masondoggy:
On another message board that I visit (non-religious), someone started a discussion complaining about Christianity and Muslims.
Someone made a comment about the Catholic Church turning a blind eye to the jews being killed in WW2. I don’t know much about this issue, how do I answer this person? Are there any links or anything I could give that will explain the truth?
Tell him to read Hitler, the War and the Pope. The Church did renounce facism, nazism, and communism on many occasion. However every time Hitler perceived critism he cracked down harder on both the Jews and on Catholics. Many more people suffered when the Pope spoke out, so he had to change tactics.
The Pope’s strategy had to change to be more subtle at least as regards to public comments. He does not mention Hitler by name or Germany in his proclamations, but he attacks racial or religious persecutions against any group especially against Jews, and he attacks national socialist (the Nazis), totalitarianism (the Communists) and dictatorships (Hitler and Mussolini).
The Popes main objective was to ease the suffering of the Jews, so he ordered all Catholic Churches, convents, monastaries to open their doors to hide Jews who were trying to avoid the Nazis. He ordered fake baptismal certificates to be issued to Jews (even if they did not truly convert) by the thousands. In one area, conversions rose from 4 or 5 per year to over 20,000 a month !
This worked temporarily until the SS or Gestopo noticed the huge increases and ceased the exemption for converted Jews. Pope Pius did more for the Jews than every other lay, religious, or government organization combined. That is why the Church is in the process of canonizing Pope Pius XII.
During and after the war many Jewish groups and individual and many countries thanked Pope Pius for all the efforts he made during the war. It is only later that critics claimed he did nothing. It is a total travesty. Pius did everything possible to save as many Jews as possible and to end suffering before, during, and after the war.
More public proclamations would have made Hitler react more violently both against Jews and against Catholics. Those who claim otherwise are flat out wrong, and just shows that they did not know the nature of Hitler or how to best deal with his insanity. Even the Jews knew that public proclamations were not effective.
On at least one occasion Jewish leaders urged Pius to be cautious or silent and to be very careful on how he attacked Nazism. No one wanted to antagonize Hitler any more than absolutely necessary. Hitler hated Pope Pius and he even plotted to kidnap him just before the allies took over Rome.
The Pope protected the Jews at great risk to himself and to the clergy. He did everything he possibly could to help, attacking Hitler directly with rhetoric would have made things much worse not better.
Pope Pius XII was the right Pope at the time when the world needed him most. Future popes John XXIII and Paul VI knew exactly what went on in the Vatican during the war as they served in various official capacities. They are/were the ones who initiated the move to make Pius XII a saint. He should be declared a saint, and critics of Pope Pius should be declared certifiable idiots
wc
