Pope rehabilitates Holocaust denier

[afleitch]

Another example of how the current Pope is a very poor communicator.

There were dogmatic reasons for rehabilitation. However there is no denying holocaust deniers are odious individuals. However the Pope and the Vatican just 'say' rather than explain.

So we end up with furore over Islam, Pope Pius, Spanish clerical fascists, gender theory and numerous other pronouncements.

[afleitch]

So we end up with furore over Pope Pius, Spanish clerical fascists.

I don't think that's ever going to go away with "better communication".

Utterly amazing how Pius XII went from one of the world's great heroes in the 40's and 50's to this horrible, Jew killing, friend of Hitler.  Hitler certainly didn't see Pius as a friend, but if ultraliberal intellectuals want to start to rumor that Pius was Hitler's ally, in order to discreadit his opposition to communism, why not... and why shouldn't the world believe the lie, right?

Don't oversimplify things. Cheapening the concern that some have over the canonization of Pius is not appropriate. Pius X and his Vatican before and during WWII is a complicated and often contradictory matter

[afleitch]

So we end up with furore over Pope Pius, Spanish clerical fascists.

I don't think that's ever going to go away with "better communication".

Utterly amazing how Pius XII went from one of the world's great heroes in the 40's and 50's to this horrible, Jew killing, friend of Hitler.  Hitler certainly didn't see Pius as a friend, but if ultraliberal intellectuals want to start to rumor that Pius was Hitler's ally, in order to discreadit his opposition to communism, why not... and why shouldn't the world believe the lie, right?

Don't oversimplify things. Cheapening the concern that some have over the canonization of Pius is not appropriate. Pius X and his Vatican before and during WWII is a complicated and often contradictory matter

Well, it would be a complicated matter indeed, since Pius X died 30 years before the war.

That being said, you think I am over-simplifying things and not the anti-Catholics who have made quite a bit of hay out of Pius XII supposed approval of Hitler?

What is even better is that Pius XI gets tarred with the pro-Hitler brush now, too, when he did, in fact, speak out very clearly against the Nazis.

Actually a few Catholic historians have tackled this subject and very few Catholic or otherwise think he approved Hitler. Pius' problem was that he spoke out against the Nazi's...then sometimes he didn't. Sometimes he had concern for the Jew's...othertimes he didn't, particularly when the scale of their destruction was becoming apparent. He was pressed by the Allies and by Myron Tyler the US representative to the Vatican in 1942 only to be met with the Vatican saying calims of genocide were 'unproven.' He was very reluctant to speak out against massacres ordered by Nazi's and indeed by Soviets in Poland during the war. He was also reluctant to denouce the persecution of Catholic's in the Eastern Bloc post '45. This has nothing to do with the Nazi's - it's to do with his period silence as the world caught aflame, regardless of who the perpetrators were.

Pius is characterised rather by what he didn't say rather than by what he did.

As for changes in historical perception, that tends to happen over the course of years are more documents and sources come to light. It's nothing new or unexpected.

[afleitch]

He certainly didn't *like* Hitler or his views, quite on the contrary.

If that wasn't clear enough from the above.

It's just that he patently - absurdly obviously - had a horribly wrong set of priorities and was a net force for evil as a result. Or at least not nearly enough of a force for good. He's like so many Germans who had misgivings and didn't act on them but later felt they had... a normal psychological reaction of course. The only difference is that he could have made at least a little bit of a difference; most others could not. He was no Nazi (though he wasn't a Conservative in a modern postwar sense either; he was lightyears to the right of that); he just failed his people and the people of the world due to a lack of courage and moral fibre. It's not... right... to *condemn* that if you haven't been in the same situation... but it's certainly wrong, and very much so, for a church to venerate him. (Incidentally, the process for beatification of Pius XII was begun, decades ago under Paul, on the same day as that of John XXIII. Vatican politics at its finest...)

The whole position of the Vatican, and to an extent that of many of the bishops in Europe, was that the trend towards authoritarianism, whether fascistic or not in 1930's Europe, seemed to these Catholics as coterminous. Hence support for regimes in Hungary, Spain and later in Vichy France. The focus on order, the family, society, religion, the civil service (i'll explain that to anyone if I have to) over democratic and socialist traits which were seen as 'degenerate.'

You are very correct in noting the 'inwardness' of the Vatican given it's relationship with Italy and Italian nationalism prior to that. The Vatican was the Vatican and it did not have an internationalist outlook. There was also a desire for self-preservation; Italy could have walked into St Pauls and dissolved the Holy See as a geographic and political entity. What was the alternative to Mussolini? At that time it wasn't democracy (which was been given it's premature last rights) but 'Bolshevism' - a threat of revolutionary unreligious and 'degenerate' socialism (and it's unexercised power in Italy was evident after the war) Caught between the two, particularly as the Soviets advanced in 1943-44 led to an awkward silence. Unfortunately this co-incided with the implementation of the Final Solution.

[afleitch]

The whole position of the Vatican, and to an extent that of many of the bishops in Europe, was that the trend towards authoritarianism, whether fascistic or not in 1930's Europe, seemed to these Catholics as coterminous.

Eh... what do you mean by "coterminous"? I *think* I understand you, I just want to make sure...

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Theoretically. Somehow, the fact that the Savoy kings had never done anything of the kind, and that Mussolini not only had never done anything of the kind but had signed the Lateran treaties, might have given the Vatican strategists a clue here, don't you think? Given the catholicism of the Italian people, it just absolutely wasn't worth it no matter what the popes said or did (and they were less cautious with what they said in the 1870s... they were less cautious with what they said as late as 1937). As long as they weren't exactly raising an army on the premises, I suppose.

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not sure what you're referring to here... WWI or WWII?

By coterminous, I mean that an authoritarian and patriarchal society, in the minds of some Catholics better reflected Catholic social theory.

By after the war, I mean after WWII and by extension after the end of the monarchy.

[afleitch]

While discussion of The Pontiff's decision certainly merits a place here, let's all take a step back and not broad brush an entire denomination as Anti-Semitic or pro-Hitler.

Those who have discussed this in great detail (myself and Lewis) have not used a broad brush. My main concern is infact that we can't make a reasoned critique of the actions of the Vatican during WWII without being accused of some sort of 'anti-Catholicism' or at worst historical revisionism.

As an academic historian, I have to be critical and reached a balanced view. I have to grapple with some uncomfortable truths in the process but anything else would be a whitewash.

[afleitch]

While discussion of The Pontiff's decision certainly merits a place here, let's all take a step back and not broad brush an entire denomination as Anti-Semitic or pro-Hitler.

Those who have discussed this in great detail (myself and Lewis) have not used a broad brush. My main concern is infact that we can't make a reasoned critique of the actions of the Vatican during WWII without being accused of some sort of 'anti-Catholicism' or at worst historical revisionism.

As an academic historian, I have to be critical and reached a balanced view. I have to grapple with some uncomfortable truths in the process but anything else would be a whitewash.

That's how I feel, Andrew.  And you, as a Catholic, certainly have more ground than I, as an Anglican, from which to criticize.

My beef is not with thoughtful, reasoned criticisms of the RCC.  Especially such criticisms coming from within its membership.  My criticism is aimed at those who see the church doing wrong, either now or in the past, and presuming that is always -- or even usually -- the case.  I don't think it is.

But I certainly do concur with the belief that the Catholic Church has much to repent for.  Yet I also feel precisely the same way about my denomination.  We Anglicans and Episcopalians have no shortage of embarassing history.

What's of the most concern, as some Catholic academics have voiced, is that if the Church has full faith in Pius then it should release it's records and vindicate him. Those who have concern with Pius and his Vatican have to contend with copies formal diplomatic correspondence coming from the Vatican. Both 'pro' and 'anti' are not granted access to the Vatican record.

I agree that all church's have their secrets and their shames. I am involved with an effort that is pushing for Christian churches in Britain to give full account for betraying the confidence of it's flock and alerting the police to gay parishioners in the 50's. This was a time when arrests were made, men were institutionalised and 'experimented on' with electric shocks, hormones and aversion therapy. Many of them survived and still live. No one want's a public apology, or money or anything like that - just an account, so that there can be a proper examination and an attempt at understanding. While by no means comparable to the suffering during World War II, it is a similar effort.