Did Pius XII do enough?

by redjade Sun Jan 16, 2005 15:04

The Italian cardinal sent by Pope John Paul II last year to try to dissuade President Bush from invading Iraq said Monday the president promised that the U.S. operation would be "quick."

Cardinal Pio Laghi visited Bush at the White House on March 5, 2003, to relay the pope's position that dialogue, not arms, should be used to resolve the crisis over Iraq, which the United States accused of harboring weapons of mass destruction.

"When I went to Washington as the pope's envoy just before the outbreak of the war in Iraq, he (Bush) told me: `Don't worry, your eminence. We'll be quick and do well in Iraq,'" Laghi told Italian Catholic TV station Telepace, which was broadcasting the pontiff's annual address to diplomats.

by Arieh Sun Jan 16, 2005 17:38

Pius XII told churches not to return Holocaust war babies

by Amiram Barkat
Ha'aretz, December 30, 2004

The Vatican instructed the Catholic church in France not to return Jewish children to their families after the Holocaust, according to a letter dated November 20, 1946, that was published Tuesday in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

The children had been placed in the church's care to save them from Nazi murder, but after the war the church was instructed to return them to surviving parents only if they had not been baptized.

The letter containing these instructions was sent by the Holy Office to Angelo Roncalli - later Pope John XXIII - who was then the papal representative in Paris.

"Please note that this decision has been approved by the Holy Father," the letter emphasizes, referring to Pope Pius XII.

The letter reveals how the controversial wartime pope sought to restrict the number of children the church returned to their families by, among other things, instructing that baptized children "may not be entrusted to institutions that are not in a position to guarantee them a Christian upbringing."

As for orphans who had not been baptized, the church must not hand them over to any "persons who have no rights over them".

Roncalli had a reputation when previously serving as the Holy See's envoy to Istanbul for favoring Jews.

In Paris he helped many Jews escape to Israel, and disobeyed the Vatican instructions by helping to return Jewish minors to their families.

On July 19, 1946, he sent a letter to the chief rabbi in Israel, Isaac Herzog (father of Israeli president Haim Herzog), in which he gives him permission "to use his [Roncalli's] authority so these children can return to their original environment."

Amos Luzzato, president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, said in response yesterday: "The documents indicate that the Vatican completely ignored the Holocaust and murder of Jews. There is a sticking to theological arguments as though this were an ordinary situation, when in practice these children were not entrusted to churches to convert to Christianity but to save them from murder."

The publication of the letter to Roncalli will only add to the controversy surrounding Pope Pius XII, making it difficult for the Vatican to ignore accusations that the Vatican under his tenure did not do enough to combat Nazi persecution of Jews, and even helped Nazi war criminals to evade justice.

The latest revelations are also likely to hamper efforts by Pope John Paul II to lay the groundwork for beatifying Pius XII.

by Lone Gunman Sun Jan 16, 2005 18:20

the Pope and use him as a hostage.General Wolff,the then commander of the German forces in Italy was personally instructed by hitler to kidnap Pius.wolff returned to rome where he met the pontif and as a Catholic explained the situation to him and assured the pontif that such orders would not be carried out.
Although he warned the pontif to stay away from public gatherings in the unstable situation of Italy in the closing days before the liberation of Rome.

All in todays daily telegraph for those intrested.

Did he do enough?Hard to tell for a church that has declared over the centuries that Jews and Muslims are unbelivers,and must be persecuted,and has the favour returned as well over the centuries.

by Observer Sun Jan 16, 2005 21:07

The Catholic Church did what it could. However, Pius had an obligation not to excerbate the situation of those under Nazi rule, so could not be as blunt as he may have liked.

Anyway, this is historical revisionism at its worst. For an example in during WWII Newseek commended Oius's condemnation of the NAzis, but in 1998 they condemned it as not enough. Less hindsight, and more attempts to understand the issue from the context of the time would beneift this debate hugely.

by author Mon Jan 17, 2005 02:34

Did pius XII do enough [(qualifications to distinguish Pius XII from the other Pii i - xi)] to merit sainthood.
which is why the article is in the "elections" section.

This is not revisionism.
It is devil's advocacy.

The majority of saints in the post Vatican 2 period have been celibate ordained men. If saints are those whose lives are of such grace that they merit immediate redemption and knowledge of God, and whose lives are to serve as fit example for the faithful, then we are being told to stop breeding avoid the sick, the pestilent, the unclean, and be quite cruel to women.

If you want to discuss the historical aspects of the Pius Xii pontificacy I suggest you add your comments to a relevant thread ("the liberation of the camp in events guide") or the "was he Hitler's useful idiot" thread on the attack on a statue in Dublin. Or open a thread on the special relationship between the Pius XII pontificacy and De Valera, Franco, the court of St James, Sweden, post war Germany, Argentina, Uruaguay wherever.
For which you will need to consult all the material most of which has not been released under the 60 and 100 year secrecy acts of the respective states.

I'm just a bit bored of all this "time" and "politics"
and want the "regime change" we've been telling you about for a long time, and all the little wolf's children to admit they got it wrong.
No matter the quality of their houses, their degrees, their lives, they got it wrong.

They served the wrong master,
for a very long time.

Not a lame saint - Not a Saint.

by Observer Mon Jan 17, 2005 02:36

The Irish archives have been opened up, and there is a book by Dermot Keogh which covers Ireland and the Vatican diplomatic relationship in WWII.

by Pius XII Tue Feb 15, 2005 22:35

(that qoute was from a speech Pius XII gave in Rome 2 weeks before the first post war democratic elections in Italy, the first such celebrated since the 1920s. He had just previously excommunicated all party members of the Italian communist party and the Italian socialist party. And forgiven any member of the RC church to marry a member of the Italian communist or socialist parties. Those Italian communists and socialists had fought a struggle since the 1930s against NAZI-ism and fascism. They lost by a whisker's breadth, the election. The forces of free market capitalism and democracy counted it their first victory against communism and gladly took the experience to other countries where popular socialist ideas had offered potential voters a political option to fascism.

Pius XII wrote repeatedly to the "spiritual advisor" of Sister Lucia Jesus de los dos Santos, the last shepherd who had claimed to witness the BVM in the Portuguese village of Fatima had pressed him for more "anti-communist" statements from the carmelite nun.

Neither the "spiritual advisor" or Pius XII had ever claimed to have witnessed the BVM.

Curious this religious socialism stuff isn't it?

by democrat Tue Apr 19, 2005 13:28

that "Marxism to free-market liberalism to even libertarianism, collectivism to radical individualism, atheism to vague religious mysticism, agnosticism to syncretism and so forth " allowed Europeans to develop their ideals of democracy.

With the exception of Marxism, the inter-exchange of the other streams of opinion, philosophy as represented by artists and scientists brought European societies out of feudalism and authoriarian states.

It is very much worth considering at this time, that the RC church has never proved itself to be a friend to democracy or democratic values. And not surprisingly, therefore it has supported and worked with dictatorships throughout Europe and the Americas even into living and painful memory.

The idea of the "democratic state" began with the syncretism, condemned by Joseph Ratzinger yesterday morning, it developed through the libertarianism condemned by him yesterday morning to give the world three republics in France, the USA and Haiti. The most continuous state democracies in the world, may be thought by some to be Switzerland, the USA or the UK.
All three gave birth to their political systems in conflict with the RC church and under its condemnation.

The "orthodoxy" of the RC tradition of all the popes "pius" and all the popes "paul" is the one Ratzinger and his "party" support and perpetually invoke. It is not one of democratic values. It is not one of "freedom" or "liberty" in any of the senses of the word be they - marxist, neo-liberal, free-market, libertarian, feminist, autonomous, or synchretic.

count the years of your states, and see how many
have been "democratic" in any sense of the word.
Now we as a planet face a 50/50 chance of surviving the next century. And an orthodoxy that supports dictatorship will not help us and commits the most gravest error of denying free will as the gift of mankind, and raising the "priesthood" to the sole arbitrator of the message of the christ.

pass it on-

by consistency Sat Feb 18, 2006 12:13

Or has there been another blind spot ?
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/16/america/web.0216...n.php

by pat c Sat Feb 18, 2006 14:58

pius did nothing to oppose the holocaust, a few rank & file priests did trojan work but thats it.

if there is an after-life then pius along with the grand mufti of jerusalem and isaac stern are burning in hell.

by @.:.*+% Wed May 10, 2006 21:58

The Vatican has just congratulated Goirgio Napolitano of the Italian Senate, and former mortal sinner, for being elected the 11th president of the Italian republic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_Napolitano

Pope Pius XII condemned the Italian communist party and excommunicated all its members at the start of the Italian republic.

Pope Benedict XVI has still not condemned the Gulags of our time. Either that which has been coat-sragged before the global public, Guantanamo Bay, or those whose locations have been kept as secret from our eyes............................ but we do know whose shades he wears and whose mp3 he listens to.

the 11th president of the Italian Republic who was elected today, in mortal sin in 1975.