Pope John Paul II

* Since when has the Catholic Church now become responsible for the Holocaust? There was plenty of “silence” to go all around back in the 1940s concerning that dreadful event.

If Pope John Paul II is now required to take the blame for the silence and inactivity of Pius XII (that’s a very debatable subject in itself), then what about the Lutherans and other various Protestant religions throughout Europe?

The true perpetrators of the crime are overlooked once again. It was the silent consent of the German people that made the Holocaust possible. They, more than anyone else at the time, knew the true horrors that were taking place in their own country--and did nothing about it.

CHARLES REILLY

Garden Grove

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Re “Gestures Fulfilled, Gestures Wanting,” Commentary, March 22:

Pope Pius XII has been unjustly and inaccurately accused of remaining silent during the Holocaust. Yossi Klein Halevi asks: “Will he (Pope John Paul II) finally apologize for the silence of Pius XII during the Holocaust?”

As Archbishop Pacelli, the future Pius XII drafted Pope Pius XI’s 1937 encyclical, which condemned Nazism, warned of the Holocaust’s imminence and called on Catholic clergy and laity “to resist Nazis’ evil.” He was Pius XI’s “architect of anti-Nazi policy.” Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda chief, wrote: “Again and again reports reached us that the pope (Pius XII) is feverishly at work during this entire crisis.”

Pope Pius XII’s Christmas ’42 message lamented that “hundreds of thousands who, without any fault of their own, sometimes only by reason of their nationality or race, are marked down for death or progressive extinction.” For that the New York Times called him “a lonely voice crying out of the silence of the continent.” Golda Meir said, “When the fearful martyrdom came to our people, the voice of the pope was raised for its victims.”

Ironically, the victims of Nazi distortion and suppression of truth have twisted their Jewish predecessors’ words praising Pope Pius XII.

RICHARD MARTINEZ

Altadena

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The pope’s recent apologies for the atrocities committed by Catholics in past centuries against Jews, Protestants, Muslims and others were genuinely sincere and appropriate. Unfortunately, the response of several Jewish leaders was very shocking and disappointing. They claimed that such apologies did not go far enough for their people.

I am not sure what else this wonderful man of great holiness, grace and harmony could have said or even done in order to satisfy all and bring the past to a peaceful closure.

HUMBERTO JUAREZ

Whittier

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The pope has said “never again” once again. He also apologized to the Jewish people for the wrongdoings committed by the Christians against them.

In a similar apology from the Vatican, he particularly regretted the atrocities committed by Catholics against the natives of America. Among these Catholics, one name that sticks out is that of Father Junipero Serra, who had the habit of forcibly converting American Indians to Christianity by pouring boiling water over their bare skins. Yet Serra is the pope’s current nominee for canonization. How seriously can we take this man?

DAOOD MOOSA

Los Angeles