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PIUS XII AND THE JEWS: The
War Years, Pope
Pius XI and Pope Pius XII: On
February 6, 1922, Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, Archbishop of Milan, was
elected pope, and took the name Pius XI. Europe
was in shambles following World War I. Pope
Pius XI attempted to offer a stabilizing influence by working to maintain
peace. He was determined to work for a lasting world peace forged by
the efforts of the Church. Under the rule of Christ the King, the Church would
labor to unify the nations of the world and uphold the natural rights of
God’s image, the human person. Hence
the origin of the liturgical Solemnity of Christ the King. Essential
to his efforts was a Christian anthropology diametrically opposed to that held
by the emerging totalitarian governments.
Pope Pius XI outlined this anthropology repeatedly in his eight
encyclicals condemning the underlying principles of totalitarian governments :
July 5, 1931 Non Abbiamo Bisogno, Encyclical against Italian Fascism; Sept.
29, 1932 Acerba Animi,
Encyclical on Persecution of the Church in Mexico; June
3, 1933 Dilectissima
Nobis,
Encyclical on oppression of the Church in Spain; March
4, 1937, Ardenti Cura,
Encyclical condemning unchristian teachings and
practices of National Socialism; March
14, 1937 Mit Brennender Sorge,
Encyclical on the Church and the German Reich; March
19, 1937 Divini Redemptoris,
Encyclical on Atheistic Communism; March
28, 1937 Nos es Muy Conocida,
Encyclical on the Religious Situation in Mexico; Sept.
29, 1937 Ingravescentibus
Meis,
Encyclical on the Rosary, in which he commends
For
Pius XI, and Pius XII, the fundamental errors of modern society were 1) the
denial of the natural law as the foundation of all public law, including
international law; 2) the deification of the state, and a resultant excessive
nationalism; 3) racism, which glorified a mythological purity of race.
The result of these three errors was the removal of God from His
creation, and the consequent debasing of the human person in modern society. God was replaced by the state; the individual human person
became its servant, a mere cog in the totalitarian national machinery of
Communist Russia, National Socialist Germany, and Fascist Italy.
Men and women derived their dignity from their usefulness and
productivity in the state. Some, deemed undesirable by the all powerful state, could be
easily eliminated. Hence, the
question of race became important, especially within the Nazi sphere of
influence. The dignity of
man, the rights of the human person, the “final solution” for undesirable
races, groups and individuals, all were considered to be political questions
with political solutions by the totalitarian governments. These
are religious questions, and Pius XI dealt with them as such, as would Pius
XII. Pius
XI reiterated traditional Roman Catholic theology: there is only one God, the
creator of the universe, who has established laws written in the hearts of
men, the natural law. To Him,
alone, is worship offered, not to the state. Men and women are created by God
in His image and likeness, and perfected by the redeeming sacrifice of Christ. No individual, no power, no institution, no government
or state may take this inherent dignity from any human person. We are fully human, and our work truly human, only when
ordered to pleasing God in accord with His natural law. Despite
protests by the totalitarian governments of Hitler and Mussolini that the pope
was interfering in political matters, Pius XI repeated that the deification of
the state and the question of race were religious in nature; and the Times
published what he said: (N.Y. Times, September 1, 1938, p. 10, 6;
September 8, 1938, p. 4, 2; September 20, 1938, p.10, 4, 5, 6; December 25,
1938, p. 1, 1).[2] In his encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge, smuggled into Germany, secretly printed, and read from all Catholic pulpits throughout Germany in March, 1937, Pius wrote: “Whoever
exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or
the depositories of Power, or any other fundamental value of the human
community–however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly
things–whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes
them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world
planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the
concept of life which that faith
upholds.” (par. 8). “None
but superficial minds could stumble into concepts of a national God, of a
national religion; or attempt to lock within the frontiers of a single people,
within the narrow limits of a single race, God, the Creator of the universe,
King and Legislator of all nations before whose immensity they are ‘as a
drop of a bucket (Isaiah, 40, 15)” (par. 11) “You
will need to watch carefully, Venerable Brethren, [Catholic Hierarchy of
Germany] that religious fundamental concepts be not emptied of their content and distorted to profane use. ‘Revelation’ in its Christian sense, means the word of God addressed to man. The use of this word for the ‘suggestions’ of race and blood, for the irradiations of a people’s history, is mere equivocation. False coins of this sort do not deserve Christian currency. ‘Faith’ consists in holding as true what God has revealed and proposes through His Church to man’s acceptance. It is ‘the evidence of things that appear not’ (Heb. 2. 1). The joyful and proud confidence in the future of one’s people, instinctive in every heart, is quite a different thing from faith in a religious sense. To substitute the one for the other, and demand on the strength of this, to be numbered among the faithful followers of Christ, is a senseless play on words, if it does not conceal a confusion of concepts, or worse.” (par. 23) “Such
is the rush of present-day life that it severs from the divine foundation of
Revelation, not only morality, but also the theoretical and practical rights.
We are especially referring to what is called the natural law, written by the
Creator’s hand on the tablet of the heart (Rom. 2, 14) and which reason, not
blinded by sin or passion, can easily read. It is in the light of the commands
of this natural law, that all positive law, whoever be the lawgiver, can be
gauged in its moral content, and hence, in the authority it wields over
conscience. Human laws in
flagrant contradiction with the natural law are vitiated with a taint which no
force, no power can mend. In the light of this principle one must judge the axiom, that
‘right is common utility,’ a proposition which may be given a correct
significance, means that what is morally indefensible, can never contribute to
the good of the people. But
ancient paganism acknowledged that the axiom, to be entirely true, must be
reversed and be made to say: ‘Nothing can be useful, if it is not at the
same time morally good’ (Cicero, De Off. 2, 30).
Emancipated from this moral rule, the principle would in international
law carry a perpetual state of war between nations; for it ignores in national
life, by confusion of right and utility, the basic fact that man as a person
possesses the rights he holds from God, and which any collectivity must
protect against denial, suppression or neglect.
To overlook this truth is to forget that the real common good
ultimately takes its measure from man’s nature, which balances personal
rights and social obligations, and from the purpose of society, which by a
give and take process, every one can claim for his own sake and that of
others. Higher and more general
values, which collectivity alone can provide, also derive from the Creator for
the good of man, and for the full development, natural and supernatural, and
the realization of his perfection. To
neglect this order is to shake the pillars on which society rests, and to
compromise social tranquility, security and existence.” (par. 30) During
the last years of his life, Pius XI condemned
Nazi and Fascist notions of race, blood, soil, and nation.
He referred to the Nazi swastika as “the cross which was not the
Cross of Christ” (N.Y. Times, February 12, 1939, IV, p. 3, 7). During an audience with French nuns, the pope decried
the anti-Semitic laws of Germany and Italy as direct results of “excessive
nationalism”. He spoke of a
“great question at present agitating the world under the name of
nationalism, a nationalism in many ways exaggerated–an ill-conceived
nationalism which we have already had painful occasion to denounce as
erroneous and dangerous.” (N.Y. Times, July 17, 1938, p. 1, 1).
In September, 1938, he told a group of pilgrims, “Abraham is called
our patriarch, our ancestor. Anti-Semitism
is not compatible with the reality of this text; it is a movement which
Christians cannot share. No, it
is not possible for Christians to take part in anti-Semitism.
We are Semites spiritually.”
The New York Times published these words for all to read
(December 12, 1938, p. 1, 1). Pius
XI battled against the Italian
government’s implementation of laws against the Jews, (N.Y. Times,
December 25, 1938, p. 1, 1) , and condemned the violence against the Church
wherever Nazi influence held sway. Near the end of his life, the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, met with Pius XI to discuss racial and religious persecution in Europe. The Times editorialized that the meeting “was intended as recognition of a moral alignment which unites those who strive to buttress the established moral order against a new worship of force, race or State.” (N.Y. Times, Jan. 16, 1939, p. 14, 5). One
of the last tributes to Pope Pius XI during his lifetime came from the Jewish
Congress, meeting in Geneva in January, 1939.
The chairman, Dr. Nahum Goldman and the committee adopted resolutions
concerning the Jewish people of Europe, one of which stated, “We record the
Jewish people’s deep appreciation of the stand taken by the Vatican against
the advance
of resurgent paganism which challenges all traditional values of religion as
well as inalienable human rights upon which alone enduring civilization can be
found. The Congress salutes the
Supreme Pontiff, symbol of the spiritual forces which under many names are
fighting for the re-establishment of the rule of moral law in human
society.” (N.Y. Times, January 17, 1939, p. 1:3) In
the brief period between the death of Pope Pius XI and the election of his
successor, the Times reported that “the Jewish issue in Italy is
growing more intense and is one of the gravest of the many serious problems
being considered by the Cardinals who will enter the conclave . . . to elect a
new Pope. . . . That the [Italian government’s] feeling against the church
since the stand that Pope Pius [XI] took on the anti-Jewish policies of
Germany and Italy is much stronger in Rome seems certain.” (N.Y. Times,
February 28, 1939, p. 6, 4) Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli was elected pope on March 2, 1939, and took the name, Pius XII. Immediately
after his election, Pius XII met with the German cardinals who had been
present in the conclave, in order to ascertain the real situation of the
Church in Nazi Germany. These meetings influenced his decision to issue a call
for a peace conference at the Vatican, and provided him with direct proof and
information which formed the content of his first encyclical of October 29,
1939. This began his efforts to
defend the dignity of the human person in general, and formed the basis for
his words and acts to assist the Jewish people, in particular. In
his first encyclical, Summi Pontificatus, Pius XII linked his works to
those of Pius XI, “.
. . We should take the opportunity of paying homage to the King of kings and
Lord of lords (I Tim. vi., 15) as a kind of Introit prayer to Our Pontificate,
in the spirit of Our renowned predecessor [Pius XI] and in the faithful
accomplishment of his designs. . .by consecrating them all to the spread of
the Kingdom of Christ.” (par. 2)[3] Pope
Pius XII lay to rest any thoughts that he would follow a plan more
conciliatory to the totalitarian states than did his predecessor.
Pius XII employed the weapons in his arsenal: prayers, the liturgy,
words, and international law to
reveal the truth about the governments that threatened to debase and destroy
the human person by the deification of the state; to restore the foundations
of human society squarely upon natural law, whose source is the only true
ruler of all men and women of all nations and races, Christ. Pius
asked, “What age has been, for all its technical and purely civic progress,
more tormented than ours by spiritual emptiness and deep-felt interior
poverty?” (par. 5) The world
had abandoned Christ’s cross for another [the Swastika] which brings only
death. (par. 6) The consecration of the world
to Christ the King “is a penetrating wisdom which sets itself to
restore and to ennoble all human society and to promote its true welfare.”
(par. 6) The New York Times published an article by Anne O’Hare McCormick on October 30, 1939, which clearly expressed what was at stake. “The
present war is fought for many ends. It is fought on various fronts with new
methods. In a way, it is a war
too big to fight, at least with military weapons, for the reason that its
fundamental issue cannot be resolved on a battlefield, and everybody knows it.
In the broadest sense it is a religious issue, and perhaps that is why
the Pope has put his finger on it more surely than any secular statesman. The central theme of his long encyclical is the function of
the State in the modern world, and that is the crux of the struggle of our
time. The dictatorship of today
is not simply a form of government; it is a form of life, a usurpation of
every human and divine right, a growth of power so abnormal that it is like a
tumor pressing on the whole social body and preventing other nations from
functioning naturally.” (N.Y. Times, Oct. 30, 1939, p. 16, 5) According
to Pius XII, there were two errors resulting from this religious and moral
agnosticism that was at the heart of the impending war: The
first error: “the forgetfulness of that law of human solidarity and charity
which is dictated and imposed by our common origin, and by the equality of
rational nature in all men, to whatever people they belong, and by the
redeeming Sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ on the Altar of the Cross, . . “
(par. 35) This
was an attack upon the racial theories of the Nazi regimes.
The dignity of an individual derives not from blood, race, nationality,
or utility. We have a dignity no
one can take away or diminish because we are made in the image of God. This dignity is further ennobled by the sacrifice of Christ,
a Jew. There is both a natural and a supernatural unity of all persons on the planet and throughout history, which even Hitler’s racist claims of blood and soil cannot supersede. The Pope took clear aim at these: “A
marvelous vision, which makes us see the human race in the unity of one common
origin in God ‘one God and Father of all, Who is above all, and through all,
and in us all’ (Eph. 4, 6); in the unity of nature which in every man is
equally composed of material body and spiritual, immortal soul; in the unity
of the immediate end and mission in the world; in the unity of dwelling place,
the earth, of whose resources all men can by natural right avail themselves,
to sustain and develop life; in the unity of the supernatural end, God
Himself, to Whom all should tend; in the unity of means to secure that end.”
(par. 38) The
Church recognizes and welcomes all peoples with their individual
characteristics and heritage. “Her
aim is a supernatural union in all-embracing love. . .” (par. 44) “The
Church hails with joy and follows with her maternal blessing every method of
guidance and care which aims at a wise and orderly evolution of particular
forces and tendencies having their origin in the individual character of each
race, provided that they are not opposed to the duties incumbent on men from
their unity of origin and common destiny.” (par. 45)
The
second error Pius attacked was the deification of the state: “It
is the error contained in those ideas which do not hesitate to divorce civil
authority from every kind of dependence upon the Supreme Being–First Source
and absolute Master of man and of society–and from every restraint of a
Higher Law derived from God as from its First Source.
Thus they accord the civil authority an unrestricted field of action
that is at the mercy of the changeful tide of human will, or of the dictates
of casual historical claims, and of the interests of a few.” (par. 52) He
continued, “Once
the authority of God and the sway of His law are denied in this way, the civil
authority as an inevitable result tends to attribute to itself that absolute
autonomy which belongs exclusively to the Supreme Maker.
It puts itself in the place of the Almighty and elevates the State or
group into the last end of life, the supreme criterion of the moral and
juridical order, and therefore forbids every appeal to the principles of
natural reason and of the Christian conscience.” (par. 53) The
function of the state, according to Pius, is to direct the private and
individual activities of the national life towards the common good.
The common good is defined “according to the harmonious development
and the natural perfection of man. It
is for this perfection that society (the state) is designed by the Creator as
a means.” (par. 59) The state is a means to an end–the happiness of its
citizens, and not an end in itself, for which the human person is relegated to
the position of cog. He
continued with a plea for the family as the essential cell of human society,
whose existence is antecedent to the state, and whose rights are sacrosanct,
which the Church will defend against the encroachments of the state. (par.
61-63) “Goods,
blood, it [the state] can demand; but the soul redeemed by God, never.
The charge laid by God on parents to provide for the material and
spiritual good of their offspring and to procure for them a suitable training
saturated with the true spirit of religion, cannot be wrested from them
without grave violation of their rights.” (par. 66) Christ is the only solid foundation for any state or government, the pope continued. All others are founded on the shifting sands of human wisdom. For Hitler, blood, soil, and usefulness to the state were the criteria for the determination of who the human person is. The Church objected strenuously. |
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Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII |
