Vatican Commission agrees to disagree on Stepanic

The Catholic News Agency reported on 18 July, on the latest meeting of the international historical commission set up in 2016 to examine the war-time record of Aloysius Stepinac (1898-1960), Archbishop of Zagreb 1937-60.  Readers may remember an earlier post about the commission and some of the areas of concern expressed.  The outcome of this meeting does not appear to have resolved the areas of greatest concern, namely Stepinac's action or inaction regarding the genocidal behaviour of the Ustaše regime in war-time Croatia although the Serbian Orthodox delegation praised Pope Francis for the opportunity to meet and discuss the Archbishop's life and legacy.

Reaction to the commission's work has been generally positive, though some in Croatia have raised fears that the Serbian Orthodox Synod has presented a distorted picture of Stepinac.  

The CNA article:

A commission of Catholic and Orthodox leaders tasked with examining the wartime record of Bl. Aloysius Stepinac concluded their final session last week, agreeing to disagree about the Croatian cardinal’s cause for canonization.

The Secretariat of the Holy See prepared a joint statement, adopted by both sides, at the conclusion of the commission’s sixth and final round of meetings at the Vatican July 12-13.

The document states that the opinions of either side remain unchanged, but also acknowledges that ultimately the competency for approval of the cardinal’s cause falls under Pope Francis.

“It has come to the conclusion that various events, speeches, writings, silences, and views are still subject to different interpretations. In the case of Cardinal Stepinac, the interpretations that were predominantly given by Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs remain divergent,” it states.

It included their thanks to Pope Francis for establishing the commission, which he did in May 2016 after receiving a letter from the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church Irinej, who stated his opposition to the cardinal's canonization.

They also expressed their gratitude for the atmosphere of the discussions which allowed “full freedom of expression.”

“From the commencement of the commission's work, the members were aware that the process of canonization of Cardinal Stepinac was in the exclusive competence of the Pope. They also admit that each Church has its own criteria for the canonization process,” it continued.

The Secretariat of the Holy See, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, accepted the outcome of the commission, which was led by Fr. Bernard Ardura, president of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences.

With the conclusion of the commission, the path to the canonization of Cardinal Stepinac is fully open. The proper requisites in place, it is in the hands of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and then will go to Pope Francis for approval. It is believed the announcement of his canonization could take place soon.

Cardinal Stepinac, who is hailed as a hero in Croatia, has been a target of decades-long communist smears and disinformation. Despite this, he was beatified as a martyr by Pope St. John Paul II in October 1998.

Many in the Serbian Orthodox community are deeply skeptical of the cardinal's wartime record. Though one researcher of the period says the facts counter false claims about the beatified cardinal's record.

“What you have is a false narrative created by Soviet agents,” Prof. Ronald J. Rychlak told CNA/EWTN News in 2016.

Cardinal Stepinac was the Archbishop of Zagreb from 1937 until his death in 1960 at the age of 61. In Yugoslavia during the Second World War, the pro-Nazi Ustashe movement came to power under leader Ante Pavelic after the Axis occupied the country.

“Stepinac's sermons against the Ustashe were so strong. They prohibited them from being published, because they were so strong against the Ustashe,” Rychlak said. Instead, his words were secretly printed and circulated and occasionally broadcast over the radio.

He also severely condemned the Ustashe’s destruction of Zagreb’s main synagogue in 1941 and in an October 1943 homily, the archbishop condemned notions of racial superiority.

In 1946, Stepinac was put on trial for allegedly collaborating with the Ustashe’s crimes. The trial drew critical coverage from Western media like Time and Newsweek and protests from those who saw it as a show trial.

Archbishop Stepinac was denied effective representation and only met with his attorney for an hour before the trial. The government’s witnesses were told what to say, and the archbishop was not allowed to cross-examine them.

In 1953, Pope Pius XII made him a cardinal, although he was never allowed travel to the Holy See to be officially elevated. He died in 1960 of an alleged blood disorder, which was said to have been caused by the conditions he endured in jail. Recent tests of his remains by Vatican investigators show evidence he was also poisoned.

In June 2011 Pope Benedict XVI praised Cardinal Stepinac as a courageous defender of those oppressed by the Ustashe, including Serbs, Jews and gypsies.

He said the cardinal stood against “the dictatorship of communism, where he again fought for the faith, for the presence of God in the world, the true humanity that is dependent on the presence of God.”

Pius XII Conference at the Sorbonne?

In his presentation on Intelligence Squared, Professor Ronald Rychlak said that he had attended a conference on Pius XII at the Sorbonne in Paris.  I think I am reasonably adept at finding information on the internet, but so far have been unable to discover anything on this conference.  I have looked at the Sorbonne website to no avail; done several "google" searches and drawn a zero result.

If a reader knows someting about the conference I would be grateful for any shared information.

Intelligence Squared - the debate

Last Sunday night I sat down and watched the Intelligence Squared debate from London.  To be frank, the topic did not inspire much in the way of confidence for a solid historical debate.  I was not greatly disappointed.

I mentioned in the previous post that the two apologists, Professor Ron Rychlak and William Doino would be up against two seasoned and professional masters of debate in the public forum, Lord Norwich and Geoffrey Robinson.  Norwich and Robinson provided great entertainment but not all that much history.  Rychlak and Doino provided a lot of historical data but not much by way of context.

How did the debate pan out?

John Julius Norwich opened with a general overview that relied too greatly on some poor history – forcefully rebutted by Doino – and which detracted from what I think his thesis was, namely that despite numerous opportunities that presented themselves, Pius XII did not speak out at all.  His comments on the Christmas 1942 address demonstrated a very poor grasp of the situation Pius found himself in and showed that Norwich had not done sufficient reading of the available material.  The strongest point I think Norwich made was related to the Holocaust in Hungary, but even here he showed a lack of historical context.  Citing nuncio Angelo Rotta’s comments to the Hungarian government “not to continue its war against the Jews beyond the limits prescribed by the laws of nature and God’s commandments” without the necessary and relevant context makes for poor argument.  Viscount Norwich should know better.

Historically, Norwich made a weak show that would prove relatively easy to demolish.

William Doino began speaking at the twelfth minute.  I found it irritating that he spent quite a bit of time correcting Norwich and allowed himself to delve in tangential issues such as the story of Roi Ottley, an Afro-American journalist who had an audience with Pius XII in 1944.

From here Doino reverted to his customary style which is to bury your opponent in facts.  And there was no shortage.  However, as has been my criticism of Doino for some time, he is able to produce facts by the cart load but does not place them into context.  Facts without context are dangerous to the point of being misleading.  The questions raised by Norwich were not addressed except in saying that Pius did speak out and had done for many years.  The grey zones of nuance and varying historical circumstance did not get much of a mention here.

One would expect a magisterial performance from a silk such as Geoffrey Robinson, and I was not disappointed.  As speakers went Robinson was the superior orator on the night, but his history was weak and polemical.

Opening with the stirring statement that he was about the “dissecting the soul of a man who could not bring himself to speak out publically against the Holocaust” Robinson then cited Elie Wiesel: “Take sides, neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victims.  Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.  And this is a truth that applies to the silence of Pope Pius XII in face of the most heinous crime against humanity ever committed even when it was taking place under his very windows.”   There was little variation from then on.  How Robinson could jump from his perception that Pius did not speak to papal silence being the “license to the Catholic SS to kill…” rather escaped me.  There was eloquence, there was masterful rhetoric and there was entertainment, but there was little history.  I got the distinct feeling that Robinson was there to enjoy himself at the expense of his opponents. Robinson’s final argument that Germany needed papal neutrality and silence in order to preserve hope in German victory was astounding for its brazen audacity.  “Mr Pacelli, the bad Samaritan” ended the Queen’s Counsel’s time at the podium.

I was ready to hear Professor Rychlak.

If Robinson was the most entertaining speaker, Rychlak was certainly the best historian of the evening, and I believe, the most convincing of the speakers for the motion.  He kept his presentation simple, spoke calmly and did not rise to take the bait proffered by Norwich and Robinson.  However, I found Rychlak’s arguments to be unsatisfying because they were highly selective and avoided the thornier problems surrounding events such as the 1943 Rome Juednaktion, the post-war statements of Angelo Roncalli and Giovanni Battista Montini and the German plans to kidnap the pope.

At the end of the presentations the vote taken at the beginning of the night was announced.  146 had voted in favour of the motion, that Pius XII had been silent, 41 against the motion, and 171 undecided.

Questions followed.  Most of these were populist questions that could have led the speakers to delve deeper into the issues, or at least allude that there were depths that could not be plumbed in the context of the debate.  It was disappointing that this was not done.  I will leave it to the reader to make up their own minds about Question Time.

 

During the questions I thought that Norwich and Robinson were enjoying themselves particularly at Doino’s expense.  They made outrageous statements and Doino “bit” responding far too seriously and with no intimation that he was over-reacting.  Norwich’s dismissal of American phobias about communism was one example.  I must admit I did laugh a little at it – it was so silly.  And Robinson kept the joke alive with ongoing digs at Doino.

Once again, it was Rychlak who responded best I believe.  He is clearly quite at home with debates and can carry himself with the thrust and parry that goes on.  “How do we assess Pius XII?  He did the best he could.  Did he do too little?  He didn’t stop the Holocaust; he tried, he wanted to  … he wanted to end the war.”  These are fair statements.  They need further expansion, but they are a start.

 

The final vote of the night was interesting:  227 voted in favour of the motion that the pope did too little, and 103 against the motion.  It marked a shift in thinking of a large number of people.

Did the evening change anything?  I suspect not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pius XII and intelligencesquared - London, 14 November

On Wednesday 14 November at the Royal Institution in London there will be an "Oxford-style" debate.  The question proposed for discussion is "Pius XII did too little to save the Jews from the Holocaust".  Tickets are ￡25 and can be purchased online.

The speakers are not historians of the genre or era, in fact three of the speakers are not historians.

John Julius Norwich is author of The Popes: a history (2011) an attempt to write a global portrait of the institution.  According to Edward Pentin writing in the Catholic Herald, Norwich bases much of his understanding of Pius XII on Cornwall's "Hitler's Pope" (1999).  This does not bode well for good and reliable history.  Reviews of the book in the New York Times, The Guardian and Telegraph were generally positive, but point out that this is a general history not a detailed study of the whole papacy. Therefore, comments are likely to be more on the general side and indicative of the personal interests of the author.

 John Julius Norwich

Geoffrey Robinson

Geoffrey Robinson, the well known human rights advocate who attempted to have Benedict XVI indicted for trial before the International Criminal Court in the Hague will also speak in favour of the motion.  His book "The Case of the Pope" (2010) was given to me as a Christmas present by one of my students as a tongue-in-cheek end-of-school bit of fun.  I read the book and while I admire Robinson's brilliance of mind and written word, I was not convinced of his arguments, spoiled as they are by a serious lack partiality and of understanding of Catholicism, the institution of the Church, the Vatican and Papacy.  Catherine Pepinster, editor of The Tablet, wrote a balanced review of the work for The Telegraph. The review in The Guardian proves Pepinster's case, that a one-sided look will lead inevitably to a one-sided conclusion.



William Doino and Ronald Rychlak are two of the best known apologists for Pius XII.  I have commented on their work several times on this blog.  There is no need to re-visit their material here.

William Doino

Ronald Rychlak

I doubt very much that this evening's debate will add anything of substance to the work historians are engaged in.  In fact, I suspect that the only result will be a night of entertainment as two highly accomplished writers, Norwich and Robinson, neither of whom have much time for the Catholic Church, and less for Pius XII, will face two passionate and dogmatic apologists, Doino and Rychlak, who have shown in their writing little interest in the craft of history and great interest in propaganda and over-simplification of fact and contexts to further the agenda of various neo-conservative groups.

There may well be a few good laughs, but I doubt there will be much good history.  Of course, I would be delighted to be proved wrong.

Memories, and "Framing" - Pius XII

1. Clerical Whispers reported on 96 year old Cardinal Fiorenzo Angelini's memories of Pius XII during the war years.  It is a very short article.  Does it add to the historical record?  No.  It is a "human interest" story focused on the cardinal's memory of Pius' presence in a Roman suburb after an air raid.  It could by San Lorenzo, but there are no details given.  Fr Z's blog contains a little more information on the same story but nothing that adds to the record.  Both Clerical Whispers and Fr Z sourced their story from the Catholic News Agency that ran the story on 2 August 2012.

2.  The big news on Pius XII is the resurfacing of the story that the pope was the subject of a KGB inspired "framing".  I have commented on this before in March and November last year.  The National Catholic Register's article re-tells the story of Ion Mihai Pacepa a former Romanian secret policeman who alleges that the Soviet secret police orchestrated a smear campaign against Pius XII that has become known as the "Black Legend".  The former general wants to present his work to Professor Dan Michman at Yad Vashem in order to present his case.  Part one is linked above and part two can be found here.

In the last article on the Pacepa claims long-time apologist for Pius XII, Ronald Rychlak has written how he moved from scepticism to believing the "framing" campaign. I will leave it to the reader to make up their own mind. 

It is curious to note that no major news service has taken up the story.  It is also worth remembering that Pacepa's story was seriously debunked several years ago by Professor Thomas Brechenmacher of Potsdam University, a Holocaust and Pius XII expert with a significant published record in the field.

First Madigan, now Kertzer. Open season on historians.

This post will probably put the fox into the hen house, but it is time the battle was taken to those who have for some time now enjoyed engaging in a largely unchallenged polemic against historians who do as their craft demands, namely seek the truth.  For several years now apologists, that is, a group of neo-conservative writers and journalists, some with academic qualification, many with none, have taken it upon themselves to "set the record straight" on Pius XII, the Catholic Church and everything related to it.  In their, extremely limited understanding of Catholic theology and history, they believe they have the right to impose their version of  a "fatwa" on those with whom they disagree.  In email correspondence with colleagues in more than a few places around the world there is a growing anger that these "snake oil" merchants and bullies have gone too far. I have taken deep offence at their unbridled attacks on historians.  I have also taken deep offence at their appalling lack of customary good manners and basic decency.

In February William Doino took aim at Harvard's Professor Kevin Madigan in First Things, penning a particularly nasty and grossly inaccurate piece of historical revisionism and apologia.  Why?  Because Madigan had the nerve to pen a review of two books he found to add substance to the ongoing historical discussion about the Catholic Church and its role/s during the Holocaust.  Doino believed Madigan’s positive assessment of both works - David Cymet History vs Apologetics and Gerald Steinacher Nazis on the Run - was, historically distorted and flawed to the point that suggested Madigan was operating from a more insidious agenda, namely supporting the white-anting of the Catholic Church through “pope bashing”.

Curiously, while dismissing Steinacher’s work as “a pseudo-scholarly mess” with no examination of how he reached this conclusion, Doino spends most of his time creating so much smoke that the lay reader might be forgiven there is something in his vigorous defence of Pius XII.  Even this writer was not spared.  I was quoted by a responder to the First Things article.  It appears that speaking in defence of those who have been unfairly treated by those whose own writing demonstrates an appalling lack of familiarity with the material is simply not acceptable.  Doino replied by rounding on the responder who had referenced “an author who similarly fails to acknowledge the major errors and omissions of Madigan, Steinacher and Cymet, but nonetheless takes strong exception to my work.  Since the same author once wrote a review praising John Cornwell’s  Hitler’s Pope as “particular satisfying in most respects” (see Patterns of Prejudice, volume 34, no. 4, 2000, p.68), that is hardly surprising”.  And I am guilty as charged.  I have changed my opinion on Cornwall; but then recognising one’s mistakes and engaging in serious research in order to come to a more balanced and historically satisfying conclusion is part of the process of ongoing education. (I have little doubt that this will be used against me - the idea that one can change and grow does not seem to be part of the apologist's world-view.)

Finally, Kevin Madigan wrote a review, not a manifesto.  Doino’s determination to pillory Madigan is fruitless; he has not pointed out one single historical error in his column, and he won’t, because they are not there.  That being said, the maxim “don’t kick a man when he is down” seems not to apply to the apologists.  Shortly after Doino’s column was published, the doyen of the papal revisionists, Ronald Rychlak joined the fray with an even more vehemently anti-Madigan article.  It is another tiresome, twisted attempt to silence historians from doing their job.  I am not surprised there are some in the Vatican who appreciate what the apologists do, write and say.

If Kevin Madigan was pursued by the equivalent of a bar room brawler spoiling for a fight, the Provost of Brown University, RI,  David Kertzer is being targeted by an academic version of Terminator.

Justus George Lawler’s Were the Popes Against the Jews arrived on my desk just before Easter.  I started reading it a couple of days ago.  My first impressions can be summarised thus:

1.  What on earth did David Kertzer do to warrant such vitriol and venom in this book?  What ever happened to academic courtesy and plain old-fashioned good manners?

2.  Where does the anger that fuels Lawler’s writing originate?  It can’t be in the history, it must come from somewhere else.  It has the vehemence of someone spurned.

3.  History – where is it?  There is polemic by the bucket load, but where is the research, reference to archives visited, material read and analysed?  Most of this book is compiled from secondary sources.  Much of what is found in the text has to be dug out from the purple prose that litters so much of this book.

4.  Language:  this is a very difficult book to read; the prose is turgid and stilted.  Why Lawler has chosen to write this way is beyond me.  It simply makes reading the book incredibly burdensome.

5.  A more honest title of the book would be Against David Kertzer and his ilk.

I am familiar with Kertzer’s work and have found it sound, well researched with evidence drawn from archival sources and reliable secondary sources.

Several things in Lawler’s book cause concern, not least of which are repeated unfounded inaccuracies. 

A simple example is the assertion that appears to form the principle thesis, namely that Kerzter asserts there was some secret Antisemitic conspiracy promoted and led by popes and their secretaries of state.  This theme chimes like a chorus throughout the book.  It reaches a high-point in chapter four, where Lawler says that Kertzer “invented a papal conspiracy”.  This is arrant nonsense.  Not only does Kertzer not speak of plots and conspiracies, his writing points to an accepted culture of contempt, a political-cultural milieu where Jews were perceived as negative influences on Christian society.  And the popes were not alone in thinking along those lines; it was nearly de rigueur in 19^th century Europe.

Lawler’s obsession about Pius IX’s reference to Jews as “dogs” caught my attention (Chapter 4).  I was curious enough to write to Professor Kertzer and ask him directly what it was all about.  From my own reading of the literature of the time, especially from the papal-endorsed Civilta Cattolica, the language did not strike me as all that surprising.  This is an extract from the email correspondence I had with David Kertzer:

Lawler’s fixation with my quote from Pius IX on Jews as dogs, which I only mention in one paragraph in the book, is another genre of misrepresentation and bad faith. He accuses me of “a misquote” and concealing the real quote, yet when he ultimately, after repeating the charge many times, reproduces the full quote, he fails to show any misquote at all. He also, beginning in his introduction, with a long accusation, and then repeated later in the book, voices great suspicion that if I had the quote why I did not “pull it out” during my debate with the Monsignor when I mentioned it. The whole dog incident took place as follows: I was asked to debate the bishop who was I think secretary of the Vatican office in charge of making saints, on a live nationally broadcast well known radio program in Italy on September 1, 2000, two days before the beatification of Pius IX. As the program was at 9 a.m. Italian time, and while the monsignor and the host were in the Rome studio, I was sitting in the dark in my Providence kitchen … where it was 3 a.m.. When the bishop for the umpteenth time said how kindly a view of the Jews Pius IX had, I, among other things, mentioned his reference to Jews as dogs running through the streets of Rome. This he denied the pope had ever said. A day or two later I got an email from John Allen, noted Vaticanologist and journalist, asking for the source of the dog quote, given that the bishop had denied it existed. I gave him the volume and page from the Vatican publication of the pope's speeches. He checked and then got back to me letting me know he had found it and that what I had said was accurate. But now Lawler casts nasty insinuations about my motives in not producing the document when the monsignor questioned it during the debate….

Somehow I find Kertzer’s explanation far more convincing that Lawler’s conspiracy theories.

The 1913 ritual murder trial of Menahem Beilis in Kiev is another fixation Lawler has (Chapter 6). The details of the trial are readily available.  I was left wondering if there was a second edition of Kertzer’s book, because the distortion of facts engineered by Lawler bore little relation to the account I had read in Popes against the Jews.  Lawler asserts that Kertzer supports the idea that the antisemitic Cardinal Merry del Val actually delayed in sending a crucial piece of supportive evidence to Russia that would help get Beilis acquitted (132-133) My reading of Kertzer has him acknowledging Merry del Val as quite likely instrumental in the eventual acquittal.  Lawler’s harping on supposed mistranslations and manipulations of text grinds on and on, to the detriment of any positive critique he could make.

Lawler’s treatment of the Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolica is simply absurd.  To even suggest that the pope did not have complete or significant editorial control is risible (27).  It was well known that the pope or secretary of state met with the editors of Civilta to review the next edition.  The pope knew the content of the journal and approved it.  Lawler is the one engaging in conspiracy theories if he would have us believe that some underling crept in and changed articles after the next edition had received the papal placet.

His whole apologia claiming that the Civilta had no impact on the spread of Antisemitism, that it was simply repeating what others were saying, is beyond belief.  Further, his attempt to deny that the local Catholic press looked to Civilta for a signal of what the Vatican thought about issues of the day would not be taken seriously by any credible historian.

Even Howard Heinz Wisla “gets a guernsey” in this narrative.  Lawler demonstrates neither historical common sense in checking his sources, depending on the account written by William Doino, (356) and repeating Doino’s errors nor going and reading the very texts he cites to verify accuracy!  It looked to be a case of the pot (Lawler) calling the kettle (Kertzer) “black”.

Finally, the disdain and contempt shown towards the historians who signed the Letter to Pope Benedict XVI in February 2010, is simply nasty.  The reader can make up their own mind. (See 245-254)

I finished reading the book – having skimmed large sections because they are all but unreadable – felling quite angry that Justus George Lawler should squander his talent on such nasty and mean-spirited attacks;  angry I had wasted the money buying it;  angry that an historian of the calibre of Michael Burleigh had lent his considerable reputation to support it; angry that reputable and credible historians such as David Kertzer, Kevin Madigan, and many others, are lambasted and ridiculed; and angry that historians are forced to defend themselves personally and professionally from ideologues and apologists who claim for themselves the moral high ground from which to pontificate to the rest of us.  It is time for this nonsense to stop.

David Kertzer

(I am more than happy to engage in serious dialogue with readers.  I will not engage in debate with polemicists or publish comments that are offensive.)

It's been quiet in cyber-space of late ... Pius XII?

When I get a chance of late to have a look at the google alerts and my inbox, I have noticed that the news on Pius XII has been relatively slim.  That's not to say there has been nothing, just no where near what has been the usual volume that I have become accustomed to.

In the last week there have been reports on a lecture given by Ronald Rychlak at Wabash College and two news releases from the ADL in New York.

Ronald Rychlak is no stranger to the "Pius Wars".  He is one of the more articulate academic apologists.  That is not say that his writing is convincing - I find it not.  The Wabash lecture re-visited familiar territory and a familiar theme, that it was the USSR that was behind the blackening of Pius XII's name and reputation.  The "black legend" relies heavily on the story of a former Romanian secret service major-general, Ion Mihai Pacepa, but, more significantly, on the accusations of Papal complicity in the crimes of the Nazis made by French and Polish Catholics as early as 1939, just after Pacelli's election as pope - two decades before the KGB stories were hatched.  Giovanni Sale, the respected Jesuit historian has written extensively on the "black legend" and helps to provide the evidential base for its strange history.  Sandro Magister, editor and writer of the Italian column Chiesa: espresso on line published a detailed and lengthy article on Sale and his research in early 2009.  (This was not the first time he had written on the topic.  There is an earlier column from 2005.)

Rychlak is entitled to his opinion, but not to claims that he had access to Vatican archives that remain under embargo, which is what the article states quite bluntly.  What are these archives?

The ADL has published two media releases of interest in the last week.  Firstly Abraham Foxman, National Director of the ADL wrote congratulating the pope on his recent statements acknowledging without any hint of ambiguity, that the Jews were not, and are not, collectively responsible for the death of Jesus.  Foxman's words are worth quoting:

This is an important and historic moment for Catholic-Jewish relations, as Pope Benedict XVI is now moving ahead with implementing the second phase of Vatican II. It is especially significant because it deepens and gives historians context crucial in having the doctrine expressed in Nostra Aetate translated down to the pews.


The 1965 Second Vatican Council document Nostra Aetate rejected the deicide charge on theological grounds. But continuing in this tradition with specificity, Pope Benedict has rejected the previous teachings and perversions that have helped to foster and reinforce anti-Semitism through the centuries.

The fact that this Pope is a theologian, and has served as a defender of the faith, makes this statement from the Holy See that much more significant for now and for future generations. He is continuing in the storied tradition of Pope John Paul II in rejecting the calumny of those charges and in taking Nostra Aetate and Vatican II to the next level.

The second ADL media release is interesting for the strange comments by two of the Catholic representatives at the recent 21st International Liaison Committee Meeting in Paris (February 27 - March 2, 2011)   At the meeting the ADL made another call to the Vatican to set a definite date for the release of the files from Pius XII's papacy.  Dates have come and gone with no clear picture of when the ASV will allow public access.  Cardinal Peter Turkson and Cardinal Kurt Koch said that there is an argument for the Vatican to withhold release of some archival material from the war years, if it was found to be detrimental to the Holy See.  Historians should be shouting from the rooftops against this ham-fisted attempt to justify a form of censorship.  Given that all the major players are now dead, what has the church to gain from appearing to hide secrets?

Review of the revised edition of "Hitler, the War and the Pope"

Terry Oberg of Brisbane has given me permission to publish his review of Ronald Rychlak's "Hitler, the War and the Pope."  I read the first edition some years ago.  While Rychlak's collection of data is impressive, his analysis lacks the historical rigour and contextual detail demanded of the subject.  However, this post belongs to Terry and his review.

Title: Hitler, the War and the Pope.

Author: Ronald Rychlak

Publisher: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing

Price: $35

Reviewed for the Catholic Leader, Brisbane, Australia, by Terry Oberg.

In his preface the author claims the first edition of this work was written to prove that Pius XII was not a Nazi. Surely this is the classic example of demolishing the straw man. George Cochran who is alleged to have made that claim comes from the same legal background as Ronald Rychlak. Both lack any formal academic background as historians.

What is presented is a well organised catalogue of words, thoughts and deeds emanating from the diplomat, Eugenio Pacelli, who then becomes Pius XII. In both positions his championing of the Jewish cause and his condemnation of Nazism are unchallenged. The reader is positioned to construe the content this way.

Yet it is general knowledge that several reputable, professional historians do not share these unqualified conclusions. The memory of a Pope charged with guiding the Church through one of its most difficult periods is not honoured by such an unbalanced treatment as this.

Much evidence is cited that appears convincing and the documentation is copious. In a chapter on his critics the author names mainstream historians who disagree with him. Michael Phayer, Michael Burleigh, Robert Katz and Susan Zucotti are mentioned. These are too lightly dismissed by reference to a Rabbi who heaps them under the subjectivity of, “distorting the truth in order to influence the future of the Catholic Church.”

Kevin Rudd, in some of his worst PR moments as Prime Minister, used to ask himself questions to which he then proceeded to give his interviewers the answers; a variation of the maligned Dorothy Dix strategy. The final chapter of this book takes this form.

Pius XII and the Distorting Ellipsis - from First Things

This article is a timely reminder of the demands of accuracy in reading and translating documentary evidence.  Pacelli's speeches made in Budapest at the Eucharistic Congress in May 1938 are of interest in gauging something of his understanding of the lurch from crisis to crisis on the continent. 

It is interesting though, that niether Rychlak or Doino make no mention of the antisemitic legislation promulgated in the Hungarian parliament passed with the votes of most of the Catholic bishops who sat in the chamber. Nor do the authors express comment at the context surrounding Pacelli's public addresses in a country that begun a serious process of civil exclusion of Hungarian Jewry. 

The Cardinal preached on the Church's duty in the world.  "The Church's duty in the apostolic service of justice is typified by universal love; it is therefore impossible for it to take sides and rigidly stand by any party." (reported in the London Tablet June 4, 1938).  It would be difficult to see how a diplomat of such political astuteness as Pacelli could not have known of Hungary's antisemitic legislation and the fundamental injustice that it had wrought on Hungarian society through the application of Horthy's Christian National Principle.  Jews were being forced out of public life, excluded from universities and the professions.  Conversion provided a way out, but this was to prove a short-lived reprieve.

So, yes, the article is a useful reminder about translation, but it also reminds the reader of the dangers of leaving out significant contextual events that can place Pacelli's speech into a more accurate sphere.

Pius XII and the Distorting Ellipsis



Sep 16, 2010


Ronald J. Rychlak and William Doino, Jr.


As charge after charge that Pope Pius XII failed to resist the Germans or even that he was indeed “Hitler’s Pope” has been refuted, the critics have advanced new and more remote accusations. First, critics attacked him for what he said or did (or failed to say or do) during the war. When those accusations were proved to be without merit, they charged him with failures after the war.


When those were refuted, they shifted to the pope’s actions before he was pope. John Cornwell, the author of Hitler’s Pope, based his case on two letters, one written in 1917 and the other in 1919. On The O’Reilly Factor, he agreed that action to thwart Hitler would have to have been taken by 1933, and that the pope could have done nothing in 1938 or 1939. Pius XII did not become pope until 1939.

The current charge claims that in a presentation Pius XII gave at an International Eucharistic Congress in Hungary in 1938—when he was still Eugenio Pacelli, Vatican Secretary of State—he referred to Jews as enemies of Christ and the Catholic Church. (It should be noted that the Germans had refused to send a delegation to the congress when they learned that Pacelli would be there, and permitted no news of it to be transmitted in Germany. Pacelli had, after all, berated them the year before when he went to France for the Pope.)

The critics claim that on May 25, 1938, just after the Anschluss (the German annexation of Austria), but before the Shoah or even the outbreak of World War II, Pacelli said:

Jesus conquers! He who so often was the recipient of the rage of his enemies, he who suffered the persecutions of those of whom he was one, he shall be triumphant in the future as well. . . . As opposed to the foes of Jesus, who cried out to his face, “Crucify him!” we sing him hymns of our loyalty and our love. We act in this fashion, not out of bitterness, not out of a sense of superiority, not out of arrogance toward those whose lips curse him and whose hearts reject him even today.


One major critic of Pius, Moshe Y. Herczl, claimed that Pacelli was clearly assailing Jews: “Pacelli relied on his audience, realizing that hints would suffice. . . . He was sure that his audience understood him well.” Cornwell concurred: “Pacelli, representative of the Pope at the Eucharistic congress, was making it clear that the ‘comprehensive love’ he preached at the meeting did not include the Jews.” Michael Phayer added that Pacelli, was “making reference to Jews ‘whose lips curse [Christ] and whose hearts reject him even today.’”

There is reason to be suspicious of this quotation, and the anti-Semitic interpretation applied to it.


First, no one at the time thought that Pacelli was speaking of Jews. He spoke of the “military godless” and those who wanted to “impose a new Christianity,” statements applicable only to the Communists and Nazis. Time magazine reported on the Eucharistic Congress and noted that while the host cardinal’s opening speech had “contained no hint of the fact that he is firmly anti-Nazi,”

Papal Legate Pacelli, without descending from the high religious plane of the Congress, was more specific about Catholicism’s enemies “the lugubrious array of the militant godless, shaking the clenched fist of anti-Christ.” Cried he: “Where now are Herod and Pilate, Nero and Diocletian, and Julian the Apostate, and all the persecutors of the First Century? St. Ambrose replies: ‘The Christians who have been massacred have won the victory; the vanquished were their persecutors.’ Ashes and dust are the enemies of Christianity; ashes and dust are all that they have desired, pursued perhaps even tasted for a short moment of power and terrestrial glory.”

Second, look at the quotation the papal critics use. One has to wonder what the ellipsis is replacing. Despite the importance of this quotation to the argument of many papal critics, it seems that none of them traced it back to its origin.

Recently on the Australian blog Galus Australis, for example, Gabriel Wilensky wrote: “[W]ho cares if the conference was about atheist Nazis or the health benefits of eating spinach?” Wilensky, author of a book titled Six Million Crucifixions, continued: “The pope was talking about the Jews. The pope was not referring to Nazi lips that curse Christ and Nazi hearts who still reject Christ even today. He was referring to the Jews. You know this.”

A defender of Pius, Gary Krupp, asked Wilensky whether he had reviewed the original text of the speech. Wilensky admitted that he did not have “the entire speech . . . nor do I have the original quotes in French. I assume you ask for the original in French for the sake of archival completeness, and not because you suspect the paragraph I quoted is mistranslated and/or is a misrepresentation of the original?”

Krupp, of course did suspect a mistranslation (or worse), and he was right.

With the assistance of Vatican historian (and relator of Pope Pius XII’s sainthood cause) Fr. Peter Gumpel, we reviewed the text of the speech as it was published in Discorsi e Panegirici. The quote as given by the critics does not appear therein. The ellipsis was used to link very diverse passages from different pages of Pacelli’s speech, producing a complete distortion of Pacelli’s words. (To be certain that we were not overlooking anything, we reviewed transcripts from all seven of the talks he gave in Hungary.)

Early in the talk, Pacelli spoke about biblical history. He recalled the Passion of Christ, and he mentioned the defiance of disciples, the solitude of Gethsemane, the crowning of thorns, the cynicism of Herod, and the opportunism of Pilate.

He referred to the masses that called for the Crucifixion and said they had been “deceived and excited by propaganda, lies, insults and imprecations at the foot of the Cross.” Those identified as enemies of Christ included Pontius Pilate, Herod, the Roman soldiers, the Sanhedrin, and their followers. He did not call out “all Jews” or “the Jews.”

About two pages later in the manuscript, Pacelli referred to those who were persecuting the Church at that time by doing things like expelling religion and perverting Christianity. Jews were not doing this, but Nazi Germany certainly was. The future pope was clearly equating the Nazis, not Jews, to those who persecuted the Church at earlier times.

Pacelli then returned to the theme of Christ’s sufferings during the Passion which were being repeated against the Mystical Body of Christ in modern times contrasting them with the Church’s offering of love: “Let us replace the cry of ‘Crucify’ made by Christ’s enemies, with the ‘Hosanna’ of our fidelity and our love.” Pacelli was rebuking the totalitarians of his day, not the Jews of earlier times.

Nowhere in the address did he mention or single out Jews as the specific, much less sole, enemies of Jesus Christ, past or present. Nowhere did he depict them as speaking “ out to his face,” or cite any passages from Scripture (e.g., Mathew 27: 26: “His blood be on us, and our children”) that have been misread for centuries to foment anti-Semitism. There is no legitimate way to argue that Pacelli was blaming Jews when he spoke about the enemies of Christ.

Where did the distorted quotation come from? The first use in English was by Herczl, in his Christianity and the Holocaust of Hungarian Jewry (1993). Perhaps Herczl himself or the people who helped with the book falsified the quotation, but that seems unlikely. All are or were successful professionals who had no logical reason to manipulate the quotation. He, and those who have used the quote since, however, accepted too uncritically a very unreliable source.

Herczl was not present at the speech and did not even look at Pacelli’s script which can be found in Discorsi e Panegirici, a collection of Pius’s early writings first published in 1939, or even the Italian version that appeared in the Vatican newspaper. In his book, he cited a Hungarian newspaper, Nemzeti Ujsag (National Journal), with a long and controversial history as a political outlet.

According to Herczl, at the time in question Nemzeti Ujsag called itself “The Political Christian Daily Newspaper,” and he described it as “the semi-official newspaper of the Catholic Church.” That is in keeping with what National Socialists claimed at that time, which was the kind of lie Pacelli complained about in his talk.

The evidence is against Herczl. As its name implies and as numerous articles in the newspaper itself attest, Nemzeti Ujsag was a political journal, not a religious one. It was, at least in the relevant years, overtly anti-Semitic and truly despicable. Randolph L. Braham, a noted scholar in the field, called it a voice of National Socialism. Herczl himself notes that the newspaper could be considered as part of an anti-Semitic coalition, along with the “Awakening Hungarians,” an early fascist group, and the Christian Socialists, which were in Hungary strongly anti-Semitic.

It is likely that the newspaper manufactured the quotation to support its anti-Semitic position. Pacelli, after all, was criticizing the exact political position the paper held. Then as now, Vatican support was a very useful thing to claim.

Herczl and those who followed him should have been skeptical of this source. Neither he nor anyone else would have accepted what that paper said about Jews, yet with several other reliable sources available, why did he turn to an unreliable source for this crucial information about Pacelli? More importantly, why have critics like Phayer and Cornwell simply repeated the charge, relying upon this English translation of a Hebrew translation from a Hungarian translation of a speech originally made in French by a native Italian speaker?

The manufactured quotation blatantly distorted the words of the future pope. Inasmuch that quote was inconsistent with so much other evidence of Pacelli’s character, it should have been strictly scrutinized. Instead it was readily accepted and insufficiently analyzed by critics eager to discredit the papacy and the Catholic Church. They should be ashamed.



Ronald J. Rychlak is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law. His most recent book is a revised and expanded edition of Hitler, the War, and the Pope (OSV). William Doino, Jr., is a contributor to The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII (Lexington Books).


RESOURCES

The Time magazine report on the Eucharistic Congress, Religion: Eucharist in Budapest.


The exchange between Wilensky and Krupp.


Ronald L. Braham The Christian Churches of Hungary and the Holocaust.


William Doino’s Pius XII Did Help the Jews from The Times.


William Doino’s The Silence of Saul Friedlander from “On the Square.”


For an extensive collection of articles on the subject from all sides, see Pius XII and the Holocaust.

Pius defenders gathered to answer questions about Pope Pius XII

This is the heading of an article about a gathering Rome.  I have taken it from Catholic News Service.  At this stage I know nothing of the proceedings and cannot make any comment on what was discussed.  I post this article because it is important to attempt to hear all the voices about Pius, even the ones I don't necessarily agree with.  When I learn more about the Rome meeting I will make some considered comments.

I met Andrea Tornielli and Matteo Luigi Napolitano.  Andrea is a delightful and articulate journalist with whom I dicussed a number of issues related to Pius at the Jerusalem symposium in March 2009.  Matteo is likewise very affable and keen to listen to other points of view.  While I do not agree with all their conclusions about Pius, I respect their work as historians. 

I have read Ronald Rychlak's book, "Hitler, the War and the Pope" (2000) and consider it more apologia than history along the lines of other "pro-Pius" writers.   I did not find much that had not been written before and little use of references outside the war years to help understand the mindset of the Vatican.


The article follows:

By Sarah Delaney - Catholic News Service


Wednesday, 28 April 2010


Defenders of Pope Pius XII gathered in Rome to answer a list of questions about his actions in the face of Nazi persecution of Jews in Europe during World War II, an organizer of the event said.

Gary Krupp, founder of the Pave the Way Foundation, a nondenominational organization that seeks to improve interfaith relations, said a panel of five experts on the wartime period met April 26-27. The object of the videotaped meeting was to answer 47 questions about the Catholic Church and World War II that had been posed but never officially answered by a Catholic-Jewish commission disbanded about 10 years ago.

Krupp said the experts enlisted were Jesuit Father Peter Gumpel, a top promoter of the canonization cause of Pope Pius; Ronald J. Rychlak, professor of law and associate dean at the University of Mississippi, and the author of two books on Pope Pius' wartime role; Matteo Luigi Napolitano, an Italian associate history professor at the University of Molise and a Pope Pius biographer; Andrea Tornielli, who covers the Vatican for an Italian daily and a Pope Pius biographer; and Michael Hesemann, a German author of several books about the church, including one defending Pope Pius' wartime record.

Krupp, an American Jew, has maintained that Pope Pius has been unfairly judged by Jewish groups and some historians who say that he did not speak out forcefully to try to stop Adolf Hitler's persecution of Jews. Krupp joins many Catholics who say the pope did all he could behind the scenes to try to save Jewish lives and that a direct confrontation would have provoked worse reprisals against Jews.

Krupp supports Pope Pius' sainthood cause. Pope Benedict XVI recently declared the wartime pope venerable, one of the first steps toward sainthood, a move that angered many Jewish groups who say that Pope Pius' role remains ambiguous and that it should be studied before the cause goes further.

The questions addressed by the panel originated with a joint commission of scholars formed in 1999 by the Vatican and the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultation to study the issue of Pope Pius and the Jews during the war. After examining published materials for a year, the commission suspended its work amid controversy over access to still-closed Vatican archives from that period. I suggest the journalist could have done a better job with her homework and written a little more accurately about the International Catholic Jewish Historical Commission and their work.  The hyper-link takes you to the report on which this Rome meeting appears to be gathered to answer.  The IHCJC story is worth taking the time to read, if only to experience something of the difficulties confronting historians.

Krupp said he would make the nine hours of recorded material available on DVD and on his foundation's website.

He and four other Jewish figures who had been present during the taping of the panel's discussions spoke briefly with Pope Benedict at the end of the weekly papal audience in St. Peter's Square April 28.

They also met with German Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Krupp said. They discussed an interfaith effort to promote a tradition of families eating together on Friday night, he said. They also expressed their fear of a nuclear Iran and Iran's hostile attitude toward Israel, Krupp said.