Pope Pius XII Moves Closer to Beatification

[chosen_people]

The third statement is untrue. The letter or document was a fabricated document and historical evidence shows to the contrary that children were in fact united with their families as Catholicleague points out. So your third statement is a flat lie.

Well if William A. Donohue and the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights (here’s just one choice quote from him " We’ve already won. Who really cares what Hollywood thinks? All these hacks come out there. Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It’s not a secret, okay? And I’m not afraid to say it. … Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes. I like families. I like children. They like abortions. I believe in traditional values and restraint. They believe in libertinism. We have nothing in common. But you know what? The culture war has been ongoing for a long time. Their side has lost. [MSNBC, Scarborough Country, 12/8/04] says its a lie???

 

[bones_IV]

Well if William A. Donohue and the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights (here’s just one choice quote from him " We’ve already won. Who really cares what Hollywood thinks? All these hacks come out there. Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It’s not a secret, okay? And I’m not afraid to say it. … Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes. I like families. I like children. They like abortions. I believe in traditional values and restraint. They believe in libertinism. We have nothing in common. But you know what? The culture war has been ongoing for a long time. Their side has lost. [MSNBC, Scarborough Country, 12/8/04] says its a lie???

To give you a better example of what I mean the New York Times is what I would call the gospel of the AntiChrist. Pius XII’s detractors are no different from Fundamentalists always telling us Catholics that we worship the Virgin Mary and other Saints. And when we tell them that’s not how it is, they won’t believe us. Pius XII’s detractors behave exactly the same way. The Vatican could let them in tommorow, let them have free reign for the next 2 weeks and they still would not be satisfied.

 

[bones_IV]

*"*A similar mistranslation hit the press in 2005, when the New York Times ran an article based on an unsigned document, not on Vatican letterhead and in the wrong language, that reportedly had been found in a Paris archive. According to the Times, this was a directive from Pius XII instructing Catholics who had taken Jewish children into their households during the Nazi occupation. Supposedly, the Pope told these rescuers not to return the children to their parents if the youngsters had been baptized.
Within a week, thanks again to careful archiving, the Pope’s original instruction was found, and it was quite different from the news reports. The Pope actually said that Catholic parents had an on-going duty to the Jewish families. They were instructed not to dump these children on the first charity group that approached them. They should, of course, return the children to their parents."

catholicleague.org/catalyst/2007_catalyst/0307_printpages/essay.htm

 

[chosen_people]

"The fact is that Pius XII knew as early as 1942 (from a letter he had received from Kurt Gerstein, an SS officer, who had provided Zyklon B to gas inmates at concentration and death camps), that Hitler had initiated a final solution but the Pius still continued his silence.

As a former Vatican official, Father Martin Malachi, wrote in one of his books that Pius XII had the Gerstein report, and as a result, he told the German Ambassador to the Vatican, Baron Von Weizsaecker that, If such is true and if it continues, we will be forced to speak.

But it continued. And even as late as 1945, Pius XII never issued a word of condemnation. Officially his name is Pius XII, but as far as the Jews are concerned, he will be known as Pius the Silent"

SOURCE:wiesenthal.com/site/apps/s/content.asp?c=fwLYKnN8LzH&b=253162&ct=286444

 

[chosen_people]

September 10, 1998

His Holiness Pope John Paul II
Vatican City
00120 Vatican City State

Your Holiness:

I am writing to you about a very disturbing matter. There have been persistent reports that Your Holiness plans to canonize three of your papal predecessors including Pius XII. When this possibility was first raised in June 1992, I shared my grave concerns with Cardinal Cassidy, but unfortunately I must say those concerns have been all but ignored.

Under your papacy, great strides have been made by the Church in reaching out to the Jewish people - the Vaticans recognition of the State of Israel, the Churchs historic document on the Shoah, your visit to the Rome Synagogue and to the concentration camps. Jews around the world have admired your courage and saluted those gestures.

But I am afraid the sainthood of Pius XII will significantly detract from those accomplishments.

While it is normally not the practice of non-Catholics to comment on the worthiness of the Churchs candidates, Pope Pius XII must surely qualify as an exception to that rule. During his pontificate, the most horrific war known to mankind was fought, a war in which fifty million people lost their lives. During that war, the Nazis unleashed their diabolical plot to murder all the worlds Jews. Indeed, they succeeded in exterminating six million – one-third of the entire Jewish population. From the outset of the conflict to its conclusion, Pope Pius XII sat on the throne of St. Peter in stony silence, as the trains carrying millions of unsuspecting victims criss-crossed Europe en route to the gas chambers.

The overwhelming body of scholarly evidence from Jewish and non-Jewish sources including the released Vatican documents on the Second World War, shows that Pius XII was perhaps the best informed leader on what was really happening in Europe at the time. Yet, not once did the supreme Pontiff muster the courage to condemn the Nazis publicly.

Not once did the Pope lift his voice in unequivocal terms to protest the deportations and murder of the Jews, as the Archbishop of Ponlouse or the Bishop of Montauban did in France, or as Bishop Giuseppe Placido Nicolini did in Italy, or Father Bernard Lichtenberg did in Germany, or as Bishop Apor of Gyor did in Hungary, all placing themselves at much greater risk than Pope Pius XII.

In fact, when Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, Pius XII was jubilant, knelt in prayer and said a novena for the total victory of the Fuehrers armies, a sentiment he was still invoking as late as 1943, even though that was tantamount to endorsing Hitlers entire extermination policy (given the fact, well-known in 1943 at the Vatican, that the Nazis followed up all their military campaigns by deporting and murdering all the Jews).

Some defenders of Pius XII often cite the following paragraph from his 1942 Christmas speech: This is a vow that mankind owes to the innumerable exiles whom the hurricane of war has torn from their homeland and scattered abroad. This is a vow that mankind owes to the hundreds of thousands of people who, though no fault of their own, and sometimes only on grounds of nationality or origin, are destined for death or slow deterioration…

This speech which the Church knows was received with great disappointment by President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and by the Poles, was found to be so ambiguous that The New York Times, in its December 25, 1942 edition used the headline Pope Assails Peril of Godless State in describing it. An examination of the captured German documents after the war reveal that it was never even noticed by the Nazis, much less interpreted as a Papal defense of the Jews.

 

[chosen_people]

Let us compare that ambiguity with the same Pius XIIs decisive denunciation of the euthanasia program against the infirm and mentally handicapped, which he refers to in his pastoral letter of June 1943: We see the bodily deformed, the insane and those suffering from hereditary disease, at times deprived of their lives, as though they were a useless burden to society. This procedure is hailed by some as a new discovery of human progress, and is something that is altogether justified by the common good. Yet what sane man does not recognize that this not only violates the natural and divine law written in the heart of every man, but flies in the face of every sensibility of civilized humanity? The blood of these victims, all the dearer to our redeemer, because deserving of greater pity, cries to G-d from the earth.

The distinction is quite obvious. By forcefully condemning euthanasia, the Pope could anticipate finding a responsive chord among the German people, but to publicly defend the Jews would be an act of courage that was beyond the capacity of Pope Pius XII.

Not only did the Popes silence extend to the Jews, but it even applied to Catholic Poland, as President Raczkiewicz wrote to Pius from London on January 2, 1943: In this tragic moment my people are struggling not only for their existence. . . They do not want revenge, but justice, they are not asking for material and diplomatic help. . . but they beg for a voice that points to the evil clearly and strongly and condemns those who are at the service of this evil."

But his voice was never heard.

The sad truth is that only at the end of 1943 and early 1944, when most of the Jews had already been murdered, and when it was abundantly clear to the entire world that Nazi Germany had lost the War, only then did Pius XII entertain the notion of saving Jews. (It was for his belated efforts in 1944 that Chief Rabbi Herzog, among others, would later thank him).

It is my firm belief that had Monsignor Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (the future John XXIII) been Pope at the time or had Your Holiness been Pope then, the Vatican most certainly would have publicly and vigorously protested Adolf Hitlers policies!

Even senior Church officials such as Cardinal Tisserant knew the truth about Pius XII when he wrote: I am afraid that history may be obliged in time to come to blame the Holy See for a policy accommodating to its own advantage and little more…and that is extremely sad…above all when one has lived under Pius XI.

The successor to Cardinal Faulhaber, in Germany, Cardinal Julius Doepfner, in a sermon commemorating Pope Pius XII said: The retrospective judgment of history provides every ground for the view that Pius XII should have protested with greater firmness.

The heroic priest, Father Salvatore Rufino Niccacci who was among those who risked their lives to provide safe haven for 300 Jews in Assisi, wondered of Pius XII: Isnt his role as the spiritual leader of the Church more important than his role as politician or head of state?

I must say, Your Holiness, the Churchs insistence of moving ahead with Pius XIIs Beatification and Canonization, even in the lifetime of tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors who endured unspeakable suffering and witnessed his silence firsthand, is especially troubling. For the survivors of the Holocaust, Your Holiness, granting sainthood to Pius XII desecrates the memory of our ancestors and millions of martyrs, by allowing the world to think that a saint was enthroned nearby in Rome, while they were being taken to the crematoria without even an echo of a protest.

Undoubtedly, there were saints in those terrible years. But the historical record shows that Pope Pius XII was not one of them.

Respectfully,

Rabbi Marvin Hier
Dean

SOURCE:wiesenthal.com/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=fwLYKnN8LzH&b=254471&ct=287123

 

[bones_IV]

Let us compare that ambiguity with the same Pius XIIs decisive denunciation of the euthanasia program against the infirm and mentally handicapped, which he refers to in his pastoral letter of June 1943: We see the bodily deformed, the insane and those suffering from hereditary disease, at times deprived of their lives, as though they were a useless burden to society. This procedure is hailed by some as a new discovery of human progress, and is something that is altogether justified by the common good. Yet what sane man does not recognize that this not only violates the natural and divine law written in the heart of every man, but flies in the face of every sensibility of civilized humanity? The blood of these victims, all the dearer to our redeemer, because deserving of greater pity, cries to G-d from the earth.

The distinction is quite obvious. By forcefully condemning euthanasia, the Pope could anticipate finding a responsive chord among the German people, but to publicly defend the Jews would be an act of courage that was beyond the capacity of Pope Pius XII.

Not only did the Popes silence extend to the Jews, but it even applied to Catholic Poland, as President Raczkiewicz wrote to Pius from London on January 2, 1943: In this tragic moment my people are struggling not only for their existence. . . They do not want revenge, but justice, they are not asking for material and diplomatic help. . . but they beg for a voice that points to the evil clearly and strongly and condemns those who are at the service of this evil."

But his voice was never heard.

The sad truth is that only at the end of 1943 and early 1944, when most of the Jews had already been murdered, and when it was abundantly clear to the entire world that Nazi Germany had lost the War, only then did Pius XII entertain the notion of saving Jews. (It was for his belated efforts in 1944 that Chief Rabbi Herzog, among others, would later thank him).

It is my firm belief that had Monsignor Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (the future John XXIII) been Pope at the time or had Your Holiness been Pope then, the Vatican most certainly would have publicly and vigorously protested Adolf Hitlers policies!

Even senior Church officials such as Cardinal Tisserant knew the truth about Pius XII when he wrote: I am afraid that history may be obliged in time to come to blame the Holy See for a policy accommodating to its own advantage and little more…and that is extremely sad…above all when one has lived under Pius XI.

The successor to Cardinal Faulhaber, in Germany, Cardinal Julius Doepfner, in a sermon commemorating Pope Pius XII said: The retrospective judgment of history provides every ground for the view that Pius XII should have protested with greater firmness.

The heroic priest, Father Salvatore Rufino Niccacci who was among those who risked their lives to provide safe haven for 300 Jews in Assisi, wondered of Pius XII: Isnt his role as the spiritual leader of the Church more important than his role as politician or head of state?

I must say, Your Holiness, the Churchs insistence of moving ahead with Pius XIIs Beatification and Canonization, even in the lifetime of tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors who endured unspeakable suffering and witnessed his silence firsthand, is especially troubling. For the survivors of the Holocaust, Your Holiness, granting sainthood to Pius XII desecrates the memory of our ancestors and millions of martyrs, by allowing the world to think that a saint was enthroned nearby in Rome, while they were being taken to the crematoria without even an echo of a protest.

Undoubtedly, there were saints in those terrible years. But the historical record shows that Pope Pius XII was not one of them.

Respectfully,

Rabbi Marvin Hier
Dean

SOURCE:wiesenthal.com/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=fwLYKnN8LzH&b=254471&ct=287123

You’re just simply trying to deceive and mislead the flock. Whether you like it or not we canonize which ever saint we want to chosen people. You cry and whine about it all you want to. What this Rabbi says here doesn’t change the reality. The Catholic Church is tired of being lectured by people like yourself of what saints we can canonize and which saints we can’t. Why are you here to plague us? May God remove the filth and gunk out your of heart you a-historical bigot.

 

[bones_IV]

Let us compare that ambiguity with the same Pius XIIs decisive denunciation of the euthanasia program against the infirm and mentally handicapped, which he refers to in his pastoral letter of June 1943: We see the bodily deformed, the insane and those suffering from hereditary disease, at times deprived of their lives, as though they were a useless burden to society. This procedure is hailed by some as a new discovery of human progress, and is something that is altogether justified by the common good. Yet what sane man does not recognize that this not only violates the natural and divine law written in the heart of every man, but flies in the face of every sensibility of civilized humanity? The blood of these victims, all the dearer to our redeemer, because deserving of greater pity, cries to G-d from the earth.

The distinction is quite obvious. By forcefully condemning euthanasia, the Pope could anticipate finding a responsive chord among the German people, but to publicly defend the Jews would be an act of courage that was beyond the capacity of Pope Pius XII.

Not only did the Popes silence extend to the Jews, but it even applied to Catholic Poland, as President Raczkiewicz wrote to Pius from London on January 2, 1943: In this tragic moment my people are struggling not only for their existence. . . They do not want revenge, but justice, they are not asking for material and diplomatic help. . . but they beg for a voice that points to the evil clearly and strongly and condemns those who are at the service of this evil."

But his voice was never heard.

The sad truth is that only at the end of 1943 and early 1944, when most of the Jews had already been murdered, and when it was abundantly clear to the entire world that Nazi Germany had lost the War, only then did Pius XII entertain the notion of saving Jews. (It was for his belated efforts in 1944 that Chief Rabbi Herzog, among others, would later thank him).

It is my firm belief that had Monsignor Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (the future John XXIII) been Pope at the time or had Your Holiness been Pope then, the Vatican most certainly would have publicly and vigorously protested Adolf Hitlers policies!

Even senior Church officials such as Cardinal Tisserant knew the truth about Pius XII when he wrote: I am afraid that history may be obliged in time to come to blame the Holy See for a policy accommodating to its own advantage and little more…and that is extremely sad…above all when one has lived under Pius XI.

The successor to Cardinal Faulhaber, in Germany, Cardinal Julius Doepfner, in a sermon commemorating Pope Pius XII said: The retrospective judgment of history provides every ground for the view that Pius XII should have protested with greater firmness.

The heroic priest, Father Salvatore Rufino Niccacci who was among those who risked their lives to provide safe haven for 300 Jews in Assisi, wondered of Pius XII: Isnt his role as the spiritual leader of the Church more important than his role as politician or head of state?

I must say, Your Holiness, the Churchs insistence of moving ahead with Pius XIIs Beatification and Canonization, even in the lifetime of tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors who endured unspeakable suffering and witnessed his silence firsthand, is especially troubling. For the survivors of the Holocaust, Your Holiness, granting sainthood to Pius XII desecrates the memory of our ancestors and millions of martyrs, by allowing the world to think that a saint was enthroned nearby in Rome, while they were being taken to the crematoria without even an echo of a protest.

Undoubtedly, there were saints in those terrible years. But the historical record shows that Pope Pius XII was not one of them.

Respectfully,

Rabbi Marvin Hier
Dean

SOURCE:wiesenthal.com/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=fwLYKnN8LzH&b=254471&ct=287123

You want to know how much the Nazi’s “loved” the Catholic Church? They smashed the residence of the Archbishop of Vienna. Their newspapers called Pius XI and half-blooded Jew and Pius XII a full blooded Jew. Hitler even said, “Pius XII is the only person that has contradicted me and has never obeyed me.” The Nazi newspapers referred to the Vatican as the “Roman Deputy and his Jewish God.” That’s how much the Nazi’s “loved” the Church.

 

[bones_IV]

The reason why we keep the archives safe and locked is because we have a thing called privacy and it must be respected.

 

[bones_IV]

Encyclical Mit brennender Sorge

Whoever identifies, by pantheistic confusion, God and the universe, by either lowering God to the dimensions of the world, or raising the world to the dimensions of God, is not a believer in God. Whoever follows that so-called pre-Christian Germanic conception of substituting a dark and impersonal destiny for the personal God, denies thereby the Wisdom and Providence of God who "Reacheth from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly"

**8. Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community - however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things - whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds.

**Chosen people, what would you have had the Church do? Tell the believers to march directly to their deaths? Because leaving the Nazi party and refusing to fight meant exactly that.

---

 

[chosen_people]

You want to know how much the Nazi’s “loved” the Catholic Church? They smashed the residence of the Archbishop of Vienna. Their newspapers called Pius XI and half-blooded Jew and Pius XII a full blooded Jew. Hitler even said, “Pius XII is the only person that has contradicted me and has never obeyed me.” The Nazi newspapers referred to the Vatican as the “Roman Deputy and his Jewish God.” That’s how much the Nazi’s “loved” the Church.

Hitler, a Catholic, in his early speeches (1920’s) often refered to Yehoshua bar Yosef driving the “money lenders” (read:Jews) from the temple. His edicts enclosing Jews in ghettoes, forcing them to wear a yellow star of david to identify themselves as Jews, stripping them of all legal and civil rights, were merely the revival of Catholic church edicts against the Jews.

Part of the tragedy of the Holocaust is that we speak of “righteous gentiles”. In a good society the righteous would not have been the exception but the norm.

There were brave and good Catholics who during the holocaust risked their lives acting heroically and morally. All evidence points to Pius not being one of them. The question is indeed not what Jews or others believe as to the worthiness of an individual for Catholic sainthood. The question is what Catholics wish to demand of themselves.

 

[LilyM]

Abraham Foxman is still living in denial as he always does. He’s simply a self-hating Jew. What he says here is a backhanded complement to Mother Church. I think the ADL really gives Jews a bad name. Rabbi Dalin had the courage to defend Pius XII when no one else would. Foxman needs to wake up and smell the coffee. I just have to laugh when he says, “Until all the Vatican’s secret World War II-era archives are declassified and made available to legitimate independent scholars for study and analysis, Pius XII’s record vis-à-vis Jews will continue to be shrouded, and a source of controversy and contention.” All he needs to do is check Israel’s archives and he’ll find that Pius save many Jews from the hands of the Nazis.

adl.org/PresRele/VaticanJewish_96/5048_96.htm

The chief rabbi of Rome during World War II, Israele Anton Zolli, converted to Catholicism in 1945, that’s how disgusted he was by how little the Church and the Pope in particular had done for the Jews.

Here is an excellent source on the mountains of praise heaped on Pius XII’s efforts against Nazism and for the protection of the Jewish people during the war.

 

[chosen_people]

The chief rabbi of Rome during World War II, Israele Anton Zolli, converted to Catholicism in 1945, that’s how disgusted he was by how little the Church and the Pope in particular had done for the Jews.

Here is an excellent source on the mountains of praise heaped on Pius XII’s efforts against Nazism and for the protection of the Jewish people during the war.

The Chief Rabbi of Rome abandoned the Jewish community to their fate, deportation and death, and ran and hid in the Vatican during the war. He was totally and completely ostracized by the entire Jewish community. You were welcome to him. Perhaps you can make him a saint.

 

[LilyM]

The Chief Rabbi of Rome abandoned the Jewish community to their fate, deportation and death, and ran and hid in the Vatican during the war. He was totally and completely ostracized by the entire Jewish community. You were welcome to him. Perhaps you can make him a saint.

‘Ran and hid’? between 4,000 and 7,000 other Jews were hiding there with him - and were saved by Pius directly. Hardly a tiny number. Was every single one of them a coward? And where else exactly do you think he should have been except where these thousands were who needed him? Mind you that was just in Vatican City itself - many more were also hidden in Castel Gandolfo.

And I suppose you think Golda Meir who praised Pius was a coward too? And all the dozens of others, including Albert Einstein, who also praised Pius XII?? Just read the article.

 

[chosen_people]

‘Ran and hid’? between 4,000 and 7,000 other Jews were hiding there with him - and were saved by Pius directly. Hardly a tiny number. Was every single one of them a coward? And where else exactly do you think he should have been except where these thousands were who needed him? Mind you that was just in Vatican City itself - many more were also hidden in Castel Gandolfo.

And I suppose you think Golda Meir who praised Pius was a coward too? And all the dozens of others, including Albert Einstein, who also praised Pius XII?? Just read the article.

The Pope’s indifference to the mistreatment of Jews was often clear. In 1941, for example, after being asked by French Marshal Henri Philippe Petain if the Vatican would object to anti-Jewish laws, Pius XII answered that the church condemned racism, but did not repudiate every rule against the Jews.(16) When Petain’s French puppet government introduced “Jewish statutes,” the Vichy ambassador to the Holy See informed Petain that the Vatican did not consider the legislation in conflict with Catholic teachings, as long as they were carried out with “charity” and “justice.”(17)

In a September 1940 broadcast, the Vatican called its policy “neutrality,” but stated in the same broadcast that where morality was involved, no neutrality was possible.(18) This could only imply that mass murder was not a moral issue.

On September 8, 1943, the Nazis invaded Italy and, suddenly, the Vatican was the local authority. The Nazis gave the Jews 36 hours to come up with 50 kilograms of gold or else the Nazis would take 300 hostages. The Vatican was willing to loan 15 kilos, an offer that eventually proved unnecessary when the Jews obtained an extension for the delivery.(19)

Pius XII knew that Jewish deportations from Italy were impending. The Vatican even found out from SS First Lieutenant Kurt Gerstein the fate of those who were to be deported.(20) Publicly, the Pope stayed silent. Privately, Pius did instruct Catholic institutions to take in Jews. The Vatican itself hid 477 Jews and another 4,238 Jews were protected in Roman monasteries and convents.(21)

On October 16, the Nazis arrested 1,007 Roman Jews, the majority of whom were women and children. They were taken to Auschwitz, where 811 were gassed immediately. Of those sent to the concentration camp, 16 survived.(22)

source:jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/pius.html

 

[LilyM]

The Pope’s indifference to the mistreatment of Jews was often clear. In 1941, for example, after being asked by French Marshal Henri Philippe Petain if the Vatican would object to anti-Jewish laws, Pius XII answered that the church condemned racism, but did not repudiate every rule against the Jews.(16) When Petain’s French puppet government introduced “Jewish statutes,” the Vichy ambassador to the Holy See informed Petain that the Vatican did not consider the legislation in conflict with Catholic teachings, as long as they were carried out with “charity” and “justice.”(17)

In a September 1940 broadcast, the Vatican called its policy “neutrality,” but stated in the same broadcast that where morality was involved, no neutrality was possible.(18) This could only imply that mass murder was not a moral issue.

On September 8, 1943, the Nazis invaded Italy and, suddenly, the Vatican was the local authority. The Nazis gave the Jews 36 hours to come up with 50 kilograms of gold or else the Nazis would take 300 hostages. The Vatican was willing to loan 15 kilos, an offer that eventually proved unnecessary when the Jews obtained an extension for the delivery.(19)

Pius XII knew that Jewish deportations from Italy were impending. The Vatican even found out from SS First Lieutenant Kurt Gerstein the fate of those who were to be deported.(20) Publicly, the Pope stayed silent. Privately, Pius did instruct Catholic institutions to take in Jews. The Vatican itself hid 477 Jews and another 4,238 Jews were protected in Roman monasteries and convents.(21)

On October 16, the Nazis arrested 1,007 Roman Jews, the majority of whom were women and children. They were taken to Auschwitz, where 811 were gassed immediately. Of those sent to the concentration camp, 16 survived.(22)

source:jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/pius.html

What are your sources for the Vatican only hiding 477 Jews???

 

[LilyM]

The Pope’s indifference to the mistreatment of Jews was often clear. In 1941, for example, after being asked by French Marshal Henri Philippe Petain if the Vatican would object to anti-Jewish laws, Pius XII answered that the church condemned racism, but did not repudiate every rule against the Jews.(16) When Petain’s French puppet government introduced “Jewish statutes,” the Vichy ambassador to the Holy See informed Petain that the Vatican did not consider the legislation in conflict with Catholic teachings, as long as they were carried out with “charity” and “justice.”(17)

In a September 1940 broadcast, the Vatican called its policy “neutrality,” but stated in the same broadcast that where morality was involved, no neutrality was possible.(18) This could only imply that mass murder was not a moral issue.

On September 8, 1943, the Nazis invaded Italy and, suddenly, the Vatican was the local authority. The Nazis gave the Jews 36 hours to come up with 50 kilograms of gold or else the Nazis would take 300 hostages. The Vatican was willing to loan 15 kilos, an offer that eventually proved unnecessary when the Jews obtained an extension for the delivery.(19)

Pius XII knew that Jewish deportations from Italy were impending. The Vatican even found out from SS First Lieutenant Kurt Gerstein the fate of those who were to be deported.(20) Publicly, the Pope stayed silent. Privately, Pius did instruct Catholic institutions to take in Jews. The Vatican itself hid 477 Jews and another 4,238 Jews were protected in Roman monasteries and convents.(21)

On October 16, the Nazis arrested 1,007 Roman Jews, the majority of whom were women and children. They were taken to Auschwitz, where 811 were gassed immediately. Of those sent to the concentration camp, 16 survived.(22)

source:jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/pius.html

Thanks - so Pius was willing to give 15 kilos of gold to save Roman Jews, hmmm? Did any of your reading tell you the little factoid that he was actually prepared to melt down sacred vessels to come up with this quantity? Hardly sounds like someone who was indifferent to the fate of the Jews.

 

[chosen_people]

Thanks - so Pius was willing to give 15 kilos of gold to save Roman Jews, hmmm? Did any of your reading tell you the little factoid that he was actually prepared to melt down sacred vessels to come up with this quantity? Hardly sounds like someone who was indifferent to the fate of the Jews.

The factual source for the article I cited may be found in the footnotes on the website.

Once again apparently Pius was “prepared” to do something but infact didn’t do it.

In reply to those who quoted Golda Meir and others in support of Pius. Those comments were made in the 1950’s. Additional information concerning Pius’ acts of ommissions became clearer in following years.

 

[bones_IV]

The factual source for the article I cited may be found in the footnotes on the website.

Once again apparently Pius was “prepared” to do something but infact didn’t do it.

In reply to those who quoted Golda Meir and others in support of Pius. Those comments were made in the 1950’s. Additional information concerning Pius’ acts of ommissions became clearer in following years.

I noticed in your posts you don’t provide one iota of documentation. Not one documentation refers back to the Vatican archives.

In case you haven’t noticed, the Vatican has no standing army to invade countries like Nazi Germany and set everything straight. The Church makes her point in other ways, not the least by speaking the Truth in difficult times. Perhaps you missed the point made about Edith Stein–by stating the Truth, the Dutch Bishops guaranteed the deaths of Jewish convert believers. How, exactly, was justice served in this case?

And how, exactly, would the deaths of most of the practicing Catholics in Nazi Germany served the Church or God? The Truth was spoken, the threats were rebuffed, but death and killing continued because the Vatican does not convert by the sword, nor does the Church require the martyrdom of believers.

Heroic virtue will make you a saint, but not if it’s forced upon you. You must choose it to gain sainthood. You don’t even now what sainthood is. Who are you to dictate to us Catholics what sainthood is?

 

[chosen_people]

I noticed in your posts you don’t provide one iota of documentation. Not one documentation refers back to the Vatican archives.

In case you haven’t noticed, the Vatican has no standing army to invade countries like Nazi Germany and set everything straight. The Church makes her point in other ways, not the least by speaking the Truth in difficult times. Perhaps you missed the point made about Edith Stein–by stating the Truth, the Dutch Bishops guaranteed the deaths of Jewish convert believers. How, exactly, was justice served in this case?

And how, exactly, would the deaths of most of the practicing Catholics in Nazi Germany served the Church or God? The Truth was spoken, the threats were rebuffed, but death and killing continued because the Vatican does not convert by the sword, nor does the Church require the martyrdom of believers.

Heroic virtue will make you a saint, but not if it’s forced upon you. You must choose it to gain sainthood. You don’t even now what sainthood is. Who are you to dictate to us Catholics what sainthood is?

Actually all my posts were accompanied by references to internet sites. On those sites you will find references to documentation supporting the claims in the articles. It is you who on the one hand have made claims without showing their foundation while on the other hand making the specious argument that the Vatican is right to hide their archives concerning this period from researchers for “reasons of privacy”.

The plain fact of the matter is that many Catholics did act in a moral way. Some paid for it with their own lives. Others saved many lives. Pius could have acted with moral fortitude but chose not to.

Sainthood for Pius is an affront to those holocaust survivors alive today who were led to the camps while Pius remained silent and only began belatedly to take steps after it was clear that Germany would lose the war. Perhaps more importantly it is an affront to the families of all the righteous gentiles who had the courage to act.

“First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.”

Pastor Martin Niemöller