Cohen's Pope

Columnist Richard Cohen recycles popular falsehoods about the conduct of the Catholic Church and Pope Pius XII in a not altogether worthless column today about recent remarks by our current pope, Benedict XVI. After making charges about the alleged silence of the Church in the face of the Holocaust, Cohen continues:

In his silence on these matters, Benedict is typical. His predecessor, the marvelous John Paul II, championed the beatification of [St. Maximillian] Kolbe and also once put Pius XII on the fast track to sainthood. But Pius is the most famous of all the church's silent men. He said nothing publicly during the Holocaust. Silence. Silence. Silence.

In recent years there's been a regular and profitable cottage industry attacking Pius XII and the Church  for its conduct at the time. That's in contrast to what was said by contemporaries. An old Michael Novak piece in First Things provides a sample:

From the beginning of his papacy in 1939 until well after his death in 1958, Pope Pius XII was honored with unfeigned warmth by Jewish leaders around the world. Golda Meir was uncommonly effusive in her praise of him. Trees were planted in Israel in his honor. In 1955, the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra flew to the Vatican to give a special concert to show the nation’s gratitude. In 1940, Albert Einstein wrote a tribute in Time. At his death, tributes were universal and eloquent, especially by those Jewish groups closest to his efforts....

For more recent research based on the facts instead of anti-Catholic fairy tales, I recommend The Myth of Hitler's Pope by Rabbi David Dalin. When it came out last year, NRO's David Frum thought Dalin may have pushed too far on some points, but said it "more than proves" the following:

1) that both Pius XII and his predecessor Pius XI abhorred and repeatedly condemned Nazi doctrine;

2) that Pius XII used his diplomatic power to protect Jewish communities in Catholic countries like Hungary and Slovakia - with a measurable impact on the survival rate of the Jews in those countries;

3) that Pius XII defied the very real risk of his own abduction and arrest by the Nazis to protect the Jewish communities of Rome and Italy, including sheltering some 3,000 Roman Jews in his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo during the German occupation of Rome in 1943;

4) that the many Roman Catholic clerics who risked their lives to rescue Jews during World War II testified again and again that they were acting on the orders of the pope - and that letters in Pius XII's own handwriting confirm the claim;

5) that even by the most conservative estimate of the effect of his actions, Pius XII's personal interventions saved the lives of more European Jews than any other person outside the governments and armed forces of the allied powers - more than Oskar Schindler, more than Raoul Wallenberg....

Cohen's column, as I began to say, is not altogether worthless because he asks the questions that I do not believe can ever be answered down here on earth. Cohen:

Now, though, Benedict has actually said something. He said more or less what I did after visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau -- and before that, Treblinka, and afterward, Buchenwald and Terezin. He said what I said after reading a shelf of books on the Holocaust and listening to the stories of survivors: "Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this?" Only I put it differently. Where were you, God? I don't think You were silent. I don't even think You were there.

Religious people can wrestle with the pope's remarks. What does it mean that God was silent? That He approved? That He liked what He saw? That He didn't give a damn? You tell me...

I will not attempt in a blog entry to explain why God permits horror on earth. The traditional answers can be found in the comments section at Amy Welborn's blog. Christ suffered with the victims. If God permitted his Son to be crucified, no wonder that many more would die on this fallen earth. He was present through the actions of people like Kolbe, who took the place of another who was about to be executed. Et cetera. Not enough. In this case I find the question far more satisfying than the puny answers.

So Cohen connected with Benedict here, and that's all for the good. But he needs to brush up on history. I recommend the kind of history based on facts.

UPDATE: Amy has more, and by more I mean she literally put up three posts while I composed this one. The link I just added quotes a new Op-Ed at the Jerusalem Post. For a silent man who did nothing, that Pius XII sure was busy.

 

Comments

[jpsonnen]

i met rabbi david dalin in rome in april. his new book is fantastic!

[JUNEHayden33]

Every one knows that life is not cheap, however we require cash for different stuff and not every man gets enough money. Thence to get some personal loans and financial loan will be good solution.

[business loans]

This is known that cash can make people independent. But what to do when one doesn't have money? The one way is to try to get the personal loans and auto loan.