``Where the
Bishop is, there let the multitude of believers be;
even as where Jesus is, there is the Catholic Church'' Ignatius of
Antioch, 1st c. A.D
The Church,
Pope Pius XII,
& the Nazis
One thing I have
learned since having been confirmed a Catholic and
after having studied my faith more fully is this: where there are
unreasonable attacks against the Church, there is either ignorance or a
malignant heart. Scratch the surface of someone who gets their kicks
(or paychecks) slandering the Church or presenting it as some sort of
ossified dinosaur that's too stupid and reactionary to figure out that
Truth changes, and you'll find one of a few things:
a hellfire and
brimstone Protestant raised on English myths rooted in anti-Spain and
anti-Catholic sentiments;
a Marxist,
Socialist, or other breed of leftist;
a radical
feminist;
someone who
wants to normalize homosexuality or who has some sexual habit or
proclivity he doesn't want to give up;
someone who
promotes abortion and/or the use of contraception;
the kind of
person who worships "goddesses" and "forces" or otherwise engages in
New
Age silliness;
a cynical kid
raised in our secular materialist world who's read his socialist-penned
schoolbooks and believes that "religion" is the cause of all evil
The reasons all
boil down to ignorance, radical politics, New Age-ism; gender
confusion, or the desire for "easy" sex, this last being the first
among the usual suspects.
John Cornwell, the self-described "Catholic" author of Hitler's Pope
is no different. His book, Breaking the Faith, has been
summarized thus: "A former seminarian decries the conservative trend in
the modern Catholic church, and offers suggestions for its
liberalization." In his own words from the book relevant to this essay,
Hitler's Pope:
The
beatification of Pius XII would be a major victory for the
traditionalists over the progressives with regard to the interpretation
of Vatican II. If the Papacy becomes too strong to the detriment of the
people of God, the Catholic Church will suffer a loss of moral and
spiritual influence to the detriment of us all.
In other words,
this well-known leftist wants to interpret the sixteen documents of
Vatican II in "revolutionary" terms, calling upon their "spirit," as
leftists are wont to do, in order to justify his political or sexual
agenda -- an agenda that's so powerfully motivating to him that
engaging in calumny against a good and holy man and creating undeserved
scandal are acceptable means in bringing it about.
Another papal slanderer, Ralph Hochhuth, had nefarious motives as well,
writing a 1964 play called "The Deputy." According to a former official
of Romania's Secret Police, his play attacking Pius XII as a Nazi
sympathizer was fabricated by the KGB and Eastern bloc Marxists'
disinformation campaign. The campaign, named Seat 12, had as its goal
the discrediting of the moral authority of the Church and of
Christianity in general in the west.
That Pope Pius
XII saved 800,000 Jewish lives, hiding Jews in monasteries, convents,
and inside the Vatican itself; that he got to the Jews money for
travel; that he issued fake baptismal certificates so they could pass
as Christian; that he was praised by Jews at the end of the war (by
everyone from Golda Meir to the Communist Albert Einstein) as a
"righteous gentile"; that his was called by the New York Times
the only voice among the silence on the topic of the Jewish
persecutions; that the Chief Rabbi of Rome was so impressed by this
Pope's holiness and heroism toward his fellow Hebrews that he took his
name when he converted to Catholicism -- these things have been written
about by people much more talented than I. Links to what they have to
say appear below. Please read them -- and as you do, remember that
ignored in the singular focus on the tragedy of the Jewish "holocaust"
is the destruction of Christians that took place simultaneously: not
only were Catholics also murdered by Nazis (3,000,000 in Poland
alone, but, at the same time, 15 million Christians were being
murdered by our ally, "Uncle Joe" Stalin, much-beloved by FDR, American
liberals, and American media. Where are the outrage, the memorials in
every major American city, the Hollywood movies, the PBS specials, the
"Christian 'holocaust' education programs" in public schools, the
slogans, the defense leagues, the apologies for them? Where's even a
mention of it in the typical American High School textbook? Why
"the silence"? And why the double standard?
And as you read all this, for the love of all that is Holy,
realize
that Pope Pius XII was in between a rock and a hard place. He was in
Vatican City, surrounded by Rome, in the middle of Mussolini's fascist
Italy. On one side of him he had Communists, who were slaughtering
Christians in astronomical numbers, in a movement led predominantly by
Jews, and on whose side the Allies entered the war. On the other side
of him, he had pagan racist Nazism that was, in very large part, a
reaction
against Jewish-led Communism, but which was just as anti-Christian. He
was against
both of these evil ideologies (see his Encyclical Summa Pontificatus
below) but was hardly in a position to do much about either in a hugely
public way without increasing the slaughter of both Jews and
Christians. The great and holy Pius XII did what he humanly could, as
publicly as possible, and most powerfully and effectively behind the
scenes. The world knew this during and after the war; it has forgotten
since the ascendancy of cultural Marxism that has changed our culture
to one that is thoroughly anti-Christian -- most especially anti-Catholic.
No, the Pope wasn't a Hitler-lover. And neither were German Catholics:
The Myth of
Hitler's Pope by Dr. Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
