De Jesus: A Reply to Van Vugt

IN THE March 11 Sun Star, Fr. Van Vugt, in his article “A Non-Partisan Church is a Silent Church” made the following absurd claim: “Afterwards, even Pope Pius XII has been accused of collaboration with the fascist regime of Hitler. Pius XII’s silence, albeit diplomatic, was unworthy from a pastor whose duty it was to guide and counsel, whatever the risks. His silence was, to say the least, unheroic.”

I’m embarrassed having to lecture to an older man, much less a priest, but point out to him his inaccuracies I must, both to help him, and to defend Pope Pius XII whose memory he maligned.

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Before I do so, let me point out to everyone that the beatification process of Pope Pius XII was started in 1967. Pope Benedict did not indicate when he would sign the decree attesting to the "heroic virtues" cited in Pius XII's beatification dossier which is currently on Pope Benedict XVI’s desk awaiting his signature, but a period of reflection in such a situation is customary.

Likewise, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone wrote in the Vatican newspaper, Osservatore Romano, on the accusations against Pope Pius XII, the same accusations Fr. Van Vugt levels at Pope Pius XII: "had [Pope Pius XII] intervened publicly, he would have endangered the lives of thousands of Jews who, at his request, were hidden in the 155 convents and monasteries in the city of Rome alone."

Cardinal Bertone was quoting from the preface to a forthcoming book on Pius XII, in which the cardinal argued that it was "profoundly unjust" to attack Pius XII over his wartime position, "forgetting not only the historical context but also his immense charity work" for Jews.

My point in prefacing my article with all the above is to invite readers to see that, while Fr. Van Vugt trashes Pope Pius XII’s memory, Vatican obviously doesn’t agree with him.

I suspect Fr. Van Vugt limited his reading to the two things that are credited with spreading all these lies about Pope Pius XII: John Cornwell’s Hitler’s Pope in 1999, a disappointment full of historical inaccuracies, and Rolf Hochhuth’s 1963 play The Deputy, which is more of the same. Unfortunate, because the truth is so much different.

Fr. Van Vugt’s beef against Pope Pius XII seems to revolve around the Pope’s alleged “silence”. We discover, however, that, not only was Pius XII no friend of the Nazis, but that his opposition to them began years before the War, before he was elected to the papacy, when he was still Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the Vatican Secretary of State.

“On April 28, 1935, four years before the War even started, Pacelli gave a speech that aroused the attention of the world press. Speaking to an audience of 250,000 pilgrims in Lourdes, France, the future Pius XII stated that the Nazis "are in reality only miserable plagiarists who dress up old errors with new tinsel. It does not make any difference whether they flock to the banners of social revolution, whether they are guided by a false concept of the world and of life, or whether they are possessed by the superstition of a race and blood cult."[3] It was talks like this, in addition to private remarks and numerous notes of protest that Pacelli sent to Berlin in his capacity as Vatican Secretary of State that earned him a reputation as an enemy of the Nazi party.

“The Germans were likewise displeased with the reigning pontiff, Pius XI, who showed himself to be a unrelenting opponent of the new German "ideals" even writing an entire encyclical, Mit Brennender Sorge (1937), to condemn them. When Pius XI died in 1939, the Nazis abhorred the prospect that Pacelli might be elected his successor.

“Dr. Joseph Lichten, a Polish Jew who served as a diplomat and later an official of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, writes: "Pacelli had obviously established his position clearly, for the Fascist governments of both Italy and Germany spoke out vigorously against the possibility of his election to succeed Pius XI in March of 1939, though the cardinal secretary of state had served as papal nuncio in Germany from 1917 to 1929. . . . The day after his election, the Berlin Morgenpost said: “The election of cardinal Pacelli is not accepted with favor in Germany because he was always opposed to Nazism and practically determined the policies of the Vatican under his predecessor."

“Former Israeli diplomat and now Orthodox Jewish Rabbi Pinchas Lapide states that Pius XI "had good reason to make Pacelli the architect of his anti-Nazi policy. Of the forty-four speeches which the Nuncio Pacelli had made on German soil between 1917 and 1929, at least forty contained attacks on Nazism or condemnations of Hitler’s doctrines. . . . Pacelli, who never met the F? called it ‘neo-Paganism’."[5]

“A few weeks after Pacelli was elected pope, the German Reich’s Chief Security Service issued a then-secret report on the new Pope. Rabbi Lapide provides an excerpt: "Pacelli has already made himself prominent by his attacks on National Socialism during his tenure as Cardinal Secretary of State, a fact which earned him the hearty approval of the Democratic States during the papal elections. . . . How much Pacelli is celebrated as an ally of the Democracies is especially emphasized in the French Press." (Jimmy Akin How Pope Pius XII Protected the Jews)

For lack of space, I’d have to stop here. Readers, however, may read more by using the link below, only one of more than a dozen which clearly debunk Fr. Van Vugt’s irresponsible accusations.

http://www.catholic.com/library/HOW_Pius_XII_PROTECTED_JEWS.asp