Madam, – I commend Pope Benedict XVI for his decision to move Pope Pius XII a step closer to sainthood (“Pope to visit Rome’s synagogue”, irishtimes.com, January 17th).
Despite largely Jewish efforts to cast a shadow over Pope Pius XII’s good character, it is an irrefutable fact that Pius XII and the Catholic Church saved more Jews in Europe during the second World War than any other party, with the only exception the Allied liberating armies themselves.
He often acted secretly and silently because, in light of the practical situations of that complex period of history, he foresaw that only in this way could he avoid the worst and save the greatest possible number of Jews.
In 1946 Isaac Herzog, chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, wrote a letter to Pius XII thanking him for helping Jews during the Holocaust and for “sheltering thousands of children, who were hidden in Catholic institutions”.
Herzog further stated: “God willing, may history remember that when everything was dark for our people, His Holiness lit a light of hope for them.”
It is estimated by Gary Krupp, of the Pave the Way Foundation, that Pius and the Roman Catholic Church saved the lives of 850,000 Jews and others persecuted by the Nazis during the war.
Pius promoted intense charitable work on behalf of the persecuted, without distinction of religion, race, nationality or political affiliation. Relatives and other witnesses have attested to the fact that he voluntarily deprived himself of food, heating, clothes and comforts in order to share the condition of the people, so harshly tried by the bombing and the consequences of war. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – In Rome last year, I happened to pass by a synagogue. On the wall was a plaque in memory of 1,000 or so Italian Jewish men, women and children rounded up and shipped by the Germans in trucks to Auschwitz to be murdered.
I thought about what it must have been like that night: the men and women terrified, the children crying, the trucks coming.
Now, 65 years after the round-up, there is a movement to canonise Pope Pius.
Did he say anything on Vatican Radio that night during the war? Was there an outraged editorial in the papal newspaper the following day? And they want to make him a saint. – Yours, etc,