Thursday, December 25, 2008

Pope Pius XII: Misunderstood and Maligned (Part One of Two)



Pope Pius XII: Misunderstood and Maligned (Part One of Two)

Perhaps no other pontiff of the 20th century has been the subject of more intentional misinformation, slander, and calumny than Venerable Pope Pius XII, who faithfully served Our God and His Church as the Vicar of Christ from March 12, 1939 until his death on October 9, 1958. As he took the Chair of Peter at the beginning of World War 2, there have been more attempts at discrediting him and his pontificate for his actions during that war, by more Catholic hating and Catholic Church hating radical “journalists”, revisionist “historians”, so-called intellectuals, and self-proclaimed “scholars” than any other prominent figure from that war. The only person from the World War 2 era who is more vilified and treated with more contempt and total disdain than Pope Pius XII, is Adolph Hitler himself. This virulent attempt at defaming Pope Pius XII, has become a propaganda industry that would make the likes of Joseph Goebbels proud.

The most atrocious and bigoted of tags attached to this Venerable Pontiff, is “Hitler's Pope”. The preponderance of evidence available to even the most dim of history students would overwhelmingly support the fact that Pope Pius XII was anything and everything BUT “Hitler's Pope”. How anyone could ignore the evidence that shows Pope Pius XII was not only NOT “Hitler's Pope”, but, that indeed, his was the ONLY voice in occupied Europe that stood against Hitler and Nazi Germany, not only during the war, but, before the war as well when he was then Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli. Indeed, the only European voices to try to warn the world about Hitler and Nazi Germany before the war was the then Cardinal Pacelli and Winston Churchill.

The only way anyone could come to the incorrect conclusion that Pope Pius XII supported and condoned the actions of Hitler and his murderous henchmen, is to ignore the evidence and create their own version of events, as regards the time leading up to, and throughout the war itself. The most amazing and shocking part of this whole calumnious event, is the number of Catholics who will read such virulent vitriol and take it as absolute fact without ever making any effort to find out for themselves. One would hope that people would not make their opinions based solely on the last book they have read, and certainly not make their opinions based on one book alone! Alas, in today's world, people are too lazy to attempt to find out for themselves, they want everything in an instant, so let me try to help out, and highlight just a few of the more interesting FACTS regarding Pope Pius XII during World War 2, and not any of the myopic and bigoted speculation about what he allegedly did or didn't do.

Let us begin with a few absolute truths. At the time of Hitler's rise to power, the Catholic Church and the world was already faced with the atheistic evil of Communism, in the Soviet Union. The Church was well aware of the ongoing persecutions of Christians within the Soviet Union itself, especially under the brutality of such leaders as Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, so the Church would not be fooled by, nor led into complacency by National Socialism. The Church fully recognized the inherent danger and evil in Adolph Hitler, and indeed, the future Pope Pius XII, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli saw him for who and what he was, and could not comprehend why the German people were so willingly and eagerly beguiled by this murderous butcher. The Sister who was Pope Pius XII's assistant, quoted him as saying when he was still Cardinal Pacelli, "This man is completely carried away; everything he says and writes has the mark of his ego-centrism; this man is capable of trampling on corpses and eliminating anything that is an obstacle. I cannot understand how there are so many people in Germany who do not understand him, and cannot draw conclusions from what he says or writes. Has any of them even read his horrifying ‘Mein Kampf’?"

Now, let's take a look at the man who actually precipitated the plethora of books and opinions that have been anti-Pope Pius XII and anti-Catholic Church, especially during the period of World War 2. That man, is one Rolf Hochhuth, who wrote a 1963 drama “Der Stellvertreter, Ein christliches Trauerspiel” (The Deputy, a Christian tragedy), that was critical of Pope Pius XII's role against Nazism during World War 2. Though far from factual, many aspects of this play were taken as fact by many people (perhaps the same sort of non-thinking types that failed to note “The DaVinci Code” is a work of fiction), and was also opposed by many people appalled at the slander aimed at Pope Pius XII. Mr. Hochhuth is a friend of David Irving, who calls himself a “self-taught historian”, and is a well known holocaust denier, who has been barred from entering many countries (Mr. Irving denied that Nazi's systematically exterminated Jews, that the Diary of Anne Frank was mostly a forgery compiled by her surviving father, and called Auschwitz a fabrication), Mr, Hochhuth defended Irving being called a holocaust denier in 2005, and called the charges “idiotic” and Irving “an honourable man”. Indeed, Mr. Hochhuth, who himself belonged to the Hitler Youth, wrote his next work, “Soldiers, Necrology On Geneva” where he criticized the allied bombing campaigns and Winston Churchill as a war criminal. And people took this man's work as “fact”.

The next work, was a book by John Cornwell, “Hitler's Pope”, in which the author, used research from Vatican documents, and essentially used what suited him to prove his case against Pope Pius XII and the Catholic Church, and totally disregarded the rest. He did an excellent job of pure conjecture, historical revisionism, and discarding factual information from both those documents and the testimonies from people who lived and survived during that terrible time, to support his claim that Pope Pius XII and the Catholic Church was indifferent to the suffering of the Jewish people imprisoned by Hitler and his henchmen. Indeed, he accuses Pope Pius XII of being anti-Semitic, and accuses the Catholic Church of fomenting a climate of Antisemitism in Germany, and throughout Europe. How can anyone still take his work seriously, when this man, who calls himself Catholic, has written books indicative of being anti-Catholic, and anti-Church, even in an interview on one of his books, he calls Pope John Paul II (who was still alive at the time) “a profoundly reactionary Pope”, and “truly a great pope; but he is also a human pope who has lived beyond his moment”. Cornwell has shown a penchant for ignoring the whole of the information available to him in the documents he “researched”, and only using excerpts to prove his malignant thesis. Any author worthy of the name should have done a better job of utilizing his research and not so blatantly and arrogantly ignored the full context of quoted documents, and only quoted parts of statements to prove his story. If he had in fact, quoted the entire sections he did quote, the entirety of what is in those documents would have proved that Pope Pius XII did not support National Socialism in Germany, and that he did what he could to oppose Hitler before and during the war, and that he did what he could to save Jewish lives in Europe.

We find it quite baffling, that so many deem it necessary and of utmost importance to lay the charges of indifference and culpability at the feet of Pope Pius XII and the Catholic Church, yet are deafeningly silent at the same lack of public statements on the Jewish plight from other institutions, such as the International Red Cross and the World Council of Churches. Little if anything is ever mentioned of the fact that the allies were informed of, and yet refused to believe the stories of atrocities against the Jewish people during World War 2.

It is to say the least, quite amazing how so many can be critical of the actions of Pope Pius XII from the safety of their own freedom. They fail, and fail miserably, to take into account that while they can be “armchair quarterbacks” in the safety they enjoy today, Pope Pius XII did not have that luxury of freedom. Pope Pius XII was in Vatican City, in Rome, and Italy which was under the domination of Benito Mussolini, Hitler's ally in the Axis alliance, and when Mussolini was ousted, Rome was then under the control of Germany. In order to preserve the lives of the Jews and the Catholics held in the Nazi concentration camps throughout Europe, it was necessary and prudent for Pope Pius XII to do what he could, as he could, without going on a verbal assault against the Nazi's, for he realized that to do so, would result in the Nazi's intensifying their persecutions against those whom they held.

It is also even more baffling, as to how so many are so willing and so able to totally disregard all statements from survivors of the holocaust, their families, the contemporaries of Pope Pius XII within the Church, the contemporary leaders of the Allies, newspaper accounts of the period, and historical records that implicitly and completely prove without any doubt whatsoever that Eugenio Pacelli, Pope Pius XII, was anything, and everything but silent and uncaring!

What these people do show, is a radical leftist leaning in their assessment of Pope Pius XII. For beginning in 1946, the Communists, especially in Communist Czechoslovakia, called Pope Pius XII a "Hitler Stooge". Communist propagandists systematically accused Catholics and other "reactionary" groups of collaborating with Hitler. Bishops were hauled into mock show trials, and for years, western leftists followed the Soviet lead in denigrating Pope Pius XII. Evidently, they are still hard at work on it today, and show those of us not blinded by a veil of lies and half-truths, what their true agenda is, and with whom their hearts truly lie.

Copyright © 2005 Steve Smith. All rights reserved.



Tuesday, January 30, 2007

KGB smear campaign against Pius XII exposed


The Vatican's Secretary of State has presented a spirited defence of Pope Pius XII's role during World War II in protecting Jews as a former KGB spy reveals a deliberate super-secret Soviet plan to smear the Pope as an anti-Semitic Nazi sympathiser.

Catholic News Agency reports that in a recent issue of the National Review Online, Lt General Ion Mihai Pacepa, who eventually defected from the former Soviet bloc, recounts how the KGB and the Kremlin designed the deliberate campaign to portray the Pius XII "as a cold hearted Nazi sympathiser".

In February 1960, Nikita Khrushchev approved a "super-secret" plan, codenamed "Seat-12", for destroying the Vatican's moral authority in Western Europe, writes Pacepa.

Eugenio Pacelli, by then Pope Pius XII, was selected as the KGB's main target, its incarnation of evil, because he had departed this world in 1958. "Dead men cannot defend themselves" was the KGB's latest slogan.

The KGB used the fact that Archbishop Pacelli had served as the papal nuncio in Munich and Berlin when the Nazis were beginning their bid for power against him.

"The KGB wanted to depict him as an anti-Semite who had encouraged Hitler's Holocaust," says Pacepa.

Using documents provided by Pacepa, the KGB used these documents to produce a powerful play attacking Pope Pius XII, entitled The Deputy.

It eventually saw the stage in Germany in 1963, under the title The Deputy, a Christian Tragedy. It proposed that Pius XII had supported Hitler and encouraged him to go ahead with the Jewish Holocaust. The German director claimed to have 40 pages of documentation attached to the script that would support the thesis of the play.

The play ran in New York in 1964 and was translated into 20 languages. The play then led to a flurry of books and articles, some accusing and some defending the Pontiff.

Pacepa says the truth has finally begun to emerge with the canonisation process of Pius XII, which was opened by John Paul II.

Meanwhile, Catholic News Agency reports that Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, speaking at a Rome book launch, strongly defended Pope Pius XII's wartime actions and said he had coordinated church efforts that saved the lives of many Jews.

He said the Catholic Church as an institution played a part in this effort, working under Pope Pius and following his directives. The church aided all during World War II, but specifically sought to defend and save persecuted Jews, he said.

"They were to be helped in any way possible. This is the premise on which every action of the Pope and his aides was founded, as is demonstrated by the existing documentation," Cardinal Bertone said.

Lisa Palmieri-Billig, the Rome representative of the American Jewish Committee, also spoke at the book presentation. She said there was no question that the Vatican had helped save the lives of Jews, sometimes hiding them inside the Vatican itself.

She noted Pope Pius' strongly worded Christmas appeal in 1942 on behalf of those persecuted by the Nazi regime on the basis of nationality or race.




Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Church News & Current Events-Weekly Summary



Giving pause to the pregnant

The Government's decision to fund pregnancy counselling with input from Catholic agencies is controversial, writes Elisabeth Wynhausen.

THOUGH their opinions could not be more divergent on an issue of supreme importance to both of them, Devora Lieberman, the national president of Family Planning Australia, says she can't help feeling sorry for Health Minister Tony Abbott.
"It's a difficult position for the minister. He's a devout Catholic who as health minister ... funds 70,000 to 90,000 abortions a year," says Lieberman.
Though Abbott, for his part, has said he will not let his convictions interfere with the job, the health minister has hardly made a secret of his burning desire to reduce the number of abortions in Australia.

To read further on this important issue click here.
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Monday, January 01, 2007

The Neocatechumenal Way-In Disobedience?


Those Who Are Resisting Benedict XVI
The disobedience of the Neocatechumenals. The black legends of the conclave. The translation boycott. Three different ways of opposing the new pope.
The first words of Benedict XVI’s first encyclical letter, almost the motto of his papacy, are "Deus Caritas Est," God is love.
But not everyone in the upper levels of the Church is full of love and solidarity for this new pope. Resistance to his guidance is tenacious and widespread, and in some places it is on the rise. And almost all the resistance shields itself behind the protection of anonymity.
The only open and avowed resistance is that of the Neocatechumenal Way, which has opposed a papal directive issued last December, which struck at one of the movement’s cornerstones.
The Way, founded and directed by Kiko Argüello and Carmen Hernández, both Spanish, is today the most vigorous of the new Catholic movements that emerged during the last half century. It is present in 900 dioceses on all the inhabited continents, and boasts the strength of a million followers in over 20,000 communities, with 3,000 priests and 5,000 religious. It has an international network of 63 "Redemptoris Mater" seminaries, which are thriving with new vocations, in contrast with the vacuum in many diocesan seminaries.
One of the factors in its numeric expansion is the elevated number of children that its families bring into the world, running to ten, twelve, or even more. Each year, scores of these families go on mission into faraway countries. Last January 12, 200 of these families departed all at once from Rome, with the personal blessing of Benedict XVI, who met them in a Nervi Hall that was crowded and pulsing with enthusiasm. Some of the families were going to Patagonia or Japan, but some others were going into the most dechristianized areas of Europe: France, Holland, the former East Germany.
With such a legacy of success, it is natural that the Neocatechumenals receive the support of a large number of bishops and cardinals. Two of these patrons – cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, prefect of the Vatican congregation for the propagation of the faith, and cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop of Washington – were at their side in Nervi Hall on January 12. But criticisms have also rained down upon the Neocatechumenals over the years, especially against their carving out a separate place for themselves in the Church, with their own secret catechism, their own rituals, and their own parallel hierarchy. But these criticisms were always overruled by the unconditional support given to them by John Paul II.
But that’s no longer the case with pope Ratzinger. There is one thing about the Neocatechumenals that the pope does not accept, and which touches the heart of Christian life: the unusual way in which they celebrate the Mass (1).
In effect, the Mass that every one of the 20,000 communities of the Way celebrates each Saturday evening – separately from the parishes and the other sister communities – follows the dictates of its founder Kiko Argüello much more closely than it does the liturgical canons that are universally valid for the Catholic Church.
Instead of the altar in the apse, at the center of the hall is a large square dinner table, around which the Neocatechumenals receive communion in a seated position.
Instead of hosts, a large loaf of unleavened wheat bread, made with two-thirds white flour and one-third whole wheat flour, is divided and eaten. The bread, which is baked for a quarter of an hour, is prepared according to very detailed guidelines established by Kiko.
The wine is drunk from cups, also in a sitting position.
The homily is replaced by spontaneous comments from those present, before and after the readings from the Gospel, the letters of Saint Paul, and the Old Testament.
Benedict XVI has ordered that all of this come to an end. He did this through a letter delivered in mid-December to the three main leaders of the Way: Kiko, Carmen, and the Italian priest Mario Pezzi. The letter was signed by cardinal Francis Arinze, prefect of the Vatican congregation for the liturgy, but from its very first lines it clearly states that these are "the decisions of the Holy Father." Six unambiguous commands follow.
For example, regarding communion, the exact dispositions of the letter are these:
"On the manner of receiving Holy Communion, a period of transition (not exceeding two years) is granted to the Neocatechumenal Way to pass from the widespread manner of receiving Holy Communion in its communities (seated, with a cloth-covered table placed at the center of the church instead of the dedicated altar in the sanctuary) to the normal way in which the entire Church receives Holy Communion. This means that the Neocatechumenal Way must begin to adopt the manner of distributing the Body and Blood of Christ that is provided in the liturgical books." (2)
But instead of simply obeying, the Neocatechumenals disobeyed while asserting that they were perfectly obedient.
When Vatican analyst Andrea Tornielli first gave the news of the pope’s directions, the official spokesman and director of the Way in the United States, Giuseppe Gennarini, protested that in reality these orders amounted to an approval (3).
When on December 27 www.chiesa published Arinze’s letter in its entirety, Gennarini called the very authenticity of this letter into question. He added that "this does not change its nature of a confidential and internal instrumentum laboris (working instrument)," devoid of any normative force. He restated that the only valid norm is "the confirmation by the Holy Father of the liturgical praxis of the Way." And by way of proof he cited the blessing that the pope would bestow a few days later upon the Neocatechumenal families leaving on mission, during the audience of January 12 (4).
The audience did, in fact, take place. And so did the blessing. But there was also a second, ringing summons to obedience from Benedict XVI:
"Recently the congregation for divine worship and the discipline of the sacraments imparted to you, in my name, some norms concerning the Eucharistic celebration, after the trial period that had been granted by the servant of God John Paul II. I am certain that these norms, which draw upon the provisions of the liturgical books approved by the Church, will meet with attentive compliance from you." (5)
There was no comment from the directors of the Way after this second call from the pope. But word was given to the 20,000 communities to continue as before.
To read further please click here.