Trento
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Contrary to the fabrications (originating with Rolf Hochhuth, a playwright who was a member of the Hitler Youth, and continuing down to the present with John Cornwell, a journalist who is "Rolf Hochhuth Redivivus," and others), there are
the following testimonies emphasizing the truth of what really happened
in that period when Pope Pius XII was confronting the Holocaust.
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"No Christmas sermon reaches a larger congregation than the message Pope Pius XII addresses to a war-torn world at this season. This Christmas more than ever
he is a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent."
The New York Times, December 25, 1942
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"I should like you to take this occasion to express to His Holiness my deeply-felt appreciation of the frequent action which the Holy See has taken on its own
initiative in its generous and merciful efforts to render assistance
to the victims of racial and religious persecutions."
Franklin D. Roosevelt to Myron C. Taylor, August 3, 1944
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". . . I told him [the Pope] that my first duty was to thank him , and through him, the Catholic Church, on behalf of the Jewish public, for all they had done in the
various countries to rescue Jews, to save children, and Jews in general."
Moshe Sharett, Later First Israeli Foreign Minister (April 1945)
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"In all these painful matters, I referred to the Holy See and afterwards I simply
carried out the Pope's orders: first and foremost to save human lives."
Angelo Cardinal Roncalli, Patriarch of Venice, Later Pope John XXIII (1957)
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"When fearful martyrdom came to our people, the voice of the
pope was raised for its victims."
Golda Meir, Israeli Foreign (October 1958)
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"He was a great and good man, and I loved him."
Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery,London Sunday Times (October 12, 1958)
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"It seems evident to me that the principles, reaffirmed by Pope Pacelli in his first encyclical [Summi Pontificatus], and repeated forcefully at every circumstance, above all in the Christmas messages of the war years,
constitute the most concrete condemnation of the Hitlerian type of absolutism."
Eugene Cardinal Tisserant, New York Times (February 26, 1964)
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"Pope Pius XII did not remain silent."
Jeno Levai (1966)
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". . . the Catholic Church, under the pontificate of Pope Pius XII was instrumental
in saving at least 700,000, but probably as many as 860,000,
Jews from certain death at Nazi hands."
Pinchas E. Lapide, Three Popes and the Jews (1967)
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"Pope Pius XII, the one pontiff with whom I was acquainted, was an interesting man who, after 1945, came in for what almost surely is an unfair amount of criticism
because he didn't stop the conflict Hitler started and because he didn't
do more to save Europe's Jews from Nazi extermination."
C. L. Sulzberger, Go Gentle Into the Night (1976)
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"What we can say already, in light of what we have learned, is that
the Nazis considered Pius XII and his collaborators as their greatest enemies,
and that, reciprocally, the Pope and his entourage saw the Nazis as criminals
working for the destruction of the Church and civilization."
Jean Chelini, Le Figaro (October 8, 1983)
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"The gratitude [to Pope Pius XII] of the world Jewish leaders, for deeds to which their own archives are witness, was transformed after 1963 into totally negative commentary. The well-intentioned, informed world Jewish community was downgraded to 'disgraceful testimonials of a few Jews' (New York Times, September 27, 1989), Letters)."
Rev. Robert A. Graham, S. J. (October 1989)
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". . . that there was no direction given by the Pope in helping the Jews recalls the argument of David Irving, the English author, who in 1977 tried to absolve Adolf Hitler of any responsibility for the Final Solution simply because historians could not find a document proving his responsibility for persecuting the Jews. The failure of historians to find any explicit instructions does not necessarily consititute proof that Hitler was not behind the persecution of the Jews or that Pius XII did not encourage the help given by the Catholic clergy and laity to the Jews, since, as any historian knows, directives can be given orally as well as in writing [actually, as early as 23 December 1940, Pius did send a secret instruction, Opere et caritate, to his bishops to help victims like the Jews]."
Rev. Vincent A. Lapomarda, S. J. (July 31, 1992)
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"Anyone who does not limit himself to cheap polemics knows very well what
Pius XII thought of the Nazi regime and how much he did to help countless people
persecuted by the regime."
Pope John Paul II (1995)
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"He was a great pope."
Pope John Paul II (March 21, 1998)
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"In his 1942 Christmas message, which The New York Times among others
extolled, the pope became the first figure of international stature
to condemn what was turning into the Holocaust."
Kenneth Woodward, Newsweek (March 30, 1998)
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"Before any more fingers are pointed at Pius XII --- who did more to save the Jews than anyone else --- let him first take a hard historical look at what his ideological kinfolk did at the time of the Holocaust. The New Republic, like The New York Timesand The Washington Post, are the ones who need to apologize for their shameful silence in the face of genocide and stop with the scapegoating of Pius XII."
William A. Donohue, President, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights
Catalyst, 27, No. 4 (May 2000), 10
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". . . Pius XII was, genuinely and profoundly, a righteous gentile."
Rabbi David G. Dalin, The Weekly Standard, February 26, 2001
(also see his "History as Bigotry," in the February 10, 2003 issue).
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