Pius XII & the Jews: further research, please

Commonweal, July 17, 1998 by John Pawlikowski

One major research challenge before us is to integrate two lines of scholarship relative to Pius that have never been brought together. As papal nuncio and as papal secretary of state (Eugenio Pacelli), and as pope, Pius XII supported the notion of a distinctive Catholic social order, sharing in Catholicism's century-long opposition to a liberal social model. While he certainly opposed nazism in principle (as his important contribution to Pius XI's 1937 encyclical, Mit brennender sorge, denouncing the movement, bears witness), his priority for most of his time in church leadership was the defense of the Catholic church against bolshevism and liberalism. But in the early 1940s, there is a noticeable movement away from his support of traditional Catholic notions of the social order toward an embryonic embrace of a social model bearing some of the characteristics associated with the long-opposed liberal tradition. In his Christmas messages of 1940, '41, and '42, delivered by radio to the peoples of war-tom Europe, we see the beginnings of a fundamental shift in Pius's thinking. These statements show the pope calling for an entirely new social order in Europe and in the world-at-large, an order that would enhance justice and peace for all.

An interesting, and still relatively unexplored, question is how this shift in Pius's perspective on the social order affected his approach to Jewish victimization. There is in the early forties an increase in his efforts, most of them behind the scenes, to save Jews. Is there a connection? Perhaps, but solid documentary evidence for any definitive conclusion is still lacking. Some interesting materials are now appearing which seem to confirm the possibility of such a connection.

Recently I came into possession of a letter written by Rabbi Herbert A. Friedman about a meeting he had with Pius right after the end of World War II. Rabbi Friedman, along with a fellow Jewish military chaplain, Philip S. Berstein, visited the pope at Castel Gandolfo at the behest of the U.S. military to discuss the impact of the Kielce pogrom in Poland. Upon their arrival, Pius led them to a garden where he was providing sanctuary for some two hundred Jewish children. Friedman reports in his letter that in the course of their conversation, the pope brought up the issue of the Vatican's 1933 concordat with Hitler. Pius said that it was a product of its time, but that "he now saw things differently."

But before we posit too quickly that the turnabout in Pius's general perspective on the social order had direct implications for his approach to the Jewish question, we will need to deal more extensively with the work of Marquette University historian, Michael Phayer. He claims that Pius contributed to the exoneration of German Christians right after the war, despite the pleas of such prominent Catholics as philosopher Jacques Maritain. Maritain, then serving as French ambassador to the Vatican, tried to convince the pope that he must address the issue of German collective responsibility, especially that of German Catholics, even those who were not directly involved in the activities of the Gestapo and the SS. Pius remained unmoved by Maritain's argument. In fact, the pope took steps that undercut the German Catholic bishops' 1945 Fulda statement in which they argued that those who took part in the atrocities had to be brought to justice. Maritain's opposition to Pius, which led to his resignation as ambassador, needs to be examined far more closely, including Maritain's personal reflections on Pius, which he left in the French embassy's archives. These are not entirely complimentary regarding Pius's judgment in these matters.

The exchange between the two points to the need to probe far more deeply than has been the case so far into the personal impressions of his contemporaries and how people at the time reacted to his statements. The task has begun, yielding both positive and negative assessments, but I am convinced that much relevant material remains unexamined.

The memoirs of the late Cardinal Henri de Lubac, a leader in the French Catholic resistance, and the testimonies of Italian Jews and Catholics collected in Margherita Marchione's book, Yours Is a Precious Witness (Paulist, 1997), indicate a much more favorable assessment of Pius XII. They suggest that his generic statements against the Nazis were understood by some Catholics as directly referring to the attack on the Jews, which Catholics were obliged to counteract with rescue efforts. There are also the testimonies of the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, the current chief rabbi in Rome, Elio Toaff, and favorable editorials in the New York Times in 1941 and 1942. What we lack is any coherent integration of these materials, favorable and unfavorable. They have been used generally in isolation either to defend or to castigate the pope. Perhaps they can never be brought together into any reasonable holistic picture. Perhaps Pius will always remain an enigmatic figure, though I, for one, am not quite prepared to give up on a more comprehensive picture.