Father Rutler on Pope Pius XII

CWN - October 23, 2012

“An impressive number of works have been published recently” to present an accurate picture of Pope Pius XII’s actions during World War II, Father George Rutler observes. “To them I can only add from my own studies a few details in the anguish of the most terrible years of the 1940’s.”

Father Rutler notes:

Around Christmas of 1942, the Vichy government in their collaboration with the Nazis under Laval as head of government distinct from Petain as chief of state, complained about the “Vatican cliques” who “fly up in the air every time it is a question of the descendants of Christ’s Murderers.” On September 2, The New York Times headlined: “Laval Spurns Pope—25,000 Jews in France Arrested for Deportation.” Laval had already exploded in anger against Monsignor Valerio Valeri, dean of the diplomatic corps in France, for speaking out against the government’s anti-Semitism and deportations of Jews.

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