Madam, - Gearóid Ó Dubháin's letter of November 4th raises the issue of "the anti-Semitic attitudes of some people within the European Catholic establishment" before the second World War. No doubt such revolting and poisonous attitudes did exist. Catholic clergy and laity don't always act in accordance with the wishes and instructions of their superiors.
Sir Martin Gilbert, "a Jew and a leading authority on the Holocaust" (see Father Edmond Grace's letter of November 3rd) addressed this issue in February 2003 when speaking of Christians who did not oppose the Nazis: "they did so in spite of, and not because of, their religion. This was particularly true regarding the Catholic Church, whose moral teachings against racism, anti-Semitism and murder were perfectly clear".
Nobody wishing to discuss the Catholic Church's attitude to the Nazis is in a position to do so without reading Pius XI's encyclical, Mit Brennender Sorge("With Burning Concern"), read at all Masses in Germany on March 21st, 1937. This blistering, unambiguous condemnation of National Socialism was drafted by Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pius XII. Eighteen months later, Pius XI told a group of Belgian pilgrims that "it is not possible for Christians to take part in anti-Semitism. Spiritually we are all Jews".
Peter Thompson (October 30th), quotes extensively from a report signed off by Pacelli in Munich, in 1919. Historian Michael Burleigh addresses this on page 163 of his excellent book studying religion and politics in the 20th century entitled Sacred Causes, stating: "it requires a major stretch of the imagination to regard this single document from 1919 as evidence of Pacelli's anti-Semitism...A Mass of evidence from the intervening decades (1919 to 1941) undermines whatever this letter is supposed to insinuate rather than prove".
The first encyclical of Pacelli's pontificate, Summi Pontificatus, which denounced totalitarianism and racism, was described by Heinrich Muller, head of the Gestapo, as "directed exclusively against Germany". British authorities appeared to agree, as the RAF dropped 88,000 copies over Germany.
The strength and effectiveness of the wartime Pope's leadership was testified to by many Jewish leaders and Holocaust survivors, amongst them historian Rabbi Pinchas Lapide, who wrote that Pius XII, the Holy See, the Vatican nuncios, and the whole Catholic Church saved between 700,000 and 860,000 Jews from certain death. - Yours, etc,