Historian urges to carefully examine the records of Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust

“Lately there has been a change with respect to Pius XII,” said the historian William Doino A CNA, Ewtn News agency. The pontiff of the time of the war has often been vilified, said Doino, added: “He will soon receive due recognition” for his efforts to rescue Jews and other people persecuted by Nazis and fascists more than 80 years ago.

This year, Yom Hashoá, also known as the Holocaust commemoration daywas held on April 24 in the United States and Israel, according to the Jewish lunar calendar. In the rest of the world, the International Day of Commemoration of the Holocaust is celebrated on January 27.

Doino has dedicated decades to investigating the legacy of Pope Pius XII and his efforts during the war to rescue Jews, allied military and other people persecuted by Nazi occupation. He has interviewed clergy and diplomats who personally met Pius XII and who could testify firsthand. Unlike other researchers, Doino recorded these interviews, who base their reports on the Pontiff.

He is also co -author of Pius XII War: Responses to Pius XII critics. The book editor is Rabbi David G. Dalinwho pointed out that prominent Jews, such as Albert Einstein, Golda Meir and Rabbi Chief Yitgzhak Halevi Herzog, praised Pius XII for saving thousands of Jews.

Doino said that “a mountain of evidence” provided by modern investigations and recently revealed documents offer new knowledge about Pope Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli), and his critics have overlooked their efforts. However, Doino also said in an interview that the Church must face the “increasing evils of antijudaism and anti -Semitism, which represent a serious threat to the Jewish community worldwide.”

Outstanding Catholic figures, such as Pius XII, responded by fighting these dangerous sins and defending the Jews. “The dignity given by God and the fundamental human rights of each human being must be respected at all times; our Catholic faith does not demand less,” he said.

Pius XII, like his predecessors, sought to be neutral and work for peace. “He was not just an affable diplomat. He was willing to think with originality and to assume risks,” said Doino. He was subject to enormous pressure, and rescuers were in danger of death. Many efforts of the Pope and the Church were too dangerous to document them, said Doino, which represented a challenge for historians. Doino said that the Vatican clergy received oral instructions from the Pope to rescue Jews.

Numerous authorsincluding Catholic journalist John CornwellThey have linked to Pope Pius XII with the destruction of European Jews. Cornwell argued that, before and during World War II, Pius XII legitimized the Adolf Hitler extermination regime. Cornwell accused him of anti -Semitism and seeking the aggrandizement of the papacy. However, there is abundant information that denies the narrative of the indifference papal, or even their complicity, in crimes.

Doino said that Pius XII used diplomatic and undercover means to rebuke the Nazis for their eugenics and racism, and to avoid war. But the fascists and the Nazis did not listen, said Doino, “because, as we know, psychopaths and murderers do not listen to honorable people.” He also pointed out that Pius XI, Pius XII predecessor, published in 1937 With burning concernan encyclical that denounced anti -Semitism and fascism, which Pius XII confirmed.

Doino said that radical generalizations on the Church and the papacy should be ruled out, despite the fact that There were specific cases of anti -Semitic clergy and laity that supported the axis. Doino also confirmed that the Pope actively helped the anti -zi resistance and He sought to overthrow Adolf Hitler.

Doino said that researchers must go beyond the Vatican archives to document Pius XII efforts. He commented that in Myron Taylor: The Man Nobody Knew (Myron Taylor, the man who knew no one), author C. Evan Stewart revealed in 2023 that Taylor, the official representative of the United States before the Holy See, learned that the Pope, in a famous 1940 meeting With the Nazi diplomat Joachim Von Ribbentrop, he demanded that two representatives of the Vatican be allowed to visit Poland to document the Nazi atrocities when he learned that the Jews were being persecuted. The German admitted that the Jews were being exterminated and then rejected the papal request. “This shows that Pius XII defended the Jews,” said Doino, and denies the statements to the contrary.

Pius XII critics have a hard time demonstrating that it was anti -Semitic or indifferent to the difficult situation of European Jews. “What they do is try to link it with other officials who, unfortunately, were anti -Semitic or anti -Judios. But even in those cases, God worked in them. Some anti -Semites, when faced with Nazis horrors, changed or allowed their human compassion to transcend their intolerances to rescue the Jews,” he said.

It is known that Archbishop Angelo Roncalli, future Pope John XXIII, rescued thousands of Jews while exercising as a papal diplomat in Türkiye and Greece during World War II. Archbishop Clemens August Graf Von Galen de Münster (Germany) protested against Nazi euthanasia in 1941.

“This would not have happened if Pope Pius would not have authorized them. It was made under their orders and inspiration,” said Doino. “Separating Roncalli’s actions from those of the Pope is incorrect.”

Doino said that those who criticize the horrors of the Holocaust should be humble and receptive to the truth, and follow the facts wherever they lead them. He pointed out that historian P. Hubert Wolf, an acute critic of Pius XII, has requested since then A reevaluation of the Pope’s legacy based on new documentation.

Vatican documents revealed by Papal Archivist Johan Ickx reveal in The office – The Jews of Pius XII (The office – The Jews of Pius XII), published in 2020 and based on a decade of investigation, which the Pope constantly sought peace and created an office to save people in danger.

ICKX said: “I think there are 2,800 cases, there is a list equivalent to Schindler’s, a ‘Pacelli list’; I wonder how it is possible that the Holy See has never published it.” During the German occupation of Italy, 81% of the 39,000 Jews in Italy were saved.

Suzanne Brown-Fleming, of the United States Holocaust commemorative museum, explainedfor example, at a conference held in Rome in October 2023 that, before the Second Vatican Council, many Catholics considered the Jews and Judaism “something dangerous, something different.” But many fought against these prejudices and saved Jews “Sometimes at the expense of their lives”.

Among the rescuers, he said, were those who inspired the Second Vatican Council, such as Pope John XXIII, who opened it. He added that lay people, parishes, seminars, religious orders and papal institutions housed Jews, creating false identities and introducing them clandestinely in Switzerland despite the threat of death.

Translated and adapted by the ACI Press team. Originally published in CNA.