As the Cardinal of Munich at the time put it: "With the concordat we are hanged, without the concordat we are hanged, drawn and quartered."

The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany (Pre-WW II)
Most observers regard the Church's relationship with the Nazi regime as similar to those it established with other non-communist states and governments. Dr. Eamon Duffy, a historian of the papacy, observed that the Church under Pius XI followed a consistent policy of establishing concordats with individual states during the 1920s and the 1930s. This included concordats with Latvia (1922), Bavaria (1924), Poland (1925), Romania (1927), Lithuania (1927), Italy (1929), Prussia (1929), Baden (1932), Austria (1933), Germany (1933), Yugoslavia (1935) and Portugal (1940). These concordats sought to normalize relationships between the Holy See and the German federal states whilst protecting publicly-funded Roman Catholic-run schools, hospitals, charities and third-level institutions from state seizure or persecution.

In particular the concordats were aimed at ensuring that the Church's canon law had some status and recognition within its own spheres of concern (e.g., church decrees of nullity in the area of marriage) among new or emerging states with new legal systems. Duffy suggests that the concordats provided technical procedures through which formal complaints to the states could be made by the Holy See.

Before the outbreak of the war, the Church was already concerned with many aspects of Nazi ideology. Despite the diversity of the Church's concerns, the Church did specifically speak to the issue of anti-Semitism, a key feature of Nazism. On September 6, 1938, in a statement published worldwide (except for censorship in fascist countries like Germany and Italy, Pius XI said: "Mark well that in the Catholic Mass, Abraham is our Patriarch and forefather. Anti-Semitism is incompatible with the lofty thought which that fact expresses. It is a movement with which we Christians can have nothing to do. No, no, I say to you it is impossible for a Christian to take part in anti-Semitism. It is inadmissible. Through Christ and in Christ we are the spiritual progeny of Abraham. Spiritually, we are all Semites."

Between the German Concordat's signing in 1933 and 1939, Pope Pius XI made nearly sixty formal complaints to the Nazi government, which were drafted by Pacelli but which show only a gradual realisation of the gravity of the Nazi threat and Nazi misuse of the concordat. The strongest and perhaps most formal condemnation of Hitler's ideology and ecclesiastical policy was the encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge, issued in 1937 by Pius XI, which was composed mostly by then Cardinal Pacelli. Unlike most encyclicals, which are written in Latin, Mit Brennender Sorge was written in German. It was then smuggled into Germany, secretly distributed, and read at the Masses on Palm Sunday, March 14,1937. The Nazis confiscated all available copies of the encyclical, arrested printers who made copies, and seized their presses. Those distributing the encyclical were arrested, and several priests were subjected to trials on trumped-up currency or morality charges. In May, Hitler was quoted in a Swiss newspaper as saying, "The Third Reich does not desire a modus vivendi with the Catholic Church, but rather its destruction with lies and dishonor, in order to make room for a German Church in which the German race will be glorified.' From this point in 1937 forward, Pacelli was considered an enemy by the Nazis.

Besides Mit Brennender Sorge, other formal condemnations were made as well. In March 1935, Pacelli wrote an open letter to the Bishop of Cologne, calling the Nazis 'false prophets with the pride of Lucifer.' On April 28, 1935 before an enormous crowd of 250,000 pilgrims at Lourdes, France, Pacelli condemned the Nazis saying, "It does not make any difference whether they flock to the banners of the social revolution, whether they are guided by a false conception of the world and of life, or whether they are possessed by the superstition of a race and blood cult." And also, "These Nazi ideologues are in fact only miserable plagiarizes who dress up ancient error in new tinsel." In 1938, Pacelli had spoken at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris against the Nazi “pagan cult of race,” as well as the “vile criminal actions” and “iniquitous violence” of the Nazi leadership. In 1939, immediately after the death of Pius XI, the German government issued a veiled warning to the College of Cardinals not to elect Pacelli as he was known to be an enemy of Nazism.

The Church of course ignored this threat and elected Pius XII on March 2, 1939. After the election, Nazi media complained about the "prejudiced hostility and incurable lack of comprehension" shown by the Holy See. The morning after Pius XII's election, the Berlin Morgenpost reported: "The election of Cardinal Pacelli is not accepted with favor in Germany because he was always opposed to Nazism and practically determined the policies of the Vatican under his predecessor." Das Schwarze Korps, the official publication of the elite Nazi Schutzstaffel (better known by the initials 'SS"), said: "As nuncio and secretary of state, Eugenio Pacelli had little understanding of us; little hope is placed in him. We do not believe that as Pius XII he will follow a different path." In the very first encyclical of his papacy, (Summi Pontificatus -October 20, 1939), Pius XII warned of the Nazis calling them “an ever-increasing host of Christ’s enemies” – and called for St. Paul’s vision of world that was neither Gentile or Jew. The Nazi Gestapo labeled the encyclical a direct attack and forbad its printing or distribution in Germany, while the French had 88,000 copies printed and dropped by air over Germany. The New York Times summarized the encyclical as an uncompromising attack on racism and the Nazis. The front-page caption of the October 28, 1939 New York Times, in very large print stated, "Pope Condemns Dictators, Treaty Violators, Racism; Urges Restoring of Poland".

Becoming Pope Pius XII
Following the death of Pius XI, Cardinal Pacelli was elected Pope by the conclave on 2 March 1939, his 63rd birthday, and took the name Pius XII. He was the first Secretary of State to become pope since Clement IX in 1667. Pius XII's papal coronation was the grandest in over a hundred years.

World War II
Pius' pontificate began on the eve of the Second World War. During the war, Pope Pius XII followed a policy of public neutrality mirroring that of Pope Benedict XV during the First World War. However, as Cardinal Pacelli, Pius XII was against the Nazis' increasing political power in Germany and in August 1933 wrote to the British representative to the Holy See his disgust with the Nazis and "their persecution of the Jews, their proceedings against political opponents, the reign of terror to which the whole nation was subjected."[citation needed]

When he was told Hitler was a strong leader to deal with the communists, Pacelli responded that Hitler and his Nazis were infinitely worse. [2]

Pius XII established diplomatic relations with the Japanese Empire in March 1942. As the war was approaching its end in 1945, Pius XII advocated a lenient policy by the Allied leaders for the vanquished in an effort to prevent the mistakes made at the end of World War I. He attempted to negotiate an early German and Japanese surrender, but his initiatives failed.

Pius XII's Activities During World War II
On the same day that Germany invaded Poland, Pius XII telegraphed the papal nuncio in Warsaw with instructions to organize Polish Jews for a passage to Palestine. One of the crucial terms of the concordat with Germany was that German officials were to regard baptized Jews as Christians. Accordingly, Pius ordered his nuncio in Turkey (Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII) to prepare thousands of baptismal certificates for refugee Jews arriving in Istanbul in the hope that such papers would gain them passage into the country. (When he was later thanked for his extensive lifesaving work, Roncalli said, "In all these painful matters I have referred to the Holy See and simply carried out the Pope's orders: first and foremost to save Jewish lives.") As the war went on, such documents were freely distributed in all occupied nations, and Pius established a committee that helped thousands of Jews leave Europe with identification showing that they were under the protection of the Catholic Church.

After the Nazis invaded the small nations of Holland, Luxembourg, and Belgium, Pius sent expressions of sympathy to the Queen of Holland, the King of Belgium, and the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg. When the Italian Fascist dictator Mussolini learned of the warnings and the telegrams of sympathy, he took them as a personal affront and had his ambassador to the Vatican file an official protest, charging that Pius had taken sides against Italy's ally Germany. The Pope responded that his conscience was at ease and added, "We are not afraid to go to a concentration camp."

Rome was, of course, particularly dear to the Pontiff's heart. Having failed to keep Italy out of the war, he tried to obtain assurances from both sides that they would not bomb the Italian capital. Yet bombs fell on Rome several times, including a heavy raid on the morning of July 19, 1943. As was his practice throughout the war, Pius refused to go to a bomb shelter; instead he watched from a window while, in the course of more than two hours, waves of American bombers dropped hundreds of tons of explosives on Rome. As soon as the all-clear had sounded, he withdrew the cash reserves from the Vatican Bank and drove into the city. The ancient Church of San Lorenzo was partially demolished, as was the cemetery of Campo Verano, where bodies (including the remains of the Pope's parents) had been blown from their graves. Pius did what he could to comfort the injured, administered the Last Rites to those he could not save, and distributed money to those in need of food and clothing. One month later, when the district of San Giovanni was bombed, he was again among the first on the scene.

On September 26, 1943, Nazi officials demanded of Jewish leaders in Rome 50 kilograms of gold (or the equivalent in dollars or sterling) within 36 hours, threatening otherwise to send two hundred Roman Jews to the concentration camps. Unable to come up with the full amount, the Jews needed help from a source they could trust. In his memoir Before the Dawn (reissued in 1997 as Why I Became a Catholic), Eugenio Zolli, then Chief Rabbi of Rome, recounts that he was selected to go to the Vatican and seek help. With false identification papers he got past the German guards that ringed the Vatican. Once inside, he explained the situation to Vatican officials, and they retreated to consult with Pius who provided the needed money. The Germans would receive their payment.

Despite the Church's efforts in Hungary, 437,000 Jews had been deported by mid-summer 1944. On June 25 Pius XII intensified the campaign with an open telegram to the Regent of Hungary, Admiral Horthy. In, it he wrote:

"Supplications have been addressed to us from different sources that We should exert all our influence to shorten and mitigate the sufferings that have for so long been peacefully endured on account of their national or racial origin by a great number of unfortunate people elonging to this noble and chivalrous nation. In accordance with our service of love, which embraces every human being, our fatherly heart could not remain insensible to these urgent demands. For this reason We applied to your Serene Highness appealing to your noble feelings in the full trust that your Serene Highness will do everything in your power to save many unfortunate people from further pain and suffering."

Pius also sent an open telegram to Hungarian Cardinal Seredi, asking for support in protecting victims of the Nazis. This telegram was read publicly in many churches before all copies were confiscated by the government. Admiral Horthy complained to the occupying Germans that he was bombarded with telegrams from Church officials and that the nuncio was calling on him several times a day. In the face of these protests, Horthy withdrew Hungarian support from the deportation process, making it impossible for the Germans to continue. More than 170,000 Hungarian Jews were saved from deportation on the very eve of their intended departure, bacause of the intervention of Pope Pius XII.

Pius XII and the Holocaust
Pius XII's role during World War II has recently become a source of controversy. However, his critics have been pilloried for their poor scholarship, specifically including a noted lack of primary sources, and for having personal axes to grind. A good number of his attackers have been accused of being motivated by anti-Catholic bigotry.

Pius was praised virtually universally after the war for protecting European Jews, including by many of the most prominent Jews of the time. Only recently in some quarters have a number of critics accused him of remaining silent towards the Holocaust and other Nazi crimes. Though the Pope actually did speak out, e.g., in his Christmas message of 1942, it is said that he did so in a careful manner. Yet he was notably more critical of Nazi racial policies than was Churchill or Roosevelt.

The main argument for his purportedly muted policy was twofold. First, public condemnation of Hitler and Nazism would have achieved little of practical benefit: his condemnation could effectively be censored and so unknown to German Catholics (who in any case had been told as early as the early 1930s by the German Roman Catholic hierarchy that Nazism and Catholicism were incompatible).

Second, if Pius had condemned Nazism more aggressively, the result would have been reprisals within Germany and countries occupied by her, making the Church's efforts against Nazi policies at the parish level difficult. Indeed such a reprisal occurred, when the Dutch bishops protested against the deportation of the country's Jewish population. The occupants retaliated by singling out Jewish converts to the Church for deportation, the most notable example being Edith Stein. Likewise, when Clemens August Von Galen, bishop of Munster, wanted to speak against the persecution of the Jews in Germany, the Jewish elders of his diocese begged him not to because it would only damage them. Various episcopal conferences, first of all in Poland, urgently requested Pius XII not to condemn the persecution of the Poles and Jews because it would not save lives but increase the persecution.

Since vocal protest resulted in increased persecution by the Nazis, no one on the European Continent enjoyed the ability to protest. Accordingly, the Pope mostly concentrated on practical measures, such as hiding Jews in convents, monasteries, Castel Gondalfo and even the Vatican itself. Likewise, the Jews being hidden were even provided with Kosher meals. Also an "underground railroad" of secret escape routes had been set up by prominent Catholics such as Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, who operated under the tacit, if not explicit, approval of Pope Pius XII (as portrayed in the 1983 TV-movie "The Scarlet And The Black").

During the war, the Pope was widely praised for making a principled stand. For example, Time Magazine credited Pius XII and the Catholic Church for "fighting totalitarianism more knowingly, devoutly, and authoritatively, and for a longer time, than any other organized power" (Time, 16 August 1943).


Pope Pius' Coat of ArmsMore recently, however, critics of the Pope's actions have argued that he could have acted more forcefully on the persecution of the Jews during the Holocaust, even given the constraints on his actions.

This trend was started in large part by Rolf Hochhuth's 1963 controversial fictional drama Der Stellvertreter. Ein christliches Trauerspiel (The Deputy, a Christian tragedy), which falsely portrayed Pope Pius XII as a money-grabbing hypocrite who remained silent to the Holocaust. The play began a long-standing argument about the Pope's role in the Second World War. The critics claimed his efforts to mitigate the Holocaust were inadequate and that his role in negotiating the Reichskonkordat may have been well-meaning but played into the hands of Adolf Hitler.

These questions have also re-surfaced of late because of the moves toward canonisation of Pope Pius XII. In addition to canonization, during the pontificate of John Paul II, some Catholic and Jewish leaders, including Rome's Chief Rabbi (and Holocaust survivor) Elio Toaff, began discussing and promoting the cause of Pius XII to receive such posthumous recognition from Yad Vashem. Despite these positive causes, some in the Jewish community remain concerned with the history of Pius XII. These concerns surfaced in Pope Benedict XVI's recent visit to the Cologne Synagogue when the president of that synagogue, Abraham Lehrer, asked that the Vatican's archives relating to Pope Pius XII be opened for scrutiny.

In 1999, a class action suit against the Vatican Bank and others was brought up in the United States by various Holocaust survivors, alleging collusion in war crimes by the Ustashe regime of the Independent State of Croatia. In addition, the same lawsuit concerns secreting large vaults of war loot from Croatia into Vatican accounts. The suit alleges these funds were used to finance yet more of the almost 'mythic' rat-lines mentioned in ODESSA, with secret Vatican re-location and funding of implicated Nazi and Ustashe priests and monks, mostly in South America.

Perhaps most well-known of Pius's recent critics has been John Cornwell in the book Hitler's Pope who concluded that "Pacelli's failure to respond to the enormity of the Holocaust was more than a personal failure, it was a failure of the papal office itself and the prevailing culture of Catholicism." But as Kenneth L. Woodward stated in his review of the book in the September 27, 1999, issue of Newsweek: "Errors of fact and ignorance of context appear on almost every page."

Likewise, many authors have since attacked Cornwell (who has no academic degrees in history, law, or theology), his sources, and his methods, including Rabbi David G. Dalin in The Myth of Hitler's Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis published in 2005. Rabbi Dalin suggests that Yad Vashem should honor Pope Pius XII as a "Righteous Gentile" writing that "[t]he anti-papal polemics of ex-seminarians like Garry Wills and John Cornwell (author of Hitler's Pope), of ex-priests like James Carroll, and or other lapsed or angry liberal Catholics exploit the tragedy of the Jewish people during the Holocaust to foster their own political agenda of forcing changes on the Catholic Church today."

In an attempt to address some of this controversy, in 1999 the Vatican appointed the International Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission (ICJHC), a group comprised of three Jewish and three Catholic scholars to investigate the role of the Church during the Holocaust. In 2001, the ICJHC issued its preliminary finding, raising a number of questions about the way the Vatican dealt with the Holocaust, titled " The Vatican and the Holocaust: A Preliminary Report[3]". The Comission discovered documents making it clear that Pope was aware of widespread anti-Jewish persecution in 1941 and 1942, and they suspected that the Church may have been influenced in not helping Jewish immigration by the nuncio of Chile and the Papal representative to Bolivia, who complained about the "invasion of the Jews" to their countries, where they engaged in "dishonest dealings, violence, immorality, and even disrespect for religion." (Questions 7 and 12 of the ICJHC report) The ICJHC raised a list of 47 questions about the way the Church dealt with the Holocaust, requested documents that had not been publicly released in order to continue their work, and, not receiving permission, they disbanded in July of 2001.

Despite the controversy, there is no doubt that many Jews were bravely saved by the Catholic Church during World War II. World War II historian Martin Gilbert places the number as high as 800,000. In Pius XII and the Second World War: According to the Archives of the Vatican by Pierre Blet and Lawrence J. Johnson they state "Vatican diplomatic initiatives mitigated the sufferings of tens of thousands of Jews, and delayed the sad fates of thousands more." The Pope was widely praised by Jewish and Israeli leaders after the war, and upon his death, as a result of these accomplishments.

Selected Quotes about Pius XII from various prominent Jewish leaders
"No keener rebuke has come to Nazism than from Pope Pius XI and his successor, Pope Pius XII."
Rabbi Louis Finkelstein, chancellor, Jewish Theological Seminary of America in the New York Times, March, 1940.
"The repeated interventions of the Holy Father on behalf of Jewish Communities in Europe has evoked the profoundest sentiments of appreciation and gratitude from Jews throughout the world."
Rabbi Maurice Perlzweig, Political director of the World Jewish Congress. Written February 18, 1944 in a letter to Msgr. Amleto Cicognani, the apostolic delegate in Washington, D.C.
"In the most difficult hours of which we Jews of Romania have passed through, the generous assistance of the Holy See…was decisive and salutary. It is not easy for us to find the right words to express the warmth and consolation we experienced because of the concern of the supreme pontiff, who offered a large sum to relieve the sufferings of deported Jews…. The Jews of Romania will never forget these facts of historic importance."
Rabbi Alexander Safran, chief rabbi of Romania note to Monsignor Andrea Cassulo, Papal Nuncio to Romania, April 7, 1944
"Pius XII took an unequivocal stand against the oppression of Jews throughout Europe."
The 1943-1944 American Jewish Yearbook
"The people of Israel will never forget what His Holiness and his illustrious delegates, inspired by the eternal principles of religion, which form the very foundation of true civilization, are doing for our unfortunate brothers and sisters in the most tragic hour of our history, which is living proof of Divine Providence in this world."
Rabbi Isaac Herzog, chief rabbi of the British Mandate of Palestine, March 1945.
"The Church and the papacy have saved Jews as much and in as far as they could save Christians.... Six million of my co-religionists have been murdered by the Nazis, but there could have been many more victims, had it not been for the efficacious intervention of Pius XII."
Dr. Raphael Cantoni, director of the Italian Jewish Assistance Committee, American Jewish Yearbook 1944-1945, 233.

Albert Einstein also praised the efforts of Pius XII and the Catholic Church after World War II: "Only the Catholic Church protested against the Hitlerian onslaught on liberty. Up till then I had not been interested in the Church, but today I feel a great admiration for the Church, which alone has had the courage to struggle for spiritual truth and moral liberty." Statement made in 1946 as quoted in Three Popes and the Jews by Pinchas E. Lapide (New York: Hawthorn, 1967), p. 251.
"If the pope had spoken out, Hitler would probably have massacred more than six million Jews and perhaps ten times ten million Catholics, if he had the power to do so."
Rabbi Marcus Melchior, Holocaust survivor and Chief Rabbi of Denmark, 1950.
"More than anyone else, we have had the opportunity to appreciate the great kindness, filled with compassion and magnanimity, that the Pope displayed during the terrible years of persecution and terror when it seemed that for us there was no longer an escape."
Elio Toaff, Chief Rabbi of Rome, 1951.
"We share in the grief of humanity at the passing away of His Holiness Pope Pius XII. In a generation affected by wars and discords, he upheld the highest ideals of peace and compassion. When fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, the voice of the Pope was raised for the victims. The life of our times was enriched by a voice speaking out on the great moral truths above the tumult of daily conflict. We mourn a great servant of peace."
Golda Meir, Israeli Prime Minister, message of condolence to the Vatican, sent 1958.

"With special gratitude we remember all he has done for the persecuted Jews during one of the darkest periods in their entire history”
Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Jewish Congress, message of condolence to the Vatican, sent 1958.
"In relation to the insane behavior of the Nazis, from overlords to self-styled cogs like Eichmann, he [Pius XII] did everything humanly possible to save lives and alleviate suffering among the Jews; that a formal statement would have provoked the Nazis to brutal retaliation, and would substantially have thwarted further Catholic action on behalf of Jews."
Dr. Joseph Lichten, a Polish Jew who served as a diplomat and later an official of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith in Rome. Written in his book A Question of Judgment (1963)(written in response to The Deputy play and available online in full).
"The papal nuncio and the bishops intervened again and again on the instructions of the pope, and that as a result of these labors in the autumn and winter of 1944, there was practically no Catholic Church institution in Budapest where persecuted Jews did not find refuge."
Jewish historian Jeno Levai, Hungarian Jewry and the Papacy: Pius XII Did Not Remain Silent (1965).
"Pius XI had good reason to make Pacelli (the future Pius XII) the architect of his anti-Nazi policy. Of the forty-four speeches which the Nuncio Pacelli had made on German soil between 1917 and 1929, at least forty contained attacks on Nazism or condemnations of Hitler’s doctrines. Pacelli, who never met the Führer, called it ‘neo-Paganism.’"
Pinchas E. Lapide, former Israeli diplomat and Orthodox Jewish Rabbi in Three Popes and the Jews (New York: Hawthorn, 1967) p. 118.
"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).
"I told [Pope Pius XII] 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…. We are deeply grateful to the Catholic Church."
Moshe Sharett (who later became Israel’s first foreign minister and second prime minister)
“Pius XII did not make his protest heard when the Roman Jews were carried away right under his nose"
Amos Luzzatto, president of Union of Italian Jewish Communities. (1998). [4]
"Hitler distrusted the Holy See because it hid Jews. The Germans considered the Pope as an enemy."
Jewish historian Richard Breitman, professor at American University in Washington, D.C. Statement made in Italian newspaper "Corriere della Sera" on June 29, 2000.
"My judgment cannot but be positive. Pope Pacelli was the only one who intervened to impede the deportation of Jews on Oct. 16, 1943, and he did very much to hide and save thousands of us. It was no small matter that he ordered the opening of cloistered convents. Without him, many of our own would not be alive." October 25, 2000.
Michael Tagliacozzo, Jewish historian and staff member at Beth Lohame Haghettaot (Center of Studies on the Shoah and Resistance). Beth Lohame Haghettaot in western Galilee in Israel is one of the world's largest museums and centers of documentation on the Holocaust.
"I simply cannot understand the failure of the Pope speak out."
Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, president of Union of American Hebrew Congregations (2000)[5]
"The Talmud teaches that 'whosoever preserves one life, it is accounted to him by Scripture as if he had preserved a whole world.' More than any other twentieth-century leader, Pius XII fulfilled this Talmudic dictum, when the fate of European Jewry was at stake. No other pope had been so widely praised by Jews — and they were not mistaken. Their gratitude, as well as that of the entire generation of Holocaust survivors, testifies that Pius XII was, genuinely and profoundly, a righteous gentile."
Rabbi David G. Dalin, Ph.D. "Pius XII and the Jews." Weekly Standard vol. 6 no. 23 (February 26, 2001).
“… many, lacking historical (and commonsensical) perception, have cited, over and over again, the Israeli diplomat Pinchas Lapide’s unsubstantiated statement that “the Catholic Church, under the pontificate of Pius XII was instrumental in saving at least 700,000, but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands.” This has been carelessly cited by some as if it meant that Pius himself saved that number of Jews, and none have challenged Lapide’s nonexistent documentation.”
José M. Sánchez, professor of history at St. Louis University, author of Pius XII and the Holocaust: Understanding the Controversy (Catholic University of America Press). [6]
“I am familiar with the history of the war and the pressures to which the church was subjected. But what remains with me are certain uncontested historical facts: Pius XII never condemned either Hitler or the Nazis by name. He never mentioned specifically the suffering of the Jews, although many people, both clergy and lay diplomats, pleaded with him to issue a public condemnation. In October 1943, the Jews were rounded up in Rome itself; the cattle trucks drove past St. Peter's, with the tiny, shivering hands of the incarcerated children hanging through the slats. The pope, sitting in St. Peter's, still said nothing at all.”
Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, president of Union of American Hebrew Congregations (2000)
[7]

"Even though the 'Final Solution' was a Nazi invention, not a Church one, the Pontiff who headed the Roman Catholic Church during the Holocaust period, Pius XII, did nothing to either condemn it or protest against it; his standing by while blood was being shed deserves full condemnation, on behalf of future generations as well. At Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, there is an avenue on which every tree is dedicated to the memory of a Righteous Gentile. Had Pius XII fulfilled his basic duty, this avenue would be much longer and the lives of many more Jews would have been saved during those horrible days."
Israeli Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, 2000.
"The facts are that Pius XII was the best informed leader on what was happening in Europe during the Holocaust. Yet unlike many priests and bishops who risked their lives and showed great courage in defying Hitler, the Pope sat in stony silence as millions of Jews were murdered in the death camps." 2001
Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center
"In a sense, it's an indictment of the dual standard of morality practiced by Pius XII. They (the Vatican) have no hesitation in properly charging the Soviets with atrocities but tragically failed to do so when it came to the murder of the Jews in the Holocaust."
Elan Steinberg, executive director of the World Jewish Congress 2001 speaking on discovery of a report by Archbishop Montini into the Soviet occupation of Berlin.
“With few exceptions, he intervened actively only to save baptized Jews. In March 1939, for example, the Holy See obtained visas to Brazil for hundreds of converts; no such effort was made on behalf of Jews.” 2004
Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, Bronfman Visiting Professor of the Humanities at New York University.
"Yet, if the Roman Catholic Church pursues its plans to canonize Pope Pius XII, it will be more damaging to its reputation than another huge explosion of pedophile priest scandals. For even child molestation – evil and sinister as it is – remains a step below complicity in the extermination of millions of people and ordering mass kidnapping, two great sins among many by which Pius XII disgraced himself." 2004
Schmuley Boteach, Orthodox Rabbi and US media personality [8]
“Over time I have become convinced that during World War II Pope Pius XII and the vast majority of European Christian leaders regarded the elimination of the Jews as no less beneficial than the destruction of Bolshevism.”
Rabbi Richard L. Rubenstein, professor emeritus University of Bridgeport (Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust, Eds Carol Rittner and John K. Roth, Continuum).
“The letter [to Cardinal Roncalli on baptised Jewish orphans] adds ammunition to those who believe Pope Pius XII could have and should have done more, and now we see that even after the war he took steps to prevent Jews from being Jewish. And so it sheds light on how righteous he was. It impacts on what he may or may not have done during the war, and raises our anxiety about the role he played.”
Abraham Foxman, US national director of Anti-Defamation League. (2005).
"We can't help but notice that under Cardinal Ratzinger's tutelage, the Church began moves to elevate the infamous Pope Pius XII to the status of saint. Instead of repenting for the failure of the Church to give unequivocal messages telling all Catholics that they would be prevented from receiving communion for collaborating or cooperating in any way with Nazi rule, or for failing to hide and protect Jews who were marked for extermination, Ratzinger has sought to whitewash this disgraceful moment in Church history” 2005.
Michael Lerner, progressive Rabbi and editor of Tikkun [9]
"During the Nazi occupation of Rome, three thousand Jews found refuge at one time at the pope’s summer residence at Castel Gandolfo. Amazingly, Castel Gandolfo is never mentioned or discussed in the anti-papal writings of many of the pope’s critics. Yet at no other site in Nazi-occupied Europe were as many Jews saved and sheltered for as long a period as at Castel Gandolfo during the Nazi occupation of Rome. Kosher food was provided for the Jews hidden there, where, as George Weigel has noted, Jewish children were born in the private apartments of Pius XII, which became a temporary obstetrical ward."
Rabbi David G. Dalin, Ph.D., July 29, 2005 interview with Dr. Thomas E. Woods.

Angering Hitler
The relationship between the Nazis and the Roman Catholic Church plainly deteriorated further throughout the war. Joseph Goebbels was clear about the Reich's attitudes. His 26 March 1942 diary entry reads, "It's a dirty, low thing to do for the Catholic Church to continue its subversive activity in every way possible and now even to extend its propaganda to Protestant children evacuated from the regions threatened by air raids. Next to the Jews these politico-divines are about the most loathsome riffraff that we are still sheltering in the Reich. The time will come after the war for an over-all solution of this problem." (Lochner, The Goebbels Diaries, 1948, p. 146).

The Nazis themselves were vehemently outraged by the what they called Pius' "anti-Nazi, pro-Jewish stance", and criticized him because of it. To cite another of numerous documented examples, in response to Pius XII's famous Christmas broadcast of 1942 - which clearly condemned the Nazi slaughter of the Jews - German war documents reveal the furor Pius XII's words aroused within Nazi ranks: "In a manner never known before...the Pope has repudiated the National Socialist New European Order. His radio allocution was a masterpiece of clerical falsification of the National Socialist world-view....His speech is one long attack on everything we [the Nazis] stand for....God, [Pius XII] says, regards all peoples and races as worthy of the same consideration. Here he is clearly speaking on behalf of Jews....That this speech is directed exclusively against the New Order in Europe as seen in National Socialism is clear in the papal statement that mankind owes a debt to "all who during the war have lost their Fatherland and who, although personally blameless, have simply on account of their nationality and origin, been killed or reduced to utter distinction." Here he is virtually accusing the German people of injustice toward the Jews, and makes himself the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals"(cited by Anthony Rhodes in The Vatican in the Age of Dictators: 1922-1945,1973, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, pp. 272-273).

So troubling were Pius XII's anti-Nazi activities that Hitler had formalized plans to kidnap Pius XII, exile him in Liechtenstein, and replace him with a puppet pacacy that would not give Nazism any resistance. Other plans of Hitler had simply called for Pius XII and the whole Roman Curia to be massacred. In 1943, Adolf Hitler ordered his SS troops to level the Vatican with "blood and fire" in reprisal for the Pontiff´s assistance to Jews and for the Church´s opposition to the Nazi regime. One of the more recent confirmations of this plot was reported in the Italian newspaper Avvenire which suggested that Hitler ordered SS General Karl Wolff, a senior occupation officer in Italy, to kidnap Pius. According to this account, Wolff put on civilian clothes and visited the Vatican to warn him. Adolf Hitler said "[Pius XII] is the only human being who has always contradicted me and who has never obeyed me. (Hans Jansen's "The Silent Pope?" 2000)

After WWII had ended, and even until current times, evidence of the Nazi's disdain for Pius XII's actions to save Jews was documented. After guarding Adolf Eichmann's diaries for almost 40 years, the Israeli government made them public on February 28, 2000. Eichmann, a Nazi SS lieutenant colonel, was executed in 1962 in Israel for "crimes against the Jewish people and against humanity." Eichmann wrote these diaries during the months following his death sentence. They are especially chilling in their description of the way the Nazi regime came to the "Final Solution" against the Jews, and the way the extermination was implemented.The pages are also very interesting in studying the Vatican's position on the persecution of Jews. Some people accuse the Church of having done nothing in October, 1943, when the Nazis began to deport Jews from their "ghetto" in Rome. However, Eichmann wrote that the Vatican "vigorously protested the arrest of Jews, requesting the interruption of such action; to the contrary, the Pope would denounce it publicly."

Pope Pius' encyclicals

Pius XII at his coronation of 1939.His encyclicals include:

Mystici Corporis Christi: On the Mystical Body, 29 June 1943
Communium Interpretes Doloraum: An Appeal for Prayers for Peace, 15 April 1945
Fulgens Radiatur: Encyclical on Saint Benedict, 21 March 1947
Mediator Dei: On the Sacred Liturgy, 20 November 1947
Auspicia Quaedam: On Public Prayers For World Peace And Solution Of The Problem Of Palestine, 1 May 1948
In Multiplicibus Curis: On Prayers for Peace in Palestine, 24 October 1948
Redemptoris Nostri Cruciatus: On the Holy Places in Palestine, 15 April 1949
Anni Sacri: On A Program For Combating Atheistic Propaganda Throughout The World, 12 March 1950
Humani Generis: Concerning Some False Opinions Threatening to Undermine the Foundations of Catholic Doctrine, 12 August 1950
Munificentissimus Deus, 1 November 1950 (on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven). See below for more information on this.
Ingruentium Malorum: On Reciting the Rosary: Encyclical promulgated on 15 September 1951
Fulgens Corona: Proclaiming a Marian year to Commemorate the Centenary of the Definition of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception, 8 September 1953
Ad Caeli Reginam: On Proclaiming the Queenship of Mary, Encyclical promulgated on 11 October 1954
Datis Nuperrime: Lamenting the Sorrowful Events in Hungary, and Condemning the Ruthless Use of Force, 5 November 1956
Miranda Prorsus: On the Communications Field: Motion Pictures, Radio, Television, 8 September 1957
Additionally, as Papal Secretary of State, Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli wrote the final draft of the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge (With Burning Anxiety) for Pope Pius XI.


Beatifications, canonisations, and teachings
During his reign, Pius XII canonized eight saints, including Pope Pius X, and beatified five people. He consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1942.

In 1950, Pius XII issued the encyclical Munificentissimus Deus and infallibly defined the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven. This doctrine teaches that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was taken into Heaven body and soul after the end of her earthly life. This belief had been held by Catholic and Orthodox Christians since the early centuries of the Church (for example, by St. Gregory of Tours), but it had never been formally defined as a dogma until 1950. This definition was the only occasion in the 20th century a pope solemnly defined a dogma ex cathedra, i.e. as Extraordinary (Solemn) Magisterium, which is connected to Papal Infallibility.

Pius XII ends the Italian Majority in the College of Cardinals
Only twice in his pontificate did Pius XII hold a consistory to create new cardinals, a decided contrast to Pius XI, who had done so seventeen times in seventeen years on the papal throne. The first occasion has been known as the "Great Consistory", of February 1946; it was the largest in the history of the Church up to that time, and brought an end to over five hundred years of Italians constituting a majority of the College. By his appointments then and in 1953 he substantially reduced the proportion of cardinals who belonged to the Roman Curia.

Pope Pius in later life and after his death

Pius was dogged with ill health later in life, largely due to a charlatan, Riccardo Galeazzi-Lisi, who posed as a medical doctor and won Pius's trust. His treatments for Pius gave the Holy Father chronic hiccups and rotting teeth. Though eventually dismissed from the Papal Household, this man gained admittance as the pope lay dying and took photographs of Pius which he tried, unsuccessfully, to sell to magazines.

When Pius died, then Galeazzi-Lisi turned embalmer. Rather than slow the process of decay, the doctor-mortician's self-made technique (aromatizazione) sped it up, leading the Holy Father's corpse to disintegrate rapidly, turning purple, with the corpse's nose falling off. The stench caused by the decay was such that guards had to be rotated every 15 minutes, otherwise they would collapse. The condition of the body became so bad that the remains were secretly removed at one point for further treatments before being returned in the morning. This caused considerable embarrassment to the Vatican and one of the first acts of Pius' successor, Pope John XXIII, was to ban the charlatan from Vatican City for life.

Footnotes
1. John Cornwell, Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII pp.130-131.
2.  Pius XII-FAQs. URL accessed on December 5, 2005.
3. The Vatican and the Holocaust: A Preliminary Report "International Catholic-Jewish Commission" (ICJHC). URL accessed on December 5, 2005. Forms 47 questions.
4. Eamon Duffy, Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes p.341.
5. On the question of Pius XII's attitude toward the Nazi persecutions, see also the New York Times editorial page for Christmas Day of 1941 and 1942.
 

Rome - St. Peter´s Basilica, Vatican

Photo Frantisek Zboray, 2005