Prudential ‘silence’ of a wartime pope

With the opening of the Vatican’s archives from the World War II era, at least one scholar has claimed anew that Pope Pius XII’s “silence” in the face of Nazi persecutions revealed a callous disregard for the Jewish people.
 
This is far from the truth.
 
Pius did speak out, just not as directly or frequently as some might have preferred. If Pius had done so more forcefully, the reasoning goes, the Nazis might have recoiled and repented of their offensive actions, perhaps shortening the war and preventing the Holocaust. But that presumes that Nazi leaders possessed a sound moral conscience and a respect for the Catholic Church. Demonstrably, Adolf Hitler and his inner circle had neither.
 
After the bishops of Holland openly condemned the mistreatment of Dutch Jews in 1942, the Nazis dramatically stepped up their arrests and deportations. The Pope, having served as papal nuncio to Germany prior to his election, knew greater good could be accomplished through diplomacy and private channels than public condemnation. His “silence” likely prevented harsher reprisals and allowed him and the Church to continue its clandestine work of providing assistance to the Jews.

As Pius said to his cardinals in 1943, “Every word that We addressed to the responsible authorities and every one of Our public declarations had to be seriously weighed and considered in the interest of the persecuted themselves in order not to make their situation unwittingly even more difficult and unbearable.”

Behind the scenes, Pius worked tirelessly to save Jews. He urged Catholic leaders throughout Europe to secretly shelter Jews from persecution in churches and convents. He permitted the issuing of false baptismal certificates and passports to assist in their protection and passage to safety. He urged prudence: “We leave it to the [local] bishops to weigh the circumstances in deciding whether or not to exercise restraint to avoid greater evil. This would be advisable if the danger of retaliatory and coercive measures would be imminent in cases of public statements by the bishop,” 
he wrote to a German ordinary.
 
Jewish leaders widely praised Pius during and after the war for his actions. As the Allies liberated Rome in 1944, the Jewish News Bulletin reported: “The full story of the help given to our people by the Church cannot be told, for obvious reasons, until after the war.” After Pius’ death in 1958, Israel’s minister of foreign affairs clearly did not view Pius as silent: “During the ten years of Nazi terror, when our people went through the horrors of martyrdom, the Pope raised his voice to condemn the persecutors and to commiserate with their victims.” That was Golda Meir, later Israel’s premier.
Pope Pius XII was guarded in his public statements, and prudently so. His actions in using the resources of the Church to protect Jews from the Holocaust, however, spoke volumes. He should rightly be regarded today as he once was universally: a heroic figure amid the darkest and most difficult of times.

GERALD KORSON
is editor of Legatus magazine.