"A Few Questions ..."

There are aspects of this article from the Jewish Press I came across that might well be "tongue in cheek" and there is some substance to some of the questions. What I found most intriguing about the article is the persistence of myths and ahistorical argument that is now entering its seventh or eighth decade.  There is sufficient reliable and solid historical material available for the interested reader and researcher to make a fundamentally sound assessment of Pius XII.  My comments are in red.

A few Questions to Lover of Pope Pius XII

Why did the Pope excommunicate every single Communist in the world, but never excommunicate a single Nazi?

By: DovBear Published: October 1st, 2013

Thanks to Twitter, I am in correspondence with an Italian historian who is trying mightily to convince me that Pius 12 was an all around good guy and lover of the Jewish people. By way of evidence he has supplied the fact that a few famous Jews, who were not historians, said some nice words about the Pope back in the 50s and a report compiled by some Yad Vashem historians that I have not read because it costs $50.

Meanwhile, I keep asking the following questions. Should he answer them (holding breath) I will report back.

 #1: Why did the Pope excommunicate every single Communist in the world, but never excommunicate a single Nazi? This question is not a new one and demands and commands serious attention.  Pius' clear condemnation of communism in post-war Europe was loud and constant.

#2 Why did he cancel and suppress his predecessors’ anti Nazi encyclical? This is not accurate.  Pius XII took sections of the 1938 text written for Pius XI by John La Farge and incorporated it into his first encyclical - Summi Pontificatus (October 1939)

#3 Why did he protest the Nazi euthanasia program but not Final Solution? (The Nazis backed down) A fair question.

#4 Why did he protest Nazi round ups of converted Jews, but not round ups of non converted Jews? There are levels of complexity here, but in essence the question does ask for clarification of a very uncomfortable reality in parts of German-occupied Europe as well as in Axis allies and in Vichy France.

#5 Why did he protest invasion of Scandinavia (full page headline on the front page of the Vatican newspaper!) but not the Final Solution? This is unknown to me.  Perhaps a reader could help here.

#6 Why didn’t he protest or quit  when Civiltà Cattolica ran a series of editorials accusing Jews of ritual murder, notably in 1915 following the Bellis case? His direct superior, the monster Cardinal Rafael Merry Del Val personally approved those editorials. Why didn’t he complain? Something of a long-bow here and indicative of a lack of understanding as to the inner-workings of the Vatican's various departments.

#7: Why did he permit the German Churches to hold a Requiem Mass upon Hitler’s death? Meanwhile, there there was no papal prayer or Mass celebrated in solidarity with the Jews. The best known requiem Mass was that ordered by the Archbishop of Breslau, Cardinal Bertram, for all parishes in the diocese.  In April 1945 Breslau was under siege by the Red Army, making the request for parish requiems all the more odd.  The "best spin" was that Bertram was asking Catholics to pray for the dead head of state.  I admit, it was probably not the most successful pastoral strategy.

ADSS 6.362 Rotta to Maglione

As noted in the last post, anti-Jewish legislation in Hungary had caused serious concern for the Vatican.  Catholics of Jewish descent were now considered "racial Jews" according to the law, placing several hundred thousand people in severe economic and social situations.  As German victories mounted during 1939-1940 so too did the electoral and popular success of Hungarian fascist and far-right political parties, especially the Arrow Cross, who now clamoured for greater restrictions on Hungarian Jewry.  There is evidence to suggest that the Jewish Laws of 1939 and 1941 were attempts to appease the far-right and exert some limits to antisemitism in Hungary.  

In late 1940 the pope's Secretary of State, Cardinal Maglione, had heard rumours of a third anti-Jewish law in preparation and instructed Angelo Rotta, the nuncio in Budapest, on 23 October, to investigate and do whatever possible to ensure these laws were not passed.  The details of the proposed law were unclear, but it would be reasonable to assume that Hungary was preparing to finalise its version of the Nuremberg laws.  Rotta replied to Maglione on 2 November with news that he had been assured that any changes to the laws were for the purposes of clarification and simplification.  This was a plausible response given that the Hungarian legal definition of who was and who was not a Jew rested on a mixture of racial classification and religious background.

In the end, a third anti-Jewish law was promulgated on 8 August 1941.  A summary of the law can be found on this site         

"Act XV of 1941 (the third Anti-Jewish Law) on “The amendment and modification of       marriage law XXXI of 1894, and the related necessary racial provisions” went into effect on August 8, 1941. Using Nazi terminology in its preamble, the law applied Germany’s Nuremberg laws: everyone with at least two grandparents born into the Israelite faith was defined as a Jew. The law also forbade marriage, and legally sanctioned extramarital sexual intercourse between Jews and non-Jews, provided the male was defined a Jew and the female was not".

The bishops in the Upper House who had voted for the previous laws, voted against the legislation because it interfered in the legal status of marriages entered into by converted Jews and thus creating conflict with the authority of the Church.

Rotta transmits a sense of growing urgency in this document.  Antisemitic actions are becoming more frequent.  He mentioned a coal strike that was not reported in the papers, that was fuelled not by left-wing revolutionary zeal, but by anger at the Jewish owners of some of the mines.

ADSS 6.362 Angelo Rotta, Hungary to Cardinal Maglione

Reference:  Report nr: 4248/40 (N Pr 238), AES 9754/40

Location and date: Budapest, 02.11.1940

Summary statement: Information on the new antisemitic laws under preparation.

Language: Italian

Text:

In Your Eminence’s dispatch number 9086/40 of 23 October 1940 (1) you asked me to do whatever I could to prevent the passage of a proposed law against the Jews, whereby a deterioration of their condition would ensue, at least in regards to the converts. 

There is something in preparation with the intention of simplifying and clarifying the recent law passed against the Jews, which will, without doubt, create a grave burden for them.

For the last few days I have appealed to the Bishop of Vesprimia (2), who has a good rapport with the Prime Minister, Count Teleki, to express in my name, at the first opportunity, the painful impression this legislation would have on the Holy See.  There are draconian measures proposed against the Jews, including baptised Jews, regarding an introduction of an impediment to marriage between non-Aryans, including those baptised, and Aryans.   In a conversation I had this evening with the Foreign Minister (3), and to which I refer elsewhere, I also directly “hit this nail on the head”.  He told me that there is no well-defined project, but only the desire to simplify and clarify a cumbersome law, which would not contain new penalties that would conflict with the Holy See; in fact he told me that the Council of Ministers apposed the idea of introducing the aforementioned impediment to marriage.

But the pressure for a greater severity in the matter, which is purely racial, without much discrimination, is very strong from both outside [Hungary] and inside.  The Italian example will be fatal here.  In that regard I pointed out that first of all, with respect to the point above, the Holy See did not fail to protest, and then in Italy there is the legal obligation whereby the civil marriage takes priority over the religious – a stupid law that also exists in Hungary – at least the two unfortunates are able to obtain a religious marriage with regard to conscience; something that is not possible in Hungary, without exposing the priest who bless such weddings to serious penalties.

He told me he was perfectly convinced by what I asserted.  Even from inside Hungary, as I confirmed, pressure is growing, because the wave of Antisemitism is becoming more threatening in the country. Not only does Parliament often return to this point in its struggle against the Jews, the extremist parties make fruitful propaganda.  Even the new party program of Imredy, “Hungarian Renewal” (4) has as one of its points a very radical solution of the Jewish question.

A big coal mine strike (which has not been published in the newspapers here), which has dragged on for weeks here in Hungary, is only now being resolved through energetic intervention of the military, had as one of its issues, not revolution, but the fight against the Jews, because of their economic interests in the mines.  Of course, the extremist Arrow Cross party was involved.

In any case, I have recommended to the minister that he do everything possible to comply with the wishes of the Holy See.

Notes:

(1) See ADSS 6.350

(2) Gyula Czapik (1887-1956), bishop of Veszprém 1939-1943, archbishop of Eger (1943-1956)

(3) István Csáky (1894-1941), minister of foreign affairs 1938-1941.

(4) Bela Imredy (1891-1946), Prime Minister of Hungary 1938-1939. Founded the party of Hungarian Renewal in October 1940.  He was shot as a German collaborator in February 1946.

ADSS 8.360 Burzio to Maglione. The Slovak bishops' statement

In ADSS 8.343, Giuseppe Burzio informed Cardinal Maglione that the Slovak Catholic bishops were preparing a joint statement as a response to the deportation of the Slovak Jews.  A statement by the bishops was published on 26 April 1942, and a copy sent to Rome the following day.  Burzio informed Maglione that the bishops had some difficulty getting their statement approved by the Government.  It took the personal intervention of priest-president Tiso to get the bishops' letter executed.  The Interior Minister, Alexander Mach wanted the bishops to align their statement with government policy, becoming an endorsement of the regime's policy.  This the bishops refused to do. 

Reading the statement would have been cold comfort for Jews who had not converted to Catholicism.  There is barely a word of consolation.  Rather there is a regurgitation of traditional Catholic anti-Judaism based on the ancient teaching of contempt and supercessionism mixed with an acceptance of late-nineteenth century pseudo-racial theories of Jewish proclivities to domination in economics and their negative impact on the public life of a Christian state.  At no point do the bishops condemn deportation as a way of solving "the Jewish Question".

My reading of the statement leads me to suggest that it was a case of an episcopate that was concerned to exercise some pastoral care for converted Jews, but were not passionate about helping the vast majority of Slovakian Jewry.

This document makes for heavy and hard reading.  What Pius XII thought of it when Maglione most assuredly passed it on can only be imagined.  From what we know of the man, it would have likely been a sense of great disappointment.

ADSS 8.360

Reference: Report number 890 (AES 3617/42, original)

Location and date: Pressburg (Bratislava) 27.04.1942

Summary statement: Joint letter of the Slovak bishops against the race laws and indicates two sections deleted by the government.

Language: Italian

Text:

With respect to my report number 862 of 9 March 1942 (1) I have the honour to report to Your Eminence that Their Excellencies, the bishops of Slovakia have prepared a joint letter to illuminate the faithful on the attitude of ecclesiastical authorities towards the Jewish question and the measures taken by the government against the Jews.

This letter, or rather statement, appeared in the newspaper “Katolicke Noviny” of 26 April 1942, and I have attached a translation. (2)

At first, permission to publish the letter was refused, but following an intervention by the President of the Republic, the Minister of the Interior, Alexander Mach, informed the bishops that the prohibition to publish had been withdrawn provided that they made some changes to the text of the statement. (See Attachment 2 at the dotted spaces) “… and we will not cease to insist that because they are dispensed from the requirements of the Jewish Code they are not deported from Slovakia” (3) and “it is therefore, not possible to approve, so we have raised a warning voice against those who violate the provisions of private property honestly acquired and who violently destroy the relationships of the family” (4) or to follow on with the following conclusion: “This is not to say that we will not affirm that existing laws do not violate natural or divine law. Likewise we do not intend to assert that we have violated the private property of the Jews honestly acquired, since it is well known that Jews are rich. Since the bonds of family are not broken indefinitely, there is nothing to object in the measures which have arisen in the Jewish question among us”.

This statement is so blatantly contrary to the truth that the bishops could not accept it as an alternative, and preferred to publish their statements, by removing the text of the two phrases highlighted. (5)


References for the first part:
(1) ADSS 8.343
(2) Follows the cover note from Burzio.
(3) The original place in the attached statement is marked “A”
(4) This passage was inserted into the original text at “B”
(5) Burzio added to his report two letters to representatives of the Holy See, Spain and Italy in Bratislava. The letters contained detailed information on the persecution of the Jews and urged a collective approach.

Attachment: The Bishops of Slovakia to the Catholic Faithful 26.04.1942

In recent times, the attitude of Catholic ecclesiastical authority to the anti-Jewish measures has been noted in newspapers, on radio and in public opinion.

There have been attacks on church authorities with accusations that they have allowed Jews to be baptised and have intervened with the government for the Jews themselves. On the other hand, instead, it was stated that the attitude of Catholic circles was identified with the action of the government and supported the elimination of Jews from public life and their expulsion from Slovakia. When the Government began transporting the Jews, and as the improbable news spread widely, people wondered who the bishops and priests could allow the carrying out of such barbaric acts.

These various and conflicting voices have prompted the Catholic authorities to calm Catholic public opinion and declare the following:


1. Jews were not baptised en masse by Catholic priests. Some Jews, under the influence of contingencies, have asked for acceptance into the Church, renouncing what they had been before, to them were given precise explanations and the imposition of conditions for their acceptance in the Church itself.

The Church, in principle, can not refuse anyone, when baptism is honestly required. Christ founded the Church for all nations and all peoples. The Church of Christ is catholic and universal and it is therefore necessary to preach to all the truth of Christ. Of course the sacrament of baptism can only be granted to those with sinless thought and the inner conviction to become a member of the Church. To have the opportunity to obtain this conviction, a long period of preparation, called the catechumenate, which under the usual arrangements should last several months (3-10), according to the intelligence and religiosity of the catechumens. After this preparation the Church can administer baptism, but always with the special permission of the bishop. The bishops always remind the clergy, who request permission to administer baptism to Jews, fulfilling their responsibility before God, if indeed the Jew is perfectly prepared, if he has the appropriate religious disposition and he is not acting to acquire temporary political or material benefit.

We must emphasise that only the Church is authorised to decide whether or not to grant the administration of the sacrament of baptism. This exclusive right of the Church has been defended in difficult times in the past and does not allow limitations even in the future.

When the Catholic Church welcomes anyone into its ranks, it signals not only all the duties of a Catholic-Christian, but guarantees that they enjoy the same rights as other members of the Church, simultaneously requesting that these rights be recognised by all.

2. This is our opinion and understanding of the baptism of the Jews.

Some Jews when they were baptised drew no advantage, but were persecuted from other Jews, often with excommunication and expulsion. These baptised Jews, sever all ties with an ancient tradition and intended to become a genuine part of the Christian community. They live a Christian life and fulfil their religious duties.

These Jews are regarded by us as believers, like all others, and it is our duty to take up their defence. It is in the interests of those baptised, who have taken up their religious duties, we have intervened. [A] (6)

3. Our attitude towards the other Jews and the measures taken against them is summed up on these principles:

The tragedy of the Jewish nation is that of not recognising the Redeemer and of having prepared a terrible and infamous death on the cross. The Redeemer himself, shedding tears at the lack of faith of the Jewish people, predicted as punishment their dispersal throughout the world. After the fall of Jerusalem, the prediction of Christ came to pass. For nearly two millennia the Jews have lived in larger of smaller groups among the nations of the world. In all this time never, never have they merged with other nations, living as a foreign element. Their attitude of hatred of Christianity did not change, and lately in the bloody persecution of Christians in Russia and in Spain, the Jews had an important part. Add to this that nations sometimes showed their discontent and their anger against the Jews in a too harsh and brutal way, that conflicted with Christian principles.

Even we have witnessed the pernicious influence of the Jews. In a short time they have controlled almost all the economic and financial life of the country to the detriment of our people. Not only economically, but also in the cultural and moral fields, they have damaged our people. The Church cannot be opposed if the state with its legal provisions impedes the harmful influence of the Jews.

In old Hungary, in the years 1848 to 1896, the laws dealing with political ecclesiastical matters also accepted the law on hospitality to Jews. Ecclesiastical groups protested against the law, since they feared the harmful influences of the Jews on public life. Government circles at the time and a greater part of public opinion accused the Church of being backward. The facts, however, have proved the Church right.

In resolving this difficult issue it can not be forgotten that Jews are men, and that they must be treated humanely. Care must be taken firstly that the legal order is not violated nor the laws of God. It is the natural right of every individual to be formed with honest work, to use private property according to Christian teaching. It is also the right of everyone to have their own family. If one decides for family life they must fulfil all their duties arising from this state and enjoy all the rights according to Christian principles. [B]

We have considered it necessary to declare the above so that the Catholic public was aware of the point of view of Catholic circles and so that our believers have a clear view of the attitude of the Catholic Church on the Jewish question, after the various, and not always beneficial, voices that have been heard.

References for the second part:
(6) Refer to note 4.
(7) Refer to note 5.


Deportation of Slovak Jews (from Yad Vashem)