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Franciscan
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I could see why he would want any closed documents to be examined. In the end the truth is that Pope Pius XII went above and beyond in a prudent manner to benefit and preserve all human life(Jew/nonJew).
The issue is whether the Israeli Envoy really understands the process of canonization and what it means to declare someone a Saint. He probably thinks its just an honorary title given to a dead person by a purely human organization just to make people upset.
When in fact it is a supernatural statement/recognition of one’s status as a participant(intercession) in Heaven (the Church Triumphant).
He seems to thinks its a political move rather than a theological reality.
The issue is whether the Israeli Envoy really understands the process of canonization and what it means to declare someone a Saint. He probably thinks its just an honorary title given to a dead person by a purely human organization just to make people upset.
When in fact it is a supernatural statement/recognition of one’s status as a participant(intercession) in Heaven (the Church Triumphant).
He seems to thinks its a political move rather than a theological reality.
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Della
Guest
No matter what the Vatican reveals there are going to be people who are going to believe the worst about Pius XII because it feeds their need to blame the Church for things outside of its control. It’s unreasonable, and so cannot be refuted with reason.
The Israeli ambassador ought to tell what he knows to be the truth to his government and make sure it gets published if he is so concerned. After all, it’s many of his people making false charges, so in all justice, he ought to take the lead in getting the truth to them.
The Israeli ambassador ought to tell what he knows to be the truth to his government and make sure it gets published if he is so concerned. After all, it’s many of his people making false charges, so in all justice, he ought to take the lead in getting the truth to them.
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DWPC
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Though there is much anecdotal evidence that PPXII did everything he could to resist the Nazis, he’s been considered “guilty until proven innocent” by the media and many Jews, especially the post-WWII gen who’ve heard mostly negative about the Vatican during WWII. There was play written in the 60s that was extremely accusatory, and though it was fiction, it was widely performed and accepted as “probably” correct by many who find the Church a ready target (I don’t recall the title or playwrite but some will).
This request puts the Vatican in quandary. If they postpone, it will appear they agree that PXII has a blemished record. If they don’t, and if ten years from now the secret archives do show negative information, it will be viewed that the Church proceeded with the PXII beatification with negative information about PXII. I think it was unreasonable. If the Vatican was involved with the Nazis at any level, I can’t imagine that it was not known to the Israeli govt, and that they would have long ago warned the Vatican.
However, I do think that there seems to be quite rush to get 20th Century figures, several contemporary, canonized, and a bit of patience isn’t a bad thing. Heaven is said to be timeless, so the candidates probably won’t mind waiting a few more decades very much.
This request puts the Vatican in quandary. If they postpone, it will appear they agree that PXII has a blemished record. If they don’t, and if ten years from now the secret archives do show negative information, it will be viewed that the Church proceeded with the PXII beatification with negative information about PXII. I think it was unreasonable. If the Vatican was involved with the Nazis at any level, I can’t imagine that it was not known to the Israeli govt, and that they would have long ago warned the Vatican.
However, I do think that there seems to be quite rush to get 20th Century figures, several contemporary, canonized, and a bit of patience isn’t a bad thing. Heaven is said to be timeless, so the candidates probably won’t mind waiting a few more decades very much.
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Gottle_of_Geer
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Rolf Hochhuth’s “Der Stellvetreter” (The Deputy), which appeared in 1963.
If he’s a saint, a delay will allow more evidence to be accumulated, & more time for any complaints against him to be made. It won’t affect him 
And there will be more time for devotion to him to grow; which in turn can be adduced as evidenced of his sanctity.
If he is not a saint, the Church will have been protected from canonising someone who is (on this hypothesis) not an example of Christian holiness.The Church has survived without canonising him for the best part of 50 years - she can surely survive 50, or even 5000, more. Innocent XI (1676-89) was not beatified until 1956 - he has still not been canonised.
ISTM canonisations are easier to appreciate if they not frequent - otherwise one gets sick of hearing about them
Non-stop canonisations, especuially of huge groups - fifty here, 100 there - of people who’ve not been beatified very long, LTM like a form of “hagiological consumerism” . St. Boethius (d. 525) was not formally canonised for over 1350 years - yet people get in a flap because Cardinal Newman (d. 1890; cause opened 1958; declared Venerable 1991) hasn’t been beatified. ##
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batteddy
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I wish people, like the Jews and Chinese, would stay out of OUR INTERNAL AFFAIRS. If OUR religion wants to declare people Saints that is OUR bussiness. They should not see it as a political issue. They aren’t in our religion, and if they don’t want to believe it…they don’t have to. Why does a Jew care if Pius XII is declared a Saint either way? They don’t believe it means anything, and if they don’t believe he was a good man…they’ll believe that whether he is canonized or not.
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bones_IV
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Yeah, no kidding. The media is terrible towards us.
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Karin
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I think that the Israeli Envoy needs to worry about his own faith and state matters!
MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS…the Vatican does not tell Israel what to do…why should they tell the Vatican what to do??
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Richardols
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Negative information is no obstacle. St. Augustine caused his mother no end of grief and pain and he had a mistress besides. Maximilian Kolbe wrote some decidedly anti-semitic pamphlets. Other saints as well weren’t necessarily holy their entire lives.
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bones_IV
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Answer by Matthew Bunson on 10-01-2002: I know of no valid reason of any kind to accuse St. Maximilian Kolbe of anti-Semitism. On the contrary, he was deeply concerned with protecting Jews from the Nazis and was one of the most outspoken opponents of Nazism in Poland. This extraordinary Franciscan Conventual and founder of the sodality of the Militia of Mary Immaculate in 1917 was renowned in his own era as a journalist, earning the enmity of the Nazis for his writings. Thus when Poland fell in September of 1939, Kolbe was arrested for what the Nazis considered illegal activities. Released, he was picked up again in February 1941 for giving aid to Jews and assisting members of the Polish underground. Sent to Auschwitz, Kolbe, as prisoner 16670, was subjected to especially brutal treatment because he was a Catholic priest. His death is worth noting again:An SS guard, for example, attempted to beat him to death, leaving his broken body in a wood. Surviving, Kolbe gave comfort to his fellow prisoners, reminding them that there was glory in the Cross. One day, ten men were picked by the SS to be starved to death in reprisal for a prison escape. Kolbe stepped forward and asked to be chosen in the place of Franciszek Gajowniczek, a onetime sergeant in the Polish army who was married. Surprisingly, the SS officers agreed, and Kolbe joined the others. As his fellow prisoners died, Kolbe prayed for each, aiding them in their final hours. Greatly disturbed by Kolbe’s patience and calm forbearance, the guards hastened his demise by injecting him with phenol. He died on August 14, 1941, and was cremated.
Pope John Paul II canonized him on October 10, 1982,declaring him a martyr for the 20th century.
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bones_IV
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Richardols
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Excerpted from the New York Review of Books, Vol 30, #6, dated April 14, 1983, Kolbe and Anti-Semitism:
In a review of Thomas Keneally’s Schindler’s List and Patricia Treece’s A Man for Others: Maximilian Kolbe, Saint of Auschwitz in the Words of Those Who Knew Him, John Gross noted that Father Kolbe did accept uncritically the picture of a Zionist-Jewish-Masonic conspiracy presented in the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, a work widely circulated in the Poland of his day. Thus, several of his mentions of Jews speak approvingly of the Protocols, and one can find such phrases as “Jewish-Masonic conspiracy,” “cruel clique of Jews,” and “their work (the Talmud) which breathes hatred against Christ and the Christians.”
Thus, while Maximilian Kolbe shared some of the anti-Semitic stereotypes so widespread in prewar Poland, his image of the Jews, as of all who did not share his faith, was of people who were prisoners of error, not objects of hatred. Whatever theories he espoused, when he acted it was in a spirit of respect and charity, as his supreme sacrifice at Auschwitz showed.
In a review of Thomas Keneally’s Schindler’s List and Patricia Treece’s A Man for Others: Maximilian Kolbe, Saint of Auschwitz in the Words of Those Who Knew Him, John Gross noted that Father Kolbe did accept uncritically the picture of a Zionist-Jewish-Masonic conspiracy presented in the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, a work widely circulated in the Poland of his day. Thus, several of his mentions of Jews speak approvingly of the Protocols, and one can find such phrases as “Jewish-Masonic conspiracy,” “cruel clique of Jews,” and “their work (the Talmud) which breathes hatred against Christ and the Christians.”
Thus, while Maximilian Kolbe shared some of the anti-Semitic stereotypes so widespread in prewar Poland, his image of the Jews, as of all who did not share his faith, was of people who were prisoners of error, not objects of hatred. Whatever theories he espoused, when he acted it was in a spirit of respect and charity, as his supreme sacrifice at Auschwitz showed.
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bones_IV
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You’ve been bitten by the political correctness bug.
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Karin
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From the records of Kolbe’s writings, sermons, and eyewitness testimony, it is clear that the Jewish question played a very minor role in Kolbe’s thought and work. Of his 10,006 extant letters and 396 other writings (newspaper and magazine writings, spiritual conferences, etc.), only thirty-one refer to Jews and Judaism. Their content is overwhelmingly spiritual and apostolic, with few comments of any kind on contemporary political, social, economic, or other secular concerns. His main interest was his missionary work; in Kolbe’s words,
Would an anti-Semite urge a woman of the neighborhood to help the war-impoverished Jews who came begging at her door? A somewhat anti-Semitic woman had actually asked Father Kolbe whether it was
Would an anti-Semite have graciously welcomed 1500 Jewish refugees into his friary, shared his living space and meager food supplies with them, gone out begging additional supplies for them from the neighborhood, and thoughtfully organized a New Year’s party for them to cheer them up? Kolbe and his friars did.
Would an anti-Semite have befriended a 13 year old Jewish boy in the genocidal, anti-Semitic atmosphere of Auschwitz, taken him into his arms like a mother hen, wiped away his tears, shared his food with him, restored his faith in God? Kolbe did.
Concludes Fr. Bernard, "For those willing to look at it, the evidence against Kolbe’s anti-Semitism is decisive."
consecration.com/antisemite.html
to seek the conversion of sinners, heretics, schismatics, Jews, etc., and especially, Masons.'...* *Perhaps Marytown's Kolbean scholar, Fr. Bernard Geiger, summarizes the argument best when he analyzed the charges at the time of the canonization. In "Kolbe an Anti-Semite’?" published in the Immaculata, March 1983, Father Bernard says,Would an anti-Semite urge a woman of the neighborhood to help the war-impoverished Jews who came begging at her door? A somewhat anti-Semitic woman had actually asked Father Kolbe whether it was
all right' to do this. Kolbe patiently reassured her, responding: Indeed we must do it because every man is our brother.’"Would an anti-Semite have graciously welcomed 1500 Jewish refugees into his friary, shared his living space and meager food supplies with them, gone out begging additional supplies for them from the neighborhood, and thoughtfully organized a New Year’s party for them to cheer them up? Kolbe and his friars did.
Would an anti-Semite have befriended a 13 year old Jewish boy in the genocidal, anti-Semitic atmosphere of Auschwitz, taken him into his arms like a mother hen, wiped away his tears, shared his food with him, restored his faith in God? Kolbe did.
Concludes Fr. Bernard, "For those willing to look at it, the evidence against Kolbe’s anti-Semitism is decisive."
consecration.com/antisemite.html
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prv
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If Pope Pius XII is a true saint (already in heaven), then delaying his canonization a few years won’t hurt him. Let people examine the record; then proceed with the canonization. However, I do believe, like most people here, that it is about time for non-Catholics to stay out of our internal affairs. I don’t think that canonization should be delayed a century more such that people are deprived of the opportunity to ask him to intercess to God for us.
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Richardols
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Ad Hominem #2. Are you really trying to get suspended?
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Karin
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Oh boy…guys can you BOTH behave?
Lets stop the name calling etc. and move back to what the original topic
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bones_IV
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Don’t believe everything you hear. Cause not everything you will hear in the main stream media sources are true when it comes to the faith. My advice? Be careful.
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Aureole
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I second this; the thread is about Pius XII, not Maximilian Kolbe. Ad hominem attacks, perceived or actual, ought to cease. The person on the other computer is also made in the image of God and it would be sinful to treat them as anything but an image of God.Oh boy…guys can you BOTH behave?
Lets stop the name calling etc. and move back to what the original topic
Anyway, here are a few updates on Pius XII’s cause: A Vatican Official responds to Oded Ben Hur and A Document Attesting to Pius XII’s Support for the Jewish People.
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