Posted by
Maudie in Mandeville on Tuesday, May 12, 2009 5:14:33 PM
Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin said during an interview on Israel Radio regarding Pope Benedict's speech, "I came as a Jew, hoping to hear an apology and a request for forgiveness from those who caused our tragedy, and among them, the Germans and the church." Come again? "...and the church"? "...those who caused our tragedy"? "...caused?"
Catholic apologists have argued that Pope Pius XII saved more than one million Jewish lives during the war, 200,000 in Hungry, 50,000 in Poland, 360,000 in Bulgaria, 250,000 in Rumania, 22,000 in Slovakia and 120,000 in Italy.
At the risk of losing his neutrality and the risk of his own life, he ordered all Catholic convents, seminaries, monasteries, orphanages, and hospitals to be open to hide Jews.
In Rome occupied by Nazi troops, he harbored Jews within the Vatican itself to the extent that the Nazi’s did in fact have a plan to invade and kill the Pope and others.
While secretary to Pope Pius XI, the future Pope Pius XII wrote an encyclical letter warning the German people of the dangers of Hitler and Nazism. This letter written in German was smuggled into Germany by Francis Spellman the future Cardinal of New York.
Between 1936 and 1943 Pope Pius XII protested against Hitler and Nazism over 60 times. After the Dutch hierarchy officially protested the arrest and murder of Jews, Hitler retaliated so forcefully with the deaths of added Catholics and Jews, that along with the Red Cross the Vatican realized that any future protests would bring down fierce measures of Nazi retaliation. From that point on all help for the Jews was carried out by the various underground organizations that were saving the Jews by the tens of thousands.
When the head Rabbi of Rome had arranged significant funds as a ransom of Italian Jews, it was Pope Pius XII who raised most of the ransom. The head Rabbi, in fact, became a Catholic right after the war, taking the Pope’s own name.
Right after the war, the B’nai Brith Society named Pope Pius XII, Man of the Year, and he was praised by every prominent Jewish leader from Golda Meir to the head Rabbi of the United States.
When Adolf Eichmann’s diaries were released by the Israeli government on March 1, 2000. Eichmann, unwittingly, exonerated Pope Pius XII for as Eichmann wrote, Pope Pius XII “vigorously protested the arrest of Jews, calling for the interruption of such action, otherwise the Pope would denounce it publicly.” Further on he stated in his diary: “At that time, my office received the copy of the letter, that I immediately gave to my direct superiors, sent by the Catholic Church in Rome, in the person of Bishop Hudal, to the commander of the German forces in Rome, General Stahel. The Church was vigorously protesting the arrest of Jews of Italian citizenship, requesting that such actions be interrupted throughout Rome and its surroundings. To the contrary, the Pope would denounce it publicly. The Curia was especially angry because these incidents were taking place practically under Vatican windows. But, precisely at that time, without paying any attention to the Church’s position, the Italian fascist government passed a law ordering the deportation of all Italian Jews to concentration camps.” “The objective given and the excessive delay in the steps necessary to complete the implementation of the operation, resulted in a great part of Italian Jews being able to hide and escape capture,” Eichmann wrote. A good number of them hid in convents or were helped by men and women of the Church.
Since Pope Pius XII did so much more for his Jewish brothers and sisters than any other person on the face of the earth at that time, the largest monument for non Jews should be erected at Yad Va Shem to Pope Pius XII. It would also be wonderful if the head Rabbi of Jerusalem followed the lead of Pope John Paul II and make a public apology on behalf of the Jewish people for any Jewish negativity toward Pope Pius XII whom history will prove to be their greatest friend.
Evidently, Reuven Rivlin has a problem with B’nai Brith and Golda Meir. Was she that gullible and stupid? It would seem elementary, that those Jews present, immediately after the war, having lived through it day by day, would know not from any Church propaganda what was done, but from eye witness accounts. The Vatican had no army, no planes, no tanks, no rockets. It's safe to say, it walked a very fine line between helping as many Jews as possible, while preventing millions of Catholics from being gassed. After all, Dachau was not just for Jews.