Posted on 09/16/2006 9:37:34 PM PDT by Coleus
In her new book, “Crusade of Charity: Pius XII and POWs (1939-1945),” Sister Margherita Marchione sets out to correct what she calls “the big lie” that Pope Pius XII did not speak up against Nazi religious policies and did nothing to help save the lives of thousands of European Jews. She presents overwhelming evidence that not only did he speak out against the Nazis, but also coordinated an international effort to intervene on behalf of Jews and — even more daunting — made the Vatican Information Office the hub of a communications and relief network that connected prisoners of war, their families and displaced war refugees.
“Crusade of Charity” is Marchione’s seventh book on Pius XII. A member of the Religious Teachers Filippini, she is professor emerita of Italian language and literature at Fairleigh Dickinson University and has received a papal award, a Knights of Columbus Humanitarian Award and honorary degrees from Felician College and FDU.
Q. When and where did you do the research for “Crusade of Charity”?
In April 2005. I never had occasion to visit the Vatican Secret Archives before. I was impressed by the amount of material. There are 20 million documents relating to Pius XII’s efforts during World War II to help POWs and refugees.
Q. What experience did Pius draw on in helping POWs? What did he undertake during World War II?
During World War I, as a monsignor and archbishop, Eugenio Pacelli acted as emissary for Pope Benedict XV. Employing his extensive contacts with diplomats, and working with the International Red Cross and the Swiss government, he negotiated the exchange of wounded prisoners and interned civilians. As a result, 65,000 POWs were returned home. When war started in 1939, he reorganized the Vatican Information Office, which … [was] inundated with requests from prisoners of war hoping to be repatriated, families begging for word of their displaced loved ones, government and religious leaders seeking the Pope’s intervention, and ordinary individuals soliciting help for everyday trials.
From June 1940 to May 1945, Vatican Radio transmitted more than 1 million requests and replies during 12,000 hours of air time. Pius also released convents from their rule of cloister; nuns moved to basements so that male refugees could sleep in their beds.
Q. Aren’t the gratitude and recognition for Pius expressed by his contemporaries evidence of the success of his practical help?
Very much so. In September 1943, a World Jewish Congress representative reported to the Pope that approximately 4,000 Jews and Yugoslav nationals who had been in internment camps were removed to an area under the control of Yugoslav partisans and, as such, out of immediate danger. The report went on to say, “I feel sure that the efforts of Your Grace and the Holy See have brought about this fortunate result.” Jan Hermann and Dr. Max Pereles, from the Ferramonti-Tarsia concentration camp, went to the Vatican on Oct. 29, 1944, and gave the Pope a letter that read in part: “When we were threatened with deportation to Poland, in 1942, Your Holiness extended a fatherly hand to protect us, and stopped the transfer of Jews interned in Italy, thereby saving us from almost certain death.”
Q. When did the “historical amnesia” affecting Pius’ reputation begin?
After the war, the Communists in Russia began calumniating Pius XII in their paper, Isvestia. These days, anti-Catholicism is an acceptable prejudice. Recently, John Cornwell [an ex-seminarian and author of the highly critical “Hitler’s Pope”] conceded that he was wrong to have ascribed evil motives to Pius XII and now finds it “impossible to judge” him. In “The Myth of Hitler’s Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews From the Nazis,” Rabbi David Dalin concludes that “these attacks on the pope and the Catholic Church are really an intra-Catholic argument about the direction of the Church today.”
Q. You’re soliciting testimonials to have Pius XII recognized as “Righteous Among the Nations” by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial center in Israel. What will this mean to you personally?
I would be gratified to know that after 10 years of research and all of my books about him in English and Italian, his being declared “Righteous” would mean that the Jews honor the historical record. It shows that Pius XII, through his network of apostolic delegates throughout the world, was able to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Jews. However, two testimonials are needed from people of Jewish extraction who can testify that they knew Jews (or heard about Jews) who were saved by the Pope. Their testimony must be notarized.
Q. What is your next project?
Completing my work toward the beatification of Pius XII. Whatever I’ve written, I’ve always had the documentation. People can say what they like, but unless they prove me wrong, I’m standing firm.
For more information: piusxiipope.info catholicleague.org/pius/framemain.htm
Great post - sometimes history gets distorted.
I have seen her a few times on EWTN. She is a delight. She is one of those people who seems to have more knowledge than an Encyclopedia, and she presents it with such passion, and candor, you want to listen to her for hours.
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If she means that one sheet of paper is one document, then that would be a stack of paper over a mile in height (depending on how thick the paper would be - I guess about 100 microns). If she means that a document has multiple pages, then the stack could be several miles high or more. I'm wondering if maybe she was told the wrong number by one of the Vatican librarians. Or maybe it just seemed like 20,000,000 documents.
Sister Margherita bump!
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