Archive on Nazis won't hurt Pius XII

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16 February 2003

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Archive on Nazis won't hurt Pius XII

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Archive on Nazis won't hurt Pius XII

Pope Pius XII

By Chris Lindsay

Pope Pius XII's reputation is unlikely to be damaged when previously undisclosed Vatican archive material covering the period of the rise of the Nazis up to 1939 is released later this month, says Cardinal Edward Cassidy.

"I don't think those documents will put Pope Pius XII in a poor light or a different light," Cardinal Cassidy said.

"I believe Pope Pius XII's reputation will survive intact. He was a religious and holy man. The primary idea is not how good a politician or head of state he was, but how good a man he was.

"I think he did all he felt he could do in the circumstances. Still, the historical judgment is there to be made."

According to Vatican sources the forthcoming release of the 640 files regarding Holy See-Germany relations comes at a sensitive time when procedures are under way which could see Pius XII declared a saint.

He has also been accused of being "Hitler's Pope" and of helping the Nazi cause by remaining silent about wartime persecution of Jews (e.g. in John Cornwell's 1999 book Hitler's Pope and Rolf Hochhuth's 1960s play The Deputy).

During the 1920s the future Pope Pius XII, Eugenio Pacelli, was the Vatican's representative in Germany and from 1930 was the Vatican secretary of state.

"We have already published 13 volumes dealing with the war years; these are the important ones," Cardinal Cassidy told The Catholic Weekly. "These included most of the war period documents of any interest. There has been nothing up to now on the period 1922-39 when the Nazi organisation developed and the persecution of the Jews began in the countries the Nazis controlled."

The cardinal, former head of the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and, later, of the Vatican Council for Christian Unity, said there would always be questions about whether Pope Pius XII had done enough.

"This is hard to judge if you were not there," he said.

"There is always the question of what did he know at a certain stage, but no one knew at an early stage.

"Some Jews who had information brought it to the notice of some people but no one in the US or Britain or the Church knew the extent of what was being done.

"There was no way of checking. I believe that in the circumstances he did all that was possible."

Cardinal Cassidy pointed out that Pope Pius XII was himself living in a country that was at war and his own freedom of movement was not great - he could not leave the Vatican.

"And, of course," the cardinal said, "there is always the question: 'If he did speak out, what then?'

"There was a bishop in Holland (the Archbishop of Utrecht) who spoke out and after that the Jews in Holland were treated much worse, even Christians of Jewish origin. So to speak out was likely to have even worse consequences for the Jewish people.

"The alternative was to try diplomacy and see what that would bring.

"The fact is that fewer Jews in Rome were persecuted than elsewhere. Many were protected in Church houses.

"We had some Jewish scholars in 2000 look at the documents on Pope Pius XII, but they were not satisfied, they wanted to look at other documents which were not available. The documents need to be collated and prepared, and there are not many people to do the work.

"When I was head of those two operations in Rome the number of people working there, including those who answered the phone and opened the door, was a total of 22.

"And this was the office that handled the relations between the Catholic Church and all the other Christian Churches, and those between the Catholic Church and the Jews.

"There is a vast archive, and for a long time it was the rule that nothing was published while there were people who were involved still alive. This has changed recently."

After the war, Jews of various nations thanked Pope Pius XII. And when he died, in 1958, Israeli Foreign Minister (later Prime Minister) Golda Meir wrote: "When fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, the voice of the Pope was raised for its victims. The life of our times was enriched by a voice speaking out about great moral truths …"