GIRAUD ARRESTS 12 TO BALK NEW PLOT TO ASSASSINATE HIM AND U.S. MINISTER (12/31/42)

Microfilm-New York Times archives, Monterey Public Library | 12/31/42 | Frank L. Kluckhohn, Ralph Parker, Charles Hurd, Robert Trumbull, F. Tillman Durdin

[BroJoeK]

colorado tanker: "I do note the dramatic distinction between Pius and Dietrich Bahnhoeffer..."

Yes, but that may not be the correct comparison.
Remember, along with Bonhoeffer there were thousands of Catholic clergy, including Bishops, interred in various Nazi concentration and death camps.
Many survived the war, but at least two thousand perished, and many more would have died, had the Pope shown more "courage" by publicly condemning the Holocaust.

So the irony of allegations about "Hitler's Pope" is that, after the Jews themselves, the Church was also under grave threat of extermination.

Bottom line: where Bonhoeffer had only his own life at risk, the Pope had in his hands the fates of thousands of imprisoned clergy and potentially millions more faithful Catholics.
Further, had the Pope called for a general uprising against Nazis in, let's suppose, 1943, the result would have been all of Europe (not just the eastern half) over-run by Stalin's Communists, and so the certain extinction of freedom, along with the likely eradication of all Christian churches.

Terrible options, no good choice, my sympathies to the Pope and to anyone contemplating his canonization.