Pius XII and Palestine - May 1943

One of the tangential issues that emerged from the diplomatic efforts undertaken by the Holy See for the Jews in Occupied Europe, was the question of where rescued Jews would, should or could go.  Nearly all attempts to secure visas, however temporary, in neutral countries in Europe and states outside Europe had come to nought.  The Jews themselves made it clear that once out of Europe they wanted to go to Palestine.  For most of the period 1941-1944 the question was largely theoretical - Jews in Europe were for the most part trapped with no way out.

The Vatican worried that an influx of Jewish refugees into Palestine would create a situation that would be detrimental to the concerns of the Church.  Palestine was home to the holy places such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Mount of Beatitudes in Galilee.  A Jewish majority in what was the British-governed Mandate was not desirable.  It would cause grave offence to Catholic piety and even worse, outshine Vatican efforts to help the Jews get out of Europe in the first place.  Pius XII understood the arguments and agreed with them.  He would not support a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

Between March and May 1943 there are several documents in ADSS 9 that show without any doubt the resistance to the idea of Palestine becoming a Jewish home.  There is agreement that the Jews should have a national home; as long as it was not in Palestine.  

On 12 May 1917 the Secretary of State, Cardinal Gasparri and the young Monsignor Pacelli met Nahum Sokolow, president of the World Zionist Organisation and listened to his ideas for a Jewish Homeland in Palestine.  Sokolow recorded the meeting as being positive and friendly.  Things changed less than six months later with the British announcement of the Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917. Polite and cordial meetings in the Vatican between two sides that had no power to change the political realities of Palestine were one thing, the announcement of the British government to support a Jewish Homeland in Palestine and the political and military power that underpinned the statement, were quite another.  Pope Benedict XV was opposed to the idea of Jewish home for the reasons cited above.  Fear of Jewish domination and, worse, the fear of Jews having political power over Christians, led the pope to declare his, and the Church's official opposition to any attempt to create a Jewish state in Palestine.  The attitude was not change until well after the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.

Let us look at the documents in ADSS 9.

ADSS 9.94:  13.03.1943 The Apostolic Delegate in London, William Godfrey, sent news to Rome that the British government was willing to permit Jewish children passage to Palestine.  Notes made by Domenico Tardini included references to the Holy See's long known opposition to the creation of Jewish home and the bald statement that the Holy Land was more holy to Catholics than Jews!

ADSS 9.171  04.05.1943 Cardinal Maglione wrote to Godfrey to say that the Holy See has done and is doing everything to help the Jews.  However, as the Apostolic Delegate would well remember, the British government's pledge in the Balfour Declaration was not in the interest of Catholics who would be offended if Palestine was to be exclusively Jewish.

ADSS 9.191  18.05.1943 Maglione wrote to Amleto Cicognani, Apostolic Delegate in Washington with instructions to protest any and all attempts to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine.  The forceful language borders on the undiplomatic.  The idea of bringing a people back to a land after nineteen centuries makes no sense.  Catholics will be outraged.  The Holy See is doing everything it can to help the Jews. 

ADSS 9.324  04.09.1943 Angelo Roncalli, Apostolic Delegate in Turkey to Cardinal Maglione expressed his reservations over Jewish migration to Palestine as if they were going to reconstruct a biblical-like kingdom.  These were dreams and not realities.  Roncalli did confess that perhaps his reservations were personal scruples that he had not been able to disperse. 

There is an awful inference in these documents.  The Holy See was doing everything it could to help and rescue the Jews of Europe so the Jews should not seek to emigrate to Palestine and upset Catholic sensibilities.  And it was the pope who maintained the official stance opposing Jewish migration that had been adopted by his predecessor Benedict XV in late 1917.

Between January and March 1943 approximately 105,000 Jews were murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau.  Between 1939 and 1945  73,764 Jews managed to reach Palestine.  The Vatican's fears of Jewish domination in the Mandate were at best nonsensical and at worst a manifestation of old fashioned supercessionism and Judeophobia.

The Policies and Politics of Pope Pius XII, Frank Coppa

Frank Coppa's new book, The Policies and Politics of Pope Pius XII (Peter Lang Publishing), arrived last week.  It was a delight to sit down and read what is, in my opinion, a book of the same importance and high standard as Jose Maria Sanchez 2002 work, Pius XII and the Holocaust: Understanding the Controversy (CUA Press)

Coppa provides a well-documented summary of the life of Eugenio Pacelli and his rise in Vatican service drawing heavily on, the now readily available, documentation from Archivio Segreto Vaticano.  As was the case with Sanchez, there are no surprises with Coppa.  For those of us who have been studying the man and the period for more than a few years, the well-trawled document trails, the steady publication of academic and professional books, monographs and conference papers has reached a point where I can only agree with Coppa's final analysis: 

The controversy swirling about Pius XII and his pontificate is no longer primarily due to the lack of sources - many of which have recently been made available with the opening of the papers of Pius XI.  Rather it seems to stem from the commotion of the period, the need to assign responsibility for the atrocities committed during those turbulent years, and on the a priori positions taken by many of the authors in the Pius War.  For many the policies pursued by Pius XII remains controversial and this may have delayed but has not derailed the movement for his canonisation ... It may take years, perhaps decades before the Pius War is brought to an end, and a more objective picture of this Pope achieved.  Hopefully, the present study will serve as a step in that direction. (176)

The book is slim - 177/205 pages of text.  At the end of each of the chapters is a comprehensive set of notes.  The reader is encouraged to read them carefully, Coppa has set up a valuable tool for students and teachers to go further along related lines of interest.

Coppa helps us see Pacelli in the context of his whole life, and particularly in his years working with the diplomatically astute Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, secretary of state to Benedict XV (1914-1922) and Pius XI (1922-1930) where Pacelli learned much in the art of statecraft and dealing with unsavoury characters.  Upon his own appointment as secretary of state in 1930, Pacelli continued in the manner of Gasparri, opting wherever possible for a "public truce" to avoid damaging the Church or her institutions. (119)

Professor Coppa's "big picture" of Pacelli's life leads him to discuss the war years - in chapters 7 and 8 - with a focus on defining "impartiality", "neutrality" and the vexed question of "silence".  In the hands of a lesser able writer, this could be potentially dangerous as the amount of material on the war years is staggering. Coppa is deft and masterful.  He is at pains to make clear what words mean in their contexts and, I believe, he is successful.  By re-visiting the available evidence, he establishes a balanced conclusion about Pius XII's activities during the war, which include his responses to the Holocaust.

The record clearly reveals that Pius XII followed a diplomatic policy vis-a-vis the Nazis, issuing no clear public condemnation of their aggression, expressing no explicit public outrage against their racism which violated Christian principles and culminated in genocide.   Nor did this Pope assign responsibility for provoking the war.  Pius XII defended this decision to those inside and outside the Church time and time again.  he deemed it unwise to denounce the Axis regimes' racist policies publicly, providing them with the pretext to dismantle the Concordats and thereby endangering the institutional Church.  Furthermore, he apparently feared that if it weakened Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, it might aid Soviet Russia or make worse the plight of the people it sought to rescue and prove detrimental and disturbing for German Catholics.  For these among other reasons, he did not issue his predecessor's encyclical denouncing anti-Semitism and alerting the faithful to the sin of racism, fearing the diplomatic problems its assurance would undoubtedly unleash.  These same concerns prevented the Pope form explicitly denouncing the Nazi aggression and genocide he vehemently opposed.  Only at war's end did Pius XII formally and publicly condemn Nazism. (145)

One of the strengths of Coppa's book is its dispassionate tone and fidelity to a balanced interpretation of the available material.  In a similar manner to Sanchez, Coppa leaves it to the reader to come to their own conclusions.  I do not agree with some of the Professor Coppa's conclusions, but I am indebted to him for the wealth of substance in his arguments that make them so compelling.  I find it hard to reconcile the obligations of the papal office as understood by Pius XII, in particular, speaking the truth in the face of evil, with his determination to pursue a diplomatic path that was, at least as I see it, so incapable of dealing with escalating horrors that cried out for a public word from the only person in Europe or the world with the moral authority to do so.  Nonetheless, Coppa has challenged me to keep at the sources and keep reading.  And so I will do.

I was honoured to note that Coppa considered my own work worthy of reference at several points in his own work.  I accept the criticisms - especially on the 1938 unpublished encyclical - and the praise with thanks.  On one point thought, I do take issue. 

In the last chapter of my book I conclude my study of the question of Pius XII's responsibility for his actions during the Holocaust with the observation that the Pope did not act alone nor can he be seen as acting alone.  He is a part of the Universal Church - not apart from it.  He has a role of leadership that sets him apart from other believers in the execution of that role, but it does not excuse or exclude him from the obligations of the faith incumbent on all Catholics. I spend time looking at the role of anti-Judaism or Judeophobia throughout my work and what I believe the impact of this "longest hatred" had on Catholic thought and practice.  Pius XII was not immune to it.  I believe that the good Pius did along with the good that was not done is shared by the whole Church, and not only the Pope. 

Coppa writes: 

Elsewhere in the volume O'Shea indicates that factors other than anti-Judaism influenced the course Pius XII pursued during the Holocaust,  Indeed he writes that the reason this Pope did not say more was not because he did not care for the victims - which would exclude both anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism - but because he had other priorities: mainly his obligation to defend the Church and Catholicism, and his perception of the Soviet Union as a greater threat than Nazi Germany ... However, he returns to the role of anti-Judaism within the Church as an underlying cause of papal silence in his ninth and concluding chapter "Blessed Eugenio?" which blames the entire Church, not only the Vicar of Christ for the policies pursued during the pontificate of Pope Pius XII. (168)

This is what I wrote:

Pius XII was brought low, not in his lifetime, but by history - a patchy and often speculative history that more often than not followed political and religious agendas than a passion for the truth.  The fatal flaw lay in the centuries-old fear and hatred of Jews and Judaism.  Combined with the currents of racist theories and practices that bubbled throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and which had permeated much of the Church, Jews were the ever-present "lesser victims".  If Pius XII committed a sin with regard to the Jews of Europe during the Holocaust, it was the sin of consistency in thought, word and deed.  And if Pius is guilty of that, he does not stand alone.  The sins of the Catholic Church during the Holocaust must rest upon the whole Church, not only the Vicar of Christ, just as the deeds of the righteous must be shared by the whole Church, including the Vicar of Christ.
(2008 edition, p334; 2011 edition p224)

Throughout the book there a number of typographical errors, such as the reference to Innocent III in 1721 (113) but these do not detract from what is a "good read". 

Professor Frank J Coppa

Judeophobia and some reactionary Catholics

Earlier this month I posted comments on Pope Benedict XVI's new book Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week, where the pope repudiated any and all charges of Jewish responsibility for the death of Jesus.  There has been near universal praise for Benedict's writing. 

However, it should not come as a surprise that there are some who do not share the view of the pope and mainstream Catholic teaching.  One such group is the Society of St Pius X, a fringe group of disaffected Catholics who believe the Church has been in error since Vatican II. 

Among issues the Society believe point to mainstream Catholicism's departure from the "true faith" are inter-religious dialogue and the Church's relationship with Jews and Judaism.  The article below is from the Society's US website and contains a mish-mash of pseudo-theologies that have been comprehensively rejected by the Catholic Church at Vatican II and in the teaching of the popes since.

It is worth recalling that one of the Society's bishops is Richard Williamson, a known Holocaust denier.  Even though SSPX has distanced itself from Williamson, it is no coincidence that the supercessionist theology taught by the Society would encourage people such as Williamson to indulge in their offensive judeophobias.

The article makes for some rather disturbing reading.

Gesture to the Jews from Benedict ...as Pope or Professor?


Pope Benedict XVI has made a sweeping exoneration of the Jewish people for the death of Jesus Christ in his new book, the second volume of Jesus of Nazareth. This should not be surprising since it follows Nostra Aetate, which initiated a revolution of the Church’s relations with Jews. In this new book, Benedict attempts to explain, biblically

For Benedict, the responsibility of Christ’s death is allocated instead to the “Temple aristocracy” and a few supporters of Barabbas who were responsible. Benedict asks: “How could the whole [Jewish] people have been present at this moment to clamor for Jesus’ death?” He deconstructs the famous phrase of the crowd: “His blood be on us and on our children”, a phrase frequently cited as evidence of the collective guilt that the Jews bore and the curse they carried as a result. Benedict, however, argues that Jesus’ blood “does not cry out for vengeance and punishment, it is not poured out against anyone, it is poured out for many, for all.”

He has visited the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz in Poland and Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, in spite of the fact that Jewish groups oppose the beatification process of Pius XII, whom they claim should have done more to prevent the Holocaust.

Finally, Benedict approvingly quotes the Cistercian abbess Hildegard: “The Church must not concern herself with the conversion of the Jews, since she must wait for the time fixed for this by God.” Until God’s plan comes to fruition, Benedict says, the “particular task” of the disciples of Christ is to carry the Faith to the Gentiles, not to the Jews.

Concerning Pope Benedict’s interpretation, the following reflections are offered:

The responsibility of the Jewish people as such for the death of Christ has been the constant teaching of the Magisterium, based on Scripture and the Church Fathers. St. John speaks three times in his Prologue of the rejection of Christ by His own (meaning His own people or nation). Romans XII speaks of the rejection of Israel for the profit of the Gentiles. See also St. Augustine’s Treatise 49 On John, near the end: “The chief priests and the Pharisees took counsel together...’If we let Him alone as He is, all will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.’ Fearing the destruction of temporal things, they took no thought of eternal life, and so they lost both. After the Lord’s Passion and glorification the Romans did indeed take away both their place and their nation, by assault on the city and dispersal of the people.” The Fathers connected the punishment of the loss of the nation to the crime of deicide, perpetrated by the highest ranking political and moral authority: the Sanhedrin.

It is important to distinguish today between the Jewish race (which has little to do with Christ’s crucifixion), present day Israel (including the Zionists who were forced to emigrated mostly from Russia), and the Jewish religion (led by rabbis, the doctrinal successors of the Sanhedrin which rejected Christ).

As the Messiah was the whole purpose of Israel, His acceptance by many Gentiles turned them into the true Israel (according to St. Paul) and, similarly, His rejection by many Jews could not but be their undoing, since “God is not mocked.”

Such theological interpretations, based on Romans XII, or the Jewish responsibility for Christ’s death have certainly not been the justification for any alleged Jewish persecution by the Church in the Middle Ages. Witness the sermons of St. Bernard, forbidding the killing of Jews; if there was any pressure from the side of the Church, it was not against them but on their behalf.

Regarding the idea of dialogue vs. conversion, the late Cardinal Dulles provided a blunt assessment about ten years ago: the Church cannot curtail the scope of the Gospel without betraying Herself.

John Vennari (editor of Catholic Family News) recounts hearing a Jewish rabbi (note 1) say that the Gospel account of the Passion is not accurate: that the Pharisees were not hostile to Our Lord, but that they were trying to warn Christ against Pilate’s treachery. Mr. Vennari also reports that this rabbi from the Anti-Defamation League works in union with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops which allows him to teach these falsehoods to Catholics everywhere through the United States.

Footnote


1)  John Vennari said the Rabbi’s name was Rabbi Leon Klenicki, who died in 2009. In 2007, Pope Benedict named Rabbi Klenicki a Papal Knight of the Order of St. Gregory the Great.