PIUS XII: JESUITS CLAIM POPE SAVED THOUSANDS OF JEWS

PIUS XII: JESUITS CLAIM POPE SAVED THOUSANDS OF JEWS

(AGI) - Vatican, Jan. 13 - The Jesuit magazine "Civilta' Cattolica" defends the legacy of Pius XII, whose actions in 1944 - according to the magazine - contributed to "saving the lives of parts of the Hungarian Jewish community". The magazine publishes an article covering the deportation of Hungarian Jews: "deportation, starvation, dire conditions and murder left a community which numbered 120 thousand: the largest community to have survived the Nazi holocaust".

According to the Jesuits "thanks to the bravery of men, who risked their lives <...> to save Jews from deportation, which was tantamount top a death sentence. <...> One should not that forget that the address Pius XII made to regent Horthy, contributed to stopping deportations, which had continued relentlessly since May 14". The article signed by Giovanni Sale also aims to explains the reasons behind the Pope's decision: "humanitarian agencies were calling on the Pope to address the issue publicly with the Hungarian clerical establishment and the common people, calling on them to stop the deportation of Jews.

The Pope didn't choose to address his audience via the radio but through church during his October 29 address <...>. The message akin to that submitted to the Regent, called on the clerical establishment to commit full heartedly to aiding the victims of war, regardless of race, in clear reference to Jews". Civilta' Cattolica also highlights the role of Budapest's Vatican Attache' Monsignor Gennaro Verolino, "who issued a large number of protection orders: 15 thousand according to Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini, the future Pope Paolo VI, almost 25 thousand at that time". The Vatican Nuntio "by creating shelters which afforded diplomatic immunity to Budapest Jews". Archbishop Verolino currently 90 was recently awarded the Swedish "Anger Prize".(AGI) -
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http://www.agi.it/english/news.pl?doc=200501131537-1139-RT1-CRO-0-NF11&page=0&id=agionline-eng.oggitalia

Sunday Times, 9 January
Did the Pope 'steal' Holocaust children?
Daniel Goldhagen
A 1946 Vatican letter was an attempt to stop the return of children to their Jewish families



Imagine that a person, at some risk to himself, saves an infant from a burning car in a rural area. The parents are dead. We would call him a hero.
But then he decides to keep the child and raise her in his god’s way. The man does not inform the authorities. When the desperate child’s relatives come looking for her, even knocking on his door, he denies any knowledge of the child’s whereabouts. The man’s initial good deed has become a crime. He is a kidnapper.

A document from the archives of the French Roman Catholic Church has just been published that reveals Pope Pius XII to have been like this man when Jewish relatives came frantically knocking, demanding their children. In October 1946 a letter containing papal instructions was sent to the papal nuncio in France, Cardinal Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII.

He was a man of known compassion for Jews, who was working to reunite Jewish children hidden in Catholic institutions during the Holocaust with parents, relatives and Jewish institutions. The letter ordered Roncalli to desist and to hold on to the Jewish children: “Those children who have been baptised cannot be entrusted to institutions that are unable to ensure a Christian education.”

Pius XII’s intent to deprive Jewish parents of their children was unequivocal: “If the children have been entrusted (to the church) by their parents, and if the parents now claim them back, they can be returned, provided the children themselves have not been baptised. It should be noted that this decision of the Congregation of the Holy Office has been approved by the Holy Father.”

More:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1431072,00.html