March 1, 2003
NOT PIUS ENOUGH:
Pope or Pilate?: The dispute over the wartime papacy of Pius XII -- whether he was a saint or Nazi stooge -- is about to heat up (James Murray, February 15, 2003, The Weekend Australian)THIS weekend the Vatican opens its archives on its relations with Germany from 1922 to 1939, which will perhaps help to explain the enigma of Pope Pius XII, hailed a saint by some and condemned as "Hitler's pope" by others.Pius XII was the Catholic Church's representative in Bavaria from 1917 to 1929. He then became Vatican secretary of state until his election as pope in March 1939, six months before the outbreak of World War II.
Hero to his supporters, silent compromiser to his detractors, it's estimated he helped 860,000 Jews escape Nazi liquidation. The chief rabbi of Rome became a Catholic at the end of the war as a tribute to the Pope's interventions and Israel awarded him its highest honours. But after the 1963 staging of a controversial play, Rolf Hochuth's The Representative, Pius XII's failure to protest publicly against Nazi persecution of Jews became a recurring criticism, particularly among Jewish and anti-Catholic apparatchiks. [...]
Jewish historian Jeno Levai records that the future Pius XII, while still Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, sent 60 notes to Hitler, up to the outbreak of war, to protest against the persecution of the Jews.
Speaking to 250,000 pilgrims at Loreto, Italy, in 1935, he said: "The Nazis are really only miserable plagiarists who dress up old errors in new tinsel. It does not make any difference if they flock to the banners of the social revolution, whether they are guided by a false conception of the world and of life, or
whether they are possessed by the superstition of a race and blood cult."The Nazis had no illusions about the pope's attitudes. Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler's deputy, said of Pius in 1943: "We should not forget that in the long run the pope in Rome is a greater enemy of national socialism than Churchill or Roosevelt."
What is at stake, however, is not the question of the pope's attitude but whether his fairly consistent silence was tolerable from a leader of a worldwide institution with adherents in countries of varying political ideology.
Was his silence a result of cowardice or wisdom? Was it simply a desire to keep the church inviolate from attack, or an opportunistic delay to see which of the belligerents won in the end?
It's hard to see the really hysterical criticisms of him as anything more than anti-Catholic bigotry, especially since his contemporaries--FDR and Churchill--who did much less are given a free ride.
MORE:
-ESSAY: Pius XII as Scapegoat (Michael Novak, August/September 2000, First Things)
-REVIEW ESSAY: Goldhagen v. Pius XII (Ronald J. Rychlak, June/July 2002, First Things)
Pius XII was a saintly man whose conduct, in the most trying of circumstances, was in apparently flawless accord with Christian principles. He saved Jews and spoke against the Nazis in every way that was prudent. His modern critics have the moral and intellectual substance of the "no war for oil" protesters.
First Things has this story well covered -- Ronald Rychlak's refutation of Daniel Goldhagen
is a superb polemic, and Michael Novak has essential background
.
Thanks for the links. My wife and I were just talking about this yesterday.
Posted by: Chris Badeaux at March 1, 2003 1:38 PMOf course, this theme, has made it to fiction, (I know I thought Wills, Cornwell. Goldhagen & Hochhuth were fiction) with former CNN reporter Daniel Silva's The Confessor;
who seems to be copying LeCarre
(Killer Artist) & Follett (The Unlikely
Spy) without attribution
I think Silva wrote The Unlikely Spy.
Posted by: oj at March 1, 2003 2:10 PMI've read a few Goldhagen interviews here and there.
Seems more of a polemicist than a scholar.
hitler's Willing Executioners was a fine book, making the seemingly obvious point that many, many Germans had to know about and even be involved in the mistreatment of Jews and then the Holocaust. The premise of this new book, that Pius, because he by some definition didn't do enough and despite having no armies at his disposal, is somehow uniquely culpable in the Holocaust, is simply strange.
Posted by: oj at March 1, 2003 5:52 PMHe's a scholar, Mr. Choudury. You should read
"Willing Executioners." True, others had made
the point -- though not so much about the
priests and preachers, who got a free ride
before Goldhagen; but he used new sources
and went into greater detail than his
predecessors.
Well, if it was right for Pacelli to keep his yap
shut, shouldn't the current incumbent shut
up, too?
Don't downplay the antisemitism of the church.
Harry:
He may have been "quiet" but he saved hundreds of thousands. What secular leader did similar good things?
Harry - Read Rychlak's essay. Pacelli didn't "keep his yap shut," he spoke out vigorously. Goldhagen has no more scholarly integrity than a holocaust denier, and his anti-Catholic bigotry is morally indistinguishable from their anti-Semitism.
Posted by: pj at March 1, 2003 9:35 PMRight Orrin, I mean how he's essentially repackaged Follett's
eye of the Needle, with a turn
toward pro-Nazi American business
man, how he repackages LeCarre's
Little Drummer Girl, complete with
the PLO martyr hagiography, and
the anti-Israel spin. In his latest
work, he goes one step further than
even Carroll, Wills, or even Hochhuth
would dare go; that a Nazi planner
present at the Wansee conference
tipped off the Vatican' s to its plans,
and hence Pius did nothing
narciso:
Ah, I see what you mean.
For a good set of "conservative" thrillers, try Robert Harris--Fatherland, Enigma, Archangel. He's a Daily Telegraph columnist.