Friday, July 9, 2010

'Hitler's Pope' saved thousands of Jewish lives - Telegraph

By Simon Caldwell - 06 Jul 2010
Pope Pius, who was labelled “Hitler’s Pope” because of his silence during the Holocaust, may have arranged the exodus of about 200,000 Jews from Germany just three weeks after Kristallnacht, when thousands of Jews were rounded up and sent to concentration camps.
The claim was made by Dr Michael Hesemann, a German historian carrying out research in the Vatican archives for the Pave the Way Foundation, a US-based inter-faith group.
He said that Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli – the future Pius XII – wrote to Catholic archbishops around the world to urge them to apply for visas for “non-Aryan Catholics” and Jewish converts to Christianity who wanted to leave Germany.

Continue reading ‘Hitler's Pope’ saved thousands of Jewish lives – Telegraph
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The term ‘Hitler’s Pope’ comes from John Cornwell’s anti-Pope Pius XII book ‘Hitler’s Pope’ published in 1999. At the time certain media outlets (ABC) heavily promoted the book. Since then much of Cornwell’s book has been debunked. Ken Woodward, writing in Newsweek, stated that Hitler's Pope has "errors of fact and ignorance of context [that] appear on almost every page.

On a positive note, Cornwell has now changed his position on Pope Pius XII. In his book The Pontiff in Winter (2004), p. 193, Cornwell says:
“ I would now argue, in the light of the debates and evidence following 'Hitler's Pope', that Pius XII had so little scope of action that it is impossible to judge the motives for his silence during the war, while Rome was under the heel of Mussolini and later occupied by the Germans.”

However it has been asked that given Cornwell has changed his position on Pope Pius XII why has he not withdrawn his book, or at least altered its hateful title?

Of course there’s plenty of money to be made in promoting lies and hate against the Catholic Church just ask Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.

Image courtesy of Ambrosius007

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