It is known that the Pope did not publicly condemn the policies of the Third Reich towards Poles and Jews, although he probably knew about the atrocities of the Nazis in concentration camps. The letters now shed light on his controversial stance.
Vatican archivist Giovanni Coco discovered the secretary’s correspondence
Pius XII led the Catholic Church from March 1939 to October 1958.
“>Pius XII Robert Leiber with trusted German Jesuit Lothar Koenig, which suggests that the head of the Vatican during World War II knew about the Nazi persecution of Poles and Jews in occupied Poland. Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported this on September 17.
In an interview with the publication, Koko said that in a letter he mentioned a crematorium at the Belzec death camp in German-occupied Poland. Auschwitz camp is also mentioned here. The archivist thus states that there is evidence that gives insight into the flow of news about Nazi crimes that entered the Vatican during the Holocaust.
It turned out that Pius The recovered correspondence could renew a long-running bitter dispute between critics and defenders of Pius XII over the context of his office.
It is the ceremony of canonization of a deceased person in the Catholic Church.
“>sanctificationThe event began in 1967 and caused much controversy within the Catholic Church.
The text of the letters, meanwhile, suggests that the pope chose to remain silent or express his general remorse for the Nazis’ atrocities. In this regard, an excerpt from the Pope’s long speech on December 24, 1942 is instructive. Among other things, the pope said that “hundreds of thousands of people are doomed to death or gradual degeneration, not through any fault of their own, but sometimes simply because of their nationality or race.”
Important
However, just as Pius The authors of the material note that there may be several explanations for this behavior of the first person of the Vatican.
“Of course, the Vatican’s diplomacy was concerned with maintaining its “neutrality” towards the warring parties. Perhaps the difficult legacy of the millennia-old hostility of Christians towards the Jews also played a role in this,” the journalists write.
Perhaps Pius XII feared Nazi retaliation after the German invasion of Rome in September 1943. He was also able to remain silent about the Holocaust because Koening asked the Vatican not to make its reports public, fearing for his life and those of the resisters.
Let us remind you that Vatican representative Cardinal Matteo Zuppi visited China on September 12 to meet with the country’s senior officials about the war in Ukraine. The cardinal was reportedly part of a peacekeeping mission whose aim was to help end the Russia-Ukraine war.
Source: Focus
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