Pius XII and the Nazis

Christian Century, April 18, 2001 by Robert P. Lockwood

KEVIN MADIGAN is more balanced in his view than many detractors of Pius XII ("Judging Pius XII," March 14). Yet he too suffers from a misunderstanding of the actions of the pontiff in the face of the Holocaust.

Madigan states that Pius "never came close to risking personal or institutional martyrdom." Actually, he may have done so when he served as a liaison between the British and Germans plotting to remove Hitler at the beginning of the war. It is also known that Hitler ordered that Pius be arrested during German occupation of Rome, but the order was eventually rescinded. More important, the strategy of Pius was to save lives through the institutions of the Catholic Church itself, both the diplomatic corps and the local church. These were his means to rescue as many Jews as possible. A less bombastic approach seems a positive strategy rather than a cowardly silence.

Madigan asserts that Pius was vocal in defense of Rome's buildings while silent in defense of the Jews, and asks if one was more precious than the other. The comparison is unfair. Pius could address the German leadership over the bombing of Rome. The issue of the Jews, on the other hand, could not be dealt with in such a fashion. The Nazis would simply not hear it. A different strategy was necessary to meet a totally different horror in the Holocaust.

Madigan dismisses Pinchas Lapide's estimate that the actions of Pius saved over 800,000 lives. We really have no way of knowing if that estimate is correct. But even if Lapide's estimate is an exaggeration by half, the Catholic Church under the leadership of Pius still would have saved more Jewish lives that any other church, international organization or government at the time. Madigan also dismisses Lapide, Jewish leaders and Jewish organizations--and the number is legion--who praised Pius immediately after the war, at his death, and thereafter for his work on behalf of Jews during the Holocaust. Madigan states that this was purely political in order to gain church support for Israel. This charge is often made, but no evidence is ever cited--documentation, retractions--that set forth such a dubious policy. It also simply strains belief that those Jews who had lived and survived the horror of the Holocaust would so coldly and callously sacrifice the memory of the 6 million dead for what would surely be minimal political advantage.

Finally, Madigan states that John Cornwell, Garry Wills and James Carroll are dismissed because of their "status" within the Catholic Church. Actually), Cornwell is dismissed for bad history. Carroll and Wills are dismissed because they are not serious historians and their agenda is plain to see. Their agenda, like Cornwell's, is not to find historical truth about Pius, but to look for a weapon against papal authority within the Catholic Church, particularly as practiced by Pope John Paul II. It is their exploitation of the Holocaust to make points in an internal church debate over the papacy in general that leads many to rightly dismiss them.

Critics of Pius state he was a bureaucrat when the church needed a prophet. Yet these critics can never devise a "prophetic" strategy--the hurling of words from the Vatican--that could have saved as many lives as did Pius's tactics and strategies. More than likely, such a draconian public stance would have rendered the Catholic Church totally ineffective. The policies of Plus weren't galmorous. But they saved many lives.

Robert P. Lockwood Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, New York, N.Y.