Denver Newsroom, May 1, 2020 / 12:15 pm (CNA).- Scholars say charges that Pope Pius XII covered-up the Vatican’s knowledge of the Holocaust are based on exaggerated claims and do not represent the truth.
Fr. Hubert Wolf, a professor of history at the University of Munster, claimed last month that in the Vatican’s recently opened archives on Pope Pius XII, he had found an anti-Semitic memo which suggested that Pope Pius XII knew about the Holocaust in Europe before the U.S. government did, but made efforts to conceal his knowledge.
But Ronald Rychlak, a professor at the University of Mississippi’s law school and the author of “Hitler, the War, and the Pope” told CNA that Wolf’s argument doesn’t stand up to historical scrutiny.
What Pope Pius XII knew and did during World War II has been a source of controversy for years. That controversy was reignited in early March, when the Vatican opened to researchers its archives on Pius XII. Wolf was among the researchers. But a week after the archives were opened, the coronavirus lockdown in Italy forced researchers to pause their work.
Undeterred, Wolf told German and American media this month that he had found a key document which, he said, could prove that Pius XII lied to the U.S. government by claiming in 1942 that he could not verify intelligence reports, which came from the Jewish Agency for Palestine in Geneva, about death camps for the mass murder of Jews in Poland and Ukraine.
When the U.S. entered World War II in 1942, it did not yet have knowledge of the scale of atrocities committed against Jewish people across Europe, especially the mass murder of Jews in Eastern Europe. It had received reports of those atrocities, however, and was making efforts to verify them.
In 1942, the Vatican, too, had received reports, mostly from Church leaders, about the mass murder of Jews by Nazi forces.
Nevertheless, in September 1942, when a U.S. official asked the Vatican to verify a report from the Jewish Agency for Palestine, Vatican officials said they could not independently confirm the information it contained regarding the existence of death camps, but that the Vatican did know, and had received reports, about atrocities committed by Nazi forces, adding that “the Holy See is taking advantage of every opportunity offered in order to mitigate the suffering.”
Rychlak told CNA that the Holy See’s concern to be judicious about verifying any report “can logically be traced to WWI, when false stories of atrocities were often circulated,”
But after examining the Pius XII archives for a week in March, Wolf pointed journalists this month to a 1942 memo from a staffer in the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Msgr. Angelo Dell’Acqua, who later became a cardinal. The memo, which has not been released to the public, apparently cautioned against verifying the report from the Jewish Agency for Palestine.
Wolf told journalists that the memo warned against believing the report because Jews “easily exaggerate.”
“This is a key document that has been kept hidden from us because it is clearly anti-Semitic and provides background information on why Pius XII did not speak out against the Holocaust,” Wolf told a Munster Catholic newspaper.
German journalist Michael Hesemann was also among the researchers who examined Pius XII’s archives in March. In a statement sent to CNA, he said that Wolf has made his claim about Pius XII without understanding the meaning of the memo he found, or its significance.
He added that the memo “warns not to draw premature conclusions on the new information, [stating]: ‘It is necessary to assure that they are true, since exaggerations happen easily, also among Jews.’ With other words: Trust but verify!”
“For Wolf, this is evidence for the Vatican’s anti-Semitism during the pontificate of Pius XII. For him, it means, and this is how he paraphrases it in several interviews with German media: ‘All Jews are liars,” Hesemann said.
“But it means nothing like that, Hesemann said, explaining that the memo was intended to urge caution against any exaggeration.
“And indeed the Jewish Agency’s report contained several rumors which were not true at all, as we know today. It claimed that ‘in all Eastern Poland and the occupied Russian territories, not a single Jew is alive anymore.’ We know that thousands survived in the underground or became partisans.”
“No government in the world would act on a single report, but waits for an independent verification – that’s why President Roosevelt asked the Vatican, in the first place,” Hesemann added.
In either case, Hesemann said, the memo “did not influence papal policy, which remained the same before and after, nor does it contain any new information. It is one man’s reminder to trust and to verify and nothing more.”
The memo is not included in an 11-volume cache of Vatican documents from the Second World War. To Wolf, this is a reason to be skeptical about the volumes, according to the Washington Post.
But to Hesemann, the memo was not included “not because of a Vatican cover-up, but because it’s irrelevant.”
Hesemann cautioned that Wolf, who has “promoted conspiracy theories” about Pius XII in the past “draws premature conclusions, blames the Vatican of a cover-up and creates sensationalist headlines,” to further “his own agenda,” namely, “stop the ongoing beatification process of Pius XII – at least until he and his team have evaluated the last of the pages Pope Francis made available for historical research.”
Rylchak pointed out evidence, presented in his book, of Pius XII’s concern to oppose the Nazis, which he says was well-recognized by journalists and bishops during the Second World War. He also pointed out that Pius XII, through “ a long series of communications with the American bishops,” encouraged opposition to Nazi ideology.
“Despite all of this, Wolf would have us believe that Pius did not make his opinion known due to a cover note from a low-level assistant,” Rylchak said, calling the assertion “ridiculous.”
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With the lead-in picture of the ring hand, reminds me of the “diamonds are forever” jingle; often seems more of a fantasy with earthly marriages.
“We cannot reduce a human situation to a prescriptive one” [Francis] translates the Roman Pontiff does not want the Church to be constricted by [to adhere to] doctrine. Whether Benedict XVI expressed an opinion [neither is an opinion a proscription] that a given number of marriages are invalid due to lack of faith that cannot be made an assumption that every divorced and remarried outside the Church falls into that category. If we accept that assumption on invalidity [Benedict’s alleged opinion] as a standard for judgment then that doubt must be presumed for all.
Pope Francis immediately after publication of Amoris Laetitia announced that most presumed sacramental marriages are invalid. Then walked it back following the expected uproar. That has been his gradual process of seeking to modify doctrine. Timing is essential.
A person unless retarded knows what an affirmation is [when exchanging vows]. If they don’t [due to lack of faith] they will likely remain as oblivious even if after a similar process of instruction they’re conferred the Holy Eucharist. Based on these premises this new document on divorced and remarried may well be footnote 351 on steroids.
Card Kevin Farrell, McCarrick associate when assigned to DC is one of the fast rising stars selected by His Holiness to complete the large tent Church renovation. Numbers versus quality, secular religiosity versus adherence to revelation. Unless I’m wrong and happily surprised.
“…without an annulment.” The easy-annulment mentality of the last fifty years has in effect amounted to being a Church endorsement for divorce. Oh, but annulments are NOT Catholic divorce, said Bishop James Conley in the Denver Catholic newspaper a decade ago or so. Sorry, bishop. they really are, in every way but officially. And every time the Church grants an annulment, it guarantees that there will be many more — the annulment mentality is part of the Church now. Thank you, New Springtime of Vatican II.
Yes!
This document like so many others emanating from this pontificate are DOA.
Excerpt: Pope Francis said. “When young people say ‘forever,’ who knows what they mean [by] ‘forever.’”
It is not just YOUNG people. My new wife and her maniacal first husband were divorced since she could no longer deal with his bipolar disorder. He died before I met Gail. I am a widower who lost my first wife at age 42. For 13 years I was single and alone. Then I met Gail and after a year we decided to get married. We were deeply in love and planned a lifetime together. That was when we experienced the harshness Catholic Church. Our parish priest would not marry us because Gail was divorced without an annulment. The fact that her first husband was now dead meant little. Across from St. Josephs was the Old Dutch Church where my friend Rev Paul Bennis was rector. After several “pre-cana” sessions he married us. We returned to St. Josephs, but were not given the Host. We have settled in and look forward to a long life.
When people get married, they are no longer free to take another partner, in other words, they are “reserved”. When Gail’s husband died, she was no longer “reserved”, and was free to marry for a second man. As for her civil divorce, I don’t know if she incurred any censure or canonical penalty. The remedy would have been a good confession with a knowledgeable priest. How could her parish priest refuse to marry her to a single man, and then refuse her Communion? As recounted by morganD, it seems altogether a bad decision. Another question: where was her bishop?
Marriage ends at death. It is unbelievable that a priest would claim a woman is not free to marry after for the sole reason that she is already married to a dead man.
“Practice continence within their marriage”??? Really?? Excuse me while i roll on the floor laughing. Who on earth does that?? There are a few anecdotal stories of some saintly couples in the long past supposedly doing that. But certainly that is beyond rare. Expect the report to approve of more secular practices for the divorced and remarried. To be kind and merciful of course, which appears to now trump standards if amy kind. And if the Pope assumes most catholic marriages are invalid, dispense with marriage as a sacrament and call in a govt justice of the peace. People are not improved when LESS is expected of them. Is the request for this report the popes way of distracting attention from the results of the recent German synod??? I think the tesults of this report will be sadly predictable.
Marriage is about the procreation and education of children for heaven. But in 1969, Rotal Judge Lucian Anne (accent over the “e”) proclaimed that from then on it was about much more as in a partnership of the whole of life.
But there is no list of how this partnership is defined. Couples can violate it in ignorance; only tribunal judges know how to find evidence that invalidates their marriage under, almost always, canon 1095.2 and 1095.3.
American diocesan marriage tribunals are corrupt. Ask those children who cried themselves to sleep for years, only wanting Mom and Dad back together. And the ” church” let them down again and again.
Using marriage as an indicator of anything relevant to the Church is useless. Casual sex, cohabiting, exploitation of children are rampant, and the wedding ceremony itself is given far more effort than the actual marriage. The truth is that the only one who can police Communion is Christ Himself.
I look forward to the day the Church implements our existing canon law and doctrine about those “having a failed marriage behind them.” The Church, not the government, has competence to decide spouses’ obligations toward each other and their children. No-fault divorce is virtually illegal for Catholics who are bound to follow canon law. For every so-called failed marriage there is one person (or two) who chose to break marriage promises by abandonment, abuse, or adultery. See my blog https://marysadvocates.org/please-stop-saying-those-who-experience-divorce/
Thank you for that post. My wife walked out of our marriage with no effort, no care, no apology, no remorse. She had committed adultery for several years and left for the other man. I would have done anything to save my marriage and took my vows seriously. She did not. Now I suffer as do my adult children.
70 testimonies of adult children of divorce is a must read in Primal Loss by Leila Miller for all clergy and lay Catholic counselors
I have so many questions about this. I was Catholic for almost 20 years, a convert as an adult. My first marriage was not in the church and he was abusive. My priest basically told me to leave him or I might die and he didn’t want to preach my funeral mass. I did, and we divorced. I got married again, once again not in the Church and we were married for 10 years. I had left the Church due to the marriage thing. After the 10 years, he announced he never loved me and he was in love with another woman and basically threw me out. I moved 800 miles away to my sister’s and went to the local church to talk about this and what to do about coming back. That priest told me to go home, throw her out, and tell my husband he had to stay with me. Uh, not happening, and I walked away from the church again.
A year and a half later I met a man who was perfect for me. We were in a whirlwind romance and after doing a handfasting with friends, got the JP ceremony. That was 30 years ago and we’re happier than we’ve ever been. He was divorced too, just getting over it. We worked through the baggage from our pasts and we have grown into a really comfortable, loving marriage.
Now I’m feeling the call to go home to the Church. I keep reading I have to get annulments, I have to live like “brother and sister” with my beloved husband while that’s going on. My first husband is dead, I’ve not had contact with the other one in about six years (at a wedding for our daughter). I don’t know what to do about this whole thing. If I can’t have sacraments, why go back? I can pray at home, I can read on my own. I can watch mass online.
My husband wouldn’t be adverse to conversion, depending on how he finds things. He grew up Methodist, very active since he played piano for the church and his father was a deacon and a lay minister. He has said he will accompany me to mass if I wanted to go.
So, when the Church talks about having to annul a marriage, if you’ve never been married in the Church, is that still valid? I’m very convused.