PIUS XI AND PIUS XII BETWEEN OPPORTUNISM AND COLLABORATION WITH HITLER AND MUSSOLINI

Antijudaismus versus Antisemitismus?

Part 2. BILINGUE: ENGLISH - DEUTSCH

 

by Peter Gorenflos(Berlin)

 

In March 2020, the Vatican secret archives on Pacelli's pontificate were opened. Pulitzer Prize winner David Kertzer, whose new work The Pope at War has just been published in Germany, made some spectacular discoveries that further deepen the insight into Pacelli's politics. Immediately after his enthronement, the Nazi prince and close confidante of the Führer, Philipp von Hessen, was asked by Hitler to enter into secret negotiations with the Holy See in order to improve the difficult relationship between the Vatican and the Reich. The Nazi prince was great-grandson of Queen Victoria, nephew of Wilhelm II and son-in-law of King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy.

The face-to-face meetings that then took place were so secret that not even the German Embassy at the Holy See found out about them, and they were suppressed in the twelve-volume documentation on Vatican activities in World War II published by Jesuits between 1965 and 1981. In short, it was what Pacelli called a truce. He complained about the closure of Catholic schools, books critical of the Church and cuts in state funds in Austria. The Nazi prince asked if the Pope was prepared to stay out of German politics. He also mentioned the sexual misconduct of priests, including child abuse. Pacelli said that if such cases were reported, "We would take immediate action." Indeed, while Cardinal Secretary of State, he ordered the destruction of archival material on cases of immorality among monks and priests in Austria to prevent prosecution.

The strictly confidential contact between Hitler and the Holy Father through the middleman showed results. The anti-clerical Foreign Minister Ribbentrop now also supported an agreement, the German press was ordered to cease its attacks and Hitler demanded information on the state of the church in order to negotiate with the Vatican about its concerns. In another secret conversation, Hitler let it be known that the “racial question”, his greatest concern, could be avoided if the new Pope did not comment on it.

EDGARDO MORTARA

The Doctored 'Memoir' of a Jewish Boy Kidnapped by the Vatican

by David I. Kertzer

After a century and a half, the story of six-year-old Edgardo Mortara—a Jewish boy who was kidnapped by the Vatican—has once again become the subject of acrimonious debate.

The facts are certainly dramatic enough: In June 1858, on the orders of Pope Pius IX, papal police knocked on the Mortaras’ door in Bologna, Italy, and seized the boy from his family. He had been secretly baptized by a Catholic servant and so, according to Church doctrine, could not remain with his Jewish parents. In a tear-soaked scene, Edgardo was torn from his father’s arms and hustled into a police carriage bound for Rome, where he would be raised in Church institutions. Worldwide protests followed. Thousands of people—from American protesters to the French emperor Napoleon III—demanded the child’s return. Pius IX refused.

The case has reverberated into the 21st century. Pope John Paul II’s decision to beatify Pius IX in 2000 led to angry protests from the descendants of the Mortara family and from Rome’s Jewish community. More recently, Steven Spielberg’s announcement that he plans to make a movie about the event (based on my book, The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara) produced a new burst of attention, especially from conservatives in the Roman Catholic Church worried about popular reaction to the retelling of the story. Perhaps most unexpectedly, the Mortara affair has been taken up as a cudgel in the internal Church struggles over Pope Francis’s attempts to reform the Church.

ANTI-JUDAISM VERSUS ANTI-SEMITISM?

by Peter Gorenflos (Berlin)

 

BILINGUE: ENGLISH - DEUTSCH

Pius XI. and Pius XII, between opportunism and collaboration with Hitler and Mussolini

Part 1

 

Before the Second World War, the Jewish population in Italy was about one per thousand, in Germany one percent and in Catholic Poland about ten percent. In Polish cities they were often the majority, and Warsaw alone had around 350,000 Jewish residents. Father Jósef Kruszyński, a prominent Catholic priest, said in 1923: "If the world is to be rid of the Jewish plague, it is necessary to eradicate it to the last link". That was the opinion of many of his fellow priests who were convinced of the existence of a Jewish world conspiracy. Two years later he became President of the Catholic University of Lublin. Towards the end of World War I, the Archbishop of Warsaw asked Pope Benedict XV to send an emissary to Poland to investigate the country's religious, social and political situation. His choice fell on Achille Ratti, who then in 1922 succeeded the pontificate as Pius XI. Ratti spoke extremely disparagingly about the Jews to his client in Rome, and when there were numerous pogroms, he said in his report: "One of the worst and strongest forces that one encounters here, perhaps the strongest and worst of all, are the Jews and on January 15, 1919 he wrote of the situation in Warsaw: ‘The Jews there are immensely numerous and could not be more despised, but they are not molested and much less persecuted’. The mission's final report, written by his esteemed secretary, Monsignor Pellegrinetti, was rife with anti-Semitic clichés, ranging from alleged racial characteristics (big nose, protruding ears, etc.) to other prejudices, declaring the Jews both capitalists, which unfortunately held a large part of Polish prosperity, as well as the main forces of Bolshevism. When Ratti was proclaimed pope by the conclave in February 1922, Pope Pius XI, he rewarded his then secretary with a nunciature in Serbia and an archdiocese.

THE POPE AT WAR/UN PAPA IN GUERRA

BILINGUE: ENGLISH - DEUTSCH

by Peter Gorenflos

First edition in the world

The current work by David I. Kertzer The Pope at War, just published, not yet translated into German, and its predecessor The Pope and Mussoliniconfirm Karlheinz Deschner's basic work God and the Fascistsand is its perfect up-date and complement. Deschner is already available in Italian, Russian and even Mongolian language.

Pius XII was an opportunist who only defended the Jews - whom he usually referred to as non-Aryans - if they were baptized, that is, Catholic. We find many new sources in Kertzer’s work, especially on the deportation of the Jews in the immediate vicinity of the Vatican in October 1943. Of course he could have used his influence, e.g. on German Catholics, to mitigate the excesses of the Final Solution if he had only wanted to (just as the German episcopate could safely stop the Nazi euthanasia program!).

He would have had to take a certain risk, maybe even leave Rome temporarily. In Slovakia he could even have stopped the Holocaust completely, because the President there, Jozef Tiso, was a Catholic priest, acted on his own responsibility - without pressure from the Nazis - and, according to Yeshayahu Jelinek, personally supervised the evacuation of the Jews in several cases. As Pope, Pacelli had authority over him!

An opportunist, Pacelli long hoped for Nazi victory, for Bolshevism was a common enemy. When Hitler's fortunes in the war slowly but surely tipped over in 1942, he maneuvered around and began to change sides, hoping for a common Eastern front for the Allies with Germany against the Soviet Union.

EL PAPEL DE LAS MUJERES EN LAS RELIGIONES, por Marcelo Colussi

Que las mujeres gozan de menos derechos que los varones en todos los rincones del mundo no es ninguna novedad. Eso está comenzando a cambiar, lentamente. Ya hay transformaciones importantes en curso, pero aún resta muchísimo por avanzar. El patriarcado, con mayor o menor virulencia, sigue siendo aún una cruel realidad en todo el planeta. No puede precisarse cómo seguirán esos cambios, y con qué velocidad.

Lo que sí está claro es que las religiones –todas– no juegan un papel precisamente progresista en ese cambio: más que ayudar a la igualación de las relaciones entre los géneros, promueven el mantenimiento de las más odiosas y repudiables diferenciaciones injustas (¿puede haber alguna diferenciación injusta que no sea odiosa y repudiable?)

Amparados en la pseudo explicación de "ancestrales motivos culturales", podemos entender –jamás justificar– el patriarcado, los arreglos matrimoniales hechos por los varones a espaldas de las mujeres, el papel sumiso jugado por éstas en la historia, el harem, la ablación clitoridiana; podemos entender que una comadrona en las comunidades rurales de Latinoamérica cobre más por atender el nacimiento de un niño que el de una niña, o podemos entender la lógica que lleva a la lapidación de una mujer adúltera en el África.

DE CUÁL ARGENTINA ES HIJO EL PAPA FRANCISCO?, por Enzo Valls y Roberto Massari

Cartas a un sacerdote

A pocos días de la elección de Jorge Mario Bergoglio como el 266º papa y su entronización con el nombre de Francisco, publicamos tres cartas que Roberto Massari envió entre el 14 y el 19 de marzo a un sacerdote católico que aquí llamaremos Padre F. Me permito introducirlas brevemente por dos motivos: porque en estas cartas Roberto me menciona (marginalmente) y porque con el nuevo Papa tengo al menos una cosa en común: ambos somos argentinos, con las varias consecuencias que eso pueda tener. [e.v.]

En casi todo el mundo el enorme estupor y la incontenible alegría por la elección de este papa parecen haberse unido en un solo sentimiento cuyas exteriorizaciones suenan tan genuinas y esperanzadas en unos como hipócritas o histéricas en otros. Estupor por tratarse del primer papa no europeo - y para los de este lado del mundo, por si fuera poco, latinoamericano -, con todas las consecuencias que eso puede llegar a significar. Y alegría, en parte por el mismo motivo y en parte por muchos de los gestos y señales que desde su primer salida al balcón y desde la elección de su nombre, Francisco ha sabido lanzar al mundo: afabilidad, sencillez, humildad y sobre todo una cierta vocación de pobreza (¿franciscana?) que, según sus propias palabras, ansía para la Iglesia católica. Bastaría esto último para considerarlo ya un papado que trae de veras un viento nuevo y una mutación histórica para la ajada Iglesia católica, eso sí, siempre maestra secular en espectacularidad, aún para mostrar los gestos mínimos, que es por lo demás una de las esencias de la sociedad del espectáculo: la transformación de lo “real” en un “momento de lo falso”.

De la histeria como reacción no han quedado excluidos muchos de los que repudian esta elección. He leído en Argentina comentarios realmente impresentables e inaceptables para quienes dicen luchar por un mundo más libre y justo, que trato siempre de imaginar como personas serenas, sensatas y ansiosas de buscar la verdad y transformarla positivamente en vez de arremeter a la ciega contra lo primero que les desagrada.

Muy diferente es la actitud de Roberto Massari en estas cartas y en general: su indignación trata de ir en busca de la verdad, cualquiera sea. Y cuando la encuentra o la intuye la dice, sin hacerle descuentos a nadie, pero con garbo y mesura, en este caso a un cura, que por lo que sé es de ideas muy abiertas y avanzadas respecto a la jerarquía eclesiástica, pero cura al fin.

DI QUALE ARGENTINA È FIGLIO PAPA FRANCESCO?, di Roberto Massari ed Enzo Valls

Lettere a un sacerdote

Pochi giorni dopo l’elezione di Jorge Mario Bergoglio come 266º papa e il suo incoronamento con il nome di Francesco, pubblichiamo tre lettere che Roberto Massari ha indirizzato, tra il 14 e il 19 marzo, a un sacerdote cattolico che qui chiameremo Don F. Mi permetto di introdurle brevemente per due motivi: perché in queste lettere Roberto mi menziona (marginalmente) e perché con il nuovo Papa ho almeno una cosa in comune: entrambi siamo argentini, con le varie conseguenze che questo può avere.

HABEMUS PAPAM: SÌ, PERÒ…, di Pier Francesco Zarcone

La prudenza non è mai troppa, quando le cose non sono chiare

La saggezza dei nostri vecchi ammoniva a non considerare oro tutto quel che riluce, e questo vale anche per la scelta dell’attuale capo della Chiesa cattolica, considerata sia nelle sue eventuali finalità strategiche sia riguardo alla persona chiamata a sostituire Ratzinger. A prescindere dal fatto che le masse cattoliche avrebbero osannato chiunque fosse stato eletto al pontificato, si deve riconoscere che formalmente l’Arcivescovo di Buenos Aires si presenta bene e certo meglio di tanti suoi colleghi italiani:
stile di vita più che spartano, consolidata fama di “Vescovo dei poveri”, modi semplici e accattivanti, affabilità, spiragli di apertura alla mai realizzata collegialità episcopale, suggestione indotta dal nome da lui assunto, provenienza geografica dal Sud del mondo ecc. ecc.