The Pope’s whitewash of Pius XII

Why his apology rings hollow: Pro-imperialism Pius’ motive force

Ray Nunes April 1998

It took the Catholic Church 300 year to tender a belated apology to the memory of the great scientist Galileo Galilei. In his life Galileo provided proof for the Copernican theory of the sun-centred solar system. For that daring challenge to heresy he suffered a 7-year-long persecution by the Holy Office, constantly, under house arrest and always faced with the threat of being burnt at the stake. He only escaped this fate by finally recanting.

Galileo was right. Fancy that!

A couple of years ago the present Pope, John Paul, finally accepted that Galileo was right. What’s 300 years after all?

Today we see the Pope calling on Catholics to repent past errors in regard to the Vatican’s silence on the Holocaust. In a document of March 16th on the Holocaust’s mass murder of six million Jews, the Vatican urged Catholics to repent for past errors but absolved wartime Pope Pius XII of charges that he turned a blind eye to the Nazi extermination of European Jewry.

Silence was complicity

In the Vatican document there was no world of criticism of Pope Pius XII but the indisputable fact remains that at no time before and during the war did the pope make the least move towards any public condemnation of Hitlerism and his programme of mass slaughter of Jews, despite numerous appeals from many organisations, both Jewish and non-Jewish, and from many American statesmen that he speak out, if only to express some sort of regret.

All-in-all the Vatican document is a whitewash of Pius XII and the top Catholic hierarchy for their years of silence in the face of by far the greatest piece of political brutality in world history.

Apologetics worthless

Needless to say, Jewish authorities round the world, familiar as they are with the Vatican’s role during the years of the Holocaust, reacted angrily to John Paul’s exculpation of Pius XII from any blame whatsoever. In his introduction to the new document John Paul made no mention of Pius XII, thus virtually defending him as a friend of the Jewish people. The Chief Rabbi of Israel, Visrael Lau, said in Jerusalem that ‘This document by no means goes far enough, not from a historical, a moral, an educational or a cultural perspective.

‘The blurring of the role the Church played on the eve and during the Holocaust, especially the papering over of the part played by the head of the Church, Pius XII, is still not acceptable to us.’

Like numerous other Vatican documents, John Paul’s statement is a masterpiece of evasion, recognising what happened (because it is too well attested to be denied) but absolving the Church and its head from any responsibility in the matter. There is a small amount of historical truth in the document’s acknowledgement ‘that Christians throughout the centuries had been guilty of anti-Judaism’. But he omits to notice what sort of Christians were mainly responsible. As for his assertion that anti-semitism as practised by the Nazis ‘had its roots outside Christianity’ because it was practised by a ‘neo-pagan regime’, to anyone knowing the history of anti-semitism through the ages this is no more than a glossing over of the past.

The Jewish Diaspora

Did the age-old religious persecution of the Jews have anything in common with Hitlerism? We shall see, but to do so we must ask the reader to bear with an historical sketch which goes back for nearly 2000 years.

In AD72 Roman Emperor Titus, displeased with internal rebelliousness against Roman rule over the state (or province) of Judaea, invaded that province, enslaved a good part of its population, and destroyed its central religious building, the Temple. A great part of the population fled Romanised Judaea in a movement known to Jews as the Diaspora, the dispersion. Whenever Jews could find some sanctuary they settled, at least until a new wave of persecution took place.

By 300 AD, Rome became Christianised. While schisms rent the church, eventually most Christians became Catholics and held to its religious beliefs and observances. These spread throughout Europe. A central feature of the Church in this period was its religious tenet that the Jews killed Christ. That belief, propagated for centuries by the Catholic Church, was a foundation for anti-semitism long before Nazism.

Vulnerable minorities are scapegoats

Jews who had settled in European countries were persecuted minorities forced to live in ghettos and barred from nearly all occupations except moneylending or usury, which was illegal for Christians. In the feudal epoch it was customary for local despots to borrow from Jewish moneylenders to finance their internecine wars, and then if faced with tax revolts from the people to blame the Jews and whip up hatred of them as scapegoats to divert popular wrath away from themselves. Indeed this practice lasted till well into the twentieth century when the bloody, periodical slaughtering of Jews became known as pogroms.

Brainwashing the masses

Those historic Christian episodes directed by popes and known as the Crusades were, on the surface, religious wars to liberate Palestine from the Arabs. In point of fact they were wars of conquest by the Catholic nobility who used them as a cover for profitable territorial seizures, today better known as ‘landgrabbing’. Wherever the crusading armies passed, massacres of Jews took place. European peoples were brainwashed by religious authorities into believing that the Jews poisoned wells, ate Christian babies and performed all sorts of other atrocities. The anti-semitic outbreaks were convenient pretexts for robbing Jewry of any of their property and repudiating debts to Jewish moneylenders.

Until the rise of European Protestantism there was little chance of escape for Jews from the incessant pogroms accompanied by chants of ‘Who killed Christ?’

The Inquisition

The anti-Jewish terror reached a peak under the rule of Ferdinand and Isabella in medieval Catholic Spain. The Spanish Inquisition sent thousands of Jews to torture and death by fire. On the very day that Columbus with his three caravels set out in 1492 to find a new route to the Far East, the harbours of Spain were filled with vessels carrying emigrating Jews who were under an edict of death at the stake if they remained in Spain after that date but did not convert to the Catholic faith. (In the eyes of the Papacy all other faiths were heretical). The emigrating Jews settled wherever they could, but there was no safe place for them wherever Catholicism ruled. Some havens did gradually appear with the spread of Protestantism in Northern Europe.

Towards emancipation

As feudal regimes were overthrown in the 19th century some degree of emancipation was achieved by the Jews. In France and Germany Jews could at last become citizens. But anti-semitism did not disappear overnight as the treatment of the Jewish army officer Dreyfuss in the late 19th century showed. His phoney trial for treason divided France.

Anti-semitism as a political weapon

As can be seen from the historical record, right up to the time of Hitler there was a strong residue of anti-semitism in many countries, including ‘enlightened’ Germany. That is not to say that Hitler’s racism was religious; not at all, for he also persecuted Catholics. But the residual anti-semitism provided fertile soil for the Nazi’s political use of race hatred as a weapon to achieve political power on behalf of the most reactionary Germany monopoly capitalists.

Along with this one has to reckon with traditional Vatican hostility towards Jews. When coupled with its pro-imperialist hatred of communism it provided a substantial motive for the silence of Pius XII during the Holocaust.

Supporting a German victory

In fact, right through World War II until the Soviet victory at Stalingrad, Pius – or Pacelli, as he was known while he was still a Cardinal and before he became Pope, was in favour of Germany winning the war!

Despite the apologia evident in John Paul’s statement, and a host of other Catholic-sponsored volumes justifying Pacelli’s lack of opposition to Hitlerism on the grounds that he didn’t want to make things worse, no amount of Jesuitical argument can turn him into a protector of the Jews against the Nazi terror.

Behind a smokescreen of expression of vague religious sentiments we find actual support of the Nazis and their doctrines. From the time of the 1938 Krystallnacht (Crystal night) onward only a tiny handful of churchmen signified disapproval of the anti-Jewish terror. Krystallnacht was a Nazi vengeance for the assassination of a German diplomat by a young Polish Jew, Hershel Grynzpan. The Nazi authorities imprisoned over 20,000 Jews in concentration camps, set fire to about 200 synagogues and organised the smashing of Jewish shop windows throughout the Third Reich. Hence the description of that night of terror. According to the rather wishy-washy book by Saul Friedlander entitled Pius XII and the Third Reich, throughout the length and breadth of the German Reich the voice of only one single priest was raised in protest, that of the Provost of St. Hedwig’s Cathedral in Berlin.

During the period of 1942-43 when the ‘Final Solution’ was in full blast there was no Papal word of opposition despite repeated appeals from Roosevelt and other US statesmen such as Harold H. Tittman, US representative of the Holy See, Secretary of State Cordell Hull and the Ambassador to the Holy See Myron C. Taylor. In a letter to Hull (26.12.42) Harold Tittman expressed the view that in the Pope’s projected Christmas message any departure from the generalities of his previous messages was unlikely. Tittman was right.

Extermination

The years of Nazi terror were not confined solely to Germany. The same extermination policy was carried out through all the Nazi occupied countries. Organised gas chamber executions and starvation to death of concentration camp prisoners were the order of Hitler’s day. Did Pius not know about the ‘Final Solution’? The idea is ludicrous. He was well-informed on all events occurring throughout Europe. But he didn’t open his mouth. After all, only six million Jews went up in smoke.

Pope John’s feeble attempt at whitewashing the Church’s attitude towards Nazi anti-semitism – that this ‘had its roots outside Christianity’ because it was practised by a ‘neo pagan regime’ – is a crude attempt to shift any blame for Pius’ XII silence into limbo and won’t deceive many.

Auschwitz was not merely a ‘neo-pagan’ aberration. It was an integral part of Hitler’s use of racist mass murder for political ends. Such use began in the 1930s a ladder towards political power and later became a means of holding on to power already won. And all this was well-known to Pius.

A summing up

We do not aim in this short article to give a history of all Pius’ actions and policies before, during, and after the war. However, certain things stand out.

1. When he became Pope he had already spent thirteen years in Germany where he lived on the best of terms with the rulers of the Third Reich. The record, in spite of whitewashing, speaks of nothing in any way critical of the Nazi regime or its anti-Jewish terror.

2. This position lasted throughout the war.

3. In the later stages of the war when it was evident Germany would lose, Pius attempted to secure a rapprochement between the Western allies (excluding the Soviet Union) and Hitler Germany. His efforts to this end were abortive because of the agreement of the Allies to force Germany’s unconditional surrender.

4. The mystification surrounding Pius in that period is quite explicable in the light of Pius’ post-war role.

The motivating force – pro-imperialism

Taking all into account, the Pope’s role before, during and after the war is, if nothing else, consistent. Disregarding all the vague religious meanderings he pronounced, his motivating force becomes clear. It is hatred of communism and willingness to serve the ends of world imperialism. Holding that Nazi Germany was the main bulwark against socialism – just as Hitler proclaimed – in practice his silence on the subject of its horrendous atrocities can be understood. Imperialism’s spearhead had to be supported politically. It was of a piece with his policy during the immediate post-war period when he acted as ideological front runner for US imperialism, which began the cold war in order to achieve unchallenged capitalist world domination. The Catholic Church was mobilised worldwide against the Soviet Union and strong agitation existed in the US for a preventive war against it. Little is said on this side of Pius’ activities, but being anti-Soviet and anti-socialist they were dear to his heart.

Let us quote but on instance of his pro-imperialist stance. In 1947, because of its anti-fascist struggle, the Communist Party had become the largest party in Italy. A general election was due which observers considered would be won by the Communists.

The US sent its Mediterranean fleet into major Italian ports, threatening invasion in case of a Communist victory. Pope Pius did his bit. He came out with denunciations of communism, culminating in a direct appeal to Italian voters. There was not the slightest vagueness or mystification around this. He slogan was: ‘God can see you in the ballot box, but Stalin can’t’. Catholic Italy responded. The Communists won the largest vote – but not an overall majority. The Pope had played his part.

In Pius’ footsteps

Pope John Paul took up the reins. He followed a similar anti-Soviet, anti-socialist course, until the collapse of the Soviet bloc. Then, while still hostile to socialism, he began to introduce some mild criticism of capitalism as a sop to the anti-imperialist Catholic masses in Latin America. But his fundamental stance is and has always been similar to Pacelli’s – that is why his apologia for Pius is, in fact, a travesty of the truth.