Bernard-Henri Levy (born 1948) is a French public intellectual, philosopher, author and journalist who was one of the leaders of the so-called Nouvelle Philosophie movement which emerged in 1976 to rebut the excesses of the 1968 counterculture, and is apparently so well-known in France as to be referred to only by his initials BHL. This article was originally published in the 1/19/10 issue of Corriere della Sera.
On Benedict XVI and Pius XII:
Bad faith and disinformation
by Bernard-Henri Lévy
Translated from
the 1/21/10 issue of
Editor's Note: We pick up from the January 20 issue of Corriere della Sera this commentary written after Benedict XVI's visit to the Jewish community of Rome.
It is time to stop the bad faith, the partisanship, and, to say it all, the disinformation, whenever it has to do with Benedict XVI.
Since his election, he has been tried by publicity for his 'ultra-conservatism' which is continually drummed up by the mass media [as though a Pope can be other than 'conservative'].
And media has insisted on insinuations, if not heavyhanded direct digs, against the "German pope", the 'ex-Nazi' in a cassock, a figure that the French satirical program Les Guignols did not hesitate to dub 'Adolf II'.
They have falsified texts - simply and purely. For instance, regarding his trip to Auschwitz in 2006, they have sustained - and since memory becomes less certain with the passage of time - they continue to say that he had paid tribute to six million Polish deaths
[the Pope, after all, was visiting Poland and was speaking on Polish soil] at the hands of a simple 'gang of criminals', without noting that half of those Polish victims were Jews.
But the untruth is even more amazing, considering that in the same address, Benedict XVI spoke of "the powers of the Third Reich" who sought 'to eliminate the Jewish people' from the 'ranks of the nations of the earth", as
Le Monde quoted him on May 30, 2006.
And now, with the Pope's visit to the Synagogue of Rome, after his visits to synagogues in Cologne and New York, the same chorus of 'dis-informers' have established their primacy - I was going to say, that they have carried off the palm of victory - because even before the Pope had crossed the Tiber to the Synagogue, they announced beforehand, urbi et orbi, that the Pope would not find the words he needed to say, nor make the gestures that he should make, and therefore was bound to fail in his mission...
While the event is still fresh, allow me to dot some i's.
When Benedict XVI stood in prayer before the commemorative marker to the martyrdom of 1021 Roman Jews who were deported to Auschwitz, he was doing his duty, but he did it.
When Benedict XVI paid tribute to the 'faces' of men, women and children caught in the dragnet of the Nazi plan to 'exterminate the People of the Covenant with Moses', he was stating fact. But he said it.
And when Benedict XVI repeated, word for word, the prayer John Paul II made, ten years ago, at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem; when Benedict XVI asked 'forgiveness' once more from the Jewish people who were devastated by the fury of an anti-Semitism that was for a long time essentially Catholic, and in doing so - I must repeat - used the text of John Paul II, then the media must stop repeating like asses that he is 'backward compared to his predecessor".
Of Benedict XVI who said, after a second stop in front of an inscription marking a Palestinian attack on Roman Jews in 1982, that the Jewish-Catholic dialog begun by Vatican II is by now 'irrevocable'; of Benedict XVI who said he intended to 'deepen' the 'debate between equals', such as the Catholic discussion with 'their older brothers' in the faith, the Jews - media can do all the trial by publicity they want, but they cannot accuse him of 'freezing' the progress achieved under John Paul II.
As for the issue about Pius XII, one can always turn back to it, if so desired. I would go back to the case of Rolf Hochhuth, who wrote the famous play
The Deputy, which in 1963, launched the entire controversy over 'the silences of Pius XII'.
In particular, I would revisit the fact that
this impassioned executioner is also a patented negationist, who has been penalized several times as such, and whose last provocation, five years ago, was to come to the defense - in an interview with the extreme right magzine
Junge Freiheit (Young Freedom) - of David Irving
[the British military historian who is considered the world's leading preacher of Holocaust denial. The British press reported last year that when Mons. Williamson returned to London after the FSSPX dismissed him from heading the seminary near Buenos Aires, he contacted David Irving to consult him on how to present his views without causing a backlash!
BTW, in all the rivers of ink that have flowed about The Deputy - a work of Soviet propaganda which became for Pius XII detrators the Bible to swear by, God's truth handed down from Mt. Sinai - this is the first time I have read that Hochhuth is such a diehard negationist! Yet, he gets a pass from all the Pius XII detractors led by militant Jews, and all because he gave them the club with which to beat down on Pius XII and the Catholic Church - payback for centuries of anti-Jewish Christian hostility! How's that for irony!]
For now, I would simply like to point out - as Laurent Despit just did in the magazine I edit,
La regle du jeu - that the terrible Pius XII, in 1937, when he was just Cardinal Pacelli
[and Vatican Secretary of State], was the co-author of Pius XI's 1937 encyclical
Mit brennender Sorge {With ardent concern], which even today is still one of the strongest and most eloquent anti-Nazi manifestos.
[By most accounts, Pacelli, who mastered German when he was Apostolic Nuncio in Germany in the early 1930s, wrote the draft of the encyclical.]
For now, we must specify, in the interests of historical precision, that before opting for clandestine action - before opening up without publicity his convents to Roman Jews hunted by the Fascists - the 'silent' Pius XII delivered radio messages (most notably his Christas messages in 1942 and 1943) which earned him the tribute of Golda Meir after the war, who said: "During the 10 years of the Nazi terror, while our people suffered a frightening martyrdom, the Pope raised his voice to condemn the executioners".
And for now, one must wonder above all that, after the initial deafening silence that had descended over the entire world about the Shoah, Pius XII's detractors have made him bear all the blame, or nearly so - he who, among the leaders of his time, 1) did not have guns nor airplanes at his disposal; 2) did not spare his own efforts to share, with those who did have guns and airplanes, all the information that came to his attention; 3) saved directly, in Rome and elsewhere, a great number of those for whom he had direct moral responsibility.
The last touch to the Great Book of contemporary baseness: if you are Pius XII or Benedict XVI, you are both Pope and scapegoat.
The first reaction I have read so far to Levy's commentary is from Antonio Socci in today's issue of Libero. I will post a translation later, but he begins by caling attention to the fact that Levy's aricle was buried in page 14 of Corriere della Sera, where it was first published on 1/19, whereas the newspaper's Page 1 that day featured an article about the codfish and its sexual habits, which was the Culture section's main story of the day.
Should we be shocked? I am not, except that i have to ask: In these editorial decisions on placement, where was Paolo Mieli, the Corriere editor, who is Jewish and a historian who is much involved in defending Pius XII against the unfair attacks on him?
And where is Magdi Christiano Allam, deputy editor, to impose editorial common sense, that should be obvious but apparently is not, to the deskmen who control editorial placement - a commentary specially written on a very topical subject by one of Europe's leading intellectuals certainly deserves better play - and a spot on page 1 - than an essay on the codfish, no matter how scholarly this may be?
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 09/02/2010 13:16]