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Free Print Copies "Pius XII...Again" and "Grading Pacelli"
The Following is a Repeat Column. Sept 18, 2008, Pope Benedict again affirms the role of Pacelli [Pius XII] in WWII as admirable, but even an introductory read of historical documents has caused historians to do just the opposite. The following two columns which ran some time ago, still responds point by point to why one cannot see Pacelli's role as anything less than instrumental. Please disregard redundant info as they were published some time apart.
BY ELIZABETH KIRKLEY BEST, PHD
Article #1 Nazi Schmatzi: Papal Representative to Yad Vashem
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Nazi Schmatzi --Vatican to Yad Vashem regarding Pius XII
Pius XII, The Vatican Nuncio to Israel, and Yad Vashem
Pius XII's record on the Jews and the Shoah has risen more times than Lazarus. A few weeks ago, at a most inopportune time, nearing the Yom Shoah commemoration of the Holocaust, the Nuncio to Israel, originally decided to boycott the services due to what the Vatican considered an ill-considered record on the role of Pius XII during the Shoah. After awhile, he reneged, avoiding a possibly nasty international scene, but the volatile situation points to the truth of Israeli-Vatican relations under all the schmaltzy decrees and letters declaring how much they all really love the Jews, their elder brothers, even though if Rome had half a chance, they would like to move onto the Temple Mount and set up housekeeping.
I know I am supposed to say that more circumspectly, but age is causing me in an oncoming diplomatic dementia, to call obvious things what they truly are. At this point in history, we are all going to have to come to conclusions which are not even really arguable any more. Pius XII, while the Vatican would like to paint him as a candidate for sainthood, was not saintly at all: he was a consummate Vatican politician, experienced in international politics and 'diplomacy' and utterly key in the movement of pro-Nuncios,Apostolic Delegates, Bishops and Clerics, and establishing a complex network of Nazi-Vatican relations from far before the first bullet flew into an innocent victim.
Grading Pacelli [Pius XII]
A number of researchers up to 15-20 years ago were not really sure about Pius XII's record: the first 50 years following an event of the magnitude of WWII, requires massive sifting of information and the Shoah's documents and records are so complex and numerous, that the careful synthesis of what really happened is only beginning to come to light. As more and more information has surfaced and the real history of the Shoah is in progress of being written, Pius XII not only does not get an 'A+' or a 'berating' for how much more he could have done, but instead emerges as a key player in chess game of Bishops and Pro Nuncios and Apostolic delegates [Vatican Ambassadors],in which among other things he consistently chose pro-Nazi, Ultra-Conservative Bishops and moved placements to aid pro-Nazi clerics.
The Berlin Checkmate & The German Question
An example of this was seen in his relationship with Cesare Orsenigo, the nuncio in Berlin from 1935 on. Orsenigo was so pro-Nazi, that his racial policies and other
opinions more closely mimicked the Reich than the Holy See: so much so that Bishop Preysing, an outspoken defender of German Jews called for Pacelli [Pius XII] to send them instead a man with "brains and heart". Orsenigo was the man who hosted Hitler's 50th birthday gala, an event sponsored by the Vatican.
Pacelli {Pius XII] also was instrumental in the concordats with Munich [Bavaria] and Berlin [the 1933 pact between the Vatican and the Nazis] and later in the careful and lukewarm declarations of "Mit Brennender Sorge" [With Burning Concern], the 'qualification' of the first Berlin concordat. The concordats were a means of the Vatican to establish diplomatic ties, for the purported relations between nations and regions with the Vatican, although it is hardly speculation now that the Holy See was in the process of re-establishing a power base in Europe and around the world, after drawing new boundaries with Italy, and delimiting the nature of Vatican City, a city-nation within a nation. The Vatican unlike other nations, has land in every nation, yet its own immediate land holdings are very small. Most countries do not want to ignore diplomatic relations with this pseudo-nation due to its representation of millions of Catholics worldwide, and its significant economic and political power and influence. Pacelli before becoming Pope had been the Nuncio to Bavaria, from 1917, and since 'Prussia' or Germany had no other delegate, he oversaw all of Germany, from the time of WWI through WWII. (It is said that he refused to yield control in Germany even after assuming the papacy, often going over the head of Orsenigo and Preysing, to hold tight reigns on the suffering post-war nation. After entering office, he instructed his former colleagues to "leave the German question to him", a politic he cannot be accused of having failed to accomplish.
The war had already begun in Europe and Pius XII hailing from offices in Bavaria and Berlin, though he was Italian, and had already discussed with Cardinal Faulhaber the necessity of letting him [Pacelli (Pius XII) take care of the "German Question".2
The Hidden Encyclical
Pacelli is also the politician ascending to Rome's throne who replaced the suddenly dead Pius XI, who was the day before in the process of signing "Humanitae Generis", the 'hidden encyclical' authored by Jesuit John LaFarge, an American, which would have made the Vatican's position on racial tolerance and hence opposition to the Reich fascists position infinitely more clear. Ledochowski, the Jesuit secretary general at the time, whisked the encyclical from the Papal desk the day of his death, and the attempt for a stronger stand was left in Pacelli's hand, who never advanced anything like it.
Pacelli and A Few Others
To be fair, those who knew Pacelli, and he was not a unanimous choice in that conclave, was first and foremost a 'mover and shaker', but politically, not audaciously.In fact, there was quite a controversy concerning his ascension to Rome's throne as there was a current of strong opposition to his appointment. He was criticized during his Papacy as taking too long in making decisions, perhaps due to his years of diplomatic and political employment.
His relations and appointments though with and of Orsenigo, Faulhaber (of Munich), [who was the consecrator to Ratzinger], and Von Papen [who most do not know had status as a Vatican representative also], all showed strong alliances with the Reich in Berlin.2
No Home for Israel
His continuing record was not complimentary. While he was not the only player at the time, his key people including Maglione showed a steady policy of refuge and aid only to Jews who had converted to Catholicism or not at all if it jeopardized Vatican presence in the targeted countries. Vatican representation in the US at the time pushed non-stop and without consideration, against granting Israel a homeland in Palestine, with the reasoning that the Vatican should have first rights there and not the Jews, believing in Catholicism's manifest destiny to the Holy Land. Cicognani in the US,
argued strongly to Taylor and others, that Palestine was not the Jewish homeland, which is highly suspect since Taylor, was instrumental in witholding aid from the Jews at the Evian Conference in which he represented the US without diplomatic status, and in the incident of refusing refuge for the St. Louis, whose occupants were turned around from Cuban ports, back to certain deaths in Auschwitz and other camps since no nation including ours would grant them immunity and refuge. This is not conjecture, but may be clearly seen in the Nunciature's correspondence in the US during the time. So in addition to a policy of limited aid, was added a policy of no homeland for the Jews.4,6
The Pope of a Few or No Words
Among his other 'accomplishments' was the non-response for help from certain Abwehr members (Canaris and Stauffenberg) and Bonhoeffer to intervene for an end to the war---in fact shortly after the plea for intervention, those requesting it were arrested and charged with plotting the assassination of Hitler. The most that was done in those years was letter writing and occasional pleas for humanitarian concern for Jews already taken under arrest. While the non response has never been proven to be contributory or causal, it must be at least noted as fitting the pattern of much aid and intervention which never came.
The Jews, in Other Words
Pius refused to use the word "Jew" during most public comminiques in the Shoah.3 Additionally, in October of 1943, when the Jews were rounded up in Rome for deportation, they banked upon Pacelli's word that the Vatican would provide gold-based ransom to release them. As the Rabbi of Rome pleaded with the Holy See to keep his promise [and by the way, the ransom was only to have been a loan] no response came and after hours and hours, the Jews of Italy realized they had been abandoned, and met their fate betrayed. So if Yad Vashem does not think that Pius XII would qualify for sainthood at least in Israel, one should not be overwhelmingly surprised.
Killing and Atrocity Centers-Pacelli Knew
Pius XII [Pacelli]'s reign in Rome, saw the death of 6.5 million Jews including 2.5 million children, and several million others in the Death Camps and Atrocity centers while Rome claimed they did not know, but recent discoveries show that constant reports of conditions in the ghettos and killing centers were well known to the Vatican as early as 1941. 
4
Tell the Survivors They Cannot Have their Children Back
Enough? No, for over the past couple of years it was found that Pacelli issued a directive for the non-return of Jewish children to parents surviving the holocaust, claiming the Catholic interest in their upbringing with their involuntary baptisms
outweighed the grief and suffering of the few parents who survived and looked forward to nothing more than the sweet expectation of reunion. 5
Pius XII and the Vatican Ratline
There is still more: Pacelli sought clemency "for Arthur Grieser
"who had who had murdered thousands of Polish Catholics and Jews (the Poles executed him anyway); and for Otto Ohlendorf, head of one of the notorious Nazi mobile killing squads (U.S. Military Governor General Lucius Clay rejected the pope's appeal, saying that Ohlendorf was guilty of specific, heinous crimes); and for other mass murderers."1-3
Pius failed to report Nazi war criminals in Rome after the War and his staff aided the escape of key Nazis.
Pius & the Vatican later failed to report Nazi Fascists' Gold holdings from Yugoslavia in restitution hearings.[Phayer-3]
Near the end of the war, also, Vatican trains, which were allowed in occupied territories, were used not for the allowed purpose of mercy and medical aid, but for smuggling Nazi Gold out of Berlin. The Vatican Bank also has subsequently been accused of hiding known records and assets of confiscated Jewish holdings which were supposed to be restored, and aided in laundering Nazi funds.
Silence and Delayed Responses
One of Pius XII's favorite tactics was keeping silent in response to even desperate pleas for intervention: already mentioned were the group of Germans who pleaded for intervention, various Pro Nuncios throughout occupied territories received no response or vague replies, often too late. Catholic Poles who requested assistance also received no reply,not unlike the beforementioned Roman Jews.
While many like to mention the few accounts of benevolence, or the Vatican's pretty consistent policy of calls for racial tolerance in general, the truth is, that Pius's record is consistently one of non-intervention, pro-Reich, anti-Israeli homeland, and given the attempt to re-establish the Holy See in world politics from the time of the Lateran treaties on, by politics and doctrinal changes, one could hardly characterize the reign of Pius XII as pro-tolerance or pro-Semitic.
While Catholics may believe some of the PR coming from Vatican City, the record has become utterly clear, that Pius XII was anything but saintlike. Rome can object to Yad Vashem's reluctance all they want, but to even attempt to boycott the Remembrance Day of Holocaust survivors and victims, is ludicrous and an affront to common human decency: apparently the Red Shoes of power and wealth which walked with their entourage into Auschwitz a couple of years ago, were making a statement. They should have crawled in barefoot and in repentance. There is no 'nazi-schmatzi' here: there is a raw anti-human rights history of a Machiavellian Manipulator. It has taken 60 years for Vatican records and archives from this period to open to scholars from the outside---that's as big a cleanup as the one in Alaska by Standard Oil. Oh, and by the way: the U.S. helped in the escape of war criminals.
-------------------------
References
1Goni, UkiThe Real Odessa (Granta Books, 2002, 2nd Ed) : material from the Public Record Office in England
2 Hebbelwaithe The Next Pope....
3 1 Phayer, Michael; (Professor Emeritus: History: Marquette U) Commonweal Magazine, "Canonizing Pius XII. May 9,2003
4 Vatican Diplomacy During the Holocaust 1933-1945.
5 http://www.shoaheducation.com/newsource.html [Archive Article]
6. FDR Library: Letters between Maglione & Myron Taylor, & c/ American Pro-Nuncio, Cardinal Cicognani
Labels: Faulhaber, Nazi, Orsenigo, Pacelli, Pius XII, Ratzinger, Third Reich, Vatican, Yad Vashem
Article #2 : Pius' Record...Again
Of contemporary issues involving the Shoah and the Church, one of the
most widely known is the controversy surrounding Pius XII, the Pope during the Holocaust years.
Many in the Catholic Church find no fault in him, and are openly working towards his canonization. Others have denounced him openly as "Hitler's Pope" (See "Hitler's Pope by John Cornwell.) The lead link argues vehemently, as most Catholic defenses do against the findings of Cornwell. A more 'academic' historical approach in the writings of Michael Phayer, 1 whose conclusions are more in line with with the Cornwell than with Gaynor and Catholic 'lobbyists'.
The problem in assessing anyone's role in the Shoah is complex from the lowest victim or private in the military up to Popes, Presidents and Kings. Everyone was subject to moral complexities or even amorality during the time as both hemisphere's vied for power, gain and control. The other is the usual dilemmas with accuracy and authenticity of historical documents from which we build our image and the everlasting problem of human foible present in us all.
Pacelli & Germany
Pius XII, or Pacelli was no stranger to Germany but came to the Papacy entrenched in German Politics. He is said to have directed Cardinal Faulhaber to 'leave the German question to him'. Hebblewaite4 describes him as a premiere diplomat although his favor was not established at the Vatican when he took office. He was also known to be a 'people-pleaser', a trait developed in international diplomacy, which contributed towards views of him as an anti-Semite, for his delays in decisions were sometimes purposeful, for which he should be held accountable, and sometimes because he was not willing to make a decision when a balance would altered. Both seem to be the case, but however well-intentioned, both involved negative consequences for the Jewish community of Europe. He was also present and willfully involved in the drafting of and signing of the 1933 Concordat, and had firm connections with many legislators in Germany who became a part of Hitler's upper echelon.
Issues for Consideration
Pius to the public acted with the concern and diplomacy of most who have handled the office during the 20th century: he decried racism, called for peace, and issued carefully worded statements. The Vatican however had indeed made a Concordat with Germany to cautiously allow the continuation of relations in the early 30s, before the war, in the year Hitler took office. Both had the common goal of fighting communism, seen as a threat to each, but the Vatican was heralding the Jews in terms of religion and not race, the main difference between the two wavering allies. Most likely, both intended to use each other by the end. Pius XI by his death in 1939 had developed grave concerns about the Concordat, and the circumstances of his death have been debated. Pius XII's statements were carefully worded during most of the war, condemning broadly and vaguely the destruction of human life, but rarely mentioning the Jews directly. During the last days of the war, as Bonhoeffer and others appealed to the Vatican for intervention, they were instead met with an arrest and imprisonment, although the degree of the Vatican's involvement has not been fully determined.
Pius's personal bias according to some writers carries a tone of anti-Semitism, although, this may be hard to discern from the man himself and the unfortunate presence of it in the Roman Church across centuries. As mentioned, his background in diplomacy set him for careful consideration but also for lack of quick decisiveness. 4 He did however have a clear view of what he wanted in German politics and continued a hard hand in the Catholic Church at the time of the Reich, which was a church beset by persecution for local clergy who spoke out, and others willingly making close relations with the Nazis, including the planning and celebration of Hitler Gala 50th birthday party. 6 Though not quick to issue statements or orders he was a calculating Pope, out for the benefit of the Vatican.
Pius's promises to the Jews have continued under question. Phayer notes an incident in which the Vatican promised the Jews of Rome loans in the event of necessity to stay out of deportation, but in October 1943, when the Italian Jews were rounded up, the promise did not hold and the Roman Jews were abandoned to the camps. 1 Many Jews were rescued during WWII, particularly children by local clergy, but the rescue came only at the hands of separation from parents, catholic baptism without consent, and subsequent Catholic schooling. Most Catholic Clergy in Germany did not oppose the Reich, a few even maintaining advisor roles at the highest level. Pius allowed Father Caughlin to go uncensored. A pastoral letter in 1936 stated
"A Jewish question exists, and there will be one as long as the Jews
remain Jews. It is an actual fact that the Jews fight against the Catholic Church. They are free thinkers, and constitute a vanguard of Atheism, Bolshevism and Revolution...One should protect one's self against the evil influence of Jewish morals, and particularly boycott the Jewish Press and their demoralizing publications." (Pastoral letter issued in 1936. "An Answer to Father Caughlin's Critics," page 98)
and in another publication it was noted:
Pope Pius XII was as ruthless as he was anticommunist. Under his pontificate, Americans heard Father Caughlin’s radio anticommunist broadcasts and the political charges from Sen. Joe McCarthy. Both were Catholics.2
There was cooperation and relations with Hitler throughout much of the war, and Hitler even leveled a 'church-tax' for Catholics, benefiting the Vatican. (op cit). Those Catholics which did not go along with Reich policies were persecuted in the same manner as other protestors, and neither the Vatican nor their superiors intervened more than nominally. {An example is Galen, who protested The T-4 euthanasia programs.}
The Jews, both doctrinally and politically were not seen as deserving of the Vatican's protection, and their later efforts post-war to hide restitution efforts and aid Nazis and Nazi wealth out of Berlin did not lean towards pro-Semitic sentiments.
The Vatican's age old quest for Jerusalem does not require the Jew, though their doctrine on the role of the Jew is partly correct and partly one of replacement theology: the Jews were expendable.
A. The Rescue and Return(?) of Jewish Children
NPR: Document Renews debate on the Vatican in WWII
One of the most noted recent issues has been the discovery of documents which express the post-war instructions to not return Jewish Children raised in Catholic families, schools and orphanages to parents returning from the camps, because the first concern must be for their 'Catholic training'. With so great an issue as salvation at stake in the Roman Church's eye, one can understand the Catholic behavior, given the belief their church is necessary for salvation [evangelicals take issue]; and the criminal cruelty of refusing to return living Jewish children to parents who lost everything in their worlds. The insensitivity to the Jewish community was hidden until recently.
B. The Prolonging of the War due to lack of intervention
The Vatican's refusal to intervene more directly in the war is not quite as cut and dry as some would like. The Vatican, like all world powers, seeks first self-preservation; in this their motivations are understandable: tearing the balance too far one way or the other could have spelled disaster for the little city in Rome which governs and has wealth in much of the world which was oppressed. Further, while the Nazis became detestable even to many in the Vatican, they had the common goal of fighting 'Bolshevism' or communism which threatened the existence of both. This was the foundation of their early alliance, although Pacelli's predecessor, at deaths door, began to seriously rethink the wisdom of the 1933 Concordat. Had the Vatican at any point stood in strong defense against deportation of the Jews, and ordered Catholics to defy the orders not to help, most likely there would have been a great delay or even cessation of the genocide. Hindsight though is ever mentioned as rationale, and the Vatican saw an increasing role not a diminishing one as even 'mercy trains' were used at the end of the war to spirit away gold from Berlin with the help of Rome.
The Hiding and Facilitation of Nazis.
A remaining great controversy which involved not only Pius XII but also other high level Cardinals in the Vatican was the facilitation of escaping Nazis as Berlin fell, and their hiding and aided flight to waiting, predominantly Catholic countries, especially Brazil, Argentina and others. There is no doubt on either side that the Vatican aided the escapes: the Vatican argued they were aiding the Nazis in a humanitarian effort of 'helping hurting Catholics after the war' but others denounce it as a deliberate and political move and statement. Wealth went along with escaping Nazis, and while post-war Jews still had insurmountable troubles emigrating , the Nazis had little trouble and were established even in the U.S. , their supposed enemy at what is estimated 10,000 including Eichmann for a brief time in Southern Florida in 1951. Even the Vatican admits the facilitation of escapes.
War profit from the Vatican
Lastly, the Vatican and Vatican Bank willing suppressed knowledge of the wealth and laundered wealth the Nazis had accumulated after helping ship gold and other valuables out of falling Germany. The Nazis and the Vatican sacrificed even a battalion of Basque allies at the end of the war, refusing to get them back to their homeland in favor of displacing trains to carry wealth. Only a few survived. Even today, continuous claims are made not only against Swiss Banking firms but against the Vatican bank for refusing to reveal or return assets. The complete truth may never be known, but strategy has had a terrible consequence for Jewish survivors: the stalling of litigation and hiding of records kept most wealth away from survivors until now when many eyewitnesses have died and records are gone, and within 10 years, only children of survivors will be left to fight claims which they may then never win. In any event, the Vatican and Pius XII's record cannot be held in the glory of 'Sainthood' even within the Roman Church: it might better be stated as men of power and eminence vying for more, with the weaknesses that beset all of us, and a Pope during the war more willing to capitulate than to stand.
1Phayer, Michael; (Professor Emeritus: History: Marquette U) Commonweal Magazine, "Canonizing Pius XII. May 9,2003 ;
The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930-1965:
by Michael Phayer
2-http://www.gods-kingdom.org/FFI/2005/March_April_Supp2005.htm
3Exploding the "Hitler's Pope" myth Michael Gaynor
4"Hitler's Pope" (See
"Hitler's Pope by John Cornwell
5The Popes Against the Jews: The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism , by D. Kertzer, 2001
6Peet, Garnet. The History of the Protestant Church in Nazi Germany: Spindleworks.com.
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