In comparison Pius XII was a saint, by Sean Gannon

"... in 1919 the future Pius XI reported from Poland that the Jews were "perhaps the strongest and most evil influence" there, while 13 years later as pope, he told Mussolini that the Jews of central and eastern Europe posed a threat to Christian society."

Source: Essay by Sean Gannon, TJP

"... recent critics of Vatican policy such as Gary Wills, John Cornwell, James Carroll and Daniel Goldhagen have focused attention on the issue perhaps most damning from a modern perspective - Pius XII's undoubted anti-Semitism - arguing that what Cornwell calls Pius's "secret antipathy" toward Jews helps explain his lack of action on their behalf. Yet the fact is that, however abhorrent, Pius XII's anti-Semitism was utterly unremarkable for a churchman of his time, and was certainly no deeper than that of Pius XI, against whom he is most frequently unfavorably compared regarding his response to Nazism. For example, in 1919 the future Pius XI reported from Poland that the Jews were "perhaps the strongest and most evil influence" there, while 13 years later as pope, he told Mussolini that the Jews of central and eastern Europe posed a threat to Christian society. Even the unpromulgated encyclical, Humani generis unitas, drafted by Jesuit theologians as Pius XI's definitive condemnation of anti-Semitism, warned of "the spiritual dangers to which contact with Jews can expose souls" and stated that Judaism formed an "authentic basis for the social separation of the Jews from the rest of humanity."

Pius XII's anti-Semitism is certainly a stain on his record. But there is simply no evidence that it played any part in determining his wartime decisions. In this, he contrasts starkly with other Catholic authorities whose anti-Semitic ethos led them to directly help the Nazi cause.

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For instance, a majority of Slovak bishops initially justified the deportations of Jews as necessary "to stymie [their] nefarious influence." In Croatia (where 50% of Ustache concentration camp commanders were priests), high-ranking prelates presented the "liberation of the world from the Jews [as] a movement for the renewal of human dignity," while in Lithuania, the hierarchy explicitly instructed the Catholic clergy not to assist the Jews in any way during the Einsatzgruppen killing campaign. Elements of the Polish, Slovenian and Hungarian hierarchies also deliberately fanned anti-Semitism's flames even as their Jewish compatriots were being slaughtered.

Here in Ireland, the Catholic Church's endemic anti-Semitism had more indirect, yet still devastating, consequences. Irish Catholicism had, throughout the 1920s and 1930s, published and preached against the Jews as a deicidal nation which had endured for 2,000 years as "the worm in the rose" of Christendom. And in a country where notions of Irishness and Catholicism were inextricably entwined, the Jews, as enemies of the Church, were by definition enemies of the State, and so religious and non-religious anti-Semitic motifs were synthesized to create one national anti-Jewish ideology. So "Jewish finance" was characterized as a means of enslaving the Irish Catholic nation while Freemasonry and Communism were presented as Jewish-driven vehicles for what Ireland's leading anti-Semitic ideologue Fr. Denis Fahey (most of whose books were prefaced and approved by prominent members of the Irish hierarchy) called "the destruction of Catholic civilization through the perversion of hearts."

Thus Ireland's Rome-based Catholic clergy could warn the Irish ambassador to the Holy See in 1946 that Jewish influence was not just "anti-Christian [but] anti-national and detrimental to the revival of an Irish cultural and religious civilization" - an attitude which may partly explain the Irish colleges' apparent refusal to shelter Jews during the round-up of Roman Jews three years earlier, even as 4,500 were being hidden in other Catholic institutions, 10% of them in the Vatican itself.

The Irish government's response to the increasingly desperate pleas of the chief rabbi of Mandated Palestine and former Irish chief rabbi Yitzhak Halevi Herzog (ironically, one of Pius XII's first defenders) to use its influence to rescue small groups of French and Hungarian Jews was, in the words of historian Shulamit Eliash, "tepid and unenthusiastic." And, mindful of the "numerous protests regarding the number of alien Jews who [had] established themselves" in Ireland, the Ministry of Justice (which had the final say on refugee visas) implemented throughout the Nazi era an immigration policy which explicitly excluded those with what were termed "non-Aryan affiliations."

So while just one Irish Jew actually perished in the Holocaust, one wonders how many of her Continental co-religionists died as a result of Ireland's institutionalization of societal anti-Semitism, which resulted in fewer than 70 Jewish admissions between 1933 and 1945.

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These, the real anti-Semitic sins of Catholic Europe, have all been obscured by the Pius XII sideshow - a sterile debate which will never be resolved even if the Vatican opens all its wartime archives. For, if documents exist there exonerating Pius of the charges against him, they would have long ago been released, while any evidence supporting the claim that he was, in Deborah Dwork's words, "the canonical example of tacit collusion and collaboration" with the Nazis will have long ago been removed.

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It is, then, surely time to let the matter rest."

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The writer is a freelance journalist, writing mainly on Irish and Middle Eastern affairs. He is currently preparing a book on the history of Irish-Israeli relations

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Photo: cover of Dirk Verhofstadt's book about the Pope's conduct during the war : Pius XII and the extermination of the Jews (in Dutch)

Vatican suspends beatification of Pope Pius XII

Jews and non-Jews alike - this should be emphasised - are critical of Pope Pius XII's silence during and after the war and opposed to his beatification.

Dirk Verhofstadt, a scholar and brother of former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, has just published a well researched and strongly argued book about the Pope's sad conduct during the war : Pius XII and the extermination of the Jews (Pius XII en de vernietiging van de Joden).

Source: Arutz Sheva

"A spokesman for Pope Benedict XVI announced over the weekend that the Catholic leader had stopped the beatification of Pope Pius XII, an issue that has heightened tensions between the Vatican and Israel.

Pope Pius, who served during World War II, has been criticized by Jews the world over for his silence in the face of the Nazi genocide during the Holocaust.

Numerous Jewish groups as well as a leading Israeli rabbi expressed their opposition to recent steps toward beatification, which means making him a saint. Pope Benedict's spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi reacted and stated that the pope had decided to study the matter further.

The central umbrella organization for Jewish groups in France, the Conseil Representatif des Institutions Juives de France, warned in a statement, "Pope Pius XII, worried about burning bridges with Germany, never made a clear statement denouncing the singular monstrosity of the extermination of millions of Jews. Moreover, he did not do so after the war either, which is profoundly shocking. If carried out, the plan to beatify Pius XII, who was pope between 1939 and 1958, would deal a severe blow to relations between the Catholic Church and the Jewish world."

Jewish groups in Italy and elsewhere have also urged the Vatican to reconsider the move. Amos Luzzatto, president emeritus of Italy's Jewish communities, noted in an interview published in the newspaper La Repubblica that numerous European leaders had spoken out against the deportation of Jews during the war. "I ask myself why Pius didn't do the same thing to call European Catholics to action. These are questions that haunt us Jews," he was quoted as saying. "The Vatican should know that for the Jewish world this would open up a wound that will be difficult to heal."

The charges were refuted by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who wrote in a pre-emptive full-page tribute to Pius XII published in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, "It was precisely by means of a prudent approach that Pius XII protected Jews and refugees. If he had made a public intervention, he would have endangered the lives of thousands of Jews who, upon his directive, were hidden, in 155 convents and monasteries in Rome alone.""

- Beatification of Pius XII could be an impediment to Catholic-Jewish relations

- Rabbi Shear-Yashuv Cohen: Pope Pius XII did not do enough to save Jews during WWII

Rabbi Shear-Yashuv Cohen: Pope Pius XII did not do enough to save Jews during WWII

Pope Pius XII was aware of the destruction of the European Jewish population by the Nazis and their acolytes but kept silent - after the war he did not explicitly and publicly condemned anti-Semitism. The Pope did not excommunicate any Nazi criminals and was the only head of State with Adolf Hitler to have given audience to the infamous Ante Pavelic. The Holy See showed great reluctance in recognizing Israel - the mutual recognition agreement was finally signed on December 30, 1993.

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Source: Free Republic
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"At this hour, the Synod is still being led by the afternoon-long presentation of the chief rabbi of Haifa Shear-Yashuv Cohen -- the first Jewish speaker ever to address the body.

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Yet with the gathering convening in the run-up to Thursday's 50th anniversary of the death of Pope Pius XII -- a milestone that, this year, just so happens to coincide with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement and Judaism's most sacrosanct observance -- Cohen said in an interview published this morning that, had he known of the confluence, he mightn't have come:

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"We feel that the late pope (Pius) should have spoken up much more strongly than he did," Cohen, 80, said in an interview hours before he was due to address the gathering of Catholic bishops from around the world.

Cohen said that in his speech he planned to make an indirect reference to Jewish disappointment about Pius as well as an appeal to all religious leaders to denounce Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Last month Pope Benedict forcefully defended Pius, saying he "spared no effort" on behalf of Jews during World War II.

Some Jews maintain Pius did not do enough to save Jews while the Vatican says he worked behind the scenes to help because more direct intervention would have worsened the situation.

"He may have helped in secrecy many of the victims and many of the refugees but the question is 'could he have raised his voice and would it have helped or not?'" Cohen said.

"We, as the victims, feel yes. I am not empowered by the families of the millions of deceased to say 'we forget, we forgive,'" said Cohen, who is chief rabbi of Haifa in Israel....

"I did not know (the anniversary commemorations) happened during the same meeting. If I had known ... I might have refrained from coming because we feel that the pain is still here," Cohen said.

"I have to make it very clear that we, the rabbis, the leadership of the Jewish people, cannot as long as the survivors still feel painful agree that this leader of the Church in a time of crisis should be honored now. It is not our decision. It pains us. We are sorry it is being done," he said.

Cohen said only God knows if Pius spoke out enough against the Holocaust: "God is the judge ... he knows the truth."The Pope will celebrate a memorial Mass for his wartime predecessor in St Peter's on Thursday's anniversary.

And at his turn in the Aula, Cohen followed through with the (unscripted) repeat of his wire comments:
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"We cannot forget the sad and painful fact of how many, including great religious leaders, didn’t raise a voice in the effort to save our brethren, but chose to keep silent and help secretly," said Cohen.

"We cannot forgive and forget, and we hope you understand our pain, our sorrow," Cohen said, speaking to an audience of some 253 cardinals, archbishops and bishops, as well as Benedict XVI.

Cohen never mentioned Pius XII by name, though in context the reference was obvious....

Cohen also issued a biting, though once again indirect, swipe at Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Cohen referred to the "terrible and vicious words of the president of a certain state in the Middle East" in a recent speech at the United Nations. Cohen said these "false and malicious accusations, the threats and anti-Semitic incitement" cannot help but remind Jews of the Holocaust....

Cohen called upon Catholic leaders to "raise your voice, so together with the help of free world defend, we can protect and save Israel from the hands of our enemies."

"What happened once should not happen again," Cohen said. "My being here makes me feel that we can expect your help, and I am sure your message will be listened to by influential people all over the world."

Synod: Rabbi says Jews cannot 'forgive and forget' Pius XII

Israeli rabbi addresses Monday evening Catholic Church synode