Pope Pius XII

25 May 1999 08:27

The following article in defence of the reputation of Pope Pius XII during the second World War has been written by Fr. Michael O’Carroll, for many years the spiritual advisor and travelling companion of Vassula on her journeys around the world.

I suggest that it is time to bury the epithet “silent” prefixed to the name of this Pope Pius XII. It was given currency by the German playwright Rolf Hochhuth in 1964, in Der Stellvertreter (The Deputy), which was produced by a prestigious director, Erwin Piscator. It spawned a minor literature, and was a keynote in a television programme, but it has no foundation in reality.

Two years before the war, in 1937, the future Pus XII, then Cardinal Pacelli, Secretary of State to Pius XI, was, with Cardinal Faulhaber, a principal author of the Encyclical Mit Brennender Sorg, the fullest condemnation of Nazi ideology at the international level. Over the years, the Secretary of State had sent scores of protests, personally

signed to the German Foreign Ministry or the Ambassador to the
Vatican. These texts are published. One was so damning that it
was included in the official documents used against the Germans on

trial at Nuremberg.

Ribbentrop was among those on trial; he had been Hitler’s Foreign Minister. He was asked if they had protests from the Vatican. His reply: “we had a whole desk full of them.” One of his officials testified that Hitler’s order was to take no notice of them – he thought them “one long lie”.

But, during the war, Plus XII did not publicly condemn the Holocaust. Here, Hochhuth seemed to have a point. He could quote a despatch sent from Rome by von Weizsaecker, the Ambassador, who was previously Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs in Berlin. He said in his message that the Pope had not spoken out even when Jews were being carried off under his windows. His words were a favourite quote, up to quite recently, of critics of Plus XII. Why did von Weizsaecker write thus, he who on his own affirmation was opposed to the Holocaust, a friend as he told the Pope later, of those executed after the assassination attempt on Hider?

We don’t have to speculate. His immediate assistant in the Rome embassy, Albrecht von Kessel, has given the full explanation, which corroborates what is contained in the Vatican War Documents. The ambassador was summoned to the Vatican immediately after the first round-up of Roman Jews. He admitted his sense of shame: “Are you surprised that I stay where I am?” He would do his best, but asked for a free hand. His telegram to Berlin was meant to quieten suspicion there. It was a ploy and it worked. Seven thousand Roman Jews owed it their lives. They had time to take hiding in religious communities, the wish of the Pope – he had dispensed the cloistered communities to this end.

Sister Pasqualina, the Pope’s housekeeper, has told that she saw him burn a scorching denunciation of Nazi genocide. He had learned of the Dutch tragedy. There, the bishops had issued a public protest after the first seizure of Jews. Immediately official policy, retaliation for such denunciation, went into action. Jews who had become Catholics were taken and sent to Auschwitz; Edith Stein, Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, was among them. Already, Pius XII had learned this harsh reality from Archbishop (later Cardinal) Sapieha of Cracow who was a personal friend. The Pope sent him a thorough condemnation of the Nazi atrocities in Poland. He explained that he dared not publish it; it would make matters worse.

Before leaving Holland there is an interesting fact to note. At the end of the war, 79 per cent of Dutch Jews had perished. In nearby Belgium, with a different policy (concealment, personal assistance and financial aid), 73 per cent of the Jewish population survived.

Jewish gratitude to the Pope personally was overwhelming. The Chief Rabbi of Rome, Israel Zolli, became a Catholic and took Plus XII’s baptismal name, Eugenio – the Pope had helped in raising ransom money to save Jewish lives. The Jewish World Congress voted two million lire to the Vatican in gratitude. The Israeli Symphony Orchestra, on its first European tour, gave a performance in the Vatican in honour of Plus XII: Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Ireland’s most distinguished Jew, Dr Bethel Solomons – a fellow member, with me, of the wartime Jewish Christian Society – told me that, as President of the Irish College of Physicians, he had thanked the Pope for what he did for his people.

In a television diatribe against the Pope it was stated that he would not even receive the Chief Rabbi of Israel, Isaac Halevi Herzog, who had gone to Istanbul to thank Mgr Roncalli for his help, receiving the reply “I did it on orders from the Pope.” I spent an afternoon with Dr Herzog in 1957. When I mentioned Plus XII he became enthusiastic, giving an account of the very special audience he had with him.

When a Catholic weekly went along with the falsehood I wrote this to the editor; my letter was not published. The Chief Rabbi asked me to give his blessing to the Pope. When I did so, I added, “I think the Jews are grateful for what you did for them”. His reply: “I wish I could have done more.”

What of Jewish historians? The first and greatest, Jeno Levai was an outstanding defender of Pus XII. I spoke briefly with him in Budapest in 1968. He was still adamant in his repudiation of Hochhuth, first expressed at the trial of the surviving Auschwitz personnel in 1964. I also met, for a much longer session Pinhas Lapide in Jerusalem. He told me that he heard a German general admit that retaliation was official policy in reply to protests. He estimated at 860,000 the Jewish lives saved by Plus XII’s rescue network. A writer rarely mentioned is David Herstig, who calculated that in 1966 360,000 Romanian Jews owed their lives to Pius XII.

The Allies did nothing to save the Jews until the war was over. Pius XII has been unjustly accused of the same callous indifference. It is an accusation which simply does not stand up. And it is time for it to be seen for what it always was: a lie.