Pope Francis, Argentina's Dirty War, and Heroics

If this is accurate, then the man's a hero. Excerpts:

...While a military-backed dictatorship in Argentina was conducting a clandestine war on suspected dissidents, then-Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the future pope, masterminded a secret strategy to save those being targeted, according to a new book.

Titled "Bergoglio's List: Those Saved by Pope Francis; Stories Never Told," also includes the transcript of the then-cardinal's testimony during a nearly four-hour court interrogation in 2010. A panel of judges was investigating suspected human rights violations committed during the 1976-1983 dictatorship.

The future pope was head of the Jesuit province in the country from 1973 to 1979, the height of the clandestine war, which saw as many as 30,000 Argentines kidnapped, tortured, murdered or disappeared, never to be seen again.

The book, currently only in Italian, was to be released Oct. 1, while excerpts were published in the Italian Catholic daily, Avvenire, Sept. 6.

According to the various testimonies gathered together in the volume, the future pope made sure no one knew who was part of a clandestine network that sheltered or shuttled to safety dissidents, unionists, priests, students, intellectuals, Catholics and others.

"Each person would do one particular favor for (Father Bergoglio) the head of the Jesuits in Argentina: one who would let someone sleep over for one night, another who would give someone a ride, one would put in a good word to a European consulate worker" in getting someone out of the country, said the Vatican paper, L'Osservatore Romano, Sept. 7.

By never letting anyone know he was part of a larger, coordinated effort, then-Father Bergoglio could keep "the risk minimal and let information circulate as little as possible," the paper said.

In the book, Argentine Jesuit Father Juan Manuel Scannone said the future pope never let on to anyone what he was doing, and no one even realized what they had been part of until years later...

Rather like the underground work undertaken by Pope John XXIII and Paul VI at the behest of Pius XII. For more, see:

• Hitler, the War, and the Pope
• The Myth of Hitler's Pope: Pope Pius XII And His Secret War Against Nazi Germany
• Pius XII and the Second World War: According to the Archives of the Vatican
• Righteous Gentiles: How Pius XII and the Catholic Church Saved Half a Million Jews From the Nazis
• The Pope's Jews: The Vatican's Secret Plan to Save Jews from the Nazis
• Defamation Of Pius XII (Key Texts)
• Before the Dawn: Autobiographical Reflections by Eugenio Zolli, Former Chief Rabbi of Rome
• The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII
  

Vatican II: The Church, the World, and Human Dignity

From the invaluable Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Excerpts:

...“Due to his sensitivity and intelligence in grasping the ‘signs of the times', Pope Pius XII can be considered the immediate precursor of Vatican Council II and of the social teaching of the Popes who followed him”[162]... The Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes [172] of the Second Vatican Council is a significant response of the Church to the expectations of the contemporary world. In this Constitution, “in harmony with the ecclesiological renewal, a new concept of how to be a community of believers and people of God are reflected. It aroused new interest regarding the doctrine contained in the preceding documents on the witness and life of Christians, as authentic ways of making the presence of God in the world visible”[173]. Gaudium et Spes presents the face of a Church that “cherishes a feeling of deep solidarity with the human race and its history”[174], that travels the same journey as all mankind and shares the same earthly lot with the world, but which at the same time “is to be a leaven and, as it were, the soul of human society in its renewal by Christ and transformation into the family of God”[175].

Gaudium et Spes presents in a systematic manner the themes of culture, of economic and social life, of marriage and the family, of the political community, of peace and the community of peoples, in the light of a Christian anthropological outlook and of the Church's mission. Everything is considered from the starting point of the person and with a view to the person, “the only creature that God willed for its own sake”[176]. Society, its structures and development must be oriented towards “the progress of the human person”[177]. For the first time, the Magisterium of the Church, at its highest level, speaks at great length about the different temporal aspects of Christian life: “It must be recognized that the attention given by the Constitution to social, psychological, political, economic, moral and religious changes has increasingly stimulated ... the Church's pastoral concern for men's problems and dialogue with the world”[178].

Another very important document of the Second Vatican Council in the corpus of the Church's social doctrine is the Declaration Dignitatis Humanae[179], in which the right to religious freedom is clearly proclaimed. The document presents the theme in two chapters. The first, of a general character, affirms that religious freedom is based on the dignity of the human person and that it must be sanctioned as a civil right in the legal order of society. The second chapter deals with the theme in the light of Revelation and clarifies its pastoral implications, pointing out that it is a right that concerns not only people as individuals but also the different communities of people.  (articles 93, 96-97)

Non Abbiamo Bisgno, Mit Brennender Sorge, Divini Redemptoris: Papal Condemnations of Communism and Fascism

No, the Popes were not silent in the face of Nazism or Communism. From the invaluable Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Excerpts:

...Pope Pius XI did not fail to raise his voice against the totalitarian regimes that were being imposed in Europe during his pontificate. Already on 29 June 1931 he had protested against the abuse of power by the totalitarian fascist regime in Italy with the Encyclical Non Abbiamo Bisogno[155]. He published the Encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge, on the situation of the Catholic Church under the German Reich, on 14 March 1937[156]. The text of Mit Brennender Sorge was read from the pulpit of every Catholic Church in Germany, after having been distributed in the greatest of secrecy. The Encyclical came out after years of abuse and violence, and it had been expressly requested from Pope Pius XI by the German Bishops after the Reich had implemented ever more coercive and repressive measures in 1936, particularly with regard to young people, who were required to enrol as members of the Hitler Youth Movement. The Pope spoke directly to priests, religious and lay faithful, giving them encouragement and calling them to resistance until such time that a true peace between Church and State would be restored. In 1938, with the spreading of anti-Semitism, Pope Pius XI affirmed: “Spiritually we are all Semites”[157].

With the Encyclical Letter Divini Redemptoris[158], on atheistic communism and Christian social doctrine, Pope Pius XI offered a systematic criticism of communism, describing it as “intrinsically perverse”[159], and indicated that the principal means for correcting the evils perpetrated by it could be found in the renewal of Christian life, the practice of evangelical charity, the fulfilment of the duties of justice at both the interpersonal and social levels in relation to the common good, and the institutionalization of professional and interprofessional groups...

See also Summi Pontificatus on the brotherhood of all humanity.

Holocaust, Catholicism, and the Jews

First Things pulls together some significant information.  Excerpts:

...The recent news that Cardinal Elia Dalla Costa has been recognized as “Righteous Among the Nations” by Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial is a welcome, and a much-deserved, honor. Dalla Costa, the archbishop of Florence during World War II, “played a central role in the organization and operation of a widespread rescue network,” said Yad Vashem in its November announcement. He “recruited rescuers from among the clergy, supplied letters to his activists so that they could go to heads of monasteries and convents entreating them to shelter Jews, and sheltered Jews in his own palace...”

Dalla Costa’s honor coincides with the publication of two important new books that explore different dimensions of the Second World War, one distressing, the other inspiring.

The first is Complicity in the Holocaust by Robert P. Ericksen, a bleak portrait of capitulation and collaboration during the Nazi era. It is painful (but necessary) reading, for it reminds us how easily and shockingly prominent individuals, including self-professed Christians, fell sway to the radical evils of racism, anti-Semitism and nationalism. The one significant drawback of Ericksen’s book is its partial and often one-sided examination of the Churches. His evaluation of the Catholic Church, for example, is so dark and sweeping that, at one point, he suggests the Holy See—if not Catholicism in general– was naturally inclined toward fascism.

He also repeats some (now quite outdated) errors about Pius XII. For a corrective to this view, one should read “Fascism and Catholicism,” a brilliant wartime essay (1941) by Dietrich von Hildebrand, the great German Catholic philosopher and early opponent of Hitler, who, tellingly, is missing from Ericksen’s narrative, as is von Hildebrand’s praise of Pope Pius XII.

The second work which helps balance the deficiencies of Ericksen’s otherwise valuable volume is The Catholic Bishops of Europe and the Nazi Persecutions of Catholics and Jews by Vincent Lapomarda, S.J., which recounts the courage and compassion of prominent Catholic prelates who resisted Nazism. Father Lapomarda, who heads the Hiatt Holocaust Collection at Holy Cross college, is the author of a previous acclaimed study, The Jesuits and the Third Reich, which established how many members of the Society of Jesus—who took a special oath of fidelity to the pope—actively opposed Hitler and his crimes.

Against the literature which depicts the wartime Church as almost entirely passive or collaborationist, Lapomarda’s work proves that Catholic resistance to Nazism—even amidst collaboration and betrayal—was extensive, and often heroic. In a country-by-country analysis of Catholic resistance in Nazi-occupied lands, Father Lapomarda compiles the many interventions made by the Catholic hierarchy for persecuted Jews during the wartime era, and makes clear (as he did in The Jesuits and the Third Reich) how these rescue measures had the support of the Vatican. This was recognized at the time, even if it is sometimes forgotten or denied today.

When Jean Cardinal Verdier, the archbishop of Paris and outspoken opponent of Nazism, died in 1940, the New York Times commented: “Cardinal Verdier like Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII, was the especial champion of persecuted Jews. Besides extending monetary and material aid to Jewish refugees finding sanctuary in his archdiocese, he also called on all Christians ‘to pray that the evils that the Jews are now suffering shall cease.’ This appeal was made in April, 1933, and was followed by many similar ones.” (New York Times obituary, April 9, 1940.)...

Heart of Jesus

Fountain of divine life and love to all who will love him. Excerpts:

...Adoring contemplation of the side pierced by the spear makes us sensitive to God's salvific will. It enables us to entrust ourselves to his saving and merciful love, and at the same time strengthens us in the desire to take part in his work of salvation, becoming his instruments.

The gifts received from the open side, from which "blood and water" flowed (cf. John 19:34), ensure that our lives will also become for others a source from which "rivers of living water" flow (John 7:38; cf. "Deus Caritas Est," No. 7).

The experience of love, brought by the devotion to the pierced side of the Redeemer, protects us from the risk of withdrawing into ourselves and makes us readier to live for others. "By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren" (1 John 3:16; cf. "Haurietis Aquas," No. 38)...

Gate of Heaven, House of God

Where Jesus waits in the Arks of the New and Everlasting Covenant.  Excerpts:

136. Strive then, Venerable Brethren, with your customary devoted care so the churches, which the faith and piety of Christian peoples have built in the course of centuries for the purpose of singing a perpetual hymn of glory to God almighty and of providing a worthy abode for our Redeemer concealed beneath the eucharistic species, may be entirely at the disposal of greater numbers of the faithful who, called to the feet of their Savior, hearken to His most consoling invitation, "Come to Me all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will refresh you."[129] Let your churches be the house of God where all who enter to implore blessings rejoice in obtaining whatever they ask[130] and find there heavenly consolation.

137. Only thus can it be brought about that the whole human family settling their differences may find peace, and united in mind and heart may sing this song of hope and charity, "Good Pastor, truly bread - Jesus have mercy on us - feed us, protect us - bestow on us the vision of all good things in the land of the living."[131]

138. The ideal of Christian life is that each one be united to God in the closest and most intimate manner. For this reason, the worship that the Church renders to God, and which is based especially on the eucharistic sacrifice and the use of the sacraments, is directed and arranged in such a way that it embraces by means of the divine office, the hours of the day, the weeks and the whole cycle of the year, and reaches all the aspects and phases of human life.

139. Since the divine Master commanded "that we ought always to pray and not to faint,"[132] the Church faithfully fulfills this injunction and never ceases to pray: she urges us in the words of the Apostle of the Gentiles, "by him Jesus let us offer the sacrifice of praise always to God "[133]

142. The divine office is the prayer of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, offered to God in the name and on behalf of all Christians, when recited by priests and other ministers of the Church and by religious who are deputed by the Church for this.

143. The character and value of the divine office may be gathered from the words recommended by the Church to be said before starting the prayers of the office, namely, that they be said "worthily, with attention and devotion."

144. By assuming human nature, the Divine Word introduced into this earthly exile a hymn which is sung in heaven for all eternity. He unites to Himself the whole human race and with it sings this hymn to the praise of God. As we must humbly recognize that "we know not what we should pray for, as we ought, the Spirit Himself asketh for us with unspeakable groanings."[138] Moreover, through His Spirit in us, Christ entreats the Father, "God could not give a greater gift to men . . . [Jesus] prays for us, as our Priest; He prays in us as our Head; we pray to Him as our God . . . we recognize in Him our voice and His voice in us . . . He is prayed to as God, He prays under the appearance of a servant; in heaven He is Creator; here, created though not changed, He assumes a created nature which is to be changed and makes us with Him one complete man, head and body."[139]

146. On this depends in no small way the efficacy of our prayers. These prayers in fact, when they are not addressed directly to the Word made man, conclude with the phrase "though Jesus Christ our Lord." As our Mediator with God, He shows to the heavenly Father His glorified wounds, "always living to make intercessions for us."[141

Church, Society=Hierarchy

Or why radical egalitarianism will always run into problems.  Excerpts:

39. The Church is a society, and as such requires an authority and hierarchy of her own. Though it is true that all the members of the Mystical Body partake of the same blessings and pursue the same objective, they do not all enjoy the same powers, nor are they all qualified to perform the same acts. The divine Redeemer has willed, as a matter of fact, that His Kingdom should be built and solidly supported, as it were, on a holy order, which resembles in some sort the heavenly hierarchy.

Pius XII, Mediator Dei, and Deification by Liturgy

Coolness.  Excerpt:

29. It is an unquestionable fact that the work of our redemption is continued, and that its fruits are imparted to us, during the celebration of the liturgy, notable in the august sacrifice of the altar. Christ acts each day to save us, in the sacraments and in His holy sacrifice. By means of them He is constantly atoning for the sins of mankind, constantly consecrating it to God.

Sacraments and sacrifice do, then, possess that "objective" power to make us really and personally sharers in the divine life of Jesus Christ. Not from any ability of our own, but by the power of God, are they endowed with the capacity to unite the piety of members with that of the head, and to make this, in a sense, the action of the whole community...

Nazi Concordat Had Broader Religious Exemption Than HHS Mandate

An interesting little historical note.  The proposed HHS mandate on contraception includes a narrow religious exemption, even under the recently announced accommodation.  Excerpts:

...The mandate includes a limited religious exemption that only applies to non-profit organizations that exist to inculcate religious values and that serve and employ primarily members of their own faith.  The narrow scope of the exemption sparked outcry because most religious groups and even some churches would fail to qualify for it...

The 1933 concordat between Germany and the Holy See, the result of negotiations with the Weimar Republic and concluded after the Nazis were voted into power, had the following clause included:

Jews for Pius XII

From a past issue of First Things:

...The New York Times is amused by the fact that Pope Pius XII has at least one Jewish defender. He is Mr. Gary Krupp, a retired medical-equipment dealer and the president and cofounder of the Pave the Way Foundation (PTWF), a nonprofit organization that seeks to improve relations among different religions. In 2000, Pope John Paul II honored Krupp for his charitable efforts by naming him a Knights commander of the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St . Gregory the Great.

In the last few years, Mr. Krupp has devoted himself to defending the reputation of Pope Pius XII. Mr. Krupp used to accept the common allegations against Pius XII, but after taking the time to study the evidence, he concluded that the wartime pope has gotten a bad rap. The Pave the Way Foundation’s website, www.ptwf.org, contains its research on the wartime pope and includes many primary-source documents.

Reporter Paul Vitello portrays Krupp as an eccentric and loose cannon whose work is dismissed by mainstream scholars. In fact, in the last decade, many new books have been published in Europe that defend Pius XII. Unfortunately, the work of these scholars in Italy, Germany, and France is largely unknown in the United States (and apparently to the staff of the New York Times).

As for Gary Krupp, is he really the only Jew who has a favorable opinion of Pius XII? Since the late 1990s, a number of Jewish scholars and writers have defended the pope’s reputation. They include Prof. William D. Rubenstein, who tore apart John Cornwell’s biased and unreliable Hitler’s Pope in these pages; our friend Rabbi David Dalin, who wrote The Myth of Hitler's Pope: Pope Pius XII And His Secret War Against Nazi Germany (2002); Prof. Jacques Adler of Australia; Michael Tagliacozzo (who escaped the Nazi roundups of Jews in Rome and now lives in Israel); Serge Klarsfeld, the Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter; Bernard Henri-Lévy, the French philosopher and Jewish atheist; and Great Britain’s Sir Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Winston Churchill and a world-renowned authority on the Holocaust.

Earlier Jewish authors who defended Pius XII include: Leon Poliakov; Pinchas Lapide, the author of Three Popes and the Jews (1967); Jenö Levai, who testified as an expert witness at the trial of Adolf Eichmann and then wrote the book Hungarian Jewry and the Papacy: Pope Pius XII Did Not Remain Silent (1968); and David Herstig, the author of the German-language book Die Rettung (“The Rescue,” 1967). In 1963, when German playwright Rolf Hochhuth first turned Pius XII into a villain with The Deputy, Dr. Joseph L. Licthen, the late interfaith director of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote a persuasive monograph, “A Question of Judgment: Pope Pius XII and the Jews,” which can be found on the Internet. Clearly, Gary Krupp has company...

Pius XII Was An Awesome Philosemite

Yet further evidence.  Excerpts:

The Jewish New Yorker who has made it his life’s work to clear the name of Pope Pius XII of being anti-Semitic believes the wartime pontiff actually went undercover to save the lives of Jews in Rome.

Gary Krupp came across the evidence in a letter from a Jewish woman whose family was rescued thanks to direct Vatican intervention.

“It is an unusual letter, written by a woman who is alive today in northern Italy, who said she was with her mother, her uncle, and a few other relatives in an audience with Pius XII in 1947.” Next to Pope Pius during the meeting was his Assistant Secretary of State, Monsignor Giovanni Montini, the future Pope Paul VI.

“Her uncle immediately looks at the Pope and he says, ‘You were dressed as a Franciscan,’ and looked at Montini who was standing next to him, ‘and you as a regular priest. You took me out of the ghetto into the Vatican.’ Montini immediately said, ‘Silence, do not ever repeat that story.’”

Krupp believes the claim to be true because the personality of the wartime Pope was such that he “needed to see things with his own eyes.”

“He used to take the car out into bombed areas in Rome, and he certainly wasn't afraid of that. I can see him going into the ghetto and seeing what was happening,” says Krupp.

Krupp and his wife Meredith founded the Pave the Way Foundation in 2002 to “identify and eliminate the non-theological obstacles between religions...”

The rest of the article has more evidence of Pius XII's wartime efforts to save Jewish lives. Pave The Way Foundation has a page dedicated to Pius XII here.

The LiveAction and Lying Debate

Why I'm Catholic has this magnificent overview post of the debate that has erupted in the Catholic blogosphere over the morality of LiveAction's tactics in their investigations of Planned Parenthood.  Interesting stuff.

Funny note: one of the consistent articles of evidence used by the people for the tactics used is the mammoth campaign of deception waged by Pope Pius XII to save Jews during World War II.  For more on that, see here or Hitler, the War, and the Pope,  The Myth of Hitler's Pope: Pope Pius XII And His Secret War Against Nazi Germany, and Before the Dawn: Autobiographical Reflections by Eugenio Zolli, Former Chief Rabbi of Rome.

Pius XII, Righteous Gentile

Once again, the canard is resurrected that Pius XII failed to act or speak out against the Hitlerian genocide of the Jews. Once again, it must be refuted:

The claim that Pius XII was “silent” during the Holocaust is contradicted by his own wartime statements, and those who praised them after the war. When he died in 1958, the Jewish community hailed his wartime leadership, above all because he did “speak out.”

Golda Meir, then Israel’s Foreign Minister, reacted with this tribute: “We share in the grief of humanity at the passing away of His Holiness, Pope Pius XII. In a generation afflicted by wars and discords, he upheld the highest ideals of peace and compassion. When fearful martydom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, the voice of the Pope was raised in compassion for the victims.”(Reuters, October 10,1958)

In his first encyclical, Summi Pontificatus (October, 1939), in his Christmas addresses, in his radio appeals, in his allocution to the College of Cardinals on June 2, 1943, Pius XII condemned race-based murder, and thus came to the clear, public defense of European Jews - a fact recognized at the time, even if it is generally ignored or denied today.

On October 1, 1942, the Times of London editorialized: “A study of the words which Pope Pius XII has addressed since his accession in encyclicals and allocutions to the Catholics of various nations leaves no room for doubt. He condemns the worship of force and its concrete manifestation in the suppression of national liberties and in the persecution of the Jewish race.”

Charles Pichon, a leading wartime correspondent, described Pius XII’s wartime addresses succinctly: “The pontifical texts condemned most strongly the anti-Semitic persecutions, the oppression of invaded lands, the inhuman conduct of the war, and also the deification of the Race, the State and the Class.” (The Vatican and its Role in World Affairs, New York: E. P. Dutton, 1950, p. 167)

In reaction to his 1942 Christmas address, the Nazis themselves, furious about Pius XII’s public stand, railed: “That this speech is directed exclusively against the New Order in Europe as seen in National Socialism is clear in the Papal statement that mankind owes a debt to ‘all who during the war have lost their Fatherland and who, although personally blameless have, simply on account of their nationality and origin, been killed or reduced to utter destitution.’ Here he is virtually accusing the German people of injustice towards the Jews, and makes himself the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals.” (The Vatican in the Age of the Dictators, 1922-1945, by Anthony Rhodes, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973, p.273).

Similar examples of Pius’s anti-Nazi, pro-Jewish statements are found in the wartime issues of the Palestine Post, the New York Times, the Tablet of London and the Jewish press of various countries...

Much more where that came from. Read the whole thing. For more, check out Ronald Rychlak's Hitler, the War, and the Pope, or Rabbi David Dalin's The Myth of Hitler's Pope.