Pie XII

Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (Rome, March 2nd 1876 - Castel Gandolfo, October 9th 1958), elected Pope the March 2nd 1939 under the name of Pie XII (in Latin Pius XII , in Italian Pio XII ).

Youth

Eugenio Pacelli is born in Rome in a family from very dependant minor nobility, since the 19th century, in the mediums of the Vatican. His/her father, Filippo Pacelli (1837 - 1916), is lawyer with the Rote Roman then lawyer consistorial; he is unfavourable with integration Papal States with the kingdom of Italy. His/her mother, Virginia Graziosi (1844 - 1920) comes from a family distinguished for her rendered services to the the Holy See.

Eugenio makes its studies with the college Visconti, a public corporation. It starts in 1894 its theology at the Gregorian University, like boarder of the College capranica. Of 1895 with 1896, it also carries out a year of philosophy in Sapienza, the university of State of Rome. In 1899, it joined the Apollinaire, where it obtains three licenses, one of theology and the others in utroque swears (“in the two rights”, i.e. Civil law and canonical Droit). From the seminar, for health reasons, he escapes the common batch and obtains to return each evening in the parental residence.

He is ordered priest the April 2nd 1899 by Mgr Cassetta, vice-regent of Rome and large family friend.

Career with the Curia

In 1901, it enters to the Congregation of the extraordinary ecclesiastical businesses, in charge of the international relations of the Vatican, following the recommendation of the cardinal Vannutelli, family friend. It became minutante there. Pacelli attends the Conclave August 1903, which sees the emperor Austria to carry the last Exclusive against the cardinal Rampolla. In 1904, it is named by the cardinal Gasparri secretary for the Commission on the coding of the canonical right. It becomes also secret chamberlain, sign of confidence on behalf of the pope. It publishes a study on the Personality and the territoriality of the laws, especially in the canon law , then a white booklet on the separation of the Church and the State in France. Pacelli must decline of many offers of pulpits of canonical right, as well in the Apollinaire as at the catholic university of Washington. It however agrees to teach with the Académie of the noble ecclesiastics, fish pond of the Roman Curie. In 1905, it is promoted domestic prelate.

Its promotions continue to be fast and regular:

in 1911, he becomes under-secretary with the extraordinary ecclesiastical Businesses. This carries it among the thinking heads of the diplomacy vaticane;
in 1912, Pie X appoints it assistant secretary, then secretary the 1914. It preserves this station under the reign of Benoît XV and assumes the task then to promote the policy of the pope during the First World War. In particular, it tries to dissuade Italy to enter in war, partly because it fears a communist revolution with Rome;
in 1915, it travels to Vienna and works in collaboration with Mgr Scapinelli, apostolic nuncio in Vienna, to convince the emperor François-Joseph to show itself more patient with regard to Italy. This way, Italy would not enter in war against the central powers (Austria-Hungary and Germany).

Apostolic nuncio

The April 20th 1917, Benoît XV names Pacelli Apostolic nuncio in Bavaria, - Munich is then the single pontifical representation of the German Empire. Three days later, new the nuncio is named Archevêque in partibus of Sardes. It works for the reception of the note of the 1917 of Benoit XV, but obtains only disappointing results. He also endeavors to better know the German Catholic church, visiting the dioceses and attending the principal catholic demonstrations, like the Katholikentag , while bringing back Sœur Pasqualina which will serve to him as controlling until the end of its life. In parallel, it takes note of the discussions between the Vatican and the the USSR. It relays Soviet proposals for the organization of Catholicism. In 1926, it devotes bishop the Jesuit D' Herbigny, charged to constitute a clergy in Russia.

Since 1919, the nonciature in Bavaria was recognized qualified for the whole of the German territory. The June 23rd 1920, a nonciature in Germany is created. Pacelli is transferred there at the same time as it receives nonciature of Prussia, purely formal double cassette since the personnel and the address are the same ones. When disorders burst in Bavaria, of the revolutionists will threaten Pacelli of their rifles, which will involve its hospitalization for nervous breakdown.

In order to regularize the relations between the Holy See and the other States and to defend the catholic activities there, it negotiates several legal settlements with various countries: with the Latvia in 1922, Bavaria in 1924, the Poland in 1925, the Romania in 1927. It is accredited in Berlin in 1920. In 1929, it signs a Concordat with the Prussia, high with the dignity of cardinal and is named Cardinal Secretary of State. He becomes the principal collaborator of Pie XI.

Secretary of State

The July 20th 1933, it signs, in the name of the the Holy See, the legal settlement with Hitler, which had just been appointed chancellor of the Weimar Republic.

The Nazi Germany does not intend to respect this agreement. Pacelli sent 55 notes of protests to the German government of 1933 with 1939. Consequently, in March 1937, it hardens the text of the Encyclique MIT brennender Sorge , prepared by the cardinal-archbishop of Munich. The legal settlement is however not denounced.

In 1933, it also signs a legal settlement with Austria and, in 1935, with Yugoslavia.

In 1938, following the enthusiastic approval of the Anschluss by the Austrian episcopate, it means at the request of the pope to the cardinal Innitzer, archbishop of Vienna, to write a declaration giving an opinion against the invasion. Innitzer, the May 6th, in a article published in the Osservatore Romano , writes that the gestures of sympathy of the Austrian episcopate with regard to the mode hitlérien had not been concerted with Rome. This declaration has only one limited impact.

Pope

The conclave

With died of Black and white XI, the Pacelli cardinal seems the most probable candidate, the more so as fire pope let escape some sentences tending to designate it as its successor (“ Sarà a beautiful dad! ”, “he will be a beautiful pope! ”).

In fact, Pacelli is elected Pape the March 2nd 1939, with the third ballot. The Conclave hardly lasted 24 hours and this short duration accredits a rumor according to which the election had been unanimous. It is however probable that several Italian cardinals had preferred the cardinal Dalla Costa, archbishop of Florence. Pacelli is elected with probably 48 votes out of 62. The new pope chooses the name of reign of Pie XII ( Pius XII ), in the continuity of preceding pontificate.

He appoints the Maglione cardinal, old nuncio in Paris, Secretary of State. Remarkable fact, Pie XII is the first Secretary of State elected pope since Clément IX in 1667.

The war

The pontificate of Pie XII begins on March 12th, 1939, that is to say a few months before the beginning of the Second world war.

The attitude of the Holy See with respect to the IIIe Reich and of the Final solution is impressed of a great timidity, if not ambiguity. The thesis of the complicity deliberated by anti-semitism is supported by no source, not more than that of heroic resistance. The examination of the sources available tends has to accredit that of an indecision oscillating between a careful and discrete opposition, but not ineffective, a constrained neutrality and a double-play in extreme cases of the complicity passivate which slices at the very least with the clear opposition to the Soviet mode. It is on the other hand very clear that information on the extent of the company of extermination came from very early to highest of the catholic hierarchy and that the public judgments were very measured.

It is necessary to recall in preamble which the vast majority of Italian is at the time catholic, that the vast majority of the Curia is Italian, that the Vatican at the time still completely did not admit the loss of the States Pontificaux, that if the Holy See does not have a great sympathy to the fascistic mode, it less has not just accepted his hands very favorable Accords of Lateran. Organically related to the remainder of the peninsula, physically at the thank you of the fascistic mode, which is the obliged ally of IIIe Reich, the Vatican this thus finds in the center of the powers of the Axis, if not its hostage, in a position which is not without pointing out that of Western Berlin later a few years, but without reliable ally. For any other consideration, it is necessary thus to have at the head that on behalf of the Vatican, an head-on opposition with the modes of the Axis could certainly have been a heroic option but have in no case a reasonable option.

In the second place, the papacy of the time had not reached yet planetary moral magistère which it will gradually develop starting from Paul VI and which one knows to him today. Not yet completely released from ambitions temporal and contracted on the prerogatives of its clergy, it was in conflict of influence with all the nations europénnes and on the defensive since the successive fall of catholic monarchies. It is thus anachronistic to believe that papacy such as it was during the second world war could have had a significant impact on the course of the things by its only speech.

Although the files vaticanes of this period is still secret, one can recall the actions, omissions and hesitations of Pie XII of 1939 to 1945:

After the invasion of the Czechoslovakia, the diplomacy vaticane intervenes to prevent the war, without success. After the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, the Vatican at least tries to keep Italy out of the conflict. In its Encyclical first , Summi pontificatus (October 20th 1939), it denounces the gears of the war.

December 26th, 1939, Pie XII condemns the aggression of Finland by the Soviet Union.

January 18th, 1940, after the death of 15.000 Polish civilians, Pie XII declares in a radiophonic address “the horror and the inexcusable abuses made against people without defense are established by indisputable testimony eyewitnesses”.

The May 4th 1940, the Vatican warns Holland which Germany will attack it the 10.

After the invasion of Holland and Belgium by the Germans, the pope sends a message of sympathy to the queen of the Netherlands, to the king of the Belgians and to the large-duke of Luxembourg. When Mussolini learns these messages, he shows the pope to take part against the allies of Italian and protests officially at the Holy See. The Foreign Minister of the fascistic mode will declare that " Pie XII was close has to be off-set rather than to betray her conscience".

In spring 1940, a group of German generals eager to reverse Hitler and to make peace with the English approach Pie XII.

Pie XII chooses to maintain the Church out of the conflict of the belligerents. With the petition of the Polish bishops describing the atrocities of the Nazis, he retorts by the voice of Mgr Tardini:

First of all, it would not seem convenient that a public act of the Holy See condemns and protests against so many injustices. Not that the matter misses (…) but of the practical reasons seem to force to abstain from.

Mgr Tardini adds that an official judgment of the Vatican “increases persecutions”. Pie XII specifies itself:

We on the spot leave to the pastors in function the care to appreciate if, and up to what point, the danger of reprisals and pressures, like other circumstances due to the length and the psychology of the war, advise the reserve - in spite of the reasons of intervention - in order to avoid larger evils. It is one of the reasons for which we asserted ourselves limit in our declarations.

In spring 1940, the Cardinal Secretary of State Luigi Maglione receives a request of Large Rabin of Palestine Isaac Herzog so that the Pope intercedes in favor of the Lithuanian Jews off-set by the Germans. Pie XII calls Ribbentrop on March 11th and protests vigorously against the treatment of the Jews.

In 1941, Cardinal Theodor Innitzer informs the pope on the deportations made in Vienna.

In 1941, the ambassador of the French State in the Vatican Leon Bérard worries about the opinion of the Vatican on the statute of the Jews promulgated by the mode of Vichy. The Secretariat of State of the Vatican confirms that the legislation is not opposed to the teaching of the Church. The apostolic nuncio in France Valerio Valeri, " embarrassé" by this pontifical full power granted to the Jewish policy of the mode of Vichy, information at the Vatican checks. The Secretary of State Maglione confirms that it is well the position of the Holy See.

In September 1941, Pie XII opposes the Slovak Jewish code, which, contrary to the statute of the French, prohibited Jews the mixed marriage.

In April 1941, Pie XII grants an audience deprived to Ante Pavelic, new dictator of Croatia not wanting an audience diplomatic which recognizes de facto the mode. A note of Foreign Office (GB) on the subject describes Pie XII like " largest couard of the époque". However, the Vatican will not recognize the Croatian mode. Without however publicly condemning the conversions forced of Serb by Croatian, it will do it in a memorandum dated January 25th, 1942 addressed to Yugoslav legation.

In October 1941 Harold Tittman, deputy American of the Vatican requires of the pope to condemn atrocitées made against the Jews; the answer of the pope gives a report on his wish to remain " neutre" , reiterating by there the position of the Vatican expressed as of September 1940.

In 1941, Pie XII declares that the judgment of Communism expressed in Divini Redemptoris by Pie XI did not prohibit the American catholics to support the Prêt-bail granted by the United States to the USSR.

In March 1942, Pie XII establishes diplomatic relations with the Japanese Empire, then with nationalist China.

In May 1942, the Polish ambassador Kasimierz Papée is astonished that the Pope does not condemn the atrocities made in Poland.

In March 1942, the charg3e d' affaires Slovak learns in Pie XII that the gouverment Slovak one plans the deportation of 80.000 Jews in Poland. The Vatican protests near the gouvernment Slovak one in " deploring these measurements which enfreignent the law of nations, of the only fact of their race".

September 18th, 1942, the pope receives a letter of Monseigneur Montini (future pope Paul VI) saying that " the massacres take proportions effrayantes"

In September 1942, Myron Taylor, representative from the United States to Rome and its English counterparts, Brazilian, uruguyen, Belgian and Polish prevent that the " prestige moral" of the Vatican is severely compromised by its passivity vis-a-vis the atrocities, what the Maglione Cardinal answer that the rumors are not checked.

In December 1942, Tittman suggests with Mgr Maglione making a statement similar to the allied declaration " German Policy off Extermination off the Jewish Race" , which answers him that the Vatican " cannot denounce atrocities particulières" publicly;

In September 1943, following the German occupation of Italy of North, the Church grants the refuge to 477 Jews inside the Vatican and 4.238 in monasteries and convents of the surroundings.

In March 1944, by its apostolic nuncio in Budapest, the Vatican links its voice with that of King de Suède, the Red Cross, the United States and Great Britain to protest against the exactions against the Hungarian Jews. The deportations cease indeed on July 8th, 1944.

The Church takes part in the transfer of 6.000 child Bulgarian Jews towards Palestine. With this occasion Mgr Maglione reiterates that the Church does not support the Zionism.

Vis-a-vis Communism

At the beginning of the war, the powers of the Axis try to raise the flag of the crusade against the USSR to legitimate their action. Mgr Tardini answers that “swastika not precisely that of the crusade. ” In September 1944, at the request of Myron Taylor, it reassures the American, anxious catholics of the alliance of their country with Soviet.

The end of the war allows the penetration of Communism in Eastern Europe. The reports/ratios, non-existent during the war, worsen. The governments related to Moscow make close the representations of the Holy See little by little. In 1952, the marshal Tito breaks the diplomatic relations with the Vatican. The brutal arrest in 1948 of the prince-primacy of Hungary, the cardinal Mindszenty, archbishop of Esztergom, symbolizes the tension between the Communist regimes and the Roman Catholic church. In the same way, Mgr Stepinac, archbishop of Zagreb and primacy of Yugoslavia, undergoes the imprisonment and torture. Mgr Beran, archbishop of Prague, is seen prohibiting to exert its ministry. The Catholic churches of Byzantine rite of Ukraine and Romania are built-in of force in independent Churches. The Communist governments indeed show the pope to be the “chaplain of the Occident”.

July 1st 1949, the Holy Office excommunicates overall the Communists. Pie XII referred there in her Innocent speech of beatification of XI, affirming its will of “defense of Christendom”. The two parts are thus contracted in attitudes of opposition. Some exceptions are born in Eastern Europe. Thus, in Poland, primacy, Mgr Wyszynski, sign an agreement guaranteeing some freedoms with the Polish Catholic church, in exchange of its support in the defense policy of the borders. The Vatican is shown reserved vis-a-vis this agreement, and Mgr Wyszynski is stopped shortly after by the Polish government.

Magistère of Pie XII

Pie XII is characterized by her intensive use from new means of communication, like the radio. During the war, he addresses five radio messages:

on June 1st 1941, on the birthday of Rerum novarum ;
in Christmas 1941, on the international order;
in Christmas December 24th 1942, on the interior order of the nations: “… This wish (of return to peace), humanity owes it to hundreds of thousands of people who, without any fault of their share, for the only fact of their nationality or their ethnic origin, were dedicated to died or a progressive extinction”…
on September 1st 1944, on Christian civilization;
in Christmas 1944, on the problems of the democracy.

Thereafter, it will also use television. Pie XII proclaimed the dogma of the Assomption of the Virgin Mary by the apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus of November 1st 1950. The same year, the December 23rd, he announced the discovery of the tomb of holy Pierre, found exactly plumb with the cupola of Michel-Angel (under the major furnace bridge) following archaeological excavations.

He canonized in particular Gemma Galgani in 1940, Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort and Catherine Labouré in 1947, Jeanne de France and Maria Goretti in 1950 and Pie X in 1954.

One could speak about Pie XII like “universal doctor” (Yves-Marie Hilaire): it was expressed on a great number of subjects. He is the pope more quoted in the texts of the Vatican II. It is called also Pastor Angelicus , “Pasteur angelica” according to the Prophétie of saint Malachie. It had a reputation of saint and mystic. The press spoke about the appearances of Fátima of which it would have been pilot. It also supported the publication of the visions of the mystic Maria Valtorta.

Living with its time, a photograph of him typing with the typewriter would have to him, according to Roger Peyrefitte gained the American high finance by its modernity. The polemic and the suspicion (v. below) will intervene only starting from 1963.

In January 1954, Pie XII fall seriously sick. Badly looked after, it leaves decreased this attack very. He dies the October 9th 1958 with Castel Gandolfo, residence of summer of the popes, where since 1954 he made long stays of rest.

He is buried in the caves Vaticanes, close to the vault AD caput , which touches with the tomb of Pierre saint. Jean XXIII succeeds to him.

Pie XII and the catholic rite

November 20th 1947, Pie XII publishes the Encyclique Mediator Dei , in which it defines the essential characters of the liturgy. This document marks the beginning of the restoration of the Roman liturgy; Pie XII written there indeed:

It is necessary to reject the completely bold audacity of those which, of deliberated matter, introduce new liturgical habits or revive out-of-date rites (…) So that would be to leave the right way to want to return to the furnace bridge its primitive shape of table, to want to remove liturgical colors radically black, to exclude from the temples the holy images and the statues, etc”

It speaks there also “the excessive one and unhealthy passion about the old things”: “it is not wise nor creditable all to bring back in all manner to Antiquity”. He condemns by there the archaism which, under color of return to the sources, is a process of rupture with the tradition.

The action of Pie XII, out of liturgical matter, will be mainly marked by the reform of the Roman rite relating to the Holy Week.

The polemic on the attitude of Pie XII with respect to the nazime and the Holocaust

The attitude of Pie XII during the Second world war is the subject of a burning polemic. The detractors of this pope reproach him for being insufficiently committed against the Nazisme and the Antisémitisme, to have even guaranteed by its “silence” the intrigues Nazis. Its defenders point out that its direct action and indirect made it possible to save between 700.000 and 860.000 Jews, that he at the time was regarded as most savage opposing Nazism, and that the Jewish institutions thanked it with many recoveries for its acts.

He explains itself his prudence in a letter of the April 30th 1943 with Mgr Von Preysing, bishop of Berlin:

We on the spot leave to the pastors in function the care to appreciate if, and up to what point, it is necessary to use of reserve, in spite of the reasons that there would be to intervene, to avoid greater evils, since the declarations of bishops are likely to involve reprisals and pressures, and by taking account of other circumstances due perhaps to the length and the psychology of the war. It is one of the reasons for which Ourself, We limit ourselves in our declarations.

History of the polemic

The shortly after the war, many testimonys of recognition were addressed to him. Thus the world Jewish Congress expressed its gratitude towards Pie XII officially. In the same way the chief rabbi of Jerusalem, Isaac Herzog, expressed himself thus in 1944: “What your Holiness and its eminent deputy (…) make for our brothers and sisters (…), the people of Israel will never forget it. ” In 1955, at the time of the celebrations of the 10th birthday of the release of the concentration camps, the Union of the communities Jews proclaimed the April 17th “Day of gratitude” for the assistance provided by the pope during the war”. In 1958, Golda Meir, Foreign Minister of Israel, declared at the time of the death of Pie XII: “During the decade of terror Nazi (…) the voice of the Pope rose to condemn the persecutors”.

Five years after the death of Pie XII, in 1963, the first critics in his connection are formulated in the part of the West German author Rolf Hochhuth, the Vicar , part in addition prohibited in Israel. The polemic reconsidered the front of the topicality with the film adaptation of this part by Costa-Gavras in 2001.

In this context, Israel added this polemic to the list of the existing dispute between this State and the Vatican, which caused the carryforward of the opening of the lawsuit in beatification of Pie XII. Contrary, the rabbi David Dalin asked in for 2001 that Pie XII is officially recognized like “Juste among the nations”. Currently, Pie XII is not on the list of Right and does not have a tree in the " Valley of Justes"

The document concerning with the pontificate of the Pie XII pope, preserved in the secret Archives of the Vatican was however never published completely. In October 1999, a Joint Committee Jewish and catholic historians was charged to study the period. In 2001, the world Jewish Congrès takes note of the failure of this commission, due to the closing of the files vaticanes over the period. A few months later, the Vatican also recognizes this failure. The Church is shown of unwillingness and lack of transparency.

The action of Pie XII

The question put afterwards by its detractors is the following one: “Of would the stronger words still of Pie XII have made it possible to slow down the massacre? ”.

The encyclical MIT brennender Sorge was not regarded as not moderated by the Nazis , which started immediately reprisals (more than one thousand of arrests of priests and monk, whose 304 deportations with Dachau, the exile of monseigneur Sproll, and ransacks it évêchés of Munich, Rottenburg and Freiburg) . Some consider that these persecutions primarily took place because of the ideology Nazi according to which any religion was regarded as a rival ideology to eliminate. Thousands of copies of the first encyclical which it publishes as a pope, Summi Pontificatus , were however released above Germany in 1939 by the Alliés planes to take part in the fight against the Nazism.

The speech on which the satirical part the Vicar is based to show Pie XII to have been quiet, however evoked clearly the “hundreds of thousands of people dedicated to dead or a progressive extermination of the only fact of their nationality or their race”. Following this speech the Nazis write: “The Pope is made the spokesperson of the Jews, war criminals”, while the NewYork Times publishes: “the Pope took the defense of the Jews (…) ”

The polemic also relates to the personality itself of the Pie XII pope. Its friendship for the Germanic countries was reproached to him. It was called “Tedesco” (“the German”) in Italy. It would seem that it however founded its attitude on a strong distinction enters the ideology Nazi and the German people . Charles de Gaulle brings back in her memories in connection with the defeat of the Germans these words of Pie XII: “Poor people, as it will suffer”. One can however object that one does not know words to him such moved for other people.

It however had carried out the same distinction between the communist ideology and the Russian people, at the time of the hesitation of the American catholics to enter in war to the sides of the USSR, which played a part in the entry in war of the United States. It seems also that the orchestration of a denigration campaign in its opposition could have for objective to discredit its engagement against the Communisme, very powerful during the Années 1960.

Its action at the time of the plot of the general Beck to remove Hitler, the weight which it weighed to delay the entry in war of Italy or the fact that it transmitted to France and the United Kingdom the plans of the German offensive in May 1940 however leave little doubt as for its engagement vis-a-vis the Nazism. The reported remarks by Leon Bérard at the French government are also very clear: “I fear Hitler even more than Stalin. ” In the same way the texts of the speeches as he pronounced whereas he was apostolic nuncio in Germany show that on these 44 speeches, 40 denounced the ideology Nazi.

With respect to the Jews, it gave the order in 1943 to the churches and convents of Italy to collect and hide those. In Rome, during the German occupation, 5000 Jews were hidden in the monasteries of which several hundreds in the Vatican. 3.000 Jews were also placed to Manor house-Gandolfo and 400 enlisted in the pontifical Guard. Moreover, in 1944, Pie XII made publish a public protest in the Osservatore Romano, against the deportation of the Jews. In reprisals, the commander SS of Rome convened the Zolli chief rabbi and required a ransom of 50 kg gold in the 36 hours under the threat of the deportation of 200 Juifs.Les Jews could join together only 35 kg. Israel Zolli went to find Pie XII who got 15 remaining kg. Hidden in the Vatican in the last months of the war, the chief rabbi was made baptize on February 13rd, 1945 with his wife, fascinating as a sign of recognition the first name of baptism of the Pope.

The July 25th 1943, Hitler declares with its generals:

I will penetrate in the Vatican. Do you believe that the Vatican intimidates me? We will seize some…. All the diplomatic corps is there… This rabble… We will leave all this band bastards…. Later, we will present excuse…

In January 1944, the German plan Reduction-Fohn envisaged to send the eighth division of S to the Vatican to kill Pie XII because of her “pro-Jewish position”. Margherita Marchione concludes from it that Pie XII “personally risked the deportation and camps to have helped persecuted Nazi regime.”

The role of the KGB

The January 25th 2007, the Lieutenant-general Ion Mihai Pacepa, former officer of the Romania declares that in 1960, Nikita Khrouchtchev had approved a plan intended to destabilize the Church. It was a question of launching a campaign against Pie XII. Indeed, the play of Rolf Hochhuth had been financed by the general General Ivan Agayants, chief of the department of the misinformation to the KGB.

It is of use to conclude by saying that Pie XII was confronted with one difficult period and particularly dark of the history.

Files of the Stasi

In April 2007, the files of the secret services of ex-Germany of the East, the Stasi, are finally accessible. It comes out from it from new evidence of the major hostility of Pie XII towards the Nazisme. The Italian daily newspaper Repubblica quotes in particular extracts: “The Pope, as all our advisers agree themselves to say, adopts an attitude of great sympathy with regard to the German people. What one cannot say with regard to the mode”, “Pie XII helps invaded Poland”, “Pacelli hides the Jews in escape”.

The British newspaper The Telegraph specifies that the chief of the Berliner police force informs Joachim von Ribbentrop that the Catholic church assists the Jews, as well on the personal level as financially.

The memorial Yad Vashem

In 2007, the representative of the the Vatican in Israel, Mgr Antonio Franco, threatened to boycott the annual ceremonies organized by the Mémorial of Yad Vashem. He wanted to protest against the image which was given of Pie XII: in the museum of the Memorial appears indeed since 2005 a photograph of Pie XII among “those which one should have shame for what they made against the Jews”, it regretted.

The president of the Memorial, Avner Shalev, made a point of formulating the following official statement: “Yad Vashem is dedicated to the historical research and the museum of the Holocaust presents historical truth on the Pie XII Pope such as she is known by the researchers today. Yad Vashem said to the representative of the Vatican that it was ready to continue to examine the subject, by stressing that if one gives him access to it, it would study the files of Pie XII with pleasure, in order to take note of new elements if required”. The nuncio finally attended the annual ceremony.

The conversion of the chief rabbi of Rome

It should be noted conversion with the Catholic religion of the Chief rabbi of Rome, Eugénio Zolli.

One often asked Zolli if it had converted by gratitude towards the Pie XII Pope. He always answered negatively, adding however:

“One could say reign of Pie XII whom it is inspired by the words of the prophet Isaïe: " Peace is the harmony, peace is safety for those which are close as for those which are far, I want all the guérir" ( Is. 57,19). The Catholic church likes all the hearts. She suffers with all and for all; she awaits with love all her children on the crowned threshold of Pierre, and his/her children are all the men… There does not exist place of sufferings that the spirit of love of Pie XII did not reach… During the history, no hero ordered such an army. No military force was more fighting, none was not fought more, none was not more heroic than that carried out by Pie XII in the name of Christian charity. ”

According to the Israeli historian Pinchas Lapidates, the Catholic church could, by its charitable action, to save of an unquestionable death approximately: 850000 Jews living the occupied territories by the Third Reich.

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