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by Monsignor James C. Brunner

Faith Points

In 1963 a German Protestant writer who had been a member of the Hitler Youth, Rolf Hochhuth, wrote a seven-hour play whose title has several translations but generally it is called The Deputy. It is fictional and highly polemical, claiming that Pius XII’s concern for Church finances left him indifferent to the destruction of European Jewry.

The controversy generated by The Deputy subsided for a while but recently has flared up again. Nine books have appeared in the last eighteen months. Four of these are ringing defenses of Pius XII against charges that he did not do as much as he could to help the Jews and even that he was anti-Semitic or pro-Nazi. Others blame him for not publicly excommunicating Hitler and for doing nothing to stop the deportation of Jews from under his very windows (The title of a current book is Under His Very Windows.). One book by John Cornwell is entitled Hitler’s Pope. Two of the nine books are part of a broad attack against the Catholic Church and three others seek to force changes in the Church. Of the latter three, two were by ex-seminarians and another by an ex-priest who may be lapsed and angry Catholics.

The campaign against Pius XII would have shocked the Nazis and Jewish leaders of a generation ago. Pius XII was not silent about the plight of the Jews to protect the Church. In January 1940 he condemned over Vatican Radio the German atrocities in Nazi Poland. This speech was noted by the Jewish Advocate of Boston, the New York Times and the Manchester Guardian. Of forty-four speeches given in Nazi Germany forty of them criticized some aspect of Nazi ideology. As Pius XII gained control over L'Osservatore Romano it aired frequent criticisms and asked for prayers for the persecuted Jews in Germany after the 1935 Nuremberg Legislation. Cardinal Pacelli who became Pius XII drafted the encyclical of Pius XI Mit brennender Sorge that offered a harsh condemnation of Germany.

The Nazis lampooned him as a "Jew-loving" cardinal because of 55 protests he sent to the Germans as Vatican Secretary of State. The New York Times recognized Pius XII's first encyclical as a condemnation of dictators, treaty violators, and racism.

In 1939 and 1940 Pius XII was a secret intermediary between German plotters against Hitler and the British. When Ambassador Joachim von Ribbentrop visited the Vatican the pope protested to him Nazi atrocities against the Jews in Germany and Poland. He protested to the Vichy government about the inhuman arrests and deportations of Jews from the French-occupied zone to Silesia and parts of Russia. A New York Times headline of August 6, 1942 is telling: "Vichy Seizes Jews: Pope Pius Ignored." German propaganda minister, Goebbels, in retaliation issued 10 million copies of a pamphlet labeling Pius XII as the "pro-Jewish pope." The Nazis did not think of Pius XII as being silent about the plight of the Jews. The New York Times commenting on the pope's Christmas address editorialized, "the pope put himself squarely against Hitlerism." Responding to the Christmas message the following year an internal German analysis notes, "(he) makes himself the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals."

As for doing nothing to help the Jews, even those who were being deported "under his very windows," his efforts saved thousands of Italian Jews. While 80% of European Jews were killed, in Italy 80% were saved. Pius XII instructed churches and convents to hide Jews. In Rome 155 convents and monasteries housed 5,000 Jews. At least 3,000 were hidden at the pope's summer residence in Castel Gondolfo. Sixty Jews lived in the Gregorian University and hundreds within the Vatican itself. Nazis at one point thought of seizing St. Peter's and killing Pius XII because of "the papal protest in favor of the Jews." While the United States, Great Britain, and other countries refused to allow Jewish refugees to immigrate during the war, the Vatican was issuing tens of thousands of false documents to allow Jews to pass as Christians so that they could escape the Nazis. Pius XII gave the Jews financial aid that Lichten, Lapide, and others report amounted to millions of dollars.

Nazis and Jews alike recognized Pius XII as the most prominent opponent of the Nazis and defenders of the Jews. Albert Einstein said, "Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing the truth." In 1943 Chaim Weizmann, Israel's first prime minister, said that the Holy See is lending its powerful help wherever it can. Moshe Sharett, Israel's second prime minister visited Pius XII to thank him for the efforts of the pope and the Catholic Church to rescue Jews. Rabbi Isaac Herzog, chief rabbi of Israel, praised the pope and his delegates for what they did for the Jews. In September 1945 Leon Kubowitzky, secretary general of the World Jewish Congress, thanked the pope for his interventions and the Congress donated $20,000 to Vatican charities "in recognition of the work of the Holy See in rescuing Jews from Fascist and Nazi persecutions." In 1955 the Union of Jewish Communities proclaimed April 17 a "Day of Gratitude" for the pope's wartime assistance. On May 26, 1955 the Israeli Philharmonic flew to Rome for a special concert for the pope as an expression of Israel's enduring gratitude to the pope for help given Jews during the Holocaust. Pinchas Lapide who served as Israeli consul in Milan declared that Pius XII "was instrumental in saving 700,000, but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands."

Critics of Pius XII maintain that the gratitude expressed by the Jews to Pius XII was mistaken or ill advised. But if their testimony with respect to the role of the pope is doubtful, then perhaps so is their testimony concerning the Holocaust itself.

The pope was criticized for not explicitly excommunicating Hitler. Their argument goes: Only the Church could have stopped Hitler and it was subdued if not silent. The criticism curiously comes from people who have little use for pronouncements of popes. How many nations are changing policies on abortion, contraception, and embargoes because the pope condemns them? Popes have excommunicated heads of state with little success in changing policy. Hitler considered himself as anti-Catholic long before he came to power. The need to refrain from provocative public statements was fully recognized by Jewish and other agencies such as the International Red Cross in wartime Europe for fear that even more Jews would be massacred. That was true in Holland where the Church made the loudest protests. 110,000 or 79% of the Jews were deported to death camps. Critics protest that the Church’s lack of public protest led to the slaughter of 6 million and ask, what could be worse than that? The answer is the slaughter of hundreds of thousands more.

Oskar Schindler is called a "righteous Gentile" for saving about 1,200 Jewish lives even though he made shell casings for the Nazis. He was invited to plant a carob tree on the Avenue of the Righteous at Yad Vashem. Pius XII also rightfully deserves the name "righteous Gentile" and a whole forest of trees.