Holocaust survivors appeal to pope over Pius XII [CN-USA]

[Sonny1954]

"Pius XII, did not confront the Nazis head on. But to call him a coward and accuse him of covering his backside is grossly uncharitable. He authorized the falsification of millions of baptism certificates to get Jewish people moved arouind Europe. He authorized the violation of papal enclosures in monasteries to hide Jews. He authorized religious orders to lie, cheat, steal and do whatever was necessary, except murder, to protect innocent people."

He also literally watched from his window when thousands of Jews in Rome were rounded up by the German’s after Mussolini’s government fell. And no one had any illusions as to the fate of those people.

“Pius was not a diplomat or politician…”

Actually rose to the Papacy through the ranks of the Vatican foreign service. That is a matter of record. He was much more of a diplomat than a pastor. No one can deny that some churchmen, like Bishop Roncalli, and countless, nameless nuns, priest & brothers struggled against the Nazis the best they could and at great personal risk. They deserved a stronger and more morally mindful leadership than they received.

 

[JReducation]

"Pius XII, did not confront the Nazis head on. But to call him a coward and accuse him of covering his backside is grossly uncharitable. He authorized the falsification of millions of baptism certificates to get Jewish people moved arouind Europe. He authorized the violation of papal enclosures in monasteries to hide Jews. He authorized religious orders to lie, cheat, steal and do whatever was necessary, except murder, to protect innocent people."

He also literally watched from his window when thousands of Jews in Rome were rounded up by the German’s after Mussolini’s government fell. And no one had any illusions as to the fate of those people.

“Pius was not a diplomat or politician…”

Actually rose to the Papacy through the ranks of the Vatican foreign service. That is a matter of record. He was much more of a diplomat than a pastor. No one can deny that some churchmen, like Bishop Roncalli, and countless, nameless nuns, priest & brothers struggled against the Nazis the best they could and at great personal risk. They deserved a stronger and more morally mindful leadership than they received.

Your problem is really with the Catholic faith, not with Pius XII. The case for veneration on Pius XII is closed. It cannot be reopened. Do you understand how the process works? I’m not asking to flippant. I mean that as a genuine question. This is a process that is led by the Holy Spirit from day one.

One of the areas that it looked at very carefully is the moral character of the person. There are four levels that have to prove, beyond any human doubt, that the person’s moral character was heroic. During the entire process of investigation there is a Defender of the Faith, formerly called the Devils Advocate. The each committee must answer every question to the satisfaction of the Defender of the Faith, who has the veto power over the whole process. He (Defender of the Faith) does not work in a vacuum. His decision is not unilateral. He has a team of theologians, cardinals, bishops, and other experts who feed him questions and rebuttals for every point that the Promoter of the Cause puts on the table.

After going through three levels of study, the life of the person is taken to a commitee of Cardinals from Congregation for the Causes of the Saints. They vote on the findings of the commitees beneath them. But this report does not make it to them unless the Defender of the Faith rests his case and admits that this was truly a morally heroic man and that he can find no reason in Divine Revelation to prove the contrary or to even raise a doubt. After this vote, it goes to the Holy Father and his staff of experts. They read all the reports again.

When the Holy Father decides that there is no moral doubt in this man’s life, he orders the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints to draw up the Decree, which he signs. Once the decree is signed the study of the man’s life is closed and every Catholic is bound by moral and canon law to accept that this is no longer open for discussion.

The next step is to prove that the alleged miracles are through the intercession of Pius XII. If just one of the miracles is proven to be through his intercession, without any reasonable doubt, then it must be recognized by the pope. The pope does not have the authority to dismiss the miracle. To do so is heresy on the part of the pope. It adds up to a pope who refuses to acknowledge the work of God. If there are two miracles then the case goes to canonization.

However, none of the above studies: the person’s life or the alleged miracles are needed for the pope to canonize. Canonization is an infallible decree that comes to us Ex-Cathedra, which must be believed by all Catholics. Popes can and have canonized saints without any studies, without any miracles being proven, based on their faith, which is guided by the Holy Spirit.

The first three such canonizations were the Franciscans: Francis of Assisi, Anthony of Padua and Clare of Assisi. In all three cases the pope refused to allow the study of their lives. Read the reports on the miracles after their death and said that they trusted the reporters and would not ask for proofs. None of them were ever venerable or blessed. Francis was canonized two years after his death, Anthony one year after his death and Clare about 18 months after her death. These are infalllible decrees that must be held by all Catholics.

Catholics are not bound to have a devotion to any one saint. But we are bound to belief that a canonized person is a saint. The decree becomes a doctrine of the Catholic Church.

From what I can tell, you seem to have a problem with the process and the results of the process. I wish I could give you more information to help you be more comfortable, but I can’t. The decree has been signed by the pope the study is complete. We must accept that it is what it is and it will not be revisted and that we, the faithful, do not have a voice in this and that this is one of those areas where the opinion of the faithful can be ignored by the Holy Father, because it is he who has the power to bind and unbind.

If he signed the decree declaring Pius XII, Venerable, then we are bound to recognize him as such. Were I in your position, I would take to prayer, not Pius XII’s cause, but my own struggle to accept what the Church hands down that we must accept and ask for the grace to trust.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[Cetil]

There are a lot posts here which show some ignorance of this whole controversy. Pius XII indeed confronted the Nazis about their crimes. Von Ribbentrop testified at Nuremberg that he had a desk full of protests from the Vatican. The pope did not sit idly by but sheltered Jews in the Vatican. Dr. Joseph Lichten a Polish Jew and diplomat who later worked at B’nai Brith pointed this out:
Joseph Lichten records that on September 27, 1943, one of the Nazi commanders demanded of the Jewish community in Rome payment of one hundred pounds of gold within thirty-six hours or three hundred Jews would be taken prisoner. When the Jewish Community Council was only able to gather only seventy pounds of gold, they turned to the Vatican.

“In his memoirs, the then Chief Rabbi Zolli of Rome writes that he was sent to the Vatican, where arrangements had already been made to receive him as an ‘engineer’ called to survey a construction problem so that the Gestapo on watch at the Vatican would not bar his entry. He was met by the Vatican treasurer and secretary of state, who told him that the Holy Father himself had given orders for the deficit to be filled with gold vessels taken from the Treasury.”[12]

Pius XII also took a public stance concerning the Jews of Italy: "The Pope spoke out strongly in their defense with the first mass arrests of Jews in 1943, and L’Osservatore Romano carried an article protesting the internment of Jews and the confiscation of their property. The Fascist press came to call the Vatican paper ‘a mouthpiece of the Jews.’ "[13]
Prior to the Nazi invasion, the Pope had been working hard to get Jews out of Italy by emigration; he now was forced to turn his attention to finding them hiding places. “The Pope sent out the order that religious buildings were to give refuge to Jews, even at the price of great personal sacrifice on the part of their occupants; he released monasteries and convents from the cloister rule forbidding entry into these religious houses to all but a few specified outsiders, so that they could be used as hiding places. Thousands of Jews—the figures run from 4,000 to 7,000—were hidden, fed, clothed, and bedded in the 180 known places of refuge in Vatican City, churches and basilicas, Church administrative buildings, and parish houses. Unknown numbers of Jews were sheltered in Castel Gandolfo, the site of the Pope’s summer residence, private homes, hospitals, and nursing institutions; and the Pope took personal responsibility for the care of the children of Jews deported from Italy.”[14]

Rabbi Lapide records that “in Rome we saw a list of 155 convents and monasteries—Italian, French, Spanish, English, American, and also German—mostly extraterritorial property of the Vatican . . . which sheltered throughout the German occupation some 5,000 Jews in Rome. No less than 3,000 Jews found refuge at one time at the Pope’s summer residence at Castel Gandolfo; sixty lived for nine months at the Jesuit Gregorian University, and half a dozen slept in the cellar of the Pontifical Bible Institute.”[15]

Notice in particular that the Pope was not merely allowing Jews to be hidden in different church buildings around Rome. He was hiding them in the Vatican itself and in his own summer home, Castel Gandolfo. His success in protecting Italian Jews against the Nazis was remarkable. Lichten records that after the War was over it was determined that only 8,000 Jews were taken from Italy by the Nazis[16] —far less than in other European countries. In June,1944, Pius XII sent a telegram to Admiral Miklos Horthy, the ruler of Hungary, and was able to halt the planned deportation of 800,000 Jews from that country.

The Pope’s efforts did not go unrecognized by Jewish authorities, even during the War. The Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, Isaac Herzog, sent the Pope a personal message of thanks on February 28, 1944, in which he said: “The people of Israel will never forget what His Holiness and his illustrious delegates, inspired by the eternal principles of religion which form the very foundations of true civilization, are doing for us unfortunate brothers and sisters in the most tragic hour of our history, which is living proof of divine Providence in this world.”[17]

You can read the full article here: catholic.com/library/HOW_Pius_XII_PROTECTED_JEWS.asp

As to the Vatican Archives they are in fact quite open up until the year 1939. None of the Jewish “scholars” who attack the Vatican have ever visited in order to examine them.
Nonetheless the remaining archives will be open when the material is cataloged. That is an important process which has to be done first. I work in a library myself and I know the importance of cataloging a collection of documents or books first. That’s just standard procedure.

C.

 

[KC91]

He also literally watched from his window when thousands of Jews in Rome were rounded up by the German’s after Mussolini’s government fell. And no one had any illusions as to the fate of those people.

His silence was the lesser of two evils as there were thousands of Jews hidden in the Vatican and Churches in Rome and if he had spoken out the ones being deported as well as the ones hiding would have all perished. So it was a matter of minimalising deaths.