ABOUT THE CHURCH AND THE VATICAN

Pius XII: 'The Pope cannot speak
if it means making things worse'
by Cardinal Paolo Dezza
Translated from
the 2/1-2/2/10 issue of


Editor's Note: On June 28, 1964, the Sunday Osservatore published the testimony of the then rector of the Pontifical Gregorian University [the Jesuit university in Rome] - who in 1966, became the confessor of Paul VI and John Paul I, and was made a cardinal in 1991 by John Paul II - regarding a confidential conversation he had with Pius XII. [NB: Cardinal Dezza died in December 1999].


In December 1942, I conducted the spiritual exercises at the Vatican for the Holy Father. At that time, I had the occasion for a long audience with the Pope, during which he spoke to me of Nazi atrocities in Germany and in the occupied countries, and expressed his pain and anguish because, he said, "They complain that the Pope does not speak. But the Pope cannot speak. If he did, it would only make things worse".

He told me he had recently sent three letters, one of them to 'the heroic Archbishop of Cracow", as he referred to him, the future Cardinal Sapeha, and to two other Polish bishops about their experiences with the Nazis.

He said they wrote back to thank him, but they also wrote they could not share the letter with their faithful "because it would aggravate the situation".

He recalled the example of Pius XI who in the face of vexation from the Russians, remarked: "You have to learn to keep silent to prevent worse evils".

It became clear that those who accused him of keeping silent about the Nazis because he supported them over the Russian Communists were simply wrong. He said, "Yes, the Communist peril is there, but for now, the greater danger is Nazism".

He spoke about what the Nazis would do if they were triumphant. "They want to destroy the Church and grind it underfoot like a toad. There will be no room for a Pope in their Europe. They have said 'Let him go to America'. But they cannot intimidate me. I will stay here".

He said it calmly, surely and firmly. If he did not speak up, it was not out of fear nor self-interest, but simply out of concern not to worsen the situation of those who were being oppressed.

When he spoke about the German threats to invade the Vatican and take it over, he was absolutely calm and trustful of Providence, but when he spoke about having to speak out, he sounded anguished. "If I speak, I make things worse."

So even if, historically, one can dispute whether he would have done better to speak out more, or in stronger terms, there should be no question that if he did not do so, it was only for that reason - not to make things worse for the victims and potential victims - not out of fear or other motives.

The other part of the conversation that was fascinating was when he started to tell me the things he had put into motion or had already done to help those he could. He also recalled his attempts to make contacts with Hitler, as agreed on with the German bishops, shortly after he became Pope, but he was unsuccessful. Then [Foreign Minister] Von Ribbentrop came to Rome, but that too came to nothing, although he tried his best not to get into political or military issues, but keep to what directly affected the Church and the Holy See.

In this respect, I remember that when the Germans occupied Rome in 1943, I was rector of the Gregorian at the time, and I welcomed those who came to seek refuge from the Nazi dragnet. But the Pope warned, "Father, try to avoid getting involved with the military, because the Gregorian is a pontifical institution. Everybody else, yes, as long as they are civilians, and the Jews". In fact, I did take in many Jews.

As to what the Pope did for the Jews in those years, one of the best testimonials was Grand Rabbi Israel Zolli of Rome, who took refuge with a worker's family during the Nazi occupation. After the danger had passed and the Allies came, he became a Catholic, and his conversion was sincere.

I remember he came to visit me on August 15, 1944, and he revealed to me his plan to convert. "Look," he said, "there is no quid pro quo. I want to be baptized, that's all. The Nazis have taken everything away. I am poor, I will live poor, I will die poor. It doesn't matter". [In fact, Dezza himself baptized Zolli.]

And when he was baptized, he chose the name Eugenio precisely to honor Papa Pacelli for what he had done to help the Jews. I myself accompanied him to see the Pope after his baptism in February, and I remember Zolli asked the Pope to remove the words 'perfidi iudaeis' from the liturgy [the Good Friday prayer]. Since changing the Missal was not something that the Pope could do right away, what Pius XII did was to publicize the fact that in Latin, 'perfidi' does not mean perfidious or treacherous as in 'perfidious', but 'non-believing'.

During the war, Pius XII wanted to be certain not to say anything that could lead to reactions that could worsen the situation for those the Nazis were targetting.

Did he decide correctly not to speak out, or would he have done more good by speaking? That's a question that can be debated historically. Perhaps Pius XI, who had a different temperament, may have acted differently. Objectively, this can be debated. Subjectively, I have no doubt that Pius XII sincerely sought to do what was best for all.


However, the following rebuttal of the 'non-news' regarding supposedly newly-discovered documents tending to show Pius XII was guilty of failing to do anything about the persecution of Jews, is. to say the least, rather lame and not adequately researched.



News that is not news
by Raffaele Alessandrini
Translated from
the 2/1-2/2/10 issue of



"In the face of the Shoah, the Allies and everyone else kept silent, but only Pius XII has been called to account - the rest have never been called to question", Cardinal Achille Silvestrini, who was for a long time in the forefront of Vatican diplomacy, said in an interview February 1 with La Stampa's Giacomo Galeazzi, concerning the latest 'new' accusation levelled at Papa Pacelli.

This time, the 'new' evidence is supposed be in two documents taken from the British Archives in Kew Gardens: a telegram dated October 19, 1943, and a letter dated November 10, 1944.

In the first, the United States charge d'affaires Harold Trittman in Rome describes the formal caution of Pius XII who reportedly failed to say anything about the deportation of Roman Jews to Auschwitz, when meeting with the Pope the day after the deportation.

[What this report does not point out is that the Trittman meeting with Pius XII took place three days before the deportation, as reported in the Osservatore Romano of that time, so Pius XII could not have commented about something that had not yet happened - and obviously, the roundup for deportation was sudden and unannounced.]

"During that tragic time," Cardinal Silvestrini points out, "the Pope was concerned that the Germans should leave Rome undisturbed, out of respect for the sacred character of the Eternal City".

Nor was this a choice militating against the Jews? On the contrary, Silvestrini say, "It was Pius XII's prudence that allowed him to act in effective and concrete ways not obvious to the Germans. For the Jews and others who were persecuted, any showy gesture of protest or opposition would have been counter-productive."

"At the same time, the Pope did all he could so that churches and Catholic institutions could accommodate as many Jews as they could.... Any explicit protest on their behalf would have caused more harm than good".

"Papa Pacelli knew the Germans better than most," Silvestrini says, "since he had been Nuncio in Munich and Berlin from 1917 to 1929, when he was an advocate of the Weimar Republic [the democratic post World War I government that the Nazis defeated in the elections of 1933.]He knew exactly what Nazism was."

The other document from the autumn of 1944 refers to a conversation between the British ambassador Francis D'Arcy Osborne and Pius XII, concerning the massacre of Jews in Hungary at a time when persistent denunciations of Stalinist crimes in the Baltic nations and Poland were reaching the Vatican,

But while the ambassador was advocating a public denunciation of Nazi atrocities, he suggested silence about those committed by the Soviets, who were now with the Allies.

The Pope chose to be consistent with his policy of prudence, 'o condemn the sins and not the sinners', as historian Andrea Riccardi put it in an interview with Antiono Carioti of Corriere della Sera on February 1.

Moreover, Cardinal Silvestrini recalls, "Pius XII considered what had happened earlier with the Dutch bishops a warning. In July 1942, the Dutch bishops wrote a pastoral letter read in all the Dutch churches which condemned the "merciless and unjust treatment of the Jews' by the Nazis. Their intentions were for the best, of course, but the consequences were disastrous. Immediately thee were more deportations of Dutch Jews and Catholics than there were from any other country of Western Europe".




One must thank ZENIT for publishing a separate news item about the big difference made by the mistaken date of Tittman's October 1943 conversation with Pius XII, referred to in a parenthetical in the first story above].



Incorrect date on Pius XII document:
Pope couldn't be 'indifferent' about
1943 Jewish deportation from Rome
as it had not happened yet
By Jesús Colina



ROME, FEB. 2, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Pope Pius XII was again in the news this week, as researchers presented two documents that were interpreted as putting the Pope in a negative light regarding his response to the Holocaust.

As ZENIT reported Monday, a brief document was presented as a new find dated Oct. 19, 1943. The document is a telegram from American diplomat Harold Tittmann on his meeting with the Pope.

The document does not mention the Oct. 16 raid on the Jews of Rome, when than 1,000 of the city's Jews were rounded up and deported to Auschwitz.

Given that Tittmann's report does not mention the raid (though theoretically it had happened just three days before), and instead reports Pius XII's concern about Communists in Rome and his desire to keep the Eternal City in peace, headlines reported this was proof of the Pope's "indifference" to the Holocaust.

However, there is a basic problem.

In a statement sent to ZENIT, Professor Ronald Rychlak of the University of Mississippi explains that Pius XII could not have expressed concern about the roundup of Roman Jews because it hadn't happened yet.

Rychlak is the author of "Hitler, the War, and the Pope."

He explained: "The transcribed message to Washington from Harold Tittmann is dated Oct. 19, but this is a mistake. Vatican records show that the meeting between Pius and Tittmann took place on Oct. 14.

"In fact, L'Osservatore Romano of Oct. 15, 1943, reported on page one -- top of the first column -- that Tittmann was received by the Pope in a private audience on Oct. 14, 1943.

"Apparently a handwritten '14' was misread as a '19' when the documents were typed. The Pope did not mention the roundup of Jews because it had not yet happened!"

Rychlak noted that what the Pope did express to Tittmann was his concern "that a group of Communists would commit a violent act and this would lead to serious repercussions. Of course, he proved to be exactly correct the following spring."

Moreover, though the Oct. 14 document was presented as a new find, historians were already aware of it because it was published in 1964, with the incorrect date.

It is in the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) collection, in Volume II of 1943, on page 950.

In his blog, Andrea Tornielli, Vatican expert of the Italian daily Il Giornale, points out that the researchers who presented this "new document," Giuseppe Casarrubea and Mario Cereghino, have already made such "revelations" in the past.

"In October of 2008," he reported, "they presented as unpublished a document to use it against Pius XII (it was also referred to by ANSA [news] agency) and later they had to apologize."