Pope may freeze Pius XII canonisation.
This morning on its website, the CathNews has the above caption. The very first sentence there says “Pope Benedict has told Jewish leaders he is "seriously considering" freezing the sainthood process of Pope Pius XII until historical archives can be opened, a Jewish leader says.”
I would not know how versed you are in the ‘power’ tussle; Political, Religious etc, concerning the canonisation of Pius XII and the protestations of Jewish authorities against that, but for the briefest clarification, this unfortunate (if you wouldn’t mind) Pope (Pius XII) had the unenviable burden of ruling the Church during the World War II, which was characterised by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi group exterminating the Jewish race. The accusation against him as articulated by Dr. Joseph L. Lichten in his memoir; A Question of Judgment: Pius XII & the Jews was “that as head of one of the most powerful moral forces on earth he committed an unspeakable sin of omission by not issuing a formal statement condemning the Nazis' genocidal slaughter of the Jews, and that his silence was motivated by reasons considered in modern times as base: political exigency, economic interests, and personal ambition.
Continuing, Lichten sums up the case for him; “ That in relation to the insane behavior of the Nazis, from overlords to self-styled cogs like Eichmann, he did everything humanly possible to save lives and alleviate suffering among the Jews; that a formal statement would have provoked the Nazis to brutal retaliation, and would substantially have thwarted further Catholic action on behalf of Jews. To the Sacred College of Cardinals Pius XII wrote on June 2, 1943: "Every word that We addressed to the responsible authorities and every one of Our public declarations had to be seriously weighed and considered in the interest of the persecuted themselves in order not to make their situation unwittingly even more difficult and unbearable."
Sampling one or two of the very bad cases against the Pope, the following might send you thinking:
In October 1941, the Assistant Chief of the U.S. delegation to the Vatican, Harold Tittman, asked the Pope to condemn the atrocities. The response came that the Holy See wanted to remain "neutral," and that condemning the atrocities would have a negative influence on Catholics in German-held lands.
On September 18, 1942, Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini, the future Pope Paul VI, wrote, "The massacres of the Jews reach frightening proportions and forms." Yet, that same month when Myron Taylor, U.S. representative to the Vatican, warned the Pope that his silence was endangering his moral prestige, the Secretary of State responded on the Pope's behalf that it was impossible to verify rumors about crimes committed against the Jews.”
But on the hand, there are also testimonies that argue for him. In one of their productions; Catholic Family #10,Autumn 1991, the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) had this: “Albrecht von Kessel, an official at the German Embassy to the Holy See during the war, wrote in 1963:
"We were convinced that a fiery protest by Pius XII against the persecution of the Jews ... would certainly not have saved the life of a single Jew. Hitler, like a trapped beast, would react to any menace that he felt directed at him, with cruel violence."”
The above is very much confirmed by a life witness of the horrors of Nazis. A former inmate of Dachau, Mgr Jean Bernard, and later Bishop of Luxembourg recounts his experiences as follows;
"The detained priests trembled every time news reached us of some protest by a religious authority, but particularly by the Vatican. We all had the impression that our warders made us atone heavily for the fury these protests evoked ... whenever the way we were treated became more brutal, the Protestant pastors among the prisoners used to vent their indignation on the Catholic priests: 'Again your big naive Pope and those simpletons, your bishops, are shooting their mouths off…Why don't they get the idea once and for all, and shut up. They play the heroes and we have to pay the bill.'"
The real question is, therefore, not what did the Pope say, but what did the Pope do? To this, it is on record that; “The vindication of Pius XII has been established principally by Jewish writers and from Israeli archives. It is now established that the Pope supervised a rescue network, which saved 860,000 Jewish lives - more than all the international agencies put together.
This morning on its website, the CathNews has the above caption. The very first sentence there says “Pope Benedict has told Jewish leaders he is "seriously considering" freezing the sainthood process of Pope Pius XII until historical archives can be opened, a Jewish leader says.”
I would not know how versed you are in the ‘power’ tussle; Political, Religious etc, concerning the canonisation of Pius XII and the protestations of Jewish authorities against that, but for the briefest clarification, this unfortunate (if you wouldn’t mind) Pope (Pius XII) had the unenviable burden of ruling the Church during the World War II, which was characterised by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi group exterminating the Jewish race. The accusation against him as articulated by Dr. Joseph L. Lichten in his memoir; A Question of Judgment: Pius XII & the Jews was “that as head of one of the most powerful moral forces on earth he committed an unspeakable sin of omission by not issuing a formal statement condemning the Nazis' genocidal slaughter of the Jews, and that his silence was motivated by reasons considered in modern times as base: political exigency, economic interests, and personal ambition.
Continuing, Lichten sums up the case for him; “ That in relation to the insane behavior of the Nazis, from overlords to self-styled cogs like Eichmann, he did everything humanly possible to save lives and alleviate suffering among the Jews; that a formal statement would have provoked the Nazis to brutal retaliation, and would substantially have thwarted further Catholic action on behalf of Jews. To the Sacred College of Cardinals Pius XII wrote on June 2, 1943: "Every word that We addressed to the responsible authorities and every one of Our public declarations had to be seriously weighed and considered in the interest of the persecuted themselves in order not to make their situation unwittingly even more difficult and unbearable."
Sampling one or two of the very bad cases against the Pope, the following might send you thinking:
In October 1941, the Assistant Chief of the U.S. delegation to the Vatican, Harold Tittman, asked the Pope to condemn the atrocities. The response came that the Holy See wanted to remain "neutral," and that condemning the atrocities would have a negative influence on Catholics in German-held lands.
On September 18, 1942, Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini, the future Pope Paul VI, wrote, "The massacres of the Jews reach frightening proportions and forms." Yet, that same month when Myron Taylor, U.S. representative to the Vatican, warned the Pope that his silence was endangering his moral prestige, the Secretary of State responded on the Pope's behalf that it was impossible to verify rumors about crimes committed against the Jews.”
But on the hand, there are also testimonies that argue for him. In one of their productions; Catholic Family #10,Autumn 1991, the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) had this: “Albrecht von Kessel, an official at the German Embassy to the Holy See during the war, wrote in 1963:
"We were convinced that a fiery protest by Pius XII against the persecution of the Jews ... would certainly not have saved the life of a single Jew. Hitler, like a trapped beast, would react to any menace that he felt directed at him, with cruel violence."”
The above is very much confirmed by a life witness of the horrors of Nazis. A former inmate of Dachau, Mgr Jean Bernard, and later Bishop of Luxembourg recounts his experiences as follows;
"The detained priests trembled every time news reached us of some protest by a religious authority, but particularly by the Vatican. We all had the impression that our warders made us atone heavily for the fury these protests evoked ... whenever the way we were treated became more brutal, the Protestant pastors among the prisoners used to vent their indignation on the Catholic priests: 'Again your big naive Pope and those simpletons, your bishops, are shooting their mouths off…Why don't they get the idea once and for all, and shut up. They play the heroes and we have to pay the bill.'"
The real question is, therefore, not what did the Pope say, but what did the Pope do? To this, it is on record that; “The vindication of Pius XII has been established principally by Jewish writers and from Israeli archives. It is now established that the Pope supervised a rescue network, which saved 860,000 Jewish lives - more than all the international agencies put together.
