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Pope Pius XII: room for criticism or simply infallible?
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners April 14, 2007 |
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Calling the decision by the Vatican ambassador to Israel to boycott the Holocaust memorial services at Yad Vashem "inappropriate and insulting," the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today repeated its longstanding call for the Vatican to open its wartime archives so that the facts concerning the wartime actions of Pope Pius XII may finally be brought to light.
Archbishop Antonio Franco, the Vatican's ambassador to Israel, has made the unprecedented announcement that he will boycott the April 16 memorial events at Yad Vashem, Israel's national memorial to the Holocaust, in protest of a photo caption in an exhibit that seemingly charges Pope Pius XII with failing to save Jews during the Holocaust.
The role of the Holocaust-era pope, who reigned from 1939 until his death in 1958, has long been controversial, and the Vatican has struggled to defend him over his silence during the mass murder of six million Jews. The caption, which first appeared when the new Holocaust museum was inaugurated at Yad Vashem in 2005, states that the pope maintained neutrality throughout the war and stayed silent even when news of the mass murder of Jews reached the Vatican.
The caption deemed offensive to the Vatican reads:
"In 1933, when he was secretary of the Vatican State, he was active in obtaining a Concordat with the German regime to preserve the Church's rights in Germany, even if this meant recognizing the Nazi racist regime."
"When he was elected pope in 1939, he shelved a letter against racism and anti-Semitism that his predecessor had prepared," it continues. "Even when reports about the murder of Jews reached the Vatican, the pope did not protest either verbally or in writing. In December 1942, he abstained from signing the Allied declaration condemning the extermination of the Jews. When Jews were deported from Rome to Auschwitz, the pope did not intervene.
"The pope maintained his neutral position throughout the war, with the exception of appeals to the rulers of Hungary and Slovakia toward its end. His silence and the absence of guidelines obliged churchmen throughout Europe to decide on their own how to react."
Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director and a Holocaust survivor, said that even if the Vatican considered the caption was inappropriate, the representative should nevertheless attend the ceremony: "While we understand Archbishop Franco's displeasure about the photo caption, his decision to boycott the entire Holocaust Memorial Day ceremonies is unnecessarily insulting and unbecoming," said . "The photo caption may be inappropriate and too judgmental, but it does not justify the Vatican's refusal to participate in Israel's national observation of Holocaust Memorial Day."
Mr. Foxman said the episode served as yet another reminder of the need for the Vatican to declassify all archival materials covering the period of the rise of the Third Reich in Germany and World War II, "so that legitimate independent scholars and historians can study and
analyze them and help us to finally learn the facts concerning Pope Pius XII and his actions vis-a-vis Jews during the Holocaust."
"Without the public release and analysis of the Vatican's wartime archives, the questions about Pope Pius XII will remain unresolved," said Mr. Foxman. "These records have special significance for Holocaust survivors and their families. We strongly urge the Vatican to make public access to the archives their highest priority."
The Vatican did not offer an alternative version of the conduct of Pope Piux XII. Catholic doctrine holds Popes to be infallible -- incapable of error.
In a statement, Yad Vashem voiced "shock and disappointment" that the Vatican's delegate to Israel has chosen not to respect the memory of the Holocaust by refusing to participate in the official ceremony in which the State of Israel and the Jewish people join in memory of the victims, saying that the move contradicts the pope's statement during his visit to Yad Vashem regarding the importance of remembering the Holocaust and its victims.
"It is inconceivable to use diplomatic pressures on an issue of historical research," the statement read.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yariv Ovadia said the Holocaust "was one of the most traumatic events to befall the Jewish people... and it is their [Vatican's] decision whether they want to pay respect to the victims or not."
The Vatican ambassador, who took up his position in Jerusalem last year, said that his move was an effort to "attract attention" on the issue, which he said was offensive to Catholics, and was a question of "human rights." It was unclear to which human rights he was referring: the millions of Jews who were murdered, or those of the dead Pope.
The official state ceremony is attended by all foreign ambassadors to Israel or their representatives, as well as Israeli officials including the prime minister as well as Holocaust survivors.
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