Rome – Pope Benedict XVI on Monday described a visit to Israel’s Holocaust memorial as a disturbing encounter with hatred, days after his decision to move the controversial World War II-era pope closer to sainthood angered Jewish groups.
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The German-born Benedict signed a decree Saturday on the virtues of Pope Pius XII, who has been criticized for not doing enough to stop the Holocaust. The decree means that Pius can be beatified – the first major step toward possible sainthood – once a miracle attributed to his intercession has been recognized.
Benedict, who was forced to join the Hitler Youth and deserted from the Nazi Army, has repeatedly spoken out against the horrors of Nazism and anti-Semitism, but his efforts to improve relations with Jews have not always been smooth.
His decision on Pius sparked further outrage among Jewish groups still incensed over his rehabilitation earlier this year of a Holocaust-denying bishop, Richard Williamson.
On Monday, he recounted his May trip to the Holy Land in a speech at the Vatican.
“The visit to the Yad Vashem has meant an upsetting encounter with the cruelty of human fault, with the hatred of a blind ideology that, with no justification, sent millions of people to their deaths,” he said.
Yad Vashem is “first of all a commemorative monument against hatred, a heartfelt call to purification and forgiveness, to love,” he said.
Benedict’s speech during his Yad Vashem visit drew criticism in Israel, with some faulting the pope for failing to apologize for what they see as Catholic indifference during the Nazi genocide. Others noted that he failed to specifically mention the words “murder” or “Nazis.”
Some Jews and historians have argued Pius, who served as pontiff from 1939-1958, should have done more to prevent the deaths of 6 million Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators. A caption of a photo of Pius at Yad Vashem’s museum says he did not protest the Nazi genocide of Jews and maintained a largely “neutral position.”
The Vatican insists Pius used quiet diplomacy to try to save Jews and didn’t lash out at the Nazis for fear that such a public denunciation would only result in more deaths.
Jewish groups have argued that Benedict shouldn’t have made any moves on Pius’ beatification process until the now-closed Vatican archives of his pontificate are opened to outside researchers.
A Yad Vashem spokeswoman, Iris Rosenberg, said it was “regrettable” that the Vatican had acted before relevant documents are made available.
Similarly, in a statement issued Monday, the World Jewish Congress called any beatification of Pius “inopportune and premature” until consensus on his legacy is established.
“There are strong concerns about Pope Pius XII’s political role during World War II which should not be ignored,” said Ronald Lauder, the president of the group. He called on the Vatican to immediately open all archives on Pius era and show “more sensitivity on this matter.”
The Vatican says its archives on the Pius era – about 16 million files – won’t be opened to outside historians until 2014 at the earliest.
“It’s not a matter of secrecy,” Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi was quoted as saying in Corriere della Sera. “Everything there is to know is already known.”
Benedict has visited two synagogues – in Germany and the United States – and has a planned visit to Rome’s main synagogue next month.
I’m not sure it’s a good idea to tell the Vatican whom to make a Saint. What bothers me more is his statement talking about the “cruelty of human fault, with the hatred of a blind ideology”. He is referring to the “blind ideology” of the Germans a as a master race. Instead he should have been honest and acknowledge that this “blind ideology” he is talking about, sprung from Christianity. While many Christians saved Jews, usually the more devout they were, the crueler they were in murdering the Jews. Some say that the Ukrainians were the worst and some say that the Lithuanians were the worst; some even say that the Poles were worse then both. What the Ukrainians, Poles and Lithuanians have in common is their “religion based” hatred of the Jews.
It was no blind ideology at all; they all followed and supported it with open eyes and a clear sense of mission to annihilate the Jews.
Do we want the Vatican to “sign-off” on our gadolim and the chief rabbinate, and head of each chassidus? Than, we should insist on the same rights for their saints…(i.e have Abe Foxman and the anti-defamation league form a special committee to review proposed saints from a yiddeshe pepspective and advise the pope). If not, leave the goyim alone.
Vatican Radio reported the discovery of a note, kept in a cloistered monastery near the Colosseum, which lists the names of 24 people who were taken in by the nuns at the behest of Pius.
Anti-Semitism long pre-dates Christianity, but the virulent form of anti-Semitism found in Europe which led to the Holocaust has its roots in the Catholic preaching orders, specifically the Franciscans and Dominicans (the Dominicans supplied the Inquisitors), and was cultivated by the Catholic church since the First Crusade (c. 1096) which resulted in the destruction of the Jews in the Rhineland. Given this history, unrepudiated by the modern Church of Rome, why should we give any credence to anything that Ratzinger the Nazi has to say? Ratzinger is a brilliant and highly educated man, but he is also highly disingenuous, to put it mildly. Case in point, his hostile comments about Islam in the speech he delivered in Regensburg, from which he distanced himself by saying he was only quoting Manuel II Palaiologos. Humph, even the Byzantinists I know don’t go around quoting Manuel II Palaiologos offhand. When Ecclesia kneels in humility and repentance to Synagoga and beats her breast and cries Mea Culpa, then I might listen to what come out of the Pope’s mouth. When the Vatican removes Vincent Ferrer from the Calendar of Saints, then we might take it seriously. Til then, no.
Read the book “Hitler’s Pope.” It was written by a man who attended Jesus College (not Y.U., Torah Vodaas, or Satmar.) In the book he makes it very clear that Pius was only concerned about having good political relations with the Nazi regime; and in doing so was willing to ignore the plight not only of Jews, but of other Catholics and other Christians as well who were being murdered by the Nazis. As the author concluded “he was a very flawed man.” This is who THEY have as their saints. Baruch shelo asani goy!.
…it is so true that the Holocaust and Nazi anti semitism had its roots in centuries of Christian and Catholic oppression…I am thinking of a book i read which described how the Catholic Church forced the Italian Jews into awful ghettoes for centuries, forced them to wear special badges, and did not allow them to do most types of labor–or even to employ a Christian….for a brief, bright period Italy was taken over by Napoleon, and the Jewish ghetto was abolished…only to be reinstated by the Pope when Napoleon was chased out of Italy…The church gave good ideas to the Nazis on how to treat the Jews! Most of all I think of Luther: many of the Nazi speeches took uop his ideas on how to treat –er mistreat–the Jews!
Does anyone really care who the Vatican declares a saint ? Will any Yid hold this Pius charachter in greater esteem once he becomes a (so called) saint. We know who he was sainthood not withstanding.
I think it is worth remembering that numerous Jewish leaders, including Albert Einstein, Israeli Prime Ministers Golda Meir and Moshe Sharett, and Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog, expressed their public gratitude to Pius XII, praising him as a “righteous gentile,” who had saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust. In his meticulously researched and comprehensive 1967 book, “Three Popes and the Jews,” the Israeli historian and diplomat Pinchas Lapide, who had served as the Israeli Counsel General in Milan, and had spoken with many Italian Jewish Holocaust survivors who owed their life to Pius, provided the empirical basis for their gratitude, concluding that Pius XII “was instrumental in saving at least 700,000, but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands.” To this day, the Lapide volume remains the definitive work, by a Jewish scholar, on the subject. It seems to be studiously ignored by so many who ought to know better, sadly.
“The visit to the Yad Vashem has meant an upsetting encounter with the cruelty of human fault, with the hatred of a blind ideology that, with no justification, sent millions of people to their deaths,” he said.”
I’m a little confused here. “Hatred of blind ideology”? Does he mean the Nazi regime? Or 2000 years of Christian Crusades, Blood libels, Pogroms, Inquisitions, Expulsions, Auto defe’s, and the like?