Opinion
Behind The Papal Appeasement
Jerusalem
E
xactly 10 years ago, the
Catholic-Jewish Historical
Commission, established to
investigate Pope Pius XII's response to
the Holocaust, met for the first time
in New York. I was the only Israeli his-
torian among the six scholars (three
Catholics and three Jews) designated by
the Vatican and leading Jewish organiza-
tions 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 schol-
ars 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
Pope Pius XII
on the fast track
to sainthood, but they were probably
slowed down by Israeli and Jewish pro-
tests 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 mur-
der of Jews.
These allega-
tions,
which
CI C.
first emerged
around 1964, had
prompted
the
Pope Benedict XVI
Vatican to pub-
lish 11 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The million or so unpublished docu-
ments from the pontificate of Pius XII
(1939-1958), according to the Vatican's
most recent estimate, will only be avail-
able in about four years' time.
It is in this context that we need to see
the recent decree on the "heroic virtues"
24
January 7 • 2010
of Pius XII, just signed by
or to represent the Christian
Pope Benedict XVI. Most Jews
conscience.
have interpreted this act as yet
Pius XII strikes me as a
another signal that the Vatican
polished diplomat far more
is determined to beatify the
worried about the Allied
controversial wartime pope
bombing of Rome than about
— whom some even consider
the thousand Roman Jews
to have been anti-Semitic
who were being deported by
— regardless of what the his-
the Germans to their deaths
torical evidence may indicate.
in Auschwitz, virtually under
Robert
The sharp response of
the windows of the Holy See.
Wistrich
Jewish leaders to Benedict's
True, other Roman Jews were
Special
decree prompted the Vatican's
discreetly given sanctuary in
Commentary
Press Office director, Father
ecclesiastical establishments
Federico Lombardi, S.J., to
in and around Rome after
release a conciliatory note distinguish-
October 1943, but it remains unclear
ing between the historical judgment of
if this was the result of a direct papal
Pius XII's actions (still an open ques-
instruction.
tion) and the saintly Christian life he
In some instances, we know that Pius
XII did try to intervene against Nazi or
apparently led.
In particular, Father Lombardi was
racist anti-Semitic legislation, but in
concerned to disclaim any notion that
general this was almost always on behalf
this decree was
of baptized Jews
since they were
"a hostile act
towards the
protected by
the Church as
Jewish people"
or an obstacle to
Catholics.
Pius's rare
Catholic-Jewish
dialogue. In
references to
the light of the
the mass mur-
der of the Jews
pope's forthcom-
were invariably
ing visit to the
veiled and very
Synagogue of
Rome, this was a
abstract, as if
he found it dif-
politically astute
ficult to utter the
and welcome
word
itself. Was
reassurance.
it
fear
of further
Nevertheless,
German
repri-
the decree on
sals? A latent
Pius XII still
anti-Semitism?
raises concern
Was it his
not only about
visceral
anti-
the continuing
drive to beatify
Communism
which also
the wartime
pontiff, but also about the present pope
led him to hope for a Nazi victory
in the east? Or perhaps the desire to
and the state of relations between the
spare German Catholics a conflict of
Catholic Church and the Jewish people.
conscience between their loyalty to
Regarding Pius XII, I personally have
Hitler, the fatherland, or their Church?
never seen him either as "Hitler's Pope"
Whatever the reasons, this was hardly
(the theory of British historian John
Cornwell — a "lapsed" Catholic), or as
heroic conduct.
So why has Benedict XVI chosen to take
the "Righteous Gentile" evoked by Rabbi
this step now? My own inclination is to
David Dallin.
My own provisional conclusion drawn think that the present pope regards Pius
XII as a soulmate — both theologically
from the study of thousands of docu-
and politically. He shares with the wartime
ments is that the mass murder of Jews
was fairly low on his list of priorities. Of pontiff an authoritarian, centralist world-
view and a deep distrust of liberalism,
course, much the same could be said of
Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, but they modernity and the ravages of moral rela-
tivism. He was 31 years old when Pius XII
did not claim to be the "Vicar of Christ"
Regarding Pius XII, I
personally have never
seen him either as
"Hitler's Pope" or as a
"Righteous Gentile." My
provisional conclusion
is that the mass murder
of Jews was fairly low on
his list of priorities.
died in 1958 and already then regarded
him as a venerated role model.
Moreover, the German-born 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 Benedict probably
knows that Pius XII personally inter-
vened after 1945 to commute the sen-
tences of convicted German war crimi-
nals. 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 unset-
tling 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.
Earlier this year, Benedict also showed
remarkably poor judgment in reinstat-
ing 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 fol-
low 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 irrevers-
ible 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 director of the
Vidal Sassoon International Center for the
Study of Anti-Semitism at Hebrew University
of Jerusalem and the author of "A Lethal
Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the
Global Jihad" (Random House, January 2010).