Debating sainthood for Pope Pius XII

Cool. The first Nazi saint.

Can you prove he was a Nazi?

such happy ignorance, nicho. don't let truth get in your way.

I seriously doubt this is an attempt to infiltrate into the procedures of the Catholic Church by influencing the free-thought.

Hitler's cruelty is infamous. He was neither sponsered nor controlled by the Church. Then how can the so called 'critics' claim the Church could have done more?

It is already known that, the Pope did all that possible under the circumstances of the situation to make sure that his attempts yield more good than bad.

Even after this, if the critics say, the Pope should have raised his voice loud, what they really expected was the total eradication of the Church.

Pope is the head of the Church; not the tail of the critics. He has navigated the Church safely through the troubled waters; at the same time spreading out his helping hand to others.

What exactly the critics say is "the Pope should have sacrificed his Church for making a statement - a statement by all possible reasoning proved of no use!"

If the Church is influenced by the barkings of the critics, it has to hide all of it's heroic saints! Besides setting up a wrong tradition for silencing all the future heros of the Church.

Why an "injustice to the Catholic world"? Does every Pope have to be made a saint?

It's all a smear campaign against a blessed man. I quote Rabbi David Dalin, Ph.D., and if interested, you can find the remainder of the article at http://www.catholicleague.org/pius/dalinframe.htm:

"For Jewish leaders of a previous generation, this harsh portrayal of Pope Pius XII, and the campaign of vilification against him, would have been a source of profound shock and sadness. From the end of World War II until at least five years after his death, Pope Pius enjoyed an enviable reputation amongst Christians and Jews alike. At the end of the war, Pius XII was hailed as "the inspired moral prophet of victory," and "enjoyed near-universal acclaim for aiding European Jews." Numerous Jewish leaders, including Albert Einstein, Israeli Prime Ministers Golda Meir and Moshe Sharett, and Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog, expressed their public gratitude to Pius XII, praising him as a "righteous gentile," who had saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust. In his meticulously researched and comprehensive 1967 book, Three Popes and the Jews, the Israeli historian and diplomat Pinchas Lapide, who had served as the Israeli Counsel General in Milan, and had spoken with many Italian Jewish Holocaust survivors who owed their life to Pius, provided the empirical basis for their gratitude, concluding that Pius XII "was instrumental in saving at least 700,000, but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands." To this day, the Lapide volume remains the definitive work, by a Jewish scholar, on the subject.

"The campaign of vilification against Pope Pius can be traced to the debut in Berlin in February 1963 of a play, by a young, Protestant, left-wing West German writer and playwright, Rolf Hochhuth. The Deputy, in which Hochhuth depicts Pacelli as a Nazi collaborator, guilty of moral cowardice and "silence" in the face of the Nazi onslaught, is a scathing indictment of Pope Pius XII's alleged indifferences to the plight of European Jewry during the Holocaust."

The "green light" to sainthood? is that a pun? are you old enough to remember how they botched the preparation of the body such that after a few days lying in state in the Basilica Pope Pius' body turned a light shade of green?

There seems to be quite a lot of documentation showing how Pius worked behind the scenes in freeing children and getting transport papers for ships. Out and out condemnation might not have been the smartest way to antagonize the Nazis.

Read two books on this sad story:
"Hitler's Pope: the Secret History of Pius XII" by John Cromwell and "A Moral Reckoning" by Daniel Jonah Goldgagen. Both deal convincingly of a pope who was constitutionally anti-semitic and who ignored the persecution and deportation of Jews, even when it was happening les than a mile away in the Roman ghetto. His voice and moral authority as pope could have prevented much of this. The fact is he didn't care. He didn't lift a finger; he didn't speak out. He was more than not a saint; he was one of the evil men of the twentieth century.

To say the pope didn't do all he could to prevent the holocaust is like saying they didn't stand in front of the tanks to stop the fall of France or Poland. What could they have done? They where still very fragile and not very powerful yet after the fall of the Napolianic years.
Plus take into consideration who re-established or gave the papacy their authority (kingship) back in 1929? It was Mussolini who was Hitlers right hand man durring WWII, So who do you think they are gonna be friendly to?
And also take into account this one overwhelming point...the papacy says and does what they need to survive. When the power that was taken away at the time of the wound to the head (pope) of the beast, (receieved when Napolians general Bertier took the pope hostage in 1798) is re-established, then watch how merciful they are to the Jews.
America is setting up the image to the beast and will soon be the muscle and completely under the controll of the Catholic church, ready to do the bidding of the original beast, causing all to receive the mark of the beast (enforced worship on Sunday)...God help us.

The book of James , chapter 2, verse 13 says.because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment! i don´t want top go back in history. i just want to know how long does it take one to forgive. the most important commandment is that of love and st. james expreses that above. when are we going to grow up and forgive.

This would be a disaster for Jewish-Catholic relations

In 1920, as Papal Nuncio to Munich, Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli secretly gave Papal money to the charismatic leader of the fascist "Brown Shirts", Adolph Hitler. Young Hitler was even granted a private audience. While His Eminence, like many others, was charmed and duped by Hitler (seasoned politician Neville Chamberlain remarked in his diaries "he has beautiful deep brown eyes, like a woman's"), it nonetheless remains a sentinel lesson as to why the Church should keep it's nose out of politics: did they ever back the wrong horse! So I would suggest that His Holiness' complicity in the rise of Hitler should have compelled him to do something more than lock himself up in Castello Gondolfo for several years waiting for those nasty Germans to go away!

The great Christians during the Nazi years were members of the 'Confessing Church' movement founded by Lutheran Theologian Karl Barth, who eventually paid for his dissent with his life, as did his acolyte, theologian Dietrich Bonhoffer for his role in the plot to kill Hitler. "To be called to Christ is to be called to death", Bonhoffer said. Suffice it to say His Holiness had a somewhat different view of his vocation.

Not that this should be a factor in determining his -- or anyone's -- sanctity, but Pacelli/Pious XII had a female companion through the years, an Austrian nun who was referred to as 'La Popessa'. Their relationship should be recalled when the Church finally gets around to revisiting this celibacy nonsense!

As a Catholic who has studied the actions (and inactions)of the church during WWII, I believe that this pope should not even be considered for sainthood. I,to,question if he is being offered for sainthood simply because he was a pope. Many many very good unknown people will not be considered for sainthood. Let's be fair.

That a synod of bishops presided over by a pope should be addressed by a rabbi is outré. That the rabbi should presume to hector that synod is contemptible. Perhaps the rabbi should familiarize himself with the manifold encomia his own people lavished upon Pope Pacelli. Perhaps he ought to study the career of the chief rabbi of Rome during Pius' pontificate, Israel Zolli, who converted to Catholicism and took Pacelli's Christian name, Eugenio, as his own baptismal name.

The rabbi is an ignoramus and owes Catholics an apology.

There are two issues here: One is whether Pious XII should be canonized and second whether he behaved honorably during WW II. While it is tempting to suggest that if he did not behave honorably during WWII then it would disqualify him from sainthood; the truth is that one has nothing to do with the other.

The Catholic Church (not Catholics but the hierarchy) has rules that govern canonization. They are their rules and they can decide whatever they want. This should be overwhelmingly clear to us based on the pedophile priest era where the Chursh saw fit to protect the priests at the expense of the victims. However, that notwithstanding, I don't see evidence of miracles or any other of the requisites for canonization so it is just a Church politic thing where they decided to make him a saint because he was Pope.

As to his behavior during WWII, the fact that there is disagreement suggests that more could have been done. If the Pope had publicly expressed his displeasure with the Nazis and urged Catholics all over the world to help the victims of the Nazis then I believe more people would have taken the moral high ground. The Pope remained mostly quiet thus leaving people/Catholics unaware of their moral obligation to help. It may have been like pissing in the ocean but sometimes you just have to stand up and do the right thing.

"This would be a disaster for Jewish-Catholic relations"

Who cares besides you religious nuts?

Church didnt say anything because they wanted to still have a degree of power just in case the Germans won. Sabe Todo, this has nothing to do with forginess. Though James is possibly the only credible source of Jesus' teachings, it is not the position of the church...which typically persecutes. You dont forgive by canonizing...simple. If the church is supposed to be a symbol of what is right, then it should ACT it in the face of fire, not condone it until it is frowned upon and then react accordingly. The church is a joke. Benedict may even support the idea of a pope who didnt clash with the nazis, because if you recall...he was a member of nazi youth. That must have made SOME impact on him.

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing
By: Edmund Burke

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
By: Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller

Well, he did pave the way for John XXIII. That is something.

Well put Jill Simon.

Now how would the Flying Spaghetti Monster handle this situation?

I hope the leadership of the Catholic Church tells this obnoxious, lying Rabbi to mind his own business and stop trying to run the Church. They should also ask him why the Palestinians must suffer for the Holocaust when they had nothing to do with it. I am sick of the Catholic Church pandering to the Jews, who hate the Church.

Some indisputable facts:
in 1939, the New York Times quickly lauded the pontiff's first encyclical as "a powerful attack on totalitarianism, "adding that "It is Germany that stands condemned above any country or movement in this encyclical--the Germany of Hitler and National Socialism."
In 1940 Einstein lauded the pope: "Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing the truth."
In 1941, a NYT editorial said, "The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas." repeating it again in 1942.
In 1944, the chief rabbi of Jerusalem opined that "The people of Israel will never forget what His Holiness and his illustrious delegates...are doing for our unfortunate brothers and sisters in the most tragic hour of our history, which is living proof of Divine Providence in this world."
In 1945, the World Jewish Congress donated $20,000 to Vatican charities "in recognition of the work of the Holy See in rescuing Jews from Fascist and Nazi persecutions."
Three years before Pope Pius XII died, the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra flew to Rome to give him a special concert. When he died in 1958, Leonard Bernstein of the NY Philharmonic called for a minute of silence "for the passing of a very great man, Pope Pius XII." Pinchas Lapide, an Israeli official who researched the Yad Vashem archives suggested that 860,000 trees be planted in the hills of Judea to honor the pope--one for every Jewish person he saved.

Hey JOhnny
I am not a religious nut
Get a life

Why didn't the rabbi condemn the US government for turning back a shipload of Jews from American ports in the late Nineteen Thirties, thus condemning them to certain death? US immigration was closed to Jews during this time. Why didn't he condemn President Roosevelt for remaining silent? If he judges Pius XII by contemporary standards, then he should also judge the US by the same standards. It's only fair.