People are making a mistake here in concluding that Pius really hated the Nazis and wanted them crushed, but was too cowardly to intervene in the war.
This is entirely not the way I see it. Pius saw the Soviet Union as the main evil in World War II. The Nazis allowed the Church to continue its work in Germany while a Soviet-dominated Europe would have no room for his Church. Pius (who spoke fluent German and regaled German visitors to the Vatican with his encyclopedic knowledge of German history) was not a Nazi, but he regarded Germany as a kind of firewall that would protect Europe from the further spread of godless communism. I mentioned before that he did not protest when Germany rounded up the Jews of Rome, but what’s just as interesting is that at the same time he did complain to Germany that he wanted more of their agents sent out to put down communist agitators in the city.
When the war was over Pius certainly had no reason to fear the Nazis, but the Vatican continued to act in ways that I consider appalling. Take for instance the plot cooked up between the Vatican and the criminal (but Catholic) Usatsi regime of Croatia to return the Ustasi to power and keep the communists out. The plot, which was paid for with funds from Serbs and Jews put to death by the Usatsi and their Nazi allies, failed.
Incredibly, a seminary was created in Rome which was actually a front for S.S. officers and their mistresses to keep them hidden from prosecution from the allies. The “seminary” was shut down by American troops. The Vatican also helped Nazi fugitives escape justice by providing documents to them and pressuring South American governments to take them in. Among the people they helped escape was the architect of the Holocaust, Adolf Eichmann.
Pius maintained what would today be called “plausible deniability” in all these cases, but even if you were to take that at face value you would still have to conclude that he allowed a Nazi-sympathetic culture to flourish in the Vatican right under his nose.
We poor gave it those “baubles”, so that we could have someplace nice to worship together. We want its art and beauty to remain for future generations to both enjoy and be inspired through.
Second, nobody gets rich working for the Church. Even the Pope owns very little, and spends day and inght working and praying.
Third, that’s a piddling amount of money. The theoretical value of Church holdings derives largely from land, not the structures. Even its art holdings would be hard to liquidate. And once it was gone there would once again be nothing left over. We already give vast amounts of aid to the poor around the world.
Well a lot of those gaudy baubles were given by heads of state and such. But definitely the vast majority of Catholic wealth is in its land and things it cannot easily give away.
Actually, I have not rejected any evidence. You provided none. Captain Amazing then did provide incidents and references.
I’m willing to accept your position, based on Captain Amazing’s citations, until such time as I might stumble across contradictory evidence.
I will add the caveat that there were some exceptions to the “voluntary” rule among “inferior races”. Camp Sonderkommando didn’t usually have a choice in their participation, and the same was true of Judenraet elders. And there were a few cases where Polish policemen who refused to participate in a mass shooting of Jews were executed themselves. But those were special cases. The Germans didn’t see either Jews or Poles as worthy of life except at German convenience anyway, so any disobedience to German orders by a Jew or a Pole was an excuse for murder.
At least I now know the answer to what would Jesus do if he had some wealth that could either go towards helping the poor by buying them food or clothing or buy a nice shiny plate to sit in a church to be used in pointless rituals. Does the plate have jewels too? Jesus loved jewels.
The Pope is, by any marker you want to choose, a very rich man. Possessions aren’t the only measure of wealth you know, he has a life that is more comfortable and opulent than all but the richest in the world. Just like Jesus I guess…what a minute.
If you’re arguing that the Pope had some moral duty to get rid of all the Church’s property and use the money charitably, that’s already a settled issue, and has been since the declaring the Fraticelli heretical and the suppression of the Spiritual Franciscans in the 13th century.
The church wasn’t Jesus, the church was founded to straddle the line between the spiritual and the material world, to act as a conduit between the two. It was meant to be a lasting edifice. If you ignore the age old question about the problems relating to what being ‘in the world’ means you come to an extreme interpretation that is quite simplistic and glosses over the whole of church history. The church has always been in the business of ministering to people’s souls, not necessarily saving their lives. Now it is possible that such a grand gesture would have won them far more converts as a result.
I was thinking it was a bunch of old celibate men wielding power and influence by twisting the words of a nice Jewish prophet to scare generations of people into obedience through fear of eternal damnation.
I’m arguing that it’s already settled church law, so if you say the Catholic Church should have done that, then you’re trying to argue a position that was rejected 700 years ago, and so it’s not realistic that the Catholic Church under Pius or under anybody else would have done that.
Yes, I suspect Catholic hate is the driving motivation of many in this thread. It is most notably characterized by a dismissal of any driving motivation other than people clinging to power, which is not an explanation for anything in and of itself because that kind of puerile outlook on any topic shows that the person has never asked themselves, “Why did the power seekers choose to seek power THAT way?”, begs the question and all that.
I don’t agree to disagree because that attitude shows a mental laziness on your part that agreeing to disagree implies that you opinion is valid. You’ve given one of the most insightful arguments thus far, it’s unfortunate that you like most people have a point at which you simply stop thinking.
I don’t doubt there is prejudice agaisnt the Roman Catholic Church in some of the attacks on the its bahviour during the Holocaust. I’ll admit to not being the institution’s greatest fan, but I have tried to keep that separate. Similarly though, don’t you see a lot of knee jerk reaction in the defense of the Vatican? That many of its defenders have determined in advance that the Vatican can do no wrong, therefore all of its actions in World War II and the surrounding period must be looked at in the best possible light.
I’ve mentioned before, its a lot harder for members of a religious organization to admit it made mistakes in that period than those of a secular one. Looking back at pre-war England, the pacificst wing of the left movement made a massive mistake. Secular leaders made a huge mistake in not publicizing the Holocaust. But admitting that a religious leader feel short in his duties at that time seems to some to be challenging the very underpinnings of their beliefs. It’s almost Stalinist in the idea that leaders can’t be admitted to have screwed up.
People are wrong in exclusively focussing on the Vatican’s shortcomings in the response to the Holocaust. But refusing to admit the Vatican did have shortcomings is also wrong.
mswas seems to think the church couldn’t have done any more than it did which is clearly false. Yes it might have been tough, dangerous even life threatening but no doubt more could have been done.
That’s certainly not my view on the subject. The Catholic church definitely can do some wrong, but this thread isn’t about the Catholic Church it’s about Pius XII. If people cannot stand the way the church operates that’s separate and doesn’t make Pius a bad person for continuing the legacy that was passed down to him by his forebears.
Well there are two different ideas at stake here. There is the idea that the Pope COULD have done more. I’ll say it’s pretty inarguable that he COULD have done more. The other thing that’s at stake is whether or not some of his reasons for not doing more are valid or not. People are focusing on Pius when their problem really is the church as a whole.
Well again there are the Church’s shortcomings and then there are Pius’s shortcomings. Pius was juggling many different agendas while trying to remain as neutral as possible. Obviously he thought that heathen communism was a greater evil than pagan Germany. A tough choice for a pontiff to make. His job is to be the head of the Catholic church, and people here are being pissed off at him for putting the concerns of the church before some grand moral gesture. There are definitely some arguments for the grand moral gesture and **martu **made the best one, but as has been pointed out by Captain Amazing these issues were addressed long ago and decided upon long ago. So people are complaining that the Pope didn’t simply abandon centuries of church doctrine, even though in at least one case, the opening of the cloister, he did.