afleitch
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« on: December 11, 2022, 06:26:04 AM » |
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Yeah, there's nothing really redeeming about Pius XII on that front.
Nearly every country and institution, religious and secular has tried to salvage or worse, rewrite their reputation from before and during the Holocaust. The Church is no exception, but it's clear it was up to individuals from laity to priests, bishops and bureaucrats motivated by their own interests, or their own personal faith to do what little they could in whatever situation they found themselves in. The Church and most apologists for it have over the past decade, pulled back from trying to claim those personal moments for the wider Church.
What compounds things is that Catholic protests against 'Aktion 4' were very real, both on the ground in Germany and had the ears of and support of, the Vatican. It was some of the most public demonstrations against the regime during it's existence.
But what was known about Aktion 4; the processing, removals, institutionalisation, the centres, what the public saw and heard was no different from the removal of Jews and other 'undesirables'. It often overlapped.
The inaction, by stark comparison of Church authorities, to me remains jarring because it demonstrates some element of 'choice'.
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