Roman Catholic "rat lines" at the end of ww ii

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i have read on line that the Pope and Cardinals of the Church helped over 5000 Nazi upper level criminals escape to S. America. when asked about why they did this the response was “you don’t understand us, we did the right thing.” do you know what those Nazi’s did in S. America? they built concentration camps and started killing Jews. No death penalty?
 
illuvatar1307 said:
i have read on line
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Ah, the Internet, source of all truth. Do you care to show a source?

I have some sources of my own.

.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Pius_XII_and_the_Holocaust#Post-war_praise_by_Jewish_leaders

Pinchas Lapide, a Jewish theologian and Israeli diplomat to Milan in the 1960s, wrote in Three Popes and the Jews that Catholics were “instrumental in saving at least 700,000 but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands”.[129]

According to Rabbi David Dalin, in the aftermath of the war, Jewish leaders who hailed Pius XII a righteous gentile for his work in saving thousands of Jews included the scientist Albert Einstein, the Israeli Prime Ministers Golda Meir and Moshe Sharett, and the Chief Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog.[132]

The Chief Rabbi of Rome, Israel Zolli, took refuge in the Vatican following the Nazi occupation of Rome in 1943. After the war he converted to Catholicism and took the name “Eugenio” in honour of Pope Pius XII.

On 21 September 1945, the general secretary of the World Jewish Council, Dr. Leon Kubowitzky, presented an amount of money to the pope, “in recognition of the work of the Holy See in rescuing Jews from Fascist and Nazi persecutions”.[133] After the war, in the autumn of 1945, Harry Greenstein from Baltimore, a close friend of Chief Rabbi Herzog of Jerusalem, told Pius how grateful Jews were for all he had done for them. The pope replied, “My only regret is not to have been able to save a greater number of Jews.”[134]

Catholic scholar Kevin Madigan interprets such praise from prominent Jewish leaders, including Golda Meir, as less than sincere; an attempt to secure Vatican recognition of the State of Israel.[135]
 
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I didn’t know that they had concentration camps in South America.
 
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Interesting. Can you name five of the concentration camps? What countries were they in? What years did they operate? Was it with government approval?

Tell me more.
 
It looks like this one bishop was doing the work and the other post isn’t really descriptive of how the Pope or anyone else was responsible.
 
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What is this Wikipedia article? Can you link to it?

How about these south American concentration camps?
 
This is a simple anti-Catholic myth. Flagged OP. Hope the article below helps:

www.firstthings.com

Kevin Madigan’s Offenses Against History | William Doino Jr.

At the end of the Second World War, when the Nuremberg prosecutors were gathering evidence for the upcoming trials, one of the many people they turned to for assistance was Pope Pius XII. They were not disappointed. The Holy See sent on massive documentation, recounting Nazi criminality, and the...
www.firstthings.com www.firstthings.com
 
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It must be understood that Fascism is essentially a very conservative / reactionary form of authoritarianism. This does not exonerate Italy in the least, but without Germany, I think it would have remained much as Spain was after its civil war. It might not be a surprise that the Catholic Church is more conservative than not and the 1930s depression in many ways hit Europe harder, certainly Germany. There was a lot of chaos both here and there fairly radical forms of government being tossed around. You can be assured Communism was not something the Catholic Church was fond of and many were willing to accept the ask no questions price of Fascism for order. This order and conservatism I suspect felt very comfortable to much of the Church leadership.

I think it’s been fairly well established that portions of the Catholic leadership made unethical choices when it came to its response to WWII. There were also some very heroic members of the Catholic Church who fought for the holy and good. As usual it is almost never an all good or bad situation, but what needs to be reflected on is what human failings allowed such things to occur.
 
Even if this is true, one bishop does not the Catholic Church make.
 
Referring to Pius XII as “pro-Nazi, anti-Jewish” is absurd.
 
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