In a recent discussion on IRC, it was suggested that he saved about 700,000 jews from the Nazis by hiding them and encouraging South American countries to accept them. It seems to me, however, that the Pope's main concern was protecting the Roman Catholic Church and he was willing to turn a blind eye towards what was happening to Jews and other non-Catholics in order to minimize attacks against the Church.

The usual defense given in defense of Pius was that if he had spoken out against the Nazi persecution of the Jews, it would have made things worse for the Jews. There does not seem to be any reason to believe this was true; in fact, Germany had a large Catholic population which might have heeded a Papal decree (the person I was talking to claimed the Pope's actions prevented persecution against the Jews in Hungary and Italy without explaining why similar actions wouldn't have worked in Germany). While there were certainly Jews who were saved by Catholics, this doesn't mean that the Vatican can claim the credit for having saved these people. The number of Jews directly saved by the Vatican are probably in the hundreds, not hundreds of thousands.

Pius XII was, unlike his fiery predecessor, too reticent to step outside the formal diplomatic positions traditionally (i.e., since the dissolution of the Papal States) expressed by the popes. His Christmas message of 1942, hailed at the time as the only voice against Hitler in Europe, is now criticized for being too bland. While I personally think he could have done more, he certainly did more than any of the other religious leaders in Europe, and world leaders of the time, so it is interesting that he is the one who continually comes up for significant discussion.

:m: Peace.

the general feeling among Jews towards the Vatican and the then-Pope is that he was silent about the Holocaust and other persecution and that his silence (other by choice or fear or impotence) contributed to the deaths of many Jews

John Paul II has recently recognized the Vatican's failures during those times and has apologized.

can't make it right by an apology 60 years after the fact, but it's a start

you know, i wish the current pope was the pope back then. in his younger years he was a very big activist. some give him credit for being a big force in helping bringing down communism and Soviet control in Eastern Europe

Let us all not down play the cetain fault of the Church in the 6,000,000 innocent lives that were murdererd just for hapepnd to be of a certain root.

Thanks at least to the late Pope John Paul the II for apologizing.

the general feeling among Jews towards the Vatican and the then-Pope is that he was silent about the Holocaust and other persecution and that his silence (other by choice or fear or impotence) contributed to the deaths of many Jews

John Paul II has recently recognized the Vatican's failures during those times and has apologized.

can't make it right by an apology 60 years after the fact, but it's a start

you know, i wish the current pope was the pope back then. in his younger years he was a very big activist. some give him credit for being a big force in helping bringing down communism and Soviet control in Eastern Europe

The history of Church propaganda against Jews for 2,000 years had a lot to do with that, but Christians today by-in-large have changed.

The usual defense given in defense of Pius was that if he had spoken out against the Nazi persecution of the Jews, it would have made things worse for the Jews.No, it's because it would have made things worse for the Catholics. The kings of occupied Denmark and Bulgaria flatly refused to participate in the holocaust and their loyal subjects rallied behind them. The Nazis didn't need the grief so they didn't push it. These acts of defiance not only did not make things worse for the Jews, it made things better. Bulgaria continued to be tolerant of its Jews--especially by the standards of both the Soviet bloc and the Balkan region--throughout the 20th Century.

Christians today by-in-large have changed.That's Christendom for you, always bringing up the rear. Once a particular principle has been accepted by everyone else and is no longer controversial, the Christians all jump on the bandwagon and brag about what a positive influence Jesus has been on the world.

Christians didn't give the civil rights movement enough support to actually enable it to make any progress... until several high-profile post-WWII politicians started talking about integration, and an entire generation of Flower Children had been marching in the street.

Christians as a people have always lagged decades or centuries behind the progress of the rest of humanity. Whenever there is a conflict of ideas, Christendom has ALWAYS taken the side of evil. Christians cheered the Crusaders, ratted on their neighbors during the Inquisition, shared the plunder from the annihilation of both of the New World's civilizations, lit the fires for the witch burnings, bought and owned the slaves, marched for Prohibition, sat on the sidelines during the Holocaust, and happily slaughtered each other in Belfast.

Yes there have always been a few "real" Christians who worked in earnest against these atrocities, but the operative word is "few." Christianity has historically NEVER brought out the good in its adherents during the times when it mattered.

Christendom will never produce enough William Penns or Mother Theresas to cleanse the blood off of the bible.

I am sick of Protestants criticizing the Pope for not speaking up for the Jews during Nazi persecution. The facts are that the Church did do a great deal to save many Jews. The fact that they could have done more is up for debate. However, where were the Protestant Churches during this time? Where were the atheists during this time?

The Catholic church helped the Jews in covert ways like hiding them out but if they were found out then the Nazi's would have went after them and shut the oiperation down. But really i wonder what Christians were supposed to do? The pope could have went after Hitler with his cane or something like that but it took a world war to get rid of the Nazi party and Hitler.

Every media outlet inside Germany was controlled so this is nothing more than a pipe dream.

Where was anybody trying to stop the death camps? But none-the-less the Catholic Church seemingly had a peculiar position. There is a book called, "The Real Odessa" which suggests Catholic priests helped war criminals flee Germany after the war. The History channel just ran an episode on it.

Books can suggest pretty much anything, the more controversial the more likely to make a profit.