitler and therefore allowed Communism to spread into Europe.
As long as people are willing to take evidence presented by Catholic sources and argue the merits of the evidence and not the merits of the person presenting the evidence then I’m willing to drop it.
Today we like to see Germany as all evil and the allies as all good but that is not the way it was seen then, that is only a consequence of allied victory writing the history books.
I also would have liked to see the Pope express "unequivocal condemnation of the invasion of Iraq, torture, etc., calling upon all Catholics to resist America and aid the Iraqis and refuse to carry out America’s policies and a prohibition from joining/interdict on all Catholic members of the American Government and excommunication of all Catholic officers and officials in the American Government.
That would have been “a good start” that I think would have had some effect. Not the desired one though.
Many American catholics would be torn between serving their Church and serving their country and many would serve their country against their church. No doubt the Church would be split and weakened.
And I say this as someone who believes nationalism and religion are possibly among the worst influences on people.
While the full extent of the Holocaust wasn’t widely known until after the war (though there’s a lot of evidence that many officials including FDR, Churchill and probably the Pope at least knew what was going on if not the details) there was nothing remotely secret or subjective about the fact that Nazis were persecuting Jews. Kristallnacht was almost a year before the Invasion of Poland, the seizure of Jewish businesses and the orders that all Jews must be relocated were also not at all secret. It’s not just a case of victors writing history.
There was NOBODY else in Pius’s position. He wasn’t a village priest or a university professor or a town mayor, he was the ONE REPRESENTATIVE OF GOD AND JESUS CHRIST ON THE EARTH. If his official stance had cost him life then… uh… there’s rather a precedent or two. He’s a successor of St. Peter, a man who was crucified upside down and buried in St. Peter’s Cathedral and who was the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ who was tortured and executed; the Pope is the man who proclaims martyrs and saints. He’s not supposed to be a secret agent or duplicitous or an operative, he’s the personification of the Lord’s annointed and he’s not supposed to value his life or even the church itself over the will of God. He dropped the Host on this one.
He’s also the head of the Catholic Church, though, and responsible for the wellbeing of the Catholics of the world. If he had spoken up more directly, he could have put at risk not just himself, but, all the Catholics of German occupied Europe.
Besides, when in recent history has overt papal condemnation made a difference in term of changing national behavior? Look just recently. Pope John Paul II condemned the Iraq war, the Iraq war happened anyway. In 2000, he condemned the Rome gay rights march, it happened anyway. In 1968, Paul VI forbade Catholics from using birth control. The rates of birth control use are about the same for Catholics and non-Catholics. A few years ago, a bunch of American Catholic bishops forbade Catholic pro-choice politicians from receiving communion. None of the politicians so affected became pro-life, and none of them suffered serious political consequences for the bishops’ actions. In fact, it was the bishops who were criticized for getting involved in partisan politics. This isn’t the medieval church, where Popes can declare crusades and command princes.
So what? Isn’t it a core belief that your soul will be better if your body is persecuted, even tortured and killed, because you did what is right than if your body dies peacefully in bed doing nothing when confronted with the greatest evil the world has encountered in centuries? Was Jesus just sort of thinking out loud and brainstorming when he said “What profit a man if he gains the world but forfeits his soul?” So let alone if he gains not the world but a little peace.
This is based on a fallacy that assumes that he was just resting on his laurels, he was making hard choices as a leader, and he made choices that you don’t like, that’s hardly the same as hiding under a rock while people are slaughtered.
Does the Pope have the right to endanger not only his life, but the life of other people, by making impotent statements? He could have condemned the holocaust all he wanted, but he didn’t have any power to back up his condemnations. He was trapped in the middle of Nazi Europe and addressing a population that wouldn’t have listened to him.
I suppose that this point would have some validity if there was a single instance of Pius XII indicating a fear for his own life. Every record of every conversation I have ever seen in which he baulked at taking a more public stand or forcing an issue was accompanied by concerns for people hundreds and thousands of miles from the Vatican.
It is entirely possible that he feared for his own life–which would appear to be contradicted by the number of people he sheltered in the Vatican and in his own estates outside the Vatican.
I do not readily accept the claims of those who adulate him; I think there was more that did happen and more that could have happened than we currently know. However, for an accusation of personal cowardice to make sense, it would be interesting to see even a single instance in which he displayed such an attitude.
I’d say in this case it’s exactly the same. Again, he’s not a worldly leader, he’s a spiritual leader. A spiritual leader of a church founded by a Jew who was murdered by an evil continent spanning empire for that matter.
If the statements of the Papacy are impotent then why does the papacy exist?
Really? I thought he was God’s representative. Is God impotent? (The Virgin Birth explained at last.)
Might want to consult a map there. Italy was not in the middle of Nazi Europe. Its government was an ally to the Nazis, yes, until they deposed them. Then Hitler reappointed them. Then Italy deposed them again and shot Mussolini to death in the street and desecrated his body. The Italian resistance was not just a game show.
Again, IF NOBODY LISTENS TO THE POPE THEN WHAT IS HIS IMPORTANCE? We’re not talking about the Grand Poobah of the Milwaukee Leopard Lodge but Christ’s representative on Earth, the Pontifex Maximus, the Heir of the Apostles, etc. etc… Do you honestly think that if the Pope had denounced the Nazis nobody would have listened?
And what does his own personal safety have to do with the issue? Isn’t the spiritual well being more important than physical when you are fighting forces that even an atheist can call Satanic (hell, they wore black and used the Death’s Head as a logo!).
This is not a rhetorical question:
Father Titus Brandsma was an academic priest who denounced the Nazis, worked in the resistance, refused to cooperate in any way with the Nazis or to alter or even soften his words. He drafted a manifesto signed by many bishops and priests condemning Nazism. He was arrested by the Nazis, refused to recant his views, and was sent to Dachau where he was murdered by a lethal injection administered by the SS. As he died he forgave his killers.
Pope Pius XII lived to be entertained by command performances with Liberace, had his ring kissed by Juan and Evita Peron, and died in his palace of natural causes.
Which one do you think will be elevated higher by God?
But it’s not, not in any way shape or form.
- He did act.
- He chose the lives of Catholics over the lives of Jews.
Sacrificing yourself is one thing, sacrificing others is another.