Pope’s Analogy on Abortion
Conrad repeated the allegation that Pope Pius XII turned a blind eye toward Hitler’s systematic extermination of European Jewry. This allegation has been challenged by historians.
Pope Pius saw how his predecessor (Pius XI) helped bring about increased persecution of the Catholic Church in Germany in 1937, with the publication of his encyclical attacking National Socialism, Mit Brennen-der Sorge-- an encyclical, incidentally, which Pius XII helped write. (Before his election to the papacy in 1939, Pius XII--as Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli--served as the papal secretary of state.) During the war, Pope Pius saw how the protest of the Dutch bishops adversely affected the Jewish community--it resulted in increased persecution of the Jews in the occupied Netherlands. (Among those arrested was Edith Stein, a convert from Judaism to Catholicism, who had entered a Carmelite convent.)
During the war, the Vatican hid some 15,000 Jews. The Catholic Church, according to Jewish historian Pinchas Lapide, saved more than 700,000 Jews in Europe. Given the meager resources the church had to work with, I believe there is little the church need apologize for.
JOHN T. DONOVAN
Hacienda Heights
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