Why has Pope Benedict chosen now to beatify Nazi-era pontiff?
Prof. Robert Wistrich reflects on his appointment to an international Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission ten years ago to examine the wartime record of Pope Pius XII, and discusses how the recent move toward Pope Pius XII's beatification raises doubts about the present pope and the state of relations between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people.
By Robert Wistrich Tags: Pope Benedict Israel newsExactly ten years ago, on a cold winter morning in New York City, the Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission, established to investigate Pope Pius XII's response to the Holocaust, met for the first time to discuss its future work. I was the only Israeli historian among the six scholars (3 Catholics and 3 Jews) designated by the Vatican and leading Jewish organizations to study this hotly contested issue.
A little under two years later, the project was abandoned as a result of the Holy See's unwillingness to release materials from its own archives that could help clarify issues that our team of scholars raised in our provisional report.
Already at that time, in the last years of Pope John Paul's pontificate, there were moves afoot to place Pius XII on the fast track to sainthood, but they were probably slowed down by Israeli and Jewish protests and a desire by Church authorities to prevent a serious rupture in Catholic-Jewish relations.
At issue was the silence of Pius XII during the Holocaust and his indirect complicity in the Nazi mass murder of Jews. These allegations, which first emerged around 1964, had prompted the Vatican to publish eleven volumes of its own documents (edited by four trusted Jesuit scholars), most of them appearing in the 1970s. It was these documents in Italian, German, French, Latin, and English that we were originally asked to review.
The million or so unpublished documents from the pontificate of Pius XII (1939?1958) according to the Vatican's most recent estimate, will only be available in about four year's time.
It is in this context that we need to see the recent decree onthe "heroic virtues" of Pius XII, just signed by Pope Benedict XVI. Most Jews have interpreted this act as yet another signal that the Vatican is determined to beatify the controversial wartime pope - whom some even consider to have been anti-Semitic - regardless of what the historical evidence may indicate.
The sharp response of Jewish leaders to Benedict's decree prompted the Vatican's Press Office Director, Father Federico Lombardi, S.J., to release a conciliatory note distinguishing between the historical judgment of Pius XII?s actions (still an open question) and the saintly Christian life he apparently led.
In particular, Father Lombardi was concerned to disclaim any notion that this decree was "a hostile act towards the Jewish people" or an obstacle to Catholic-Jewish dialogue. In the light of the pope's forthcoming visit to the Synagogue of Rome, this was a politically astute and welcome reassurance.
Nevertheless, the decree on Pius XII still raises concern not only about the continuing drive to beatify the wartime pontiff but also about the present pope and the state of relations between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people.
Regarding Pius XII, I personally have never seen him either as "Hitler's Pope" (the theory of British historian John Cornwell - a "lapsed" Catholic), or as the "Righteous Gentile" evoked by Rabbi David Dallin.
My own provisional conclusion drawn from the study of thousands of documents is that the mass murder of Jews was fairly low on his list of priorities. Of course, much the same could be said of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, but they did not claim to be the "Vicar of Christ" or to represent the Christian conscience.
Pius XII strikes me as a polished diplomat far more worried about the Allied bombing of Rome than about the thousand Roman Jews who were being deported by the Germans to their deaths in Auschwitz, virtually under the windows of the Holy See.
True, other Roman Jews were discreetly given sanctuary in ecclesiastical establishments in and around Rome after October 1943, but it remains unclear if this was the result of a direct papal instruction.
In some instances we know that Pius XII did try to intervene against Nazi or racist anti-Semitic legislation, but in general this was almost always on behalf of baptized Jews since they were protected by the Church as Catholics.
Pius' rare references to the mass murder of the Jews were invariably veiled and very abstract, as if he found it difficult to utter the word itself.
Was it fear of further German reprisals? A latent anti-Semitism? Was it his visceral anti-Communism which also led him to hope for a Nazi victory in the East? Or perhaps the desire to spare German Catholics a conflict of conscience between their loyalty to Hitler, the fatherland, or their Church? Whatever the reasons, this was hardly heroic conduct.
So why has Benedict XVI chosen to take this step now? Why risk unnecessary damage to Catholic-Jewish relations? My own inclination is to think that the present pope regards Pius XII as a soulmate - both theologically and politically.
He shares with the wartime pontiff an authoritarian centralist world-view and a deep distrust of liberalism, modernity, and the ravages of moral relativism. He was 31 years old when Pius XII died in 1958, and already then regarded him as a venerated role model.
Moreover, the German-born Joseph Ratzinger (today Benedict XVI) certainly knew that Pius XII (an artistocratic Roman) was also a passionate Germanophile, surrounded by German aides during and after the war, fluent in the German language, and a great admirer of the German Catholic Church.
Not only that, but Ratzinger probably knows that Pius XII personally intervened after 1945 to commute the sentences of convicted German war criminals. This solicitude for Nazi criminals contrasts sharply with Pius XII ignoring all entreaties to make a public statement against anti-Semitism even after the full horrors of the death camps had been revealed in 1945.
In this context it is profoundly unsettling to think that the ultraconservative Benedict XVI and his entourage can identify so completely with Pius XII as a man of "heroic virtue."
The present pope, no doubt, deplores anti-Semitism, though his statements on the subject have been noticeably less robust than those of his predecessor, John Paul II.
At Yad Vashem last summer he expressed no personal regret as a German for the unspeakable horrors of the Shoah, even though he had once been a member of the Hitler Youth. True, he had little choice in the matter. However, he was disturbingly vague about the truly monstrous German role in the Holocaust. E
arlier this year Benedict also showed remarkably poor judgment (to put it charitably) in reinstating an unrepentant Holocaust-denying British bishop into the mainstream Catholic Church, an action he only retracted after worldwide Jewish and Catholic protests.
These serious mistakes appear to follow a pattern and may even indicate a regression from the real progress in Catholic-Jewish relations under Benedict?s predecessor. One can only hope they are not irreversible since the stakes are high and no sane person can be interested in undermining the bridges across the abyss that have been so painstakingly constructed.
Prof. Robert S. Wistrich is the director of The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (http://sicsa.huji.ac.il/) and the author of A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad (Random House, January 2010).
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I agree with the author that if there is no proof that Pius XII strongly opposed in loud or silent diplomacy against the german anti jewish legislation before and in the war he must not be beatified. Maybe that will be clear after the mentioned five years. The remarks on Benedict however have nothing to do with that and are quite nasty as in some comments indicated
While Christ was a man with backbone and guts, his vicar, Pius XII, was gutless. We should ask the Vatican whether Pius XII was a true or false vicar of Christ. The Vatican is now hiding behind hidden documents.
Even a self-proclaimed historian should be more precise. First the names, it is Joseph Ratzinger (not Rantzinger) and Guenter Grass (not Gross). Regarding Benedict's relationship with Nazism, you may believe him or not, but critizising him for not joining a resistence movement in 1944/45 is quite pretentious. At that time in this total war scenario Germany's defences - especially its air defences - desintegrated, allowing the enemy to level one city after the other and killing its inhabitants. Equally pretentious is the assumption "The teachings of Hetler Yugend pop up time and again in his statements and actions.", but it sums up the whole article pretty well. Lacking further information about Pius' role, the professor expresses his uneasiness with both Benedict and Pius, essentially accusing them of being "too German". The "authoritarian centralist world-view" he ascribes to both vs. liberalism and modernity is wonderful stereotypical in this regard.
'If you are chosen to be the moral and political leader of Catholic Church Inc, I think your obligations goes a bit further than a tired father driving his kids home from school!' Perhaps. On the other hand, to return to the analogy, this particular 'tired father' also had an obligation to the 'kids in the car.' Above all, the Pope had a responsibility to protect the faithful. That's just the way it is: no one would expect the government of Israel to risk national extinction in order to avert a disaster in Mexico. The government of Israel is charged with the protection of the people of Israel, not the people of Mexico. As I indicated, I don't think the criticisms are without merit; however, I do think people are failing to consider the position the Pope was in at the time. And, in point of fact, the Catholic Church in Germany offered considerably more resistance to Hitler than the Protestant Churches did.
I will leave it up to you as to whether a policeman enforcing civil law is therefore a collaborator. I don't think so myself. However I would point out one aspect of collaborating with the Germans you overlook - collaborating with the Germans to many meant fighting against Stalin and Russia. Can you honestly say that fighting on Stalin's side was any more praiseworthy than fighting on Hitler's side? Remember, Stalin killed several times as many innocent people as HItler.
1. If you are a historian, I question your competence. What is the relevance of thousands of Hitler Jugend (not Yugend) people volunteering for the SS if he didn't? What does that have to do with him? 2. Granting the fact that he is an internationally famous philosopher with many years of study and contemplation, don't you think any childhood indoctrination would have been wiped away (especially since he wasn't there by choice)? Please supply instances of the HItler Jugend teaching which popped up in his works.
1.Canonizations and other actions made by Benedict are not authorized and should not be taken seriously. 2.This is the reason why: As already admitted in his book, the Jesus Christ he knows is just his personal meditation, i.e., it is not the real Jesus Christ. It may even be the Antichrist. 3.Also when it comes to Israel awaited Messiah, forget about Benedict for the same reason already mentioned above. 4.The hungry multitude should concentrate not on superstar leaders but on finding the small boy with the formula of Five Loaves that catches Two Big Fish: The Antichrist and Jesus Christ.
collaborators amonng Eastern Europeans" Have been living on postwar Poland I can assure you that most Poles did not volunteered to serve the Nazi occupires.But some did by serving in Granatowa Policja during WWII.99% of Poles are catholic.I can safelsay studying the archives that all Granataw Policement wer catholic.The Gorale (Highlanders) in Tatra mountains were known German collaborators. All Gorale were catholics. The eastern Orthodocs minority in Poland were openly Nazi collaborators and formed a large part of gurds and operators fo dead camps.But they did not considered themselves Polish. Same applies to Lituania.Most Lituanians are catholics.Very large number of lituanians served as guards in Ghettos and dead camps. Slovakia is Catholic,Slovakia was a vassal state of the Reich and formed armed units in Wehrmacht.Hungary is 99% Catholic.Was a part of Axis.Participate actively in shipping out Jews to dead camps.Croatia although south,is a prime example catholic colussion
How can a scholar like Prof. Wistrich show so much dilettantism or even laziness in searching datas. Before he reiterates an assertion like "The present pope, no doubt, deplores anti-Semitism, though his statements on the subject have been noticeably less robust than those of his predecessor, John Paul II.", I suggest him to read Pope Benedict's speech in Auschwitz in 2006: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2006/may/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060528_auschwitz-birkenau_en.html. And before saying that the current pope "showed remarkably poor judgment in reinstating an unrepentant Holocaust-denying British bishop into the mainstream Catholic Church, an action he only retracted after worldwide Jewish and Catholic protests. ", he should realize his poor amateurism as 1-the british bishop was not "reinstated" into the Church and 2-the action, a lifting of excommunication aimed at easing his conversion, has so far not been "retracted" by the pope.
thongs he had no involvement..." What follows your logic is that Pres. Barack Obama should not have appologized to Moslem nations in his Cairo speech. Having said that, The young Rantzinger, and millions of youn Germans served in Hitler Yugend, and thousands volunteered to Waffen SS,like Gunther Gross in Danzing in 1944. The statements that Young Rantzinger opposed Nazi are frankly very hollow. Rantzinger did not join rare resistance group in Germany in 1944-45.The were very few indeed. One can count the fingers on one hand to account for such groups among Germans. To this day most Germans consider marlene Dietrich a traitor.Even, Adenauer, who himself left Germany for exile in 1939 had to include Germans with Nazi past in his gorvernments in early fifties. Pope Benedict XVI, is an prosoner of conciensce of the youthful Rantzinger.The teachings of Hetler Yugend pop up time and again in his statements and actions. He can't help it
If you are chosen to be the moral and political leader of Catholic Church Inc, I think your obligations goes a bit further than a tired father driving his kids home from school! Or shall I take it as a reason to why there is no evolution/revolution in this company?
During the war, Pius XII was a silent participant to the Holocaust because it was perpetrated by Christians many of whom were Catholics. After the war, Pius XII was instrumental in helping the perpetrators of the Holocaust to escape justice. Are these the saintly deeds the Vatican is considering as qualifying Pius XII for sanctification? Did Pius XII ever consider threatening to excommunicate those members of his flock who participated in the Holocaust?
On the one hand, I don't particularly object to Wistrich's comments. I don't entirely agree with them, but they are perfectly reasonable. On the other hand, I think people fail to realize what the world looked like in World War Two -- particularly early World War Two. Fascism was winning. It was the coming thing. Most European states had become Fascist to one extent or another. The Pope's job was to make sure the Church survived to keep doing what it could -- not immolate itself in futile defiance of Hitler. Now, that created some tough choices -- but we should realize they were tough choices. They only become no-brainers in retrospect. Put it this way. You're an average guy driving home -- with your kids in the car. You see a dozen thugs beating someone up. Unless you are ABSOLUTELY SURE that you would whip your car over to the curb and challenge them unaided and unarmed, I don't think you're in a position to criticize.
The Catholic Church is on earth. The Vatican, ditto. You can have a big fancy ceremony, with lots of pizzazz and a few Gregorian Chants, and brocade all over the place and a ton of incense. But only God can say if someone is a saint. And if a saint is a perfect person, well, there's never been one. Why are we wasting time on this non-event?
As a Catholic, I often cringe when a Jew brings up Pius XII fearing being associated with his faults or something new being brought up. So Prof. Wistrich let me off lightly. At best, Pius XII could be canonized for 'just following orders.' He followed the 19th century ideal of the imperial, within Catholicism, Pope with disastrous results. Hitler secured the dissolution of the Christian Democrats and his dictatorship with Pius XII's Concordat. Nevertheless, Pius' beatification would be a small back step compared to the changes initiated by John XXIII and Vatican II which said that God's covenant with the Jewish people was not abrogated by Christ. This is confirmed in the new liturgy cycle of readings which has Jews qua Jews called as Chosen of God at the end of the world, a reading several months ago.
why do jews need to be in dialogue with the catholic church? the rc church has been implicated in persecution of jews since its foundation,
From 1948 till the 9/10/1958, the state of Israel and all it's rabbis had the chance to pressure His Holiness Pope Pius PP. XII to come up front and explain his alleged anti-semitic activities, did any of them do just that, of course they didn't. Now they are all spouting off when the Vatican is proceeding with it's own business which means, mind your own.While he was alive, you had your chances, now let him rest in peace. You dish the durt on anybody even on the current Pope, His Holiness Benedictus PP. XVI
Just because Jews always like to meddle in other peoples business to divert attention from what's going on in Israel. Your Rabbis are worse than all other 'Holy men' put together. Hands off of other religions. Will the deeds or behaviour of Pius XII make a difference to Catholics, no, that's all what counts. And interfaith dialogue is a lot of humbug, just a waste of time. Stop sending your rabbis to Rome, they don't belong there. For catholics, sainthood for Pius XII can't come quick enough.One thing for sure, your rabbis won't stop it. Remember the hypocritical way your rabbis received Benedict XVI on his visit to Israel?? So much for interfaith dialogue.
In relation with beatification of Pios Xll, I have read many opinions, in the sense that this is an internal matter of the catholic church. If the church had not such big influence in the world, it could be true. But the opinion of the pope is very important, and if he had spoken agaist the holocaust, he could have saved many lives.
Please enlighten me - how did you determine that none of them belonged to one of the Eastern Orthodox faiths? Just curious.
Jews must stop interfering in Catholicism. Let them choose whomever they want. We we let anyone tell us who should be a grand rabbi? If dialogue will stop, that's no great loss.
why is it necessary for the jewish people to demean itself by seeking the friendship of the rc church? no institution has been more active in the persecution of the jews throughout its history.most recently the poles, lithuanians and others who volunteered to do the nazis work for them were confessing rcs to a man or woman.
I can't understand some of these comments, such as "The present pope is continually criticised by some Jews, no matter what he does". I was brought up a Catholic in England but I have read about Archbishop Stepanic, appointed by Pius XII - and it is shocking history. I think people should read about the Croatian death camp Jasenovac. The current pope also wanted to make Stepanic a saint: http://www.reformation.org/archive.html I hate being accused of being anti-Semitic if I dare to criticise Israel. Now we have the opposite with people condemning a reasonable article as somehow being anti-Catholic. I think the author is quite right to question whether Pius XII posseses "heroic virtue". If the readers don't like perhaps they should read about Jasenovac. Why can't people admit unpleasant truths. Many Catholics in Germany, including politicians in Bavaria criticised Chancellor Merkel when she cricitised the Pope for reinstating a Holocaust denier.
Two years ago the Vatican opened the archives up to 1939 and released records of the inter Arma caritas to 1947. Professor Wistrich?s name is not on the sign in sheets at the Vatican Archives because he hasn?t bothered to research these real documents. Pave the Way Foundation has made a multiyear effort to discover real documents from many nations (now over 5000 pages). These REAL documents prove, without any doubt, that Pius XII, acted secretly (the highest form of charity), to save more Jewish lives than all of the worlds religious and political leaders combined. Shortly, we will publish our 280 page book in Hebrew. This publication will remove any doubt about Pius XII's efforts to save Jewish lives. He also had a vehement hatred of National Socialism and Hitler and was named by the Nazis as a co-conspirator in the Hitler assassination attempt of 1944. Professor Wistrich show us your documented proof.
And don't forget, Prof. Wistrich, about Pius XII's probable role in the escape routes the Vatican set up to allow wanted war criminals to escape Justice after the war or the role the Vatican Bank may have had in the laundering of stolen Nazi and Ustasha treasure. Even though we may not know exactly the extent of the pope's role and/or knowledge, it is indisputable that his very close underlings (like Bishop Montini, later Pope Paul VI) were directly involved. It is hard to believe Pius XII was unaware--given his micromanagement and autocratic style-- of what was going on. Gabriel Wilensky ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Author Six Million Crucifixions: How Christian Teachings About Jews Paved the Road to the Holocaust http://www.SixMillionCrucifixions.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just another Jesus-hater in a scholar's costume. Salaam/Shalom
The present pope is continually criticised by some Jews, no matter what he does, or what he has written on the Jews and their permanent and eternal covenantal relation with G-d. He wants the Catholic-Jewish relations to progress still more, as anyone knows who have really studied his writings and speeches. But the poor man has been unfortunate enough to have been born a German and it seems Jews will hold that against him, consciously and unconsciously. Too bad.
I fail to see why a person should "express personal regret" for things he had no involvement in because other people of his ethnic group did them.