I’m not a Pat Buchanan fan, but his magazine American Conservative has an interesting column that addresses the current fad of blaming the Catholic Church, in general, and Pope Pius XII, in particular, for the Holocaust. Lest we forget or buy into the lies:
The “bad” reputation of Pius XII owes a great deal to the notorious Hochhuth fictional play of 1963. Rolf Hochhuth was a former member of the Hitler Youth whose play “The Deputy” single-handedly managed to convince lots of people who were only too pleased to be convinced that Pius XII was lenient towards Hitler. (A film titled “Amen,” by Costas-Gavras, another opportunist and cheap-shot artist par excellence, based on “The Deputy” is being released this year.)
Here are the facts: Pope Pius XII was forced to devote himself to secretly helping the Jews for obvious reasons. The Germans considered the Vatican to be obstinately against their anti-Jewish policies and were threatening to accelerate deportation of Jews if the Vatican continued to resist. In other words, the Pope had to be careful in his pronouncements lest they do more harm than good. Before the warning, the Pope had issued non-stop public denunciations of Nazi racism, first as papal nuncio in Bavaria, as secretary of state under Pius XI, and finally as Pope. So much so, in fact, he was lampooned as a Jew-lover by German newspapers and accused of being Jewish. Pius also had an intolerable burden within his flock: the neutral Irish (with de Valera an open admirer of Hitler), the neutral Spanish, Portuguese, and pro-Axis Italians.
I didn’t realize that about some of the Irish, but I see how sizable populations of Nazi sympathizers within the Church could have been problematic for the Pope.
The point is that until the former Hitler Youth’s play in the 1960s, Pius XII was unanimously cheered by Jews and non-Jews alike and was credited with saving 700,000 Jewish lives by his measured, yet faithful actions.
- ... the people who showered official and public praise on Pius XII include Albert Einstein in 1940; Chaim Weizmann in 1943; the Chief Rabbi of Israel in 1944; the secretary of the World Jewish Congress in 1945; Moshe Sharett, Israelat fact. And so they’re willing to kill and die for their ridiculous goals.
I remember an old Steve Martin stand-up bit. He says something like, “If I were a bank robber, I would demand $1 million, a jet plane to fly me out of the country, and the letter ‘M” stricken from alphabet. You have to ask for one crazy thing so you can plead insanity if you’re caught. I mean, come on, a jet plane?!”
