CNA Staff, May 1, 2020 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- The Holy See has announced that new "measures" have been taken against officials at the Vatican Secretariat of State as part of ongoing investigations into financial dealings at the curial department…. […]
Denver Newsroom, May 1, 2020 / 12:15 pm (CNA).- Scholars say charges that Pope Pius XII covered-up the Vatican’s knowledge of the Holocaust are based on exaggerated claims and do not represent the truth.
Fr. Hubert Wolf, a professor of history at the University of Munster, claimed last month that in the Vatican’s recently opened archives on Pope Pius XII, he had found an anti-Semitic memo which suggested that Pope Pius XII knew about the Holocaust in Europe before the U.S. government did, but made efforts to conceal his knowledge.
But Ronald Rychlak, a professor at the University of Mississippi’s law school and the author of “Hitler, the War, and the Pope” told CNA that Wolf’s argument doesn’t stand up to historical scrutiny.
What Pope Pius XII knew and did during World War II has been a source of controversy for years. That controversy was reignited in early March, when the Vatican opened to researchers its archives on Pius XII. Wolf was among the researchers. But a week after the archives were opened, the coronavirus lockdown in Italy forced researchers to pause their work.
Undeterred, Wolf told German and American media this month that he had found a key document which, he said, could prove that Pius XII lied to the U.S. government by claiming in 1942 that he could not verify intelligence reports, which came from the Jewish Agency for Palestine in Geneva, about death camps for the mass murder of Jews in Poland and Ukraine.
When the U.S. entered World War II in 1942, it did not yet have knowledge of the scale of atrocities committed against Jewish people across Europe, especially the mass murder of Jews in Eastern Europe. It had received reports of those atrocities, however, and was making efforts to verify them.
In 1942, the Vatican, too, had received reports, mostly from Church leaders, about the mass murder of Jews by Nazi forces.
Nevertheless, in September 1942, when a U.S. official asked the Vatican to verify a report from the Jewish Agency for Palestine, Vatican officials said they could not independently confirm the information it contained regarding the existence of death camps, but that the Vatican did know, and had received reports, about atrocities committed by Nazi forces, adding that “the Holy See is taking advantage of every opportunity offered in order to mitigate the suffering.”
Rychlak told CNA that the Holy See’s concern to be judicious about verifying any report “can logically be traced to WWI, when false stories of atrocities were often circulated,”
But after examining the Pius XII archives for a week in March, Wolf pointed journalists this month to a 1942 memo from a staffer in the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Msgr. Angelo Dell’Acqua, who later became a cardinal. The memo, which has not been released to the public, apparently cautioned against verifying the report from the Jewish Agency for Palestine.
Wolf told journalists that the memo warned against believing the report because Jews “easily exaggerate.”
“This is a key document that has been kept hidden from us because it is clearly anti-Semitic and provides background information on why Pius XII did not speak out against the Holocaust,” Wolf told a Munster Catholic newspaper.
German journalist Michael Hesemann was also among the researchers who examined Pius XII’s archives in March. In a statement sent to CNA, he said that Wolf has made his claim about Pius XII without understanding the meaning of the memo he found, or its significance.
He added that the memo “warns not to draw premature conclusions on the new information, [stating]: ‘It is necessary to assure that they are true, since exaggerations happen easily, also among Jews.’ With other words: Trust but verify!”
“For Wolf, this is evidence for the Vatican’s anti-Semitism during the pontificate of Pius XII. For him, it means, and this is how he paraphrases it in several interviews with German media: ‘All Jews are liars,” Hesemann said.
“But it means nothing like that, Hesemann said, explaining that the memo was intended to urge caution against any exaggeration.
“And indeed the Jewish Agency’s report contained several rumors which were not true at all, as we know today. It claimed that ‘in all Eastern Poland and the occupied Russian territories, not a single Jew is alive anymore.’ We know that thousands survived in the underground or became partisans.”
“No government in the world would act on a single report, but waits for an independent verification – that’s why President Roosevelt asked the Vatican, in the first place,” Hesemann added.
In either case, Hesemann said, the memo “did not influence papal policy, which remained the same before and after, nor does it contain any new information. It is one man’s reminder to trust and to verify and nothing more.”
The memo is not included in an 11-volume cache of Vatican documents from the Second World War. To Wolf, this is a reason to be skeptical about the volumes, according to the Washington Post.
But to Hesemann, the memo was not included “not because of a Vatican cover-up, but because it’s irrelevant.”
Hesemann cautioned that Wolf, who has “promoted conspiracy theories” about Pius XII in the past “draws premature conclusions, blames the Vatican of a cover-up and creates sensationalist headlines,” to further “his own agenda,” namely, “stop the ongoing beatification process of Pius XII – at least until he and his team have evaluated the last of the pages Pope Francis made available for historical research.”
Rylchak pointed out evidence, presented in his book, of Pius XII’s concern to oppose the Nazis, which he says was well-recognized by journalists and bishops during the Second World War. He also pointed out that Pius XII, through “ a long series of communications with the American bishops,” encouraged opposition to Nazi ideology.
“Despite all of this, Wolf would have us believe that Pius did not make his opinion known due to a cover note from a low-level assistant,” Rylchak said, calling the assertion “ridiculous.”
Vatican City, May 1, 2020 / 10:30 am (CNA).- Pope Francis has raised Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle to the rank of cardinal bishop in a new sign of his esteem for the former Archbishop of Manila.
The Holy See press office said May 1 that the pope had des… […]
CNA Staff, May 1, 2020 / 09:00 am (CNA).- In a statement marking the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the Vatican has condemned an increasing spate of attacks on churches, synagogues and mosques around the world.
Cardinal Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, M.C.C.J., president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue said in the council’s “message for the month of Ramadan” on May 1 that “the context of recent attacks on churches, mosques and synagogues by wicked persons who seem to perceive the places of worship as a privileged target for their blind and senseless violence.”
He cited the 2019 joint statement of Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar on human fraternity, which stated that such attacks are “a deviation from the teachings of religions as well as a clear violation of international law”.
Religious freedom advocates, including the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) have drawn attention to an increasing number of attacks on churches, synagogues, mosques, and other houses of worship in recent years.
USCIRF released a fact-sheet in October of 2019 that called on states to protect places of worship, emphasizing their “protected status during armed conflict” and saying that “an intentional attack” on a church, synagogue, or mosque “may be considered a war crime.”
The commission’s 2020 annual report noted an increase in attacks on houses of worship around the world in 2019.
In 2019, Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka targeted three churches as well as hotel resorts, killing more than 250 people. Shootings at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, during Muslim Friday prayer, killed 51 people in March, 2019. Shootings at synagogues in the U.S. in October of 2018 and again in April of 2019 killed 12, and roughly 80 gravestones at a Jewish cemetery in France were vandalized with Nazi and anti-Semitic symbols.
Ramadan is a month in the Islamic calendar of fasting, prayer, and acts of service; it began on April 23.
“The month of Ramadan is so central in your religion and therefore dear to you at personal, familial and social levels. lt is a time for spiritual healing and growth, of sharing with the poor, of strengthening bonds with relatives and friends,” the Vatican’s statement read.
After extending good wishes, the Vatican stated that “[t]he thoughts we like to share with you this year following our cherished tradition are about the protection of the places of worship.”
Churches, synagogues, and mosques have historically been places of hospitality, the statement noted.
“While appreciating the efforts done by the international community at different levels for the protection of the places of worship worldwide, it is our hope that our mutual esteem, respect and cooperation will help strengthen the bonds of sincere friendship, and enable our communities to safeguard the places of worship to assure for coming generations the fundamental freedom to profess one’s own beliefs,” the statement said.
Vatican City, May 1, 2020 / 03:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis asked St. Joseph to help Catholics fight for dignified work for all as he celebrated Mass Friday.
To mark the feast of St. Joseph the Worker, May 1, the Italian Christian Workers’ Associa… […]
Vatican City, Apr 30, 2020 / 08:00 am (CNA).- The Holy See press office stated Thursday that a Vatican judge has formally closed an investigation opened last year related to the missing Italian teenager, Emanuela Orlandi.
The investigation authorized … […]
Vatican City, Apr 30, 2020 / 07:15 am (CNA).- Pope Francis prayed Thursday for the many people who have died as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, especially the “anonymous” victims buried in common graves.
More than 200,000 people have… […]
Vatican City, Apr 29, 2020 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- Pope Francis has postponed this year’s Peter’s Pence collection until next fall as the Vatican confronts the economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.
The collection, which traditional… […]
Vatican City, Apr 29, 2020 / 05:15 am (CNA).- The eight beatitudes proclaimed by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount reveal the path from selfishness to holiness, Pope Francis said at his general audience Wednesday.
Speaking via livestream due to the coronavirus crisis, the pope said April 29: “The path of the Beatitudes is an Easter journey that leads from a life according to the world to a life according to God, from an existence guided by the flesh — that is, by selfishness — to one guided by the Spirit.”
In his address from the library of the apostolic palace, the pope concluded his cycle of catechesis on the beatitudes.
He said that the eighth beatitude, “Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:10), was intimately connected to the first, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3).
“This beatitude announces the same happiness as the first: the kingdom of heaven is for the persecuted just as it is for the poor in spirit,” he said. “We understand that we have arrived at the end of a unified path set out in the previous proclamations.”
Those who follow the path of the beatitudes soon find themselves in conflict with the world, the pope noted. But they are blessed because “they have found something worth more than the whole world.”
“The world, with its idols, its compromises and its priorities, cannot approve of this kind of existence,” he said. So it dismisses life according to the Gospel “as an error and a problem, therefore as something to be marginalized.”
That is why the world has persecuted Christians throughout history, the pope observed.
“It is painful to remember that, at this moment, there are many Christians suffering persecution in various parts of the world, and we must hope and pray that as soon as possible their tribulation will be stopped,” he said.
He encouraged Catholics to express their solidarity with the persecuted, who he described as “bleeding members of the body of Christ which is the Church.”
The pope urged Christians to be careful not to read the eighth beatitude in a “self-pitying way.” Sometimes, he said, we arouse contempt because we have drifted away from the Gospel, rather than because we are witnessing to it.
He said: “In fact, the contempt of men is not always synonymous with persecution: just a little later Jesus says that Christians are the ‘salt of the earth,’ and warns against ‘losing the taste,’ otherwise salt ‘serves no other purpose than to be thrown away and trampled underfoot’ (Matthew 5:13). Therefore, there is also a contempt that is our fault when we lose the taste of Christ and the Gospel.”
In off-the-cuff remarks at the end of his address, the pope said: “In persecutions there is always the presence of Jesus who accompanies us, the presence of Jesus who consoles us and the strength of the Spirit who helps us to move forward.”
“Let us not be discouraged when a life consistent with the Gospel attracts people’s persecutions: there is the Spirit that sustains us on this road.”
Vatican City, Apr 29, 2020 / 04:05 am (CNA).- When identifying your faults, avoid being vague and tell God your sins honestly and frankly so that he can heal you, Pope Francis said at Mass Wednesday.
According to Francis, to say: “We are all sin… […]
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