Public statements of Pope Pius XII on the Holocaust

[1] The term "Holocaust" had been used since the Middle Ages, and was used by contemporaries during World War II, although it did not come to refer exclusively to the genocide of the Jews in scholarly writing until the 1960s.

[4] Much scrutiny has focused on whether Pius XII specifically identified the perpetrators or victims; many of his more ambiguous statements, which make no reference to Nazi Germany or the Jews, have been argued to apply to the Holocaust by some of his supporters.

The most relevant passage of Mit brennender Sorge is as follows: Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the state, or a particular form of state, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community—however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things—whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God.

The bulk of the document deals with general and abstracted themes, but the situation in Poland (which had been invaded shortly before the encyclical's promulgation) is referred to with specificity once: The blood of countless human beings, even noncombatants, raises a piteous dirge over a nation such as Our dear Poland, which, for its fidelity to the Church, for its services in the defense of Christian civilization, written in indelible characters in the annals of history, has a right to the generous and brotherly sympathy of the whole world, while it awaits, relying on the powerful intercession of Mary, Help of Christians, the hour of a resurrection in harmony with the principles of justice and true peace.

[11]In 1943, Pius issued the Mystici corporis Christi encyclical, in which he condemned the practice of killing the disabled and reiterated Catholic teaching on the unity of the human race.

He stated his "profound grief" at the murder of the deformed, the insane, and those suffering from hereditary disease... as though they were a useless burden to Society", in condemnation of the ongoing Nazi euthanasia program.

The short document, written when the war was near conclusion, turned to the themes of peace and reconciliation, emphasizing the need for charity on the part of the victors.

[29] Much has been said about the statements and correspondents of Pius XII's nuncios, placed throughout Europe, in no small part because these statements comprise the bulk of the Actes et documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale (ADSS), the only documents from Pius XII's papacy which have been made available for researchers from the Vatican Secret Archives.

Morley's central conclusion is: This study of the Vatican and Jewish sources has revealed little evidence that the nuncios manifested any consistent humanitarian concern about the sufferings of the Jews during the years 1939 to 1943.

Carlo Falconi's The Silence of Pius XII (first published in 1965, in Italian) is devoted almost entirely to the analysis of the public statements, and lack thereof, of the pope.

[36] Falconi examines the various justifications and explanations for Pius XII's silence, offering his opinion on their plausibility; he himself settles on a combination of pessimism, fear of Communism, and securing the future survival and influence of the church.

We look in vain among the hundreds of pages of Pius XII's allocutions, messages, and writings for the angry, fiery words that would brand such horrible acts for ever.

[39]Yad Vashem's caption affixed to two photos of Pius XII in its Jerusalem Holocaust memorial focuses in large part on Pius XII's lack of public protest: In 1933, when he was Secretary of the Vatican State, he was active in obtaining a Concordat with the German regime to preserve the Church's rights in Germany, even if this meant recognizing the Nazi racist regime.

Men, women, and children died by the hundreds of thousands, victims of calculated policies of extermination that can be called genocidal.

Pius was supplied with reports of Nazi crimes in Poland, but to the chagrin of Polish church officials he issued no public protest.

In September 1942 the governments of Brazil, Uruguay, Peru, Cuba, and Belgium sent demarches to the Holy See asking for the pope to speak out against the atrocities.

Phayer surmises that Pius must have felt upstaged by virtually every non-Nazi voice of opinion on earth, and therefore released his Christmas message in 1942, which mentioned the "hundreds of thousands of persons who, without any fault on their part, sometimes only because of their nationality or race, have been consigned to death or to a slow decline.

[42] He argues that the pope himself held this view; according to Sánchez, Pius XII only expressed this view once publicly, but repeated it more often privately; in a June 2, 1943 address to the College of Cardinals the pope said: Every single word in Our statements addressed to the competent authorities, and every one of Our public utterances, has had to be weighed and pondered by Us with deep gravity, in the very interest of those who are suffering, so as not to render their position even more difficult and unbearable than before, be it unwittingly and unintentionally.

[46]Lapide concludes that: When armed force ruled well-nigh omnipotent, and morality was at its lowest ebb, Pius XII commanded none of the former and could only appeal to the latter, in confronting, with bare hands, the full might of evil.

Unable to cure the sickness of an entire civilization, and unwilling to bear the brunt of Hitler's fury, the Pope, unlike many far mightier than he, alleviated, relieved, retrieved, appealed, petitioned - and saved as best he could by his own lights.

Those critics do not recall that the Pope had been advised by Jewish leaders and by the bishops in occupied countries not to protest publicly against Nazi atrocities.

"[47]Marchione's book reproduces an article originally published by Pierre Blet, a Jesuit priest who served as one of the editors of the ADSS, in La Civiltà Cattolica on the topic; Blet's article does not quote any particular statements of Pius XII, although it does include numerous quotes of praise of Pius XII by contemporaries and a lengthy explanation of the contents of the ADSS, criticizing historians who requested that the full archives be opened.

[50]The "silence" of Pius XII is the primary subject matter of Rolf Hochhuth's 1963 play The Deputy, which was adapted into the 2002 film Amen.