Catholic World News News Feature

New Slander Against Memory of Pope Pius XII May 25, 1999

by Philip F. Lawler

A prominent Jewish activist has renewed the charge that Pope Pius XII ignored the Nazi efforts to exterminate the Jewish race. But the latest accusations against Pope Pius fly in the face of the evidence.

Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Weisenthal Center recently told a New York audience that Pope Pius "preferred silence" during the years of the Holocaust. He claimed that the Pope "sat on the throne of Peter in stony silence, without every lifting a finger," during the years of World War II. And he further argued that "the Vatican adamantly refuses to open its files on this period," because the evidence contained in the Vatican archives would prove the Pope's guilt.

Each of these statements is demonstrably false.

o Pope Pius XII was not "silent" during the years of the Holocaust. He spoke out forcefully against the Nazis. Both during and after the war, objective witnesses testified to the power of the Pope's statements. The New York Times, in an editorial published for Christmas in 1941, praised Pope Pius for having "put himself squarely against Hitlerism" and having "left no doubt that the Nazi aims are also irreconcilable with his own conception of Christian peace." An even stronger statement was issued by Golda Meir, the former prime minister of Israel, who said: "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"

Before he was elected to the papacy, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli served first as the papal nuncio in Germany, and later as Vatican Secretary of State, and he repeatedly clashed with the Nazi leadership. In 1937, he helped Pope Pius XI draft the encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge, a condemnation of Nazi ideology which was read from pulpits throughout Germany. In his own introduction to the encyclical, Cardinal Pacelli compared Hitler to the devil, and warned against a "war of extermination" which he feared the Nazis would unleash. o During the worst years of the Holocaust, Pope Pius XII was directly or indirectly responsible for saving the lives of thousands of Jews. The Israeli diplomat Pinchas Lapide estimated that the Pope was personally responsible for the lives of at least 700,000 Jews. The chief rabbi of Rome was so moved by the Pope's efforts that he became a devoted friend of Pius XII-- and, eventually, a convert to the Catholic faith. Writing in the Jewish Anti-Defamation League’s Bulletin in 1958, 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."

o The Vatican has not refused to open archives related in World War II and the Holocaust. In fact, at the request of Pope Paul VI, a group of historians examined the material in those archives and produced an 11-volume report, containing abundant evidence of the Vatican's active involvement in efforts to save Jewish lives. As papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls commented last December, there is "nothing-- I repeat, nothing" remaining in the archives that has not already been made available to scholars.

During the same press conference last December, Navarro-Valls issued a challenge to the critics of Vatican policy. He observed that the Vatican has repeatedly called attention to the material from the archives which has been made public, and offered to allow qualified scholars to search the archives for any evidence that has not yet come to light. Ignoring those repeated public statements, some Jewish activists continue to insist that the archives are not accessible. The Vatican spokesman concluded, "Anyone who makes insinuations contrary to what the Holy See has repeated several times should have some concrete evidence-- which, naturally, will not be forthcoming."

Why would Rabbi Hier claim that the archives are sealed, when in fact they have been opened, and the evidence they contain has been made public? Could it be because the evidence exonerates the Pope-- and confounds critics like Rabbi Hier himself?

Why would the rabbi claim that Pope Pius XII did nothing to oppose the Holocaust, when in fact the Pope was more vocal and more active in his opposition to the Nazis than any other world leader? Why would he contradict the testimony of prominent Jewish leaders of the past, like Meir, Lapide, and Lichten?

In his New York speech, Rabbi Hier said that he felt compelled to speak out because he opposed efforts to promote the cause of beatification for Pius XII. That campaign, he said, "desecrates the memory of the Holocaust." But slanderous attacks like this one do much more to desecrate the cause of truth, and the memory of a great religious leader.