Is there any love of truth?

            Much of the media world jumped with glee at the chance of making known, reviewing and praising John Cornwell’s 1999 book Hitler’s Pope, in which the author claims that Pope Pius XII was a supporter of National Socialism in Germany and did little or nothing to stop the Nazi campaign of horror against European Jews.  Strange how quiet all these chatterboxes became when powerful and completely convincing rebuttals were published, not the least of which is the book by Rabbi David Dalin, The Myth of Hitler’s Pope:  How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis.  One has to wonder:  Do these people of the media, who claim to be dedicated to the task of making the facts known – do these people really care at all about the truth?  Yes, one has to wonder.

            But this whole tawdry and disreputable crusade against Pius XII (and thus against the Catholic Church) has been going on for quite a while.  The pogrom started in 1963 with the premiere of left-wing German writer Rolf Hochhuth’s fictional play The Deputy, in which the Holy Father is portrayed as unconcerned about the fate of the Jews.  There followed a whole series of attacks on Pius, each one roundly refuted for the yellow journalism that it was; yet the effort continues and has culminated in Cornwell’s little screed.  But the media lap it up.  Evidently, they don’t mind being proven wrong and foolish over and over again, and that may be because many of them have no real interest in truth. 

            What follows are a series of quotations, both from a magazine article concerning this subject, as well as direct quotations from a number of well-known Jews that give the lie to all these attempts to denigrate the late Pope Pius XII; these are readily accessible to any of the media persons who would declaim on this matter, to those, that is, who can at least read:

            “At no other site in Nazi-occupied Europe were as many Jews saved and sheltered for as long a period as at Castel Gandolfo [the Pope’s summer residence] during the Nazi occupation of Rome.”

            “Indeed the Nazi government understood the Pope’s opposition to their ideology all too well.  Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich observed in 1943, ‘We should not forget that in the long run the pope in Rome is a greater enemy of National Socialism than Churchill or Roosevelt.’  A Nazi commentary on Pius’ Christmas address of 1942 observed, ‘His speech is one long attack on everything we stand for… He is clearly speaking on behalf of the Jews… he is virtually accusing the German people of injustice toward the Jews, and makes himself the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals.’”

            “When in the summer of 1944 a group of Roman Jews came to thank the Pope for the protection he had extended to them, Pius replied:  ‘For centuries, Jews have been unjustly treated and despised.  It is time they were treated with justice and humanity.  God wills it, and the Church wills it.’”

            And from the mouths and pens of famous Jews themselves, who unlike many of the detractors of Pius XII, actually witnessed the terror of Nazism…

            “Being a lover of freedom, when the Nazi revolution came to Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced.  Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers, whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks.  Only the Catholic Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing the truth.  I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom.  I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised, I now praise unreservedly” (Albert Einstein).

            “We share in the grief of humanity [at the death of Pius XII]… When fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, the voice of the pope was raised for the victims.  The life of our times was enriched by a voice speaking out on the great moral truths above the tumult of daily conflict.  We mourn a great servant of peace” (Golda Meir).

            “The people of Israel will never forget what His Holiness and his illustrious delegates, inspired by the eternal principles of religion, which form the very foundation of true civilization, are doing for our unfortunate brothers and sisters in the most tragic hour of our history, which is living proof of Divine Providence in this world” (Rabbi Isaac Herzog, chief rabbi of Israel). 

            “I told [Pope Pius XII] that my first duty was to thank him, and through him the Catholic Church, on behalf of the Jewish public for all they had done in the various countries to rescue Jews… We are deeply grateful to the Catholic Church” (Moshe Sharett, Israel’s second prime minister).

            Numerous other quotations could be presented, but with many of the persons of the media it would make no difference:  they would simply ignore what does not agree with them, what is not conducive to their project of denigrating Pope Pius XII and the Church.  The lesson for us is not to be gullible when we hear or read these self-styled pundits pontificate on things they do not know, or when they disregard truth in pursuit of an agenda.  Let them babble on, but let us remember that much of what they proclaim on such matters as Pius XII is “sound and fury, signifying nothing,” except, perhaps, ignorance and/or deceit.