“The time has come for the Vatican to end nearly 60 years of febrile speculation by confirming loudly and clearly that Pius XII – the wartime Pope whose legacy is irredeemably stained by his failure to confront the Nazi regime over the Holocaust – is no longer a candidate for sainthood.
“…The last time the current Pope, Francis I, gave an opinion on this subject was back in 2014, when he was interviewed by journalists at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv at the close of a two-day visit to Israel. While Francis confirmed that sainthood was not in the cards for now, alarmingly his reason had nothing to do with Pius’s wartime record.
“‘There’s still no miracle,’ he stated. ‘If there are no miracles, it can’t go forward. It’s blocked there.’ For a Pope to be beatified – an honor that has been bestowed on only 76 of the 265 pontiffs who have led the church – senior clergy must identify a miracle, something ostensibly unexplainable through scientific method, that he performed. If Pius’s supporters can successfully argue that a miracle was performed, as some of them tried to do a decade ago by citing the case of an Italian woman who claimed that his heavenly intercession had enabled her to survive a rare form of cancer, there is a real fear that he will become a saint irrespective of his wartime record.
“…Ultimately, Pius made a conscious decision from the beginning of his papacy to prioritize the retention of good relations with Mussolini and avoid offending Hitler, in order to ‘plan for a future in which Germany would dominate continental Europe,’ as Kertzer writes. Yet as the fortunes of the war began to change in 1942 with a series of Allied military victories, Pius still stuck to his initial assessment. Closing his book, Kertzer acerbically observes that at a ‘time of great uncertainty, Pius clung firmly to his determination to do nothing to antagonize either man. In fulfilling this aim, the Pope was remarkably successful.’
“…What’s needed from Church leaders and Jewish leaders alike now is the quality Pius sorely lacked: courage.”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/pope-pius-xii-was-no-saint-the-vatican-shouldnt-make-him-one/
—Abraham H. Foxman and Ben Cohen, “Pope Pius XII was no saint. The Vatican shouldn’t make him one,” The Times of Israel, June 11, 2023
I don’t believe Pius XII lacked courage—the data doesn’t show that. It appears he lacked information so that he was slow in coming round to recognizing the genocide taking place.
Also, it seems to me he couldn’t do a whole lot while Hitler pointed his cannons at Europe. The Vatican would’ve been an easy target, and Hitler was a murderer by habit.
What did the bloggers expect Pius XII to do and how would that play out? This projection is sorely missing from the article.
If Pius XII spoke out more loudly, we would probably see something like Henry VIII’s persecution of the Roman Catholic Church but on an industrial scale. That outcome would be on Pius XII’s conscience.
The jury
is still out on the canonization of Pius XII.
Public domain photo
ReplyDeleteGonzalinho
The pope is responsible for showing and exercising moral leadership and not only for Roman Catholics but for all. The question for me concerns not only moral but also practical judgment. Could Pius XII have done more for the Jews? They are getting murdered in the millions. He can’t excuse himself and play the role of guilty bystander. No one in fact can act like the priest or Levite walking past the injured man lying on the road. Jesus himself teaches us this principle. (Luke 10:25-37) The Lord asks Cain, “Where is your brother, Abel?”—Cain replies, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9) The answer is yes.
ReplyDeleteIt would be a mistake to expect Pius XII to always make the best moral and practical judgment. We are all human beings and imperfect. We cannot expect the pope to unfailingly demonstrate perfect exemplary judgment. However, I believe it is a legitimate question to ask—what is the best course of action in this case? This question in my view remains unsettled.
Gonzalinho
The answer to this question in my view remains unsettled.
DeleteGonzalinho
ANTI-SEMITISM— SOCIAL SIN IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
ReplyDeleteVatican officials have always insisted Pope Pius XII did everything possible to save Jewish lives during World War II. But many scholars accuse him of complicit silence while some 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.
“Pope Pius XII thought that he should not take sides in the war,” says Brown University professor David Kertzer, “and that therefore he should not be criticizing either side of the war, including the Nazis.”
Kertzer has written extensively about popes and the Jews. He won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for his book The Pope and Mussolini, which traced the rise of fascism in Europe. And he was among the first to have access to the Pius XII archives when the Vatican opened them in March, after decades of requests from scholars.
Kertzer has just published his early findings in an article for The Atlantic. The newly unearthed documents — some imbued with anti-Semitic language — are shedding light on the pontiff’s behavior during the Nazis’ massacre of Jews. They also reveal the pope’s role in preventing orphans of Holocaust victims from being reunited with their relatives.
The historian found two documents that reveal an intense debate was under way in the Vatican in 1943, when the Nazi occupiers of Rome rounded up more than 1,000 Jews and detained them in a military college 800 yards from St. Peter’s Square before packing them off to the Auschwitz concentration camp. As the German ambassador to the Vatican reported to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, the roundup occurred under the pope’s “very windows.” Only 16 of the deportees survived.
The first document newly found by Kertzer is a letter written by the pope’s longtime Jesuit emissary to Italy’s Fascist regime, the Rev. Pietro Tacchi Venturi, who urged the pope to make a private, oral protest to the German ambassador. He suggested Pius tell the ambassador that there is no reason to use violence against Italian Jews because the racial laws instituted five years earlier by Benito Mussolini’s dictatorial regime were “sufficient to contain the tiny Jewish minority within its proper limits.”
Pius asked for further advice from his expert on Jewish affairs, Monsignor Angelo Dell’Acqua.
A marble plaque over the main entrance of the Vatican Archives reads in Latin “Secret Vatican Archive.” The Vatican’s library on Pope Pius XII and his record during the Holocaust opened to researchers in March.
“The second document that I found,” Kertzer tells NPR, “is Dell’Acqua’s thoroughly anti-Semitic document explaining why he thought the pope should not, in fact, speak out.”
The prelate thought it would be too embarrassing to protest anti-Semitic measures when, over many centuries, ruling popes had confined Jews to ghettos and had forbidden them from practicing professions.
And, says Kertzer, Dell’Acqua thought the emissary’s letter was overly sympathetic to the Jews.
“He said Jews have caused problems ... do threaten a healthy Christian society. So why should the Church be speaking out for them when he says they haven’t protested against the Nazis killing Christians?”
Pius never spoke out against Nazis killing Christians, Kertzer suggests, because he didn’t want to offend many German Catholics who were ardent Nazis.
And so, again, Pius said nothing.
Dell’Acqua later became cardinal vicar of Rome.
To be continued
Gonzalinho
ANTI-SEMITISM— SOCIAL SIN IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
DeleteContinued
…there is one question, says Kertzer, Pope Pius XII never seemed to ask:
“How could so many thousands and hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Germans and their allies take part in the mass murder of Jewish children and old people and so forth, still thinking they were good Catholics?”
Kertzer says his findings reveal that the horrors of the Holocaust did not temper the Vatican’s anti-Semitic mindset.
That mindset was not repudiated until 20 years after the war when, with the Second Vatican Council, the Roman Catholic Church formally rejected the centuries-old Catholic doctrine that held Jews responsible for the death of Christ. That ushered in a new era of Catholic-Jewish dialogue — and ultimately the opening of the Pius XII archives.
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/29/907076135/records-from-once-secret-archive-offer-new-clues-into-vatican-response-to-holoca
—Sylvia Poggioli, “Records From Once-Secret Archive Offer New Clues Into Vatican Response To Holocaust,” npr.org, August 29, 2020
Poggioli’s article talks about an anti-Semitic “mindset”—values, attitudes, and beliefs that work against words and actions sympathetic toward the Jews. Kertzer cites, for example, Dell’Acqua, who said, “Jews have caused problems” and “threaten a healthy Christian society.” Dell’Acqua further remarks on the incongruity of Pius’ protesting the Nazi roundup when for centuries the Roman Catholic Church had promoted a policy throughout Europe of confining Jewish communities to ghettos and isolating them.
Dell’Acqua’s arguments and his influence on Pius XII’s decision not to protest the arrest and deportation of the Jews in Rome by the Nazis is the direct result of the centuries-long antipathy between the Christians and Jews of Europe. It’s an illustrative case of social sin—the social sin of anti-Semitism, in the Roman Catholic Church.
To be continued 2
Gonzalinho
ANTI-SEMITISM— SOCIAL SIN IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
DeleteContinued 2
Previously in this blog I had expounded the early history of anti-Semitism in the Roman Empire.
begin
The history of Jewish-Christian relations is that of bad blood, beginning with the flogging of the apostles by the Sanhedrin (Acts 5:40) and the martyrdom of Saint Stephen, killed by a Jewish mob (Acts 7:58-60).
However, before the Christianization of the Roman Empire in the fourth century, relations were not always marked by persecution and bloodshed.
Excerpts that follow are from this link:
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/jewish-christians-relations-in-the-early-centuries/
—Lawrence H. Schiffman, “Jewish-Christian Relations in the Early Centuries,” My Jewish Learning, reprinted with permission from From Text to Tradition: A History of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism (Ktav Publishing House)
“The early days of the schism were marked by questioning and debate. This is clear from accounts in both rabbinic literature and the writings of the church fathers. Jews and Christians discussed such matters as the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible and the authority of their respective traditions. Even in this literature, however, one can trace the rising tensions that would ultimately prevail between the two groups.”
Beginning from the time of Constantine the Great and during the fourth century, relations took a turn for the worse. Dating from this period is Saint John Chrysostom’s Adversus Judaeos.
“At some point, probably connected with the Christianization of the empire in the fourth century, the Christians began to approach their Jewish neighbors with a much greater degree of antagonism, especially in Byzantine Palestine. Physical attacks against Jews and their houses of worship were not unknown in this period. Whereas in earlier times, there had been coexistence and harmony, by the fifth century much anti-Semitic legislation had been enacted.”
Schiffman inserts an explanation (not in his book) in the website cited above: “Following the language of contemporary scholarship, ‘anti-Jewish’ might be a more accurate term here. Anti-Semitism, a modern term, suggests a racial aspect to the hostility which was not present in the ancient world. The hostile feelings were religiously, not racially, motivated.”
From Text to Tradition continues: “Jews were forbidden to build synagogues and to study the oral law. The Jews were said to be Christ-killers, and anti-Judaism was the norm in preaching.”
Because the Roman Empire professed only one official state religion, the members of other religions were often persecuted—the chauvinism of the state religion was upheld for religious and political reasons, inextricably interrelated. The understanding of the Christian clergy…was that Judaism was both a religious and political threat to the Empire and therefore deserving of suppression.
end
https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2020/03/saint-john-chrysostom-preaching-anti.html
Gonzalinho