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Pope Pius XII
and Jewry
. . They should he welcomed
as friends.”
By JOSEPH L. I.ICIITEN
(Reprinted from the October
I9.">8 issue of The Al)l. Bul
letin, offeial organ of the Anti-
Defamation l.eague of B'nai
B’rithi
On June 4, 1944. when the Allies
entered Itome, the Jewish News
Bulletin of the British Eighth
Army spoke out:
“To the everlasting credit of
the people of Home, and the
Roman Catholic Church, the
lot of the Jews has been made
easier by their truly Christian
offers of assistance and shelter.
Even now, many still remain
in places which opened their
doors to hide them from the
fate of deportation to certain
death . . . The full story of
the help given to our people
by the Church cannot be told
for obvious reasons, until after
the war.”
Today, 49fi million Catholics all
over the world, among them al
most 35 million Americans, mourn
the passing of their spiritual
leader. Pope Pius XII. Representa
tives of other religions extend
their profound sympathy to the
Catholic world on its great loss.
And today, almost fifteen years
later, much more can be told about
Pope Pius XII and his efforts in
behalf of Jews at critical moments
in world history.
It is known today that Pius XII
was, to a large extent, personally
instrumental in organized action to
help Jewish victims of Nazism
and Fascism. He made clear his
profound concern in many ways.
After the liberation of Rome,
while there was apprehension over
the fate of Jewish prisoners in
Nazi-Fascist hands in Northern
Italy and Germany, he made one
of his most fervent pleas for
brotherhood:
"For centuries the Jews have
been most unjustly treated and
despised. It is time they were
treated with justice and hu
manity. God wills it and the
Church wills it. St. Paul tells
us that the Jews are our
brothers. Instead of being
treated as strangers, they
should be welcomed as
friends.”
Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli be
came Pontiff six months before
the beginning of World War II.
For a long time, he realized that
the world was on the brink of the
bloodiest war in history. The pre
servation of peace—“the fairest of
all God’s gifts”- was his driving
concern. His temper and reactions
were controlled by an acute, bril
liant mind trained in the diplo
matic service of the Vatican. It
was a mind simultaneously active
on several levels — diplomatic,
humanitarian, charitable. During
the early years of his reign, ho
made very few solemn political
declarations lest he contribute to
the angers and dissension of the
world. His interest was not war,
but peace.
But his opposition to Nazism and
his efforts to help Jews in Europe
were well known to the suffering
world. Despite the fact that Car
dinal Pacelli had spent 12 years
in Germany as a Papal Nuncio
and was instrumental in signing a
Concordat between Germany and
the Vatican, both Hitler and Mus
solini through a violent press
campaign — tried to prevent his
election as new Pontiff.
The day after his election, the
Berlin Morgenpost said: “The
election of Cardinal Pacelli is not
accepted with favor in Germany
because he was always opposed to
Nazism and practically determined
the policies of the Vatican under
his predecessor.”
After the war started, on March
11, 1940, Von Ribbentrop, after a
formal request for an audience,
was received by the Pope. The
German Foreign Secretary went
into a lengthy harangue on the
invincibility of the Third Reich,
the inevitability of a Nazi victory,
and the futility of Papal align
ment with the enemies of the
Fuehrer.
The Pope listened patiently and
impassively to the very end of
Von Ribbentrop’s speech. Then he
opened an enormous register on
his desk and, in perfect German,
began a recital of the catalogue of
petsecutions inflicted by the Third
Reich upon individuals in Poland.
He listed the date, place and pre
cise details of each crime. The
audience was terminated, the
Pope’s position clear.
Pius XII’s humanitarian efforts
to ease the lot of the Jews con
tinued throughout the war. French,
The author of this article
Dr. Joseph L. Lichten, di.
rector of ADL’s foreign
language department, is a
specialist in international
and ethnic affairs.
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