Have you read bones’ link “The Church was against the war”. In it Pope Pius never identifies Hitler and Mousolini as the evil bad guys. The whole encyclical is a generic stand against war in general.
The Church was against the war.
papalencyclicals.net/Pius12/P12SUMMI.HTM
As just as NATO was in protecting the Albanians from Serb genocide, rape, torture and being driven from their lands, Pope John Paul II was greatly opposed to the Kosovo war.
Allong with many Catholic clergy form Pope Pius XII on down preaching to stop America from going to war against the evil wickedness of Hitler, America was also in a state of isolationism. After WWI many Ameircans did not want to send their sons to die in foreign lands again. It is hard for American leaders to overcome these obsticals. Pearl Harbor did the job though.
My answers were clearly not sufficient for you. It seems that you are living in denial. There is no doubt that Hitler for sure twisted up Christian teaching regarding the “people who rejected Jesus” and that it made easier for him to develop his extreme racial views and for the German public to accept his ideas. As Saperstein says “The intellectual origins of Nazi antisemitism are to be found in pseudo-scientific racist and mystical -romantic-traditionalist ideologies of the nineteenth century, not in the teachings of Augustine, Innocent III or even Martin Luther.” (Moments of Crisis in Jewish-Christian Relations). Even Christian leaders who proclaimed the worst anti-Semitic teachings of their faith couldn’t embrace Nazism. Now, many in Germany feared that Russia might invade them and that the Communists would take over. Pius realized that Nazism posed a similar threat like that of communism.
Van Hoek says “with it he bracketed Nazism in the same breath, for it strikes, no less ruthlessly, at the individuality of the home, the very heart of religion. Both are tyrannically pagan.” (Pope Pius XII: Priest and Statesman, p. 90)
If there was anti-Semitic prejudice in the Catholic Church I don’t think it would have affecte Pius’ performance during the war.
“I know well that His Holiness the Pope is opposed from the depths of his noble soul to all persecution and especially to the persecution…which the Nazis inflict unremittingly on the Jewish people…I take this opportunity to express…my sincere thanks as well as my deep appreciation…of the invaluable help given by the Catholic Church to the Jewish people in it’s affliction.” (Actes et Documents, vol IX, p. 575.)
One this Steve Merten I should make clear is that any condemnation by Pius would have kept from the German public by the Nazis. Another thing I will point out is that his messages to nuncios around the world could be intercepted. His newspapers could be halted at the gates of the Vatican.
“An encyclical letter aimed at Germany would have destroyed or altered before publication.” (Cornwell, Hitler’s Pope, 244).
Aware of this Pius stated in March 1, 1942 “Whereas Our Christmas radio message found a strong echo in the world…We learn with sadness that it was almost completely hidden from the hearing of German Catholics.” (Pierre Blet, Pius XII and the Second World War).
“Please tell everyone, everyone you can, that the Pope suffers agnony on their behalf. Many times I have thought of scorching Nazism with the lightning of excommunication and denouncing to the civilized world the criminality of the extermination of the Jews. We have heard of the very serious threat of retaliation, not on our person but on the poor sons who are under Nazi domination. We have recieved through various channels urgent recommendations that the Holy See should not take a drastic stand. After many tears and many prayers, I have judged that a protest of mine not only would fail to help anyone, but would creat even more fury against the Jews, multiplying acts of cruelty.”
(Robert Martine, Spiritual Semites: Catholics and Jews During World War Two, Catholic League Publications.) The U.S. Deputy Chief of Counsel at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, the Nazi hierarchy sent their ambassadors as “a guideline on silencing the Vatican” (Robert A. Graham, Pius XII’s Defense of Jews and Others: 1944-45, Catholic League Publications, p 35). Which made it clear that the Nazis would try to counter anything the Vatican made in its statements.
