In response to the dishonest and slanderous attacks now being made against his good name, the following evidence is given...
In defense of Pope Pius XII:
Before his Pontificate:
As Cardinal Pacelli, he drafted the famous papal encyclical, MIT BRENNENDER SORGE,
which denounced Nazi paganism and racism. The document was smuggled into Germany in March, 1937 and read from all
Catholic pulpits.
At the time of his election as Pope:
The Nazi newspaper, Berliner Morgenpost, stated: "The election of Cardinal Pacelli is not accepted with favor
in Germany because he was always opposed to Nazism."
The international communist newspaper, "La Correspondance Internationale", dedicated an article to Pope Pius XII's
election, saying it was a good election, because he was a man "clearly opposed to Nazism."
During his Pontificate:
In September 1939, with the invasion of Poland, Hitler imposed a news blackout
over occupied territory. For much of the next several years, the Vatican provided
the most reliable, regular source of information available to the public. The New York Times (and other periodicals)
gave massive coverage to the Vatican's disclosures of Nazi atrocities against Jews and non-Jews. A few examples:
10/28/39 Times article "Pope Condemns Dictators, Treaty Violators, Racism;
Urges Restoring of Poland."
01/23/40 Times article "Vatican Reveals Terrors in Poland".
01/24/40 Times articles "Vatican Amplifies Atrocity Reports" and "Weight of Papacy Put
Behind Exposure of Nazi Excesses in Poland".
01/24/40 Times Editorial "The Vatican's Indictment" against the Nazis:
"All we have heard until now have been unofficial reports of such horrors that we choose to disbelieve them
as 'exaggerated'. Now the Vatican has spoken with authority that cannot be questioned, and has confirmed
the worst intimations of terror which have come out of the Polish darkness."
01/29/40 Nearly a full page given in the Times to a 1940 Vatican report released by
Pius XII detailing the precise places where Jews and non-Jews were
being killed and brutalized by the Nazis in Poland. The word "extermination" is specifically used in this
Vatican report.
03/14/40 Times article reports that "Jews' Rights Defended" by the Pope in meeting
between Pius XII and a Nazi official.
12/40 A letter of Albert Einstein in Time magazine stating that "only the Church
stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth...Only the Catholic Church
protested against the Hitlerian onslaught on liberty."
12/25/41 A Times editorial states: "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."
1942 London’s Jewish Chronicle remarked: “A word of sincere and earnest appreciation is due from Jews to the
Vatican for its intervention in Berlin and Vichy on behalf of their tortured co-religionists in France.”
08/27/42 Times Article entitled "Vichy Seizes Jews; Pope Pius Ignored".
10/42 The Times of London summarized the wartime record of Pius XII up to that
time. It stated: "A study of the words which Pope Pius XII has addressed since his accession in
encyclicals and allocution to the Catholics of various nations leaves no room for doubt. He condemns
the worship of force and its concrete manifestation in the suppression of national liberties in the
persecution of the Jewish race."
12/25/42 Times editorial stated that "This Christmas more than ever he (Pius XII) is a
lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent."
08/16/43 A Time magazine editorial stated that the Church "has been fighting
totalitarianism more knowingly, devoutly, and authoritatively,
and for a longer time, than any other organized power."
12/04/43 Times Article reporting that Vatican "Denounces Decision to Intern and Strip
All Jews in Italy."
Following the war:
Moshe Sharrett, former Foreign Affairs Minister and Prime Minister of Israel, visited Pius XII "to thank the
Catholic Church for what it did to save the Jews in all parts of the world." Summing up his personal interview
with Pius, he said: “I told him that my first duty was to thank him, and through him, the Catholic Church, on
behalf of the Jewish public, for all they had done in the various countries to rescue Jews, to save children,
and Jews in general. We are deeply grateful to the Catholic Church for what
she did in those countries to help save our brothers.”
The World Jewish Congress made a large cash gift to the Vatican “in recognition of
the work of the Holy See in rescuing Jews from Fascist and Nazi persecutions.”
Rabbi Herzog of Jerusalem, as well as the Rabbis of the Italian, U.S., Rumanian and Hungarian Jewish communities
came to Rome or sent messages thanking Pius XII for the way in which he mobilized the Church in their behalf.
Dr. Joseph Nathan, who represented the Italian Hebrew Commission, stated: "Above all, we acknowledge the Supreme
Pontiff and the religious men and women who executing the directive of the Holy Father, recognized the persecuted
as their brothers and, with efforts and abnegation, hastened to help us, disregarding the terrible dangers to which
they were exposed."
Dr. A. Leo Kubowitzki, secretary general of the World Jewish Congress, came to present "to the Holy Father, in the
name of the Union of Israelitic Communities, warmest thanks for the efforts of the Catholic Church on behalf of
Jews throughout Europe during the war."
At least three of the volumes of the "Acts and Documents of the Holy See"
relating to the Second World War are full of documents written by the Jewish communities worldwide thanking Pius XII
and the Catholic Church for the assistance offered to persecuted Jews.
Dr. Nahum Goldmann, former president of the World Jewish Congress, stated: "With
special gratitude we remember all he (Pius XII) has done for the persecuted Jews during one of the darkest periods
in their entire history."
The Israel Philharmonic played at the Vatican as a gesture of gratitude for the Pope's war services.
The elders of one liberated camp went to Rome and presented Pius with a letter: “Now that the victorious Allied
troops have broken our chains and liberated us from captivity and danger, may we, the Jewish internees of Ferramonti, be
permitted to express our deepest and devoted thanks for the comfort and help which Your Holiness deigned to grant us
with fatherly concern and infinite kindness throughout our years of internment and persecution.... In doing so Your
Holiness has as the first and highest authority on earth fearlessly raised his universally respected voice, in the face of our
powerful enemies, in order to defend openly our rights to the dignity of man.... When we were threatened with
deportation to Poland in 1942, Your Holiness extended his fatherly hand to protect us, and stopped the transfer of the
Jews interned in Italy, thereby saving us from almost certain death. With deep confidence and hope that the work of Your
Holiness may be crowned with further success, we beg to express our heartfelt thanks while we pray to the Almighty:
May Your Holiness reign for many years on this Holy See and exert your beneficent influence over the destiny of the
nations.”
The chief rabbi of Jerusalem, Isaac Herzog, said: “I thank the Pope and the Church from the bottom of my heart for
all the help they have afforded.”
When Pius XII died in 1958:
Gold Meir, Israel's representative to the United Nations, wrote: "During the Nazi terror, when our people
were subjected to a terrible martyrdom, the Pope's voice was raised to condemn the persecutors and to
offer mercy to their victims. We mourn over the death of a great server of peace."
Jacob Philip Rundin, president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, said: "His sympathy for all,
his wise social vision and his extreme understanding made him a prophetic voice in the service of justice
everywhere. May his memory be a blessing for the life of the Roman Catholic Church and the world."
London's "Jewish Chronicle" recalled that "before, during and after the Second World War, he tried to carry a
message of peace. Confronting the monstrous cruelties of Nazism, fascism and communism, he continually proclaimed
the virtues of humanity and compassion."
Writing in the Jewish Anti-Defamation League's Bulletin, Dr. Joseph Lichten said that the late Pontiff's
"opposition to Nazism and his efforts to help Jews in Europe were well known to the suffering world."
For three (3) consecutive days, the New York Times printed so many tributes to Pius XII that it had to
list only the names, not the contents.
Leonard Bernstein asked the New York Philharmonic audience to stand for a moment of silence in honor of
Pius XII for all he had done for the Jews.
Other testimonies:
In early 1943, the Gestapo wrote the following in a report that the Pope "has severely criticized everything
we believe..He has spoken clearly in favor of the Jews." Another Nazi report accused Pius XII of being a
"mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals."
Dr. Alexander Shafran, chief rabbi of Romania, wrote in 1944: "In these hard times our thoughts turn more than ever
with respectful gratitude to the Sovereign Pontiff, who has done so much for Jews in general.... In our worst hours of trial,
the generous aid and noble support of the Holy See ... has been decisive. It is not easy to find the proper words to
express the relief and solace which the magnanimous gesture of the Supreme Pontiff has given us, in offering a large
subsidy in order to alleviate the sufferings of the deported Jews. Roumanian Jewry will never forget these facts of
historical importance."
After the Allies liberated Rome in 1944, a Jewish Brigade Group said in its Bulletin: “To the everlasting glory
of the people of Rome and the Roman Catholic Church we can state that the fate of the Jews was alleviated by
their truly Christian offers of assistance and shelter. Even now, many still remain in the religious homes and
houses which opened their doors to protect them from deportation to certain death.”
"One survivor, quoted in a Hebrew daily in Israel, said: “If we have been rescued, if Jews are still alive in Rome,
come with us and thank the Pope in the Vatican.”
A committee of the American Jewish Welfare Board, wrote to Pius himself: “We have received reports from our
military chaplains in Italy of the aid and protection to Italian Jews by the Vatican, priests, and church
institutions during the Nazi occupation of the country. We are deeply moved by this extraordinary display of
Christian love — the more so as we know the risk incurred by those who afforded shelter to Jews.... From the
bottom of our hearts we send you the assurances of undying gratitude.”
Rabbi Zolli, the Chief Rabbi of Rome, was so moved by the Pope's efforts that he became a devoted friend of Pius XII.
He eventually converted to the Catholic faith and took for his baptismal name Eugenio, in honor of Eugenio Pacelli (Pius XII).
Rabbi Zolli's daughter, the psychiatrist Myriam Zolli, has issued a strong defense of Pius XII. She said the Pope was
in steady contact with her father and worked diligently to save Jews from persecution. In an interview in the Italian daily
Il Giornale, she recalled her father's prediction that Pope Pius XII would become a scapegoat for the West's silence in
the face of the Holocaust. She concluded that "the world's Jewish community owes him a great debt."
In "The Secret War Against the Jews" in 1994, Jewish writers John Loftus and Mark Aarons write that "Pope Pius XII
probably rescued more Jews than all the Allies combined."
The Israeli diplomat Pinchas Lapide writes that "The Catholic Church under the pontificate of Pius XII was instrumental
in saving the lives of as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands..The Catholic Church saved more Jewish
lives during the war than all other churches, religious institutions and rescue organizations put together. Its record
stands in startling contrast to the achievements of the...Western Democracies." He stated further that "no less than
3,000 Jews found refuge at one time at the Pope's summer residence at Castel Gongolfo."
At the Eichmann Nazi War Crimes Trial in 1961, Jewish scholar Jeno Levai testified that the bishops of the Catholic
Church "intervened again and again on the instructions of the Pope." In 1968, he wrote that "the one person (Pius XII)
who did more than anyone else to halt the dreadful crime and alleviate its consequences, is today made the scapegoat
for the failures of others."
In several Catholic churches in Rome there are still Jewish plaques thanking the Church
for saving Jewish lives.
CONCLUSION:
The attacks against Pius XII require a false rewriting of history that does not survive honest scrutiny. One must
conclude that these attacks are born of ignorance or malice. The information supplied here should suffice for the ignorant.
For the others, the slander of Pius XII is simply one useful stick with which to beat the Catholic Church. As the world
sinks into moral depravity, the Church's unchanging moral teaching is the ultimate target. And for the morally depraved,
only the destruction of the Catholic Church will suffice.
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