The Catholic Church and the Holocaust

The New American ^ | 06.19.2000 | Michael E. Telzrow

[Coleus]

The Catholic Church and the Holocaust
by Michael E. Telzrow

The unjust vilification of Pope Pius XII and the Catholic Church for supposed collaboration with the Nazis during World War II is only part of a broader campaign to condemn all Christians.

In an editorial published on March 18, 1998, the New York Times took up the subject of Pope Pius XII and the activities of the Catholic Church regarding the Nazis during World War II. "A full exploration of Pope Pius’s conduct is needed...," stated the Times’ editorial writer. "It now falls to John Paul and his successors to take the next step toward full acceptance of the Vatican’s failure to stand squarely against the evil that swept across Europe."

How times change. In the waning days of December 1941, the view from New York City was remarkably different. Those were dark days. The backbone of the U.S. Pacific Fleet lay in ruins in Pearl Harbor; France (France!) had fallen to the Nazis; and England, poor England, was surrounded by Admiral Donitz’ deadly u-boats in the Atlantic and a hostile, German-occupied continent across the Channel. Europe, from the Pyrenees to Poland (and beyond), from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, lay in Hitler’s fatal grasp, sealing the fate of millions of innocent people.

Amidst the grotesque tide of evil sweeping Europe was one man and his church: Pope Pius XII. Indeed, the same Pius XII now demonized by the Times for his supposed failure to stand up to the Nazis was, during those dark days, lauded by that very same paper for his courage in opposing them. On Christmas Day, 1941, during perhaps the lowest point of the war, the Times opined: "The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas.... He is about the only ruler left on the Continent of Europe who dares to raise his voice at all."

Other influential voices concurred with the 1941 Times, not just during the war but afterward. Perhaps the most compelling vindication of Pope Pius XII’s record vis-à-vis the Nazis and the Holocaust can be found by simply reading the remarks of the many Jewish government officials and Holocaust survivors who have offered their opinions of his pontificate.

Dr. Raphael Cantoni, director of the Italian Jewish Assistance Committee, wrote: "The Church and the papacy have saved Jews as much and in as far as they could save Christians.... Six million of my co-religionists have been murdered by the Nazis, but there could have been many more victims, had it not been for the efficacious intervention of Pius XII."

Albert Einstein, too, praised the Catholic Church: "Only the Catholic Church protested against the Hitlerian onslaught on liberty," he wrote. And when Pope Pius XII died in 1958, Golda Meir, who later became Prime Minister of Israel, remarked:

We share in the grief of humanity at the passing away of his Holiness Pope Pius XII. In a generation afflicted by wars and discords, he upheld the highest ideals of peace and compassion. When fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, the voice of the Pope was raised for the victims. The life of our times was enriched by a voice speaking out on the great moral truths above the tumult of daily conflict. We mourn a great servant of peace.

Inventing History

The myth that the Catholic Church under Pope Pius XII failed to do anything to stop the Nazis under Hitler from carrying out the murder of millions of Jews, and that the Church’s supposed failure in this regard was due to an affinity of Pius XII or of the Catholic Church for the Nazis, got its start in 1963 with the opening of Rolf Hochhuth’s play Der Stellvertreter (The Deputy). The play asserted that a craven Pius XII was partly responsible for the extermination of millions of Jews because he failed to publicly challenge Hitler.

Hochhuth’s play opened five years after the death of Pius XII, so he was unable to mount a defense against such charges. But subsequent popes have done so, as have several wartime diplomats who had been accredited to the Holy See. Ambassadors Grippenberg of Finland, Haggelof of Sweden, Kanayama of Japan, and Sir Francis d’Arcy Osborne of Britain all publicly rejected Hochhuth’s premise.

The truth notwithstanding, in recent years the vilification campaign against Pope Pius XII has picked up steam, especially with last year’s publication of John Cornwell’s book, Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, in which the author draws a caricature of Pius XII as a de facto Nazi collaborator. In March of this year, Pope John Paul II’s apology for Catholic sins was occasion for much of the latest criticism. "The Church still wants to steer clear of dealing with the role of the Vatican during World War II," said Rabbi Marvin Heir of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. His comments were echoed by Abraham H. Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League. The papal apology, he said, "stopped short in addressing specific Catholic wrongs against the Jewish people, especially the Holocaust."

The evidence, however, simply does not support the supposition that the Catholic Church shares the blame for the Holocaust. Only Adolf Hitler could have prevented the Holocaust. But, while incapable of preventing Nazi atrocities, the Catholic Church under Pius XII did more than any other organization to help the Jewish people. Rabbi Pinchas Lapide, a former Israeli diplomat, credited Pius XII and the Catholic Church with saving 860,000 Jews. "It’s a big number, to be sure," says columnist Sidney Zion in the March 16th Houston Chronicle, "but even if we halve it and then subtract by two, we have more Jews saved by the Vatican than by the Allies."

Pre-War Opposition

During the years preceding the war, Vatican diplomatic activities dealt primarily with securing rights for the Catholic Church in Germany and in other countries where the Church was historically severely restricted in her activities. Even before Hitler was appointed chancellor (1933), Pope Pius XI condemned hatred of Jews. "Moved by Christian charity," began Pius XI, "the Holy See is obligated to protect the Jewish people against unjust vexations and … it particularly condemns unreservedly … the hatred that goes by the name of anti-Semitism."

Eugenio Pacelli, the man who would become Pope Pius XII, served as the Vatican’s "nuncio" (emissary) in Germany from 1917 until 1929, during which time he became well acquainted with the German people and acutely aware of the true nature of Nazism. As early as 1925, notes columnist Donald Devine in his April 30th editorial in the Washington Times, Pacelli "told fellow diplomats that Hitler was ‘obsessed’ and a ‘new manifestation’ of the Anti-Christ." By 1929 Pacelli had criticized the Nazis 40 times.

In 1930 Pacelli became the Vatican’s secretary of state under Pope Pius XI. In that capacity he did — as his revisionist enemies point out — sign an agreement with the Hitler regime. However, Devine writes, he "told the British he had to do so or it would mean the ‘virtual elimination of the Catholic Church’ in Germany." By 1934, Pacelli was on record as having protested the closing in Germany of Catholic publications, the Nazi takeover of religious schools, and the forcing of Catholic children to join the Hitler Youth. "He also," says Devine, "lodged 60 protests of Jewish cases."

In 1937, while still serving as Vatican secretary of state, Eugenio Pacelli prepared, for Pope Pius XI, the final draft of the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge (With Burning Concern), in which Nazism was condemned as incompatible with Christianity. The document was smuggled into Germany and read from the pulpit of every Catholic church on March 21, 1937. Mit brennender Sorge unmasked the hypocrisy of the Nazi regime by speaking of the "deformation of the state" through which the rights of man are violated. It unequivocally stated:

Whoever exalts the race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community … above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, and deifies, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God... is a false prophet in whom the words of Scripture find terrible application: "He that dwelleth in Heaven shall laugh at them."

After the encyclical was read, the Nazi regime increased its restrictive policies in direct violation of the terms of the 1933 Concordat insuring Catholic civil rights. In Munich alone, suppression of Catholic schools resulted in a drop in enrollment from 65 percent in 1933 to 3 percent in 1937. Anti-Catholic propaganda was distributed; Catholic presses were seized; priests were forbidden to speak in public; and religious ceremonies were restricted. Nazi propagandists, looking for Hitler Youth recruits, targeted Catholic youth organizations. The de-Christianization of schools provided fertile ground for Hitler Youth activities. Pacelli objected to these abuses, eventually sending 89 official documents of protest.

In 1939, after he was elected pope, Pius XII continued to speak out against abuses by the state. His initial encyclical letter, Summi Pontificatus (Darkness Over the Earth), dated October 20, 1939, is a repudiation of the totalitarian "isms" — Nazism, Fascism, and Communism. The first paragraph of a section entitled State-Worship and International Confidence laid the foundation for opposition against abusive government activity:

This notion, Worshipful Brethren, which assigns unlimited powers to the state, is not only an error that brings fatal consequences to the internal life of a society and to their chances of healthy progress; it is equally disastrous to the relations of peoples with one another. It breaks the bonds which ought to unite commonwealths, it robs international law of all its vigor, it makes them almost incapable of living together on terms of peace and goodwill.

The Allies air-dropped 88,000 copies of this encyclical over Germany, where its publication had been banned by the Nazi regime.

On Christmas Day, 1942, Pius XII became the first international figure to publicly condemn what later became known as the Holocaust, thereby earning the enmity of the Nazi regime. In a broadcast entitled The Rights of Man, Pius XII asked: "Are the nations to stand by inactive while this disastrous process goes on?" "Surely," he continued, "all men of courage and honor ought to unite in a solemn vow … to devote themselves to the service of the human person and of a divinely ennobled human society.... Humanity owes this vow to those hundreds of thousands who, without any fault of their own, sometimes only by reason of their nationality or race, are marked down for death or gradual extinction." According to the June 1997 issue of Inside the Vatican, the Gestapo was angered by this message. A Gestapo report accused Pius XII of "speaking on behalf of the Jews" and declared that the speech was "one long attack on everything we stand for." The Nazis had identified Pius XII as their enemy. Moreover, in the official Nazi publication Das Reich, the pope was called a "full Jew." This was in keeping with Hitler’s view of Christianity as an enemy of Nazism. As early as 1933, Hitler had announced: "There is no future with the churches.... One is either a Christian or a German. One cannot be both."

Touchy Situation

The Nazis were not only anti-Pope Pius XII but anti-Catholic, and there is no doubt that Hitler would have tried to eliminate the Catholic Church had he been victorious. As it was, Catholics under Nazi rule were persecuted throughout the war, with the papal or papal-inspired protests oftentimes serving as a convenient pretext for that persecution. In 1941, for example, the Gestapo expelled the Jesuits from Münster, Germany, along with women religious of the Immaculata community.

Polish Catholics endured an even greater trial at the hands of their Nazi occupiers. Schools and seminaries were closed; presses were destroyed; and church property was confiscated. Religious instruction was limited to children between the ages of 10 and 18, for one hour per week, and only in churches.

The human toll was staggering. Countless Polish Catholics perished at the hands of the Nazis. Church historian Pierre Blet, a French Jesuit who spent 17 years in the Vatican archives while working on the 12-volume Acts and Documents of the Holy See During the Second World War, estimates that 4 bishops, 1,996 priests, 113 clerics, and 238 female religious were murdered, and that 3,642 priests, 389 clerics, 341 lay brothers, and 1,117 female religious were interned in concentration camps.

It is, of course, true that during the war the Vatican maintained an outward appearance of neutrality. But this was done in order to safeguard Catholic populations living under the Reich, not just in Germany but in the occupied territories. It should be kept in mind, too, that the pope was a virtual prisoner in the Vatican, surrounded as it was by a hostile fascist state. Yet the record shows that Pope Pius XII did what he could under the circumstances. He continued providing moral opposition, but he proceeded cautiously and thoughtfully in the hope that his efforts would not invite reprisals and that (in general) they would do more good than harm.

But even when he dared not speak out himself, he allowed, and even cautiously encouraged, his bishops to do so. Consequently, his German bishops protested Nazi actions on several occasions. Münster’s Bishop Von Galen publicly denounced the Nazi euthanasia policy in 1941, after 800 mentally ill individuals had been targeted for extermination. Likewise, Cardinal Faulhaber of Munich delivered several sermons critical of Nazi policies.

In February 1942, Catholic bishops of Nazi-occupied Holland prepared a letter protesting the deportation of Jews to the death camps. Protestant pastors also supported the document and indicated a willingness to deliver it from the pulpit. At the last minute they declined, no doubt cognizant of its potential for causing more harm than good. Indeed, their fears were realized. After Catholic bishops read the protest from the pulpit, Nazi occupation forces arrested and deported to the death camps all Dutch Jews who had converted to Catholicism. Included among them was the noted philosopher and Carmelite nun Edith Stein, who was killed at Dachau.

According to Jewish historian Pinchas E. Lapide, a higher percentage of Jews were deported from Holland than from any other Nazi-occupied territory (approximately 110,000 or 79 percent of the total Jewish population). These deportations happened in spite of the vigorous protestations from the Catholic clergy. Observers of the Nazi roundup in Holland reasonably concluded that the Church’s frequent protestations were of no help and in fact probably made things worse.

Internment camp detainees, especially Catholic priests and Protestant ministers, paid dearly whenever Catholic authorities issued protests. Luxembourg primate Bishop Jean Bernard noted the reaction of his fellow inmates at Dachau with respect to papal protests:

The detained priests trembled every time news reached us of some protest by a religious authority, but particularly by the Vatican. We all had the impression that our wardens made us atone heavily for the fury these protests evoked.... Whenever the way we were treated became more brutal, the Protestant pastors among the prisoners used to vent their indignation on the Catholic priests: "Again your big naïve Pope and those simpletons, your bishops, are shooting their big mouths off.... Why don’t they get the idea once and for all, and shut up. They play the heroes and we have to pay the bill.

The lesson was not lost on Jewish, Christian, and secular organizations. They believed that papal protests merely exacerbated the situation, and they often implored Pope Pius to refrain from making public protests. Opposing the Nazis in ways that would not worsen the situation offered the pope a significant challenge.

Providing a Hiding Place

One successful approach encouraged by Pius XII was the use of Catholic religious houses as hiding places. This practice was used particularly effectively in Italy. In October 1943, at the beginning of the Nazi occupation, Pope Pius XII authorized his secretary of state to allow the practice and almost immediately Jews throughout Italy began to seek shelter in convents, monasteries, and seminaries. Over 150 convents in Rome served as sanctuaries for fugitive Jews. Margherita Marchione, author of Yours is a Precious Witness: Memoirs of Jews and Catholics in Wartime Italy, estimates that the vast majority of Church-owned buildings in the city of Rome were used at one time or another to house Jewish refugees. Pius XII even gave special dispensation to cloistered communities, releasing them from their obligations, so that all areas would be open to those seeking asylum.

In October 1943, at the height of the Nazi persecution of Roman Jews, Carlo Sestieri sought shelter in the Convent of the Gesù along with his brother, a cousin, and 50 other Jews. During a January 1995 interview, Sestieri described his eight-month stay as "rather pleasant." He and his fellow refugees were fed regularly and even enjoyed access to hot showers. Later, he and 15 others found refuge in an apartment belonging to a sacristan in the Palazzo della Cancelleria. It was there that Monsignor Giulio Circione, pastor of San Lorenzo, provided "every possible comfort," including the use of his personal library. Carlo Sestieri’s experience was not unique. Thousands of Jews received similar levels of hospitality in hundreds of Italian convents, hospitals, and monasteries.

Such assistance was not limited to the Jews in Italy. Throughout Europe, Jews were aided by Catholic clergy and lay persons inspired by Pope Pius XII’s example. Hundreds of stories of moral courage in the face of Nazi persecution were repeated over and over.

In 1942, German Jews Paul and Johanna Korn fled Breslau with their daughter Ursula to Alassio on the Italian Riviera. They were eventually directed to Father Beniamino Schivo. Father Schivo found them shelter in a seminary and provided them with food and clothing. In September 1943, Father Schivo brought the family to a summer villa belonging to Salesian nuns. Later that year, after Paul Korn joined a partisan unit, Johanna and Ursula moved to a Salesian convent. There the nuns disguised Ursula and Johanna in nuns’ habits. Prior to a search of the convent by Germans, Father Schivo brought them back to his seminary where they hid until the area was liberated on July 14, 1944. The Korns were only one of many Jewish families who were saved by the efforts of Father Beniamino Schivo. "Father Schivo became our protector," said Ursula Korn Selig, "our one and only best friend. In every way, endangering his own life, he saved our lives, and he did so time and time again."

In France, individual Catholic priests and lay persons often worked to save their Jewish neighbors. The Abbé René de Naurois was a vocal outspoken critic of Hitler. In 1941, he joined the resistance movement and worked to smuggle Jews into neutral Spain. He helped forge identity papers and provided shelter for Jews in Catholic institutions. Although wanted by the Gestapo, the Abbé continued his work until he was compelled to flee France. He joined the Free French and returned to France during the Allied invasion.

In the Diocese of Montauban, a letter was prepared by the Chancery condemning the deportation of Jews. Bishop Pierre-Marie Théas asked Marie-Rose Gineste to see that all the parishes received the letter. Fearing that the Vichy (Nazi puppet) government might intercept it in the mails, she proposed to deliver copies of the letter personally by bicycle. Gineste managed to avoid interrogation by the Gestapo and delivered the document to all the priests within 100 kilometers of Montauban within four days. On August 30, 1942, the letter was read in all the diocesan churches exhorting Catholics to "go forth and protect Jews from deportation." Public protest by Bishop Théas and his colleagues in Toulouse and Lyon led to a widespread rescue campaign.

Catholic clerics and lay persons that assisted Jewish refugees were motivated by the simple desire to act in a manner consistent with their Christian beliefs. Their ideas of human justice, in complete accord with those of Pope Pius XII, compelled them to do so. Pius XII did not formally direct all of the Catholic faithful to put themselves at risk by giving aid, but he clearly approved of their actions as consistent with his wishes.

When asked why the Sisters of the Religious Teachers of Filippini aided the Jews, Sister Maria Pucci replied, "We respected and loved them. We responded to the pope’s plea to open our doors."

Pope Pius XII’s actions were not limited solely to providing his approval of such actions. In addition to providing food and medicine, he personally sheltered hundreds of Jews in the Vatican as well as in his estate at Castelgandolfo.

Lesson for All

In his persistent efforts to oppose the Nazi regime and to help the Jews, without providing the Nazis with the excuse to outlaw Catholicism, and without doing more harm than good, Pope Pius XII accomplished much good. That good didn’t escape the attention of grateful Jews during the war. In August 1943, the World Jewish Congress announced: "Our terror-stricken brethren look to Your Holiness as the only hope for saving them from persecution and death."

"Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past," says novelist George Orwell in 1984. The deliberate rewriting of the history of the Catholic Church in World War II, and the malicious character assassination directed at Pope Pius XII, should give people of all creeds pause. Those who seek to create an atheistic future — in which all nations recognize a single, Godless, global authority — must, necessarily, remove from man’s collective memory the recollection of the good done by believers. Today it is a crusade against the Catholic Church and the legacy of Pope Pius XII. Tomorrow, unless the lies about the Catholic Church’s record during WWII are unmasked and the truth is told, it will be other religious bodies that will suffer along the rocky road to the new world order.

[DTA]

If this is your trump card, tough luck. Document I have posted can be easily tracked down and checked against the original.

If you feel up to it, this is a job for you, no security clearance needed. Only bring clean socks and clean underwear to avoid embarrasment when caught :-)

[Invincibly Ignorant]

Nice job producing those documents.

[DTA]

>>>>>If this is the best you can do, it's nowhere near good enough to support your claims that the Vatican was involved.<<<

Let's see. RC Priest uses the premisses of Catholic Institute of San Girolamo in Rome to hide Nazi war criminals before spiriting them out to South America. He keeps Ante Pavelic, fuehrer of Croatia hidden there for 2 years before spiriting him out for Argentina.

His superior, Monsignor Juraj Madjerec, the head of The Institute supports the clandestine operation without informing Vatican, although Institute is under Vatican iurisdiction. Father Draganovic, also uses National Cahtholic Charity (see scanned document) while spiriting hundreds of 'refugees" out of Italy to South America.

National Catholic Charity did not inform Vatican about what is going on, who are the refugees, where the money is going and so on.

Last but not least, no one in Vatican enquires why large amounts of money are flowing to San Girolamo institute from Swiss bank.

In other words, Vatican operates as a commune withot subordination.

Is this believable? Sure. Everything is posible with blind obedience. German Nazis believe there were no concentration camps.

Denial is not a river in Egypt. It is quicksand.

[conservonator]

Not a trump card just a simple reminder that documents are not always what they appear. Again, the simple fact that there are bad people in positions of power doesn't mean that the organization is corrupt and illegitimate to the core. And that is what you are attempting to portray.

[Invincibly Ignorant]

Not a trump card just a simple reminder that documents are not always what they appear. Again, the simple fact that there are bad people in positions of power doesn't mean that the organization is corrupt and illegitimate to the core. And that is what you are attempting to portray

Don't think that's what he's trying to portray. But a little acceptance of culpability would be nice. The anti-semitism in NT writings have done much to foster attitudes over the years. It wasn't until Pope John XXIII that the word "perfidious" was taken out of the blessings regarding Jews. The same people always flock to the defense of Pius XII, the quiet one, on these threads.

[conservonator]

Has the Catholic Church ever done anything before 1950 that benefited mankind, in your opinion? And if so what? As far as your comment on recognizing culpability is concerned, I can't think of an organization that has dome more to make amends for the sins of some of it's members than the Catholic Church. The fact that no amount of Mea Culpas will satisfy some speaks volumes about them.

[malakhi]

Has the Catholic Church ever done anything before 1950 that benefited mankind, in your opinion?

I enjoy the Friday night fish frys. :o)

[conservonator]

Lets pretend that all that you believe is true, that the Vatican's totally complicit in the rape and pillaging of the Serbs (I'm assuming your a Serb) and that the pope had his hand on the tiller of the events you refer to. Lets pretend it's all true..

So what.

The Mass is still valid, the host once consecrated still becomes the Body Blood Soul and Divinity of Christ. And the Church, not the men who administer to it, will still be spotless, the pillar and foundation of truth.

What will change?

[conservonator]

I enjoy the Friday night fish frys. :o)

Nothing like a mess of deep fried great lakes walleye with mounds of coleslaw and fries accompanied by a golden, frosty mug of beer...OK, that's one;)

[Coleus]

St. Maximilian Kolbe, starved and killed in a Concentration Camp so a Jewish man could live.

[Invincibly Ignorant]

The Chuck-a-luck table the summertime bazaars was also a favorite of mine. :-)

[conservonator]

There is nothing more sinister than caged dice :)

[Invincibly Ignorant]

There is nothing more sinister than caged dice :)

Hey come on now. My father is an experienced Chuck-a-luck master of ceremonies. :-)

[Cronos]

I guess the lies about the church come from the same source who think that Abraham Lincoln was really a martian...

[Mark in the Old South]

I miss Church Chat. :-) Thanks for the smile

[Mark in the Old South]

Re: "I am talking about the official documents in U.S. possession describing how Vatican helped Nazis after WWII."

This is somewhat of a useless claim. I have little doubt there were some Nazis who received help from the Church. That is one of the things all Churches do. The job is to reconcile the sinner with God, sometimes that translates into help with authorities, necessities etc. The statement begs the question; What kind of help and why? Remember if the Nazis had won the very same statement that the Church helped their enemies could be made. This alone does not justify your commendation. And that doesn't even begin to consider rogue priests. We had them then we have them now. It takes monumental naivete to think any religion is going to operate in this world free of bad clergy.

[Mark in the Old South]

Re: "I am talking about the official documents in U.S. possession describing how Vatican helped Nazis after WWII."

This is somewhat of a useless claim. I have little doubt there were some Nazis who received help from the Church. That is one of the things all Churches do. The job is to reconcile the sinner with God, sometimes that translates into help with authorities, necessities etc. The statement begs the question; What kind of help and why? Remember if the Nazis had won the very same statement that the Church helped their enemies could be made. This alone does not justify your commendation. And that doesn't even begin to consider rogue priests. We had them then we have them now. It takes monumental naivete to think any religion is going to operate in this world free of bad clergy.

[Tailgunner Joe]

"The skull-cap is a danger to the State when things go badly. The clergy takes a sly pleasure in rallying the enemies of the established order, and thus shares the responsibility for the disorders that arise." - Adolf Hitler, 11th November, 1941

[It's me]

read later

[dcnd9]

People need to remember the Catholic church has human frailties and we are not perfect. It is a hospital for sinners as well as a haven for the saints.