Newspaper Page Text
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1964 GEORGIA BULLETIN PAGE 3
PIUS XII AND JEWS
Magazine Says ‘Deputy’
Raising Valid Questions
NEW YORK (RNS) — Com
monweal, national weekly edit
ed by Roman Catholic laymen
here, in a special issue on
"The Deputy, ” said that the
controversial German play
raises valid questions about
the responsibility of Catholics
for the murder of six million
Jews during World War II.
In the play, which was to
open on Broadway February
26, dramatist Rolf Hochhuth
portrays Pope Pius XII as a
morally insensitive leader who
refuses to condemn the mass
killing of the Jews because of
personal ambition, fear of Com
munist Russia and concern for
Vatican financial investments,
COMMONWEAL called this
view of Pius "a base calumny' 1
that cannot be supported his
torically.
But the magazine added:", ..
it is to Hochhuth's credit that,
however distortedly, he saw a
moral problem and tried in his
defective way to make us face
it, . , .If one cannot flatly say
SPANISH EXPERT
the Church demonstrably failed,
neither can one say that the
Church stood as an exemplar of
the Christian conscience,”
"AT A MOMENT in history
when the Church should have
borne constant, unmistakable
witness at every level thatNazi
persecution of the Jews was a
despicable crime, its voice was
muted and erratic,” the week
ly said.
The Catholic Church, Com
monweal said, shared in a gen
eral moral failure "through
its passivity in the face of
European anti - Semitism,
through its faulure to instruct
vigorously the consciences of
its members, through its fail
ure to use fully the moral
pressures at its disposal,”
ON THE specific quest
ion of whether a papal con
demnation of the Nazi kill
ings would have deterred Hitler
or merely made matters worse
for the Jews, the magazine
doubted that any definitive judg-
First Nun-Teacher
For U. Of Miami
MIAMI SHORES, Fla. (NC)—
Latin American professionals
enrolled for post - graduate
studies in the University of
miami's School of Medicine are
finding a nun as their English
instructor.
She is Sister Mary Kenneth,
chairman of the Spanish de
partment at Barry College and
the first Religious to join the
faculty at a Florida secular
university.
SHE WAS invited to join the
faculty to teach English, in
cluding the highly techinical
terms of the medicine profes-
Dutch Churches
THE HAGUE, The Nether
lands (NC)—A new law by which
the Dutch state will pay for30%
of church building construction
costs has gone into effect here.
The subsidy will remain in ef
fect until 1971.
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sion, to Spanish-speaking phy
sicians and surgeons.
About 200 doctors represent
ing 16 Latin American countries
and Cuba participate in two-
hour English classes twice
weekly as they prepare for
foreign board examinations
through the "drill, drill drill”
method.
ACCORDING TO Dr. EmU
Taxay, assistant professor of
medicine, who invited Sister
Kenneth to join the faculty,
"the effective teaching of
English of a highly specializ
ed kind as conducted by Sister
Kenneth has met with notice
able success."
Assisting Spanish - speaking
persons is not a new experience
for Sister Kenneth who was as
signed to Barry College after
14 years at the Adrian Domini
can Sisters’ Colegio in Santo
Domingo, Dominican Republic.
SISTER KENNETH has since
1960 been the "heart” of an
extensive English language pro
gram offered free of charge
at Barry College for Cuban and
Latin American physicians,
dentists, and lawyers. Classes
are conducted four times week
ly for doctors on the Barry
campus.
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ment could be made, "At
most,” it said, "one deals here
with probabilities for which
their is evidence on both sides.”
Pope Paul VI, in a letter,
and Dr. Lichten, in excerpts
from a booklet, defended Pope
Pius.
Pope Paul's letter, received
by the English Catholic Journal,
the Tablet, on June 21, 1963 —
the day of his elections as
Pope — accused Hochhuth of
historical second - guessing.
"Let us suppose that Pius XII
had done what Hochhuth blames
him for not doing,” Pope Paul
wrote. "His action would have
led to such reprisals and de-
vestations that Hochhuth. . .
would have been able to write
another play . . . about the
vicar, who, through political
exhibitionism or psychological
myopia, would have been guilty
of unleashing on the already
tormented world still greater
calamities. . .”
DR. LICHTEN maintained
that the Pope's concern for the
Jewish people cannot seriously
be doubted, and claimed there
is "considerable documentat
ion in support of Pius’ fear that
a formal statement would
worsen, not improve, con
ditions for the persecuted.”
He quoted a Jewish couple
from Berlin as saying: "None
of us wanted the Pope to take
an open stand. , .The Gestapo
would have become more ex
cited and intensified its in
quisitions. . .It was better that
the Pope said nothing. We all
shared this opinion at the time,
and this is still our conviction
today. . .”
MR. HEER, a widely known __
Catholic historian teaching at
the University of Vienna, was
highly critical of Pope Pius.
He termed "The Deputy" a
"direct hit” on "the frightful
failure of Rome from 1933 to
1945," and called Pius "a pri
soner of the nineteenth-Century
curial mentality” that thought
of the Catholic Church as an
embattled fortress to be de
fended through pacts and con
cordats.
The historian said that under -
this mentality, later overthrown
by Pope John and Pope Paul,
it was not regarded as self-
evident that the Catholic Church
should champion the rights of
those outside its fold.
HE ALSO charged that Pope
Pius had made "a terrible er
ror. . .more unconsciously than
consciously” in regarding Hit
ler's war against Russia as a
possible liberation from com
munism.
All Catholics, he said, from
the top of the Church to the
bottom, are co-responsible for
the slaughter of the Jews, and
Hochhuth’s play "is a clear
Invitation” to a confiteor ("I
confess”) that should be made.
HE CALLED upon Catholic
writers to follow Hochhuth’s
lead and break the "plaster
saint” image of Pope Pius to
reveal the pontiff as a tort
ured human being carrying a
burden which proved to be be
yond his strength.
Mr. O’Gara wrote that the
only valid question about Hoch
huth’s play as a historico-legal
document is its truth, and that
on this score Hochhuth’s indict
ment should be thrown out,
"IN ANY case,” he said, "it
can certainly be argued that
plus erred. But this is not
what Hochhuth charges. The
playwright does not say Pius
made a mistake in Judgment;
he says he followed the wrong
course because he was a vain,
greedy and unprincipled man.
Hochhuth does what no man
can do: he inserts himself into
the mind of Pius and draws
only the worst conclusions. He
is guilty of the worst kind of
McCarthyism, and only the
staggering immensity of his
charge has kept people from
seeing this fact.”
Nevertheless, Mr. O’Gara
said, Hohhuth is wrong only in
singling out Pius, because
Christians "by the hundreds of
thousands. . .were at best silent
and at worst cooperative with
Hitler's final solution’ to the
Jewish problem.”
PRIEST URGES
U.N. Membership
For Red Chinese
CRS FOOD FOR NEEDY CHILDREN—In Colombia, South
America, 1.2 million children are being- fed by the Alliance
for Progress, with 2 per cent of the youngsters cared for by
NCWC’s Catholic Relief Services working with the local
Caritas. In this photo Dr. Martin Forman, Coordinator of
the Operation Ninos Program there examines the facilities
for formula preparation with a nun at a day nursery on the
outskirts of Bogota,.
OVERRULES STATE
Spanish Court
Backs Baptists
TORONTO (NC) -- A Jesuit
educator said here he would
favor the admission of Red
China to the United Nations
if Nationalist China would con
tinue to remain a member.
FATHER DUNNE S.
J-. assistant to tne president
of Georgetown University,
Washington, D. C., expressed
belief the move would have a
beneficial effect on the Peking
government. He spoke at the
Catholic Information Center,
"RECOGNITION of a state
means recognition of a fact,”
said Father Dunne. "For 13
years China has been under
the effective control of the
regime in Peking and not un
der the regime of Formosa.
I do not see anything to be
gained by refusing to admit
Red China to the U.N.
"Her very presence in the
U.N. would, over the long run,
have the somewhat beneficial
effect of tempering her
extremists; the more she is
cut off from the rest of the
world, the more she will be
driven into extremism, I would
favor the admission of Red
China upon condition that Nat-
MADRID (RNS) — A landmark
case in Spain’s legal history
was reported here when the ^
nation’s Supreme Court ruled
against the government and
authorized establishment of a
Protestant church in Valencia.
The high court held that the
government, in 1961, had erred
in barring Protestants from
opening a house of worship.
IT SAID that the government
ministry involved had issued
an order "not consistent with
law” and ruled the edict null
and void.
Involved was a small Baptist
group whose spokesman was
identified as Tomas Perez. Re
presenting the appellants in
court was Ernesto Vellve, who
successfully opposed the
government’s restriction after
a three-year legal battle. He
told newsmen here the church
would be opened in Valencia.
OBSERVERS here said that
the court’s decision was of
"the greatest importance” to
Protestants in predominantly
Roman Catholic Spain.
Some noted that the ruling
could be another phase of a
trend indicating more liberal
treatment of Protestants by the
government. Permission to
open churches has been grant
ed often enough in some areas
in the past year to raise the
hope of the nation's 30,000 Pro
testants for religious freedom.
THE COURT’S action follow
ed quickly on the heels of a
report that the nation’s Ca
tholic hierarchy had approved a
draft law that would give con
siderably more freedom to Pro
testants in Spain.
According to the report, the
first draft of the proposed law
was endorsed in principle by
the late Pope John XXIII in
1961, Observers said a re
vised draft, approved by the
bishops, would be sent on to
the Vatican for study. Approval
is expected.
How Come
God Is Sick?
Minneapolis, Minn.—Colum-
ban Archbishop Harold Henry
of Kwangju, Korea, convales
cing in St. Mary's hospital here,
smiled as he quoted a letter
from Father Joseph Murrin, S.
S.C., of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
“I told the parishioners in
Song Jeong Ap that Archbishop
Henry had suffered a heart at
tack,” read the Columban mis
sionary’s letter, "and asked
them to pray for your speedy
recovery. After Mass some old
ladies came to me and wanted to
know how come God was sickl”
ionalist China also remains in
the U.N.”
ON THE same grounds,
Father Dunne supported sale
of U.S. wheat to Red China
and other communist nations.
He said these regimes are too
deeply entrenched to support
the hope that they will be brought
down by economic sanctions or
boycotts.
‘The only hope I see for the
future of Russia is a gradual
evolution, a gradual develop
ment, an extending of their
appreciation of human liberties
and a gradual granting a human
rights,” he said.
‘THEREFORE,” he con
tinued, "anything that encour
ages the communist nations to
move in the direction of human
freedom is beneficial. There
has been considerable relaxat
ion in the Soviet Union com
pared with the Stalin days.
"If selling wheat to the Soviet
Union means that people are
better off and not suffering from
hunger, I think this is a per
fectly good moral reason for
doing it, and it will, in the end,
serve the interests of the free
world.”
PAPAL LEGATE — Paolo
Cardinal Marella t above >
Archpriest of St. Peter's ba
silica has been appointed by
Pope Paul VI as a special le
gate to represent him at the
opening of the Vatican Pa
vilion at the New r York World
Fair, April 21. The 69-year-
old papal diplomat served on
the staff of the Apostolic
Delegation in Washington
from 1924 to 1933.
JUHAN'S CLEANERS
Expert • Ptrsonillsid Benrtc*
Given to Every Olrment Coming
Into Our Flint
US N. Mila at. ro.
Cade— Bark. (H
Seminary Fund
Remember the SEMINARY FUND of the
Archdiocese of Atlanta in your Will. Be
quests should be made to the “Most Rev
erend Paul J. Hallinan, Archbishop of the
Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta and his suc
cessors in office”, Participate in the daily
prayers of our seminarians and in the
Masses offered annually for the benefactors
of our SEMINARY FUND,
PEOPLE
BISHOP ROBERT E. Tracy,
of Baton Rouge, has dedicated
a unique junior high school, to
be supported and governed by 11
adjoining parishes.
MSGR. RAYMOND J. Gallag
her, secretary of the National
Conference of Catholic Chari
ties, told a Senate subcommit-
te that "the breadth of housing
needs is such that it requires a
broad base of action by the
Federal government.”
PRESIDENT CALVIN Cool-
idge’s "Summer White House"
at Swampscott, Mass., will open
in September as a secretarial
school under the direction of the
Sisters of Mercy.
BISHOP BERNARD J. Flana
gan of Worcester, Mass., has
scheduled a 10-week series of
seminars for all priest in the
diocese to provide training in
the new Constitution on the Sac
red Liturgy, decreed by the
Council.
PRESIDENT GREGORIE Kay-
lbanda of Rwanda, has asked the
Legion of Mary, of which he is
a local founder, to "put their
Christian principles to work
in helping to develop" this new
ly independent African nation.
KENNETH O. Brown, St.
Louis Building Commissioner,
has ordered safety improve
ments on a number of Catho
lic schools. One of the
"schools” turns out to a Greek
Orthodox church, another a
playground, Lutherans were
notified on 24 schools - they
have only 20.
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