Right Reason

Pius XII: a victim of false history

Last month, Pope John Paul II made his historically-groundbreaking apology for the sins of Christians throughout the millennia. In response, many claimed that, by not apologizing for the conduct of Pope Pius XII during the Holocaust, the pope had not gone far enough. Pope John Paul, however, has not, and will not, repudiate the actions of his predecessor, because there is nothing in the wartime pope's record for which to apologize. Pope Pius XII, a great man and a peacemaker, has become the most unfairly maligned figure of the century. A victim of pernicious historical revisionism, many have condemned him for his "silence" during the Nazi massacre of the Jewish people. As with all revisionist nonsense, the way to refute this theory is to return to the facts, and the facts in this case speak for themselves.

Pius XII, from his time as papal nuncio in Germany through the wartime years he spent as pope, consistently opposed the German atrocities and spearheaded widespread Church efforts to rescue and protect Jews from arrest and slaughter. In 1937, when Pius XII (then Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli), was in Germany, he ghostwrote an encyclical for then Pope Pius XI in which the Church condemned Nazism's glorification of race.

So well known, in fact, was his disgust for the Reich that when he assumed the Chair of Peter, the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper wrote, "the election of Cardinal Pacelli is not of Germany's liking, as he has always been opposed to Nazism." After becoming pope, Pius XII's attitudes did not change at all. In 1940, Albert Einstein wrote of his efforts: "Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. Now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom." Historians estimate that thanks to Catholic efforts to shelter them—including hiding them in convents and having fake passports made for them—between 740,000 and 860,000 Jews were saved.

One of the many ironies about the smear campaign against Pius XII is that the New York Times—one of the critics of Pope John Paul's apology—does not read its own archives. In its Christmas editorial of 1941, the Times wrote that "The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe...the Pope put himself squarely against Hitlerism." Again in 1942, the Times called him "a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent."

The Germans themselves recognized the enemy they had in the pope. In his newly released diaries, Nazi Adolf Eichmann wrote, "The Church was vigorously protesting the arrest of Jews of Italian citizenship. To the contrary, the Pope would denounce it publicly." Eichmann further noted, however, that the Italian fascist government paid no heed to the pope's opposition.

This, of course, raises the question, what good would it have done for Pius XII to have spoken even more loudly against the Holocaust? It would have done nothing. The Nazis would only have cracked down harder on the Church and foiled its efforts to save the Jews, as they did in Holland when the bishops there protested too much. Oskar Schind-ler, who made shells for the Nazis, did not publicly oppose the Holocaust while harboring Jews, and he is hailed as a hero. Why not Pius XII?

Upon the pope's death in 1958, Israeli leader Golda Meir recognized his greatness, saying "When our people were subjected to a terrible martyrdom, the Pope's voice was raised to condemn the persecutors and to offer mercy to their victims. We mourn over the death of a great servant of peace." The Chief Rabbi of Rome, who converted to Catholicism after the war, took "Eugenio" as his baptismal name in honor of the pope.

Far from being a source of shame, Pius XII's Holocaust behavior should be viewed as a source of pride. Soon he may be beatified, and we should all pray that there may never be another tragedy like the one he faced, but if there must be, that the nations will raise up leaders as courageous as he was.

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