Noel describes Pius XII as a ‘spiritual megalomaniac’ who ‘agonised over the fate of the Jews (and other Nazi victims) but put their fate second to that of his Church’. Yet the Pope consistently underestimated the spiritual power of the Church in southern Germany, undermined the Catholic anti-Nazi Zentrum party before the war, and failed to protest even when he knew from scores of sources that the Nazis were murdering thousands of Catholic priests across Eastern Europe, especially in Poland. ‘In retrospect,’ concludes Noel perceptively, ‘we can see that Hitler played the Pope with consummate expertise.’
(Noel also believes that Pius’ postwar visions of Our Lord appearing to him in his bedroom at St Peter’s were hallucinations brought on by the cellular rejuvenation treatment that lengthened his life, but which also induced ‘blood-curdling screams’ in the papal apartments. He might well be right, although if the Almighty had chosen to return to Earth, then a visit to his vicar here might well be the obvious place to start.)
Pius XII was ascetic, hardworking, frail, compassionate, logical, pious, subtle and highly intelligent, but over the single greatest issue of his life he was plainly wrong. Of course he should have protested vigorously against the Catholic Ustashe regime in Croatia killing Orthodox Serbs, the massacre of the gypsies and above all the genocide against the Jews. In any other period of history he would have made a fine Pope, but in the one that also contained Adolf Hitler he found himself politically and diplomatically at a loss. Although Noel is right to point out that the Pope’s ‘decision to stay silent over the fate of the Jews caused him acute distress, it was as nothing compared to theirs’. The present plans to canonise him should be quietly but definitely dropped.
Comments
KARL ROLEWICZ
July 18th, 2008 1:45pmThat you have made your biased anti-Pius XII comments based on the 'wise with hind-sight' 20-20 vision so common to 'merchant' banker' (rhymes with...)journalists , I am not surprised but that such a respected figure such as Gerard Noel should also sit in judgement with the also 'wise with hindsight' approach is an absolute disgrace.As you yourself say,the Germans would not have stopped their persecution of the Jews by one iota if the Pope had said something but in an unsavvy non-media age he quietly sent out orders that Jews were to be sheltered everywhere possible by Catholic monasteries,nunneries etc. etc..So please no more of this total bull---- about Pope Pius XII WHO WAS PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR SAVING OF COUNTLESS TENS OF THOUSANDS OF JEWS!...I AM ALSO SURE THAT THE VATICAN CONGREGATION FOR THE CAUSES OF SAINTS DOES NOT NEED ANY ADVICE FROM A VERTICALLY CHALLENGED IDDIOT OF A JOURNALIST!!!
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David Short
July 18th, 2008 1:11pmJews were treated very badly in just about every European country in those days, and many people in Britain even after the war and the knowledge of the death camps didn't care very much.
It was in America where Jewish people could reach their potential, even if that didn't include entry to country clubs.
This article smacks a little too much of judging yesterday's events by today's values.
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Larry
July 18th, 2008 7:15amThe great Winston Churchill didn't mention the Holocaust in his autobiography? Neither did Eisenhower or De Gaulle? How did the greatest crime in Human history not rate a mention by these great Statesmen?
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JohnA
July 17th, 2008 11:04pmThe Pope did not need to excommunicate members of the Nazi Party in 1944: they had already been publicly and lastingly excommunicated by the German Catholic bishops in 1932, before Hitler came to power, and all German Catholics were solemnly forbidden on pain of excommunication to vote for them. Nor do you mention Pius's 1939 pre-War encyclical 'mit brennender Sorge' - 'With vivid anxiety/alarm' - one of the first acts of his papacy, and written in German, not in Latin; although it addresses the problems of the Church in Germany, it also clearly attacks the Nazis' racial and racist policies.
As for fearing in December 1942 that the Church 'might suffer', even by 1939 Pius was well aware that the Catholic Church in Germany had been in grave difficulties since 1933, its churches forcibly closed, many of its members (particularly those associated with the Zentrumspartei) thrown into concentration camps or imprisoned (e.g. the courageously outspoken Dean of Berlin's Catholic Cathedral) for their anti-Nazi sermons. Anything he said across the air waves to a victorious and bloodthirsty Hitler was unlikely to have a calming effect, and as a diplomat, Pius realised that. Many of his actions (or inactions) look pusillanimous by modern papal standards, but they stem from his decision to maintain neutrality, and his disapproval of the punitive allied treatment of Germany after 1918.
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