Pope Pius XII knew about concentration camps as evidenced by a newly discovered letter from Vatican archives
by BkkGrl
Pope Pius XII knew about concentration camps as evidenced by a newly discovered letter from Vatican archives
by BkkGrl
4 comments
> A letter emerges from the Vatican Archives which opens a glimpse into the events of the Second World War and the position taken by Pius XII.
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> Pope Pacelli knew about the concentration camps and the mass extermination of the Jews that was perpetrated there daily.
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> This unpublished document was published by ‘la Lettura’ of the Corriere della Sera. The discovery is due to Giovanni Coco, archivist and researcher at the Vatican Archives, who in an interview with Massimo Franco reveals: “It is a unique case, it has enormous value”. He then explains: “We try to clarify, also to understand the terrible period in which Pacelli led the Church”. It is evident that this scoop will reopen the debate on the so-called ‘silence’ of Pius XII and could even put a mortgage on the cause of his beatification. But it is the Vatican itself that has chosen the line of transparency, first by opening the archives of that period and now by bringing this important document to light. The historian says he hopes that these new papers “fuel a new awareness and help to clarify. We have debated for more than half a century on documents and indirect sources. Now we have the direct ones, and others will probably emerge. We strive to make them as accessible to everyone as possible, so that we can understand the terrible period in which Pius XII led the Church. Everything must emerge, without fear or prejudice. This is what we have been doing in recent years here at the Archive”. Statements in line with the choice of the Prefect of the Archives, Msgr. Sergio Pagano, who Franco met on this occasion. While on the one hand this new discovery highlights that the history of those years, with particular reference to what the Vatican did or did not do, is yet to be written, on the other it is a sign of the climate of terror and threat that reached as far as the Sacred Palace . In this regard, the ‘La Lettura’ insert of the Corriere publishes a photograph of a dagger with the Nazi swastika engraved on it. It was found in the apartment of Pius XII. by his successor, Pope John XXIII, who asked for explanations from the then substitute of the Secretariat of State Monsignor Angelo Dell’Acqua, who, not knowing anything about the object, “turned to Sister Pascalina Lenhert, the oracle of Pius XII, his housekeeper. And Sister Pascalina revealed that the dagger had been brought to the audience by a member of the SS who was to use it against Pius XII. But the soldier had reformed and had given it to the Pope as a gift.” The archivist and researcher Coco reveals this in the same interview with Franco. Pius XII had been urged by Myron Taylor, personal representative of the President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, to say strong words about the persecution of the Jews. But he didn’t. For the Vatican historian “other fears also had an influence: first of all the concrete possibility of Nazi reprisals against Polish Catholics, his flock of faithful. It would have meant severing relations with the bishops of that community already under the Nazi heel. And then, In a large part of the Vatican world, prejudice against Jews stagnated, not only on a religious level, but sometimes also on an anti-Semitic level.”
Every leader of that time knew this is not news
as far as I remember lot of nazis got vatican’s passports to escape. maybe my memory is wrong.
You don’t say