"Hitler's Pope": Pius XII did too little too save the Jews from the Holocaust

good evening everyone thank you very much for coming um first a few words on the process you were all pulled on your way in on your opinion for our uh our motion tonight hitler's pope pius xii did too little to save the jews from the holocaust you were polled on the way in and i will give you the result of that poll after we've heard the opening speeches and you will be pulled at the end now you should have a ticket and that ticket should have a little for against make sure you hang on to it for the the vote at the end and if you're still undecided at the end of the evening's debate then take both pieces and put them into the urn that comes around good so that's for the the voting process our motion tonight hitler's pope pius xii did too little to save the jews from the holocaust is a is an important topic and indeed for those who watch this uh space something significant happened in july of this year which was that the holocaust history museum yad vashem changed its description of pius xii and stated that his reputation was not just as the old label had it a matter of controversy but a matter of controversy amongst scholars you can infer from that what they thought it previously was amongst seems like no better time therefore for intelligence squared to uh make this debate a debate here uh and a serious debate amongst scholars um therefore let me immediately welcome our first speaker for the motion john julius norwich historian prolific author and author amongst many other things of the pope's history john julius norwich welcome well ladies and gentlemen on the 18th of may 1917 cardinal eugenio parcelli traveled by train from rome to munich as papal nuncio bringing with him incidentally 60 cases of food in case german wartime rations should defend his delicate digestion two years later in april 1919 during the confusion following the end of the first world war a trio of bolsheviks led by a certain max levine seized power in bavaria where they made life extremely difficult for the diplomatic corps pacelli who characteristically refused to meet them himself sent his deputy to register a protest and reported back to the vatican the scene of the palace was indescribable the confusion chaotic the filth nauseating a gang of young women of dubious appearance jews like all the rest of them hanging around in all the offices with lecherous demeanor and suggestive smiles the boss of this female rebel was levine's mistress a young russian woman a jew and a divorcee who was in charge this levine is a young man about 30 or 35 also russian and a jew pale dirty with drugged eyes hoarse voice vulgar repulsive with a face that is both intelligent and sly i don't think julius striker could have done much better than that much was to be written in later years of pastor twelfth's love for the jewish people but i think uh that quotation surely suggests that such reports may have been somewhat exaggerated on matters of color on the other hand he made no pretense a quarter of a century later as pope we find him asking the british foreign office for assurances that no colored troops would be among the small number that might be garrisoned in rome on the occupation on the other hand he had a passion for germany on march 6 1939 just four days after his election as pope a year after hitler's annexation of austria and with german troops already messing on the czechoslovak frontier he personally drafted a letter to the illustrious hair adolf hitler fuhrer and chancellor of the german reich here at the beginning of our pontificate we desire to express the wish to remain united by deeds of profound and benevolent friendship with the german people who are entrusted to your care now this letter was not only the first addressed by the new pope to any head of state but we also have the word from one of the official uh historians of pope pius xii that and i quote in length and in the sentiments it expresses it differs totally from the other official letters sent by the vatican at that time well on the first of september 1939 the wehrmacht marched into catholic poland over the next five weeks the polls lost some seventy thousand men from the vatican however there came not a word of revulsion or regret still less of denunciation this deafening silence continued until the third week of october when the pope published his first encyclical now at last poland received a mention the blood of countless human beings non-combatants among them has been shed and cries out to heaven especially the blood of poland a nation very dear to us well it was doubtless better than nothing but look at that phrase non-competence among them which somehow suggested there were relatively few of these rather than the vast majority and nowhere in the text is there any mention of germany or nazis or jews hitler as we know had no similar compunction the jews he declared on the 9th of february 1942 will be liquidated for at least a thousand years within a month active persecution persecution was underway not only in germany austria and poland but in hungary croatia slovakia and in marshall peters unoccupied france before the end of the year the mass deportations had begun 42 000 french jews had been packed off to auschwitz alone in september president roosevelt sent a personal envoy to the pope to beg him to condemn the german war crimes but still there came not a word from rome the papal secretary of state secretary of state cardinal luigi malione would repeat only that the holy see was doing all it could it wasn't if only because as 1942 due to its close the vatican had something else on its mind the possible bombing of rome the british minister to the holy see sir darcy osborne was being summoned almost daily and entrusted to uh entreated to in to extract a firm undertaking from the british government that there would be no air raids on the holy city in vain he pointed out that britain was at war and rome was an enemy capital and even if the city were spared it was highly unlikely that the italians would be given advanced notice of the fact finally on christmas eve the pope made a broadcast to the world it called on men of goodwill to make a solemn vow to bring back society to the center of gravity which is the law of god and it continued mankind owes that vow to the hundreds and thousands of persons who without any fault on their part sometimes only because of their nationality or race have been consigned to death or to a slow decline and that was it once again no mention of the jews or the nazis or even of germany the racial element had been toned down by the addition of those two weasel words sometimes only while the millions of victims had been reduced to hundreds and thousands and what precisely is a slow decline could that be what the auschwitz survivors suffered well now until now until 43 the jewish community in rome about 8 000 strong have been allowed to live relatively undisturbed but in july 43 everything changed the allies invaded sicily and bombed rome mussolini was arrested rome came under german occupation and on the 18th of october came the order to round up the jews what was needed now was for the pope to make a vehement protest against this new outrage which was taking place on his very doorstep had he done so he could very probably have prevented the whole thing but silence once again ensued and the deportations went ahead now papal apologists will tell us of the numbers of jews who in the later stages of the war in particular owed their lives to the intervention of the church particularly in hungary though even here things were pretty slow in getting underway the germans invaded hungary on the 23rd of march 1944 and the loathsome adolf eichmann began his work at once it was nearly two months later on the 15th of may that the papal nuncio requested the hungarian government and i quote not to continue its war against the jews beyond the limits prescribed by the laws of nature and god's commandments surely a rather curious limitation and the rescue operation began in earnest only after a cable from the pope himself one again once again not mentioning the jews by name on the 25th of june after this thanks to the hungarian church and the catholic laity alike countless lives were saved and there were other other heroes too notably the perfectly splendid father hugh flaherty working inside the vatican saving not only jews but escaped allied soldiers the pope paid tribute to him at eastern 1945 a month before the end of the war it would have been nice if he'd had the courage to say so a little earlier with rather more publicity and why did he not because his terror of communism a far greater bug bear to him than germany nazi germany would ever be or fear that any protest might result in the german occupation of the vatican and quite possibly his own imprisonment either or both may be true but there are other questions too that demand explanation after the end of the war he continued to spoke for another 13 years why was there not one word of apology or regret not a single requiem or massive remembrance for the 1989 jewish deportees from rome who had met their deaths in auschwitz alone why did the pope who cheerfully excommunicated all members of the communist party across the world never apparently consider doing the same to the catholic nazi war criminals including himmler goebbels bormann and of course hitler himself and why until the very day of his death did he refuse to recognize the state of israel i'm looking forward to hearing the answers to those questions tonight thank you very much john julius norwich i'm very pleased to welcome william dwino our first speaker against the motion william duino is an author who writes about religion history and politics he's contribute contributed an extensive bibliography of works on pius xii to the pious war responses to the critics of pius xii william do we know welcome thank you very much thank you very much to intelligence squared to the distinguished panelists and to everyone for being tonight i just like to correct my distinguished opponent john julius norwich on a few things he referred to cardinal eugenio pacelli in 1917 he was not a cardinal until 1930. yes that's the least of your errors i should say uh he referred to the the supposedly anti-semitic letter if he knew anything about the letter if he read uh professor rislock's book he he would know that that's complete mistranslation he's giving the john cornwall translation it's been completely discredited he never said for example jews like all the rest of them it's it was a mistranslation from german into english so that's the second major era and then he referred a very serious error he referred to eugenio pachelli papayas the 12th uh not wanting any black or colored troops he never mentioned that he never mentioned those with it was the british ambassador and just recently let me say i discovered the testimony of one roy otley who was the first african-american correspondent who was granted a special audience with pope pius xii and roy otley himself wrote dispatches back to the united states and elsewhere talking about how powerful a stan pope pius xii took against racism and he associated that with the stand pope pius xii was taking on on behalf of the jews so right from the very beginning of this debate it's clear that mr norwich did not do his homework we asked the question who is eugenio pacelli who is the man that eventually became pope pius xii and what specifically did he do on behalf of the persecuted u.s people and in order to answer that question we have to make a critical distinction between the real historical papayas the 12th and what might be called the non-historical popeyes of 12. i think we heard i think we had a good example of the non-historical pies of the 12th in much of the commentary that we heard from mr norwich the reality is that the allegations that he made against papaya's truth that he was silent that he was indifferent that he was the state of israel these are completely untrue the reality is that at every stage of his adult service to the church when he was the papal nuncio in germany when he was the cardinal secretary of state in the 1930s when he was the pope himself during the 1930s and 1940s and 50s pope pius xii did take a stand against anti-semitism he did warn against adolf hitler early on and he did intervene on behalf of his jewish brothers and sisters let me cite you a few examples as early as 1916 the department in which eugenio pacelli the future of papayas 12th worked issued a declaration condemning anti-semitism that was recognized throughout the world in 1921 just two years after nazi party formed he was warning his fellow bavarians not to allow the danger of communism to blind them to the danger the rising danger of nazism just two years after the hitler party was born in 1923 he writes to the vatican still 10 years before hitler obtains power warning them about the fanatical anti-semitism as well as anti-catholicism of adolf hitler the following year he writes another letter to the vatican in which he predicts that this fanatical nationalism that the nazis are exhibiting could well become the greatest dangerous heresy of our time in 1929 the year before he leaves germany for good this is still four years before hitler obtains power he's warning everyone that he can talk to that this man is a madman and he cannot understand as his personal assistant sister pascalina mentions in her own memoirs why the people of germany and elsewhere do not see this what what can be clearly seen this man is a madman he is capable of trampling on corpses and destroying everything in his path and then in 1930 the year he becomes cardinal secretary of state one of the first editorials that appears in the news the vatican's official newspaper is one that declares the party of hitler stands condemned by the ecclesiastical authorities and in the text of the body of that editorial it says national socialism nazism is irreconcilable with the catholic conscience none of these facts was mentioned by mr norwich it's not surprising therefore that by the time he is elected pope pius xii the world welcomes pope pius the 12th because he is the one of the few people that has taken a stand against this rising danger and he's one of the few peop evils of the time nazism and communism after he becomes the pontiff he immediately does five or six things that establish him as the powerful and effective leader he is first of all he writes a blazing and sickle mr john julius my distinguished opponent tried to minimize that in sickle but this is what the new york times itself wrote about that in sickle it said presenting picture a picture of contemporary life as devastating as any of the old testament prophets could have done the pontiff proclaimed his determination to step forward boley racism the violation of trees recourse to arms the forcible transfer of populations the destruction of poland these and many principles dear to fascism are condemned it is germany that stands condemned above any country or any movement innocent sickle the germany of hitler and national socialism that was that was the reaction to his first and sickle that's hardly the words of hitler's pope hardly the words of an enabler the other things that he does at that time is that he immediate after the nazis invade poland in september of 1939 he authorizes vatican radio to condemn the nazis which it does quite explicitly in the name of the church he then he then contacts the anti-nazi german resistance very early on in the war and he gives his approval to a plot to overthrow adolf hitler in addition to this he instructs all his papal nuncials in all the nazi-occupied countries to take a stand in favor of the persecuted jewish community and against the racial persecutions which they do several of those for example angelo rata from hungary andrea casullo from romania have already been recognized and declared righteous by yad the most distinguished holocaust museum in israel but it's not just that he instructed others to take up the cause of the persecuted jewry during their darkest hour he himself took personal actions one of his finest hours which mr mr norwich unfortunately tried to downgrade was during the german occupation of rome the reality is that the germans themselves tried to exterminate and they targeted the entire jewish community at that time thought to be upwards of ten thousand jews because of his quick and decisive action because he sent not one but not two but three protests and because he instructed all the the catholic religious and lady to open their institutions and do whatever they could to save the persecute over 85 of rome's jews were saved it is not true that they were saved because other people did so they did they were saved because pope pius 12 issued his protest and he did take a stand and incidentally it is also not true because i've spoken to many of the catholic rescuers that he was signed vatican radio was declaring what was going on at the time and they they were the catholic rescuers themselves have said pope pius xii was our leader we heard his messages during those years and because of that we rescue the jews so he has things completely wrong now it's it's often debated among historians how many how many jews did pope pius 12th and the entire catholic church say just recently a very distinguished historian from germany dr thomas breckenmarker said he thought that it was at least one hundred thousand that's on the conservative side of the scale i've actually interviewed sir martin gilbert and when i asked him directly how many he thought that the entire catholic church under the leadership of pope pius xii saved he said it was in the hundreds of thousands michael berlay another great distinguished historian also believes it's in the hundreds of thousands so what we are i want to stress here we are not talking about a low scale or a small uh intervention here and there we are talking about a grand global humanitarian effort that saved more than any other individual or institution at that time under no circumstances therefore could this resolution which says that he did quote too little be taken seriously in conclusion i'd just like to write mention one one story that many of you have probably not heard about but i think which symbolizes the true worth and compassion of eugenia pachelli pope pius xii in 1917 the first time he got to as a young people nancy got to germany there was a jewish musician by the name of ossep gabrillowicz ossep gabrilowicz was arrested on false charges because an anti-semitic pogrom was accusing him of being a spy his wife was desperate his whole family was desperate they didn't know what to do they didn't know who to turn to they went to the politicians they went to the police no one would help them finally they went to their own friend bruno walter another jewish conductor bruno walter was told in desperation the only chance you have left is to go to go to see a church official perhaps he could head and bruno walter to his great crate went to see the now the very young very new eugenia pacelli the people nuncio and in his memoirs theme and variations bruno walters says we spoke to the the very kind and generous people nuncio and he said the very next day the very next day ossep gabrilovich who had faced execution uh was a free man and it is of striking significance ladies and gentlemen when we talk about who eugenie pickeli the real pious 12th was that his very first decisive act as a papal nuncio as a career church diplomat was to save the life of a jewish musician from an anti-semitic mob that's the real popeye's 12th that's why when he became pope 20 years later he was such a good and compassionate leader and i hope tonight we all open our eyes and we see that thank you all very much william william duino thank you very much i'm very pleased to welcome jeffrey robson qc leading human rights lawyer and the author of the case of the pope vatican accountability for human rights abuse let me say as i say this that all of these books will be out in the fire at the end and i'll sign them it's great to stand in this historic place of the dissection of corpses and uh we're not so much dissecting a corpse tonight as the soul of a man who could not bring himself to speak out publicly against the holocaust now when he accepted the nobel peace prize elie weissel who was a holocaust survivor sent this message to all of that persuasion who dare not speak out against great evil he said take sides neutrality helps the oppressor never the victims silence encourages the tormentor never the tormented and this is a truth that applies to the silence of pope pius xii in face of the most heinous crime against humanity ever committed even when it was taking place under his very windows he never spoke out he never let a candle for christian morality that should have shone in that blackness a blackness that in consequence covers him as well his silence gave license to catholic members of the ss to shoot the jewish men women and children as they cowered on the edge of the mass graves it to turn on the gas in the concentration camp chambers and then to go to confession with an untroubled conscience it encouraged the germans in the belief that god was still on their side we shall see how the nazis desperately needed the pope's silence for that very reason they knew that any complaint by the pontiff would damage the war effort and slow the progress of the final solution it gave so many catholics the excuse not to help jewish refugees although many did it gave some catholics including quite a few priests the excuse to man the rat lines to help the ss criminals escape after the war to latin america the pope's silence in face of this overwhelming evil was a deliberate choice it was an immoral and counterproductive choice how different this pope was to the catholic leaders who helped to scupper the nazi plan in the thirties to liquidate the mentally ill that was stopped when churchmen spoke out if you want a moving argument against silence read one joseph ratzinger who tells of his childhood our entire village he says in nazi germany experienced a sense of liberation when cardinal clement of munich broke the silence and publicly defended the mentally ill who'd been marked for extermination how many other germans a few years later might have experienced a spiritual liberation had the pope spoken up in similar terms for the jews when they were marked for extermination i don't suggest that eugenio pachilli was a nazi he was an upper class italian aristocrat who greatly feared the communists the peculiar states wouldn't have survived had they come to power in italy he shared the upper class suspicion of the jews ingrained in him was the long-standing catholic condemnation of the race as the sinners who had killed christ but test it this way after the war when it was safe to do so right up to his death in 1958 pacelli never said prayers for the holocaust victims not one measly requiem mass and he totally opposed the state of israel refusing to recognize it as for the six million jews of europe he never lifted a bejeweled finger or stretched a vocal cord in their to save them why did he lack the moral principle to say loud and clear that the extermination of the jewish race is wrong when that hocketh play raised this problem so dramatically in 1963 the first response of vatican apologists was to claim that the pope didn't know about it when that didn't work they tried another attack yes he knew all about it but he didn't act because he didn't want to make it worse well how much worse could it be he didn't act because he didn't want catholics to suffer the same fate really can you imagine hitler a himmler a communicant catholic gassing his own congregation he didn't act they say because he had to stay neutral in case he had to broker a truce no one ever asked him to broker a truce and a truth truce with hitler that would leave the nazis in place was hardly on the cards after america entered the war so let us examine these excuses in turn the notion he didn't know ridiculous he knew all about the eustachian massacres of jews in croatia in 1941 because anti-pavilic the movement's founder was a fervent catholic instead of excommunicating him he welcomed him to the vatican he was told of the final solution soon after it was planned at the wavonzi villa in february 1942 as one book says quote in all likelihood the vatican learned of the plan shortly after the nazis decided decided it that's a quote from hitler the war and the pope by ronald richlack who'll speak next it began in slovakia in march the final solution when 80 000 jews mainly women and children were deported to certain death still the pope did nothing had he done anything it would have had an effect because slovakia was a catholic country headed by president joseph tiso who believe it or not was a priest the pope heard about the gas chambers from priests from church officials from al scavitzi who was a really a spy for the vatican working with the knights of malta he's told the pope that the massacre of the jews in ukraine is by now nearly complete and in october he said the two million jews had already been killed by that time the pope knew of the special camps with the gas chambers informers from the waffen-ss and the german military intelligence passed a lot talk along the italian ambassador to berlin told him that even the ss talk openly about the executions bishop von prasing one of the pope's closest friends begged him to speak out to save the jews of berlin who faced quote certain death but uh of course he didn't and the vatican records show that by the end of 43 early 44 they were speaking of four million jews lost in eastern europe but even then the pope said nothing at the end of the war when it was entirely safe to do so by speaking out then he might have moderated those final inhumanities in the camps and he would certainly have discouraged priests and catholic lay people from helping the nazis to escape justice and it's not credible to claim that his neutrality was justified in order to broker retruce no one ever asked him the apologists claim that papal condemnation of the gas chambers would have made hitler so angry that he would have killed more jews or perhaps even bombed the vatican but this is nonsense according to all we know of german diplomacy and strategic thinking the pope's neutrality was central to the nazi strategy it was essential to keep their soldiers believing that god was on their side or at least on both sides and it would shatter that belief if they heard that the pope was not now let's consider the case of the roman jews 85 saved oh yes those arrests when the germans came in and rounded up a thousand jews a big danger we have ribentrop the foreign minister and his envoy at the vatican von weissicker and we know what they said to each other because we've got their telegrams van wycker telegrams ribbon trop stop himmler arresting uh jews in rome or the pope might make a public stand which will serve anti-german propaganda unquote really nervous that the pope might speak out you see this had become a propaganda war the allies against the axis democracy against fascism for the future allegiance of the world it's not like the first world war where at christmas on the somber contending armies would sing silent night and play each other at football and make believe god was on both sides this was a deadly ideological battle and the question of the pope was the question of whether god sided against the extermination of the jews and that is why the nazis so desperately wanted the pope to say stay silent and why von vizeker warned ribentrop that the roundup in rome might push him over the edge listen to his telegram to ribbontrop about the roundup of the first thousand jews the curia is dumbfounded particularly as the actions took place under the very windows of the pope the reaction could be muffled if the jews were employed in labor camps in italy are you not sent to the gas chambers our enemies are turning the action to their own advantage to force the vatican to drop its reserve well the first deportation happened at dawn on october the 18th 1023 jews were crammed into freight cars and transported to auschwitz 820 of them were gassed within a week only 17 returned throughout it all the pope stayed silent resisting all the pressure to condemn this wicked operation and von weisicker was delighted he telegrammed rubentrop the pope triumphantly the pope has not allowed himself to be stampeded into making any demonstrative announcement against the removal of the jews from rome he's done everything he could even in this delicate matter not to injure the relationship between the vatican and the german government i the government and its extermination policy that telegram says it all the pope did everything to help the nazis and nothing to help the jews by signaling through his silence that god of whom he was the representative on earth did not object to genocide he discredited and betrayed his own god if he'd protested on the 18th of october those freight cars jammed with jews may not have left the station the train might have been diverted to morthausen which had no gas chamber the italian resistance might have been emboldened to attack and release the prisoners had the pope condemn the evils of nazism the holocaust might have been halted just as the mental defective elimination program was disbanded after catholic leaders in the thirties had done it it's said that pope pius feared that the if he condemned them the nazis might bomb the vatican take him prisoner well that would be an admission of cowardice or at least a concern to save the wealth and splendor of the church by doing the wrong thing the document shows there was never any danger that the nazis would attack all they asked of the pope was his silence and they received it not all popes of course are bad or incapable of moral understanding pope pius xi achillerati who'd allowed fascist flags to fly in his cathedral in the early days after kristallnacht and the italian race laws commissioned three leading jesuits to draft an encyclical yes it remained on his desk when he died his successor his successor never issued it uh the unity of the human race uh the encyclical against nazism racism spread its poison unchecked and undiluted by a man who claimed to be the world moral leader mr pacelli the bad samaritan jeffrey thank you very much and thank you for wrapping that up rather rapidly um i'd like to i'd like to a very very warm welcome to ron richlack a professor of law at the university of mississippi and the author of hitler the war and the pope ron is our final speaker against the motion pope pius xii did too little to save the jews from the holocaust thank you very much it is it's very nice to be back in england i've twice of taught summers at downing college in cambridge the last time i taught there uh my wife and our five daughters were there in a small row house with one bathroom it was the most productive summer of my life because i got out of the house very quickly over the office before that all started i did just come from a conference at the sorbonne uh in paris uh where they brought together scholars on pius xii from uh they're from france from germany from israel from the uk from the united states um some other nations i'm sure i'm forgetting at the very end the convener the provost from the sorbonne said no one in this room would use the term hitler's pope it's ridiculous because the arguments that we're hearing from our worthy opponents tonight are arguments that were valid perhaps five or ten years ago before serious research was done on many of these things however as we say in the united states you're entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts and i think the facts are very distorted what we've heard tonight uh i want to go directly to the vizzacker statements and going to his communications to germany what about what he was saying to the vatican at the same time he was saying to the vatican to please don't make a statement if you do we will immediately come in and round up all the jews about 2 000 were rounded up originally about a thousand were released the 1000 did get shipped off and were killed but the vast majority of jews in rome were saved and were saved directly by intervention by rescue by opening up every seminary every convent in fact there are pictures of the papal summer home where not only in every room but up and down the hallways up and down the staircases people were sleeping because the the rooms the buildings were made available to refugees not only to jews there were there were others there were down british airmen who were being sheltered there were gypsies that you know there were there were there were uh awol german soldiers who were given uh protection by the church at the time uh but but to think that that it was an uncaring pope that was doing these things is simply ridiculous and and not feasible today in fact at the end of the occupation in rome the chief rabbi of rome who had been protected by the church converted to catholicism now he said this he said i did this because it was a true conversion a vision of jesus it was not and thanks and tribute to the pope however he did take as his christian name eugenio in tribute to the pope and he did have the pope serve as his godfather or sponsor into the church he rec and he spoke profoundly about all the church had done to protect jews during this time in fact there was a a statement of tribute put up at the synagogue in rome thanking the church and the pope for all that has done the pope a reference made earlier about the pope and his delicate stomach the pope went on wartime rations during the war the people out in rome could not have hot coffee so he could not have hot coffee although he was over six feet tall he weighed 118 pounds by the end of the war he saw his parents bodies blown out of their their crips when bombs fell upon rome in terms of what he did early in the war one perhaps one of the most amazing things uh he actually forwarded information about german troop movements 10 days before the the german troops went into the lowlands afterwards he sent telegrams to the leaders of those nations expressing his deep regret what had happened promising better days would come in the future telling them not to give up hope he outraged mussolini because he'd clearly sided against mussolini's ally adolf hitler pius on the other hand had very close relations with franklin delano roosevelt it established the beginning of what eventually would become formal recognition formal relationship with the united states there's an amazing book about the letters back and forth at the very end of the war fdr wrote pius thanking him for his collaboration against religious and racial persecution and in context that could be nothing but uh what he did in terms of helping with the jews why not a more exacting bully pulpit kind of statement from the pope well there were several pieces of information that he had going that he had to rely upon one of them was he wrote an important statement about the nazi occupation in poland and he had it smuggled into the archbishop who was in charge of the church in poland and the archbishop looked at it burned the letter sent a note back in vatican archives now saying holy father thank you so much for the statement it's so important the people are pulling you know to know that you feel this way but i can't do this because this will get people killed a similar thing happened in holland where the bishops made a statement and it got people killed this is the information coming back to the vatican the vatican the pope had to decide where can i make an effective intervention the bishops in the united states were very outspoken expressly talking about jews and the nazis and hitler how come a free press that was not suppressed that would actually get around to people at least in that nation and no risk of retaliation that you faced every place else that the pope might have made a statement the pope relied upon his bishops what did they say if a bishop could be more forceful they would bishop would be more forceful less forceful that's what you had to do the pope didn't come down and and enforce a uniform approach in every location he relied upon the catholic doctrine of subsidiarity which says you know let's look locally and deal the best we can that way uh by the way some pontifications the first encyclical issue by the pope six weeks after the outbreak of war did in fact uh refer to jews and quote a scripture saying there is no gentile or jew uh in the church during that time the pope was also very active with vatican radio and vatican the vatican newspaper prompting many protests in fact the the nazis called the vatican radio the mouthpiece of the jewish war criminal um in terms of actual threats to the pope there was an order and i have the transcript of my book from the german general who got the order from hitler to draw plans to invad to invade the vatican and capture the pope the pope held a meeting with a curia discussing what was going to happen when the nazis came in because everyone thought it was going to come the nazis were just across there was a white line rome was occupied there's a white line on the ground on one side you've got nazis with submachine guns on the other side you've got the swiss soldiers with their their pikes so it's not going to put up much of a defense for very long when the nazis decide the nazis on the ground convinced hitler not to do this because they said if you invade the vatican the italians will will not tolerate this it will be impossible for us to maintain the occupation so you have to back off on this and that's how eventually the the invasion the kidnapping did not take place however that was a very serious threat upon the liberation of rome mussolini is out of office the king has fled everyone comes out of hiding in fleets of the vatican cheering the pope the defender of the city pius xii said jews for too late for you know have long been tolerated but we have to move past that now it's time to welcome them as our friends the israeli philharmonic uh in nineteen 1955 i think was later on came and played a concert of tribute of thanks for all the vatican had done for saving jews during the war while there they offered the future pope paul vi a medal for all he had done he said i only did what the pope told me don't don't give me a medal for that john the 23rd when offered thanks for all he did essentially said the same thing i only carried out the pope's orders first and foremost to save human lives these types of statements this kind of information refutes the accusation that the pope did little or did nothing um the uh the state of israel i'm touching that because that by the way was an important point at the at the conference in paris in paris no one argues about whether the pope should have we didn't talk about the pope so much it was really ancillary things but there was debate about how the pope felt about the state of israel the pope agreed with the establishment of a an israeli state somewhere he wasn't certain about whether it should be located where it is located today however when the vote came up in the united nations a coalition of about 30 catholic nations came to the pope and said is it okay for us to vote in favor of locating the israeli state in this location and he said that would be acceptable 17 of them did 11 did not but he was in a situation where he could have said no vote against it he did not say that so with respect to the rules i will wrap it up at this point thank you thank you very much uh ron richlack and thank you for uh sticking very uh precisely to your time um now thank you to all our distinguished speakers and now is the time for uh you the audience to ask some questions but before you do let me tell you how the voting has gone so um before the debate for the motion so against pope pius xii 146 of you against the motion so supporters of pope pius coming in 41 of you however there were 170 of you who didn't know so this is all to play for the floor is now yours i'll take questions in bunches the lights are quite uh bright so so so if i haven't seen you do wave your arms about so there's someone there in the front row and then i'll take the person up there in the top left and then after that the person right up in the back so the person in the middle in the front row go go ahead yes um so thanks very much gentlemen for your comments and your contributions um i was there when jeffrey robertson spoke against the current pope at the time of the papal visit and his gift of fiction has not decreased uh one of the heinrich himmler a devout catholic never heard that before but you're introducing yourself sorry make sure to ask a question i'm just about to my name's peter williams and my question would be given that uh jeffrey robinson brought up that piece of fiction the stelvio the deputy um the play by ralph hochov what does he and indeed the rest of the panel think of the comments by john michael pachaypa who was the head of one of the romanian spy masters who defected to the west and has spoken recently about how he knew the kgb fed documents doctored documents to roth occur deliberately to slander the pope and to discredit the vatican very good um this gentleman up here uh bernard hermann two short questions for the opposition very shortly and yes in 1917 in munich which has been referred to the purple nancy pachelli refused to assist the jewish community unlike his predecessor in allowing the importation of a tabernacle with the jewish festival of sukhos through the mutual offices of the vatican which was completely surprising to the jewish community at the time my second question is rome was liberated upon june 4th 1944 the deportations of the hungarian jewish community did not conclude until july the 27th 1944 in intervening six weeks about 200 000 jews were deported now the pope would have had no problems with no threat from the german occupying forces during those six weeks as far as i'm aware he said nothing or did nothing thank you then we had someone right up at the back there no i think who's uh whose question's obviously already been asked so is there one more question i have someone in the middle there yes uh i like your reaction the last uh could you introduce yourself sorry my name's david franklin um the last speaker um surely your last comment nullified the entire direction of your argument in that if the pope wasn't certain where the jewish state should be where jesus christ lived in lived in jerusalem where the jewish state was originally formed a thousand years before the whole history of the jews was being was in jerusalem and in the area known as israel how in this in any way could indicate that the pope had warm feelings towards the jews whereas there is only one place in the world that is undoubtedly connected to judaism thank you good three excellent questions jeffrey on the kgb slander well so be it uh the communists don't need to invent the pope's silence the pope silence speaks for itself so to speak uh it was it's there as a matter of history he never mentioned the jews he never mentioned the concentration camps he never condemned the final solution he didn't need the communists so quite frankly whether i think it's a romanian journal isn't it who's sorry spymaster spymaster yes it happens i'm uh i have a university degree from bucharest and i know a number of uh romanian generals who have a very low opinion of this particular spy master but i won't play that card i will simply say i will sit i will simply say that john julius here is not renowned for taking moscow gold and the cases i'm doing at the moment happen to be against russia the ukraine and georgia uh for the stalinist uh perceptions that still cover their court so we're not communist dukes uh it didn't i i'm sure that the communists were very happy to see this issue raised by the hook of play in 1963 but uh you know it it it was a play and does anyone on this side want to comment on the kgb conspiracy theory yeah i would be happy to i have uh been working with ian maher pachapa who uh i the thing that that uh just to give an example of how communist uh infiltration or disinformation affected the the approach to pope pius xii after world war ii former catholic croatia is now under soviet domination cardinals in the united states we say steppen act in croatia they say the peanuts was was given a show trial false information was manufactured to indicate that he was complicit with with the natasha regime uh in the 1960s when the issue breaks about pope pius xii uh falcone carl falcone decides to write a book and in trying to find evidence he goes to the prosecution from croatia and he writes an entire book about pope pius xii based upon this croatian information which we now know is doctored and yet that book has influenced uh the study of pius xii throughout john cornwall uh accredited falcone for his magnificent work he did cited it frequently but after uh yugoslavia came out after uh from the thumb of communism the first thing they did was apologize for this show trial the records show that the evidence was manufactured but it's tainted the entire perception and the viewpoint and the the vision from which we look at pius xii so so william do we know what's coming in this question yeah i just want to add one thing it's not difficult to understand why the soviets began their campaign at the end of the second world war nazism having been defeated the great struggle was then between christianity and the churches more or less and western civilization that that were sympathetic to them and the communist world now today because communism has become so disgraceful we tend to think it's incredible that anyone and so many people would have been in trance with comets but at the time it was very real and i have two articles right in front of me from 1946 and from 1947 where the communist campaign is already underway proved that the soviet newspaper alleges pius hitler hitler pact and again in 1947 russian says pope shields fascists so the the campaign against pius 12th as hitler's pope as shielding nazi warfares which by the way is not true he supported the nazis so this side believes that there is motivation oh there's no question for the for the doctrine of the evidence now john julius would you like to comment on the kgb well i mean i think again this is the same old thing that uh if you forgive my saying so uh that uh america is always worried about i mean there's there's always the tendency to see comedy under the reds under the bed uh i don't think excuse me sir 20 million people have died and they're not under the bed they're in the brain they're in graves sir so don't make light of that fact i'm not latin yes you are no no i'm not on the country but i see i remember which i don't think perhaps i don't have to but i remember i remember the whole of the years of the of eugene mccarthy i remember all that going on and everybody was being accused of being a communist and i think that there is only one thing we need to remember which i'm absolutely accept which is that for evgenia parcelli communism was worse than nazis absolutely obviously now this is absolutely nobody nobody argues that nobody's ever wronged absolutely of course we do i don't think i've certainly not argued myself and i can't see anybody else he's told numerous ministers that the first thing that we have to do is defeat adolf hitler and as a matter of fact because he was the greater danger and as a matter of fact they wanted him to condemn the communists during the war and he intervened and he said because they because america wanted to give aid to russia and a lot of people thought that the pope would condemn them in fact he intervened in defense of american lend lease precisely to help stan defeat hitler he wanted us to the pope's attitude towards communism let's go to the so there are there are some more uh rather detailed historical questions does anyone on this side like to take uh the 1917 refusal to assist the jewish community for the festival and uh 1944 this time between the hungarian between the liberation of rome and the hungarian deportation well i just mentioned one thing on the hungering question one of the greatest jewish historians ever general levi he is among the first and greatest historians he has written an entire book called pope pius 12th was not silent hungarian jewry and the papacy and he shows contrary to what was implied that in fact at the very earliest stages pope pius felt was any instructions and on his behalf there were statements and vigorous protests against the deportations now of course he couldn't control the many of hitler and his forces but he took a very strong stand and i would suggest that anyone who wants to read about this should read the book pius 12th was not silent hungarian jewelry in the papacy by general levi because he details the fact that pius 12th was not silent and he did speak out okay so on that point simply untrue anyone wants to pick up 1977 munich the the 1917 letter uh is the one where uh a jewish uh leader came to the future pope is the 12th and asked for assistance in obtaining palm fronds to carry out uh a jewish ceremony and uh and and and pius who essentially was a low-level administrator at this time said i can't help you uh and and he wrote to rome the letter the letter where he said uh this is not a matter of life and death this is not a matter of of helping someone who's isn't suffering this is a matter of a religious thing the import the this would have required violating italian export import rules at that time he said we simply can't do this for this situation that's what it was then the the letter came back from rome saying congratulations on handle this handling this appropriately john cornwell mistranslated that and said for your shrewdness in handling this implying some underhandedness but that was not the proper translation of that letter any i think i'm right in saying that actually when paz had uh he's he or he he he gave a perfectly nice correct answer uh to the head of the jewish community and said i will forward you but i don't think there's very much chance of it happening and it's all very difficult now in the problems i can really offer you very little hope then he reports back to rome and says i didn't see why i should help them uh in the in the uh uh practice of their jewish cult but i think that was the actual phrase now you might say cult is is perhaps another unfortunate word because it in english it's loaded yeah it may not have been so it may not have been so loaded in italian is a perfectly okay uh italian i think that that is a little unfair and i'd like to make that point well i'm great nonetheless i think the reason he didn't want to do it was because he didn't want to he he didn't really want to help the children well it was because he said it was not a matter of life saving or or something like that he said it was for a religious cult he really did believe that they were the sinners who had responsible for their killing that's absolutely incorrect and that is why you talk about the israeli philharmonic and so on the reasons why the pope was congratulated by some jewish leaders who wrote about the reasons later was firstly because they were thanking a number of catholics who had helped towards the end of the war to save them secondly because they wanted they asked the pope to issue a refutation of this blood libel that they were responsible for because they saw it as encouraging the holocaust and he didn't and then of course thirdly they wanted him to recognize the state of israel which he said i think it's important i think it's very offensive to to question the genuine appreciation of the jewish community for pope pius xii he is subtly implying that their motives were something other than that and i think that's wrong can we move on to the another important question which is uh which is the jewish state and not wanting to recognize this in historic uh uh historic well yeah i i don't think it nullifies everything uh uh the pope was concerned that if we we established number one i don't think you should say jewish people have one place where where they should be allowed to be or can you know or tied because that was the suggestion in the question the pope said they haven't i see the need for a homeland i recognize establishing a homeland he said if you put it here i'm worried about what's going to happen is you know there might be some violence in the long run if you put him there you know but but when the point came when push came to shove and the catholic nations that were members of the united nations came to him and said should we vote against this he said no you don't have to vote against it do what you think is right the majority voted for it he could have said you know vote against it and they would have let me just see if there's any do would you like to uh anyone on this side like to comment on his attitude towards israel he was doing what he always did he was avoiding the issue he he wouldn't take a stand even on that he said you do what you like he wouldn't even say yes do it or don't i would refer my distinguished colleagues to an obituary in the jewish chronicle uh in october when did the battery come in excuse me 1994. excuse me october the 10th 1958 the day after pius 12 died and the jewish chronicle points out that as early as 1917 this is the year he was supposedly indifferent to the jewish community according to our colleagues 1917 he he helped nahom sokolop who was an early zionist leader who wanted an established homeland for the jews he he created an opportunity for him to meet with the pope and during the after 1917 he kept in good close contact with nehemiah right up until zakalov's death i should also point out that in 1944 when pope pius 12 was pope uh according to the jewish chronicle he told lord gort the newly appointed high commissioner for palestine that he would have no problem and he would not want to interfere with uh the establishment of a jewish homeland in the state of palestine and that he was filled with profound sympathy for the jews so the reality that he was the the supposition that he was hostile to a jewish homeland is completely false now he was concerned about how to work out the arrangement of diplomatic relations regarding what would be done how the christian community would relate to the new jewish state and how they would relate to the arab community and so on those are concerns that are still with us but on the fundamental issue was he sympathetic to a jewish state he was he was and this is confirmed and by the way jeffrey's question of when did uh when did the vatican recognize not until 1993 but that doesn't mean and if let me yeah can i can i reply to that that's a that's a fair point i myself supported this uh establishment in the state of israel but the israeli foreign ministry themselves in 1948 and i have it right here they said we understand why the pope is hesitating to establish formal death regulations because there was a lot of hostility to put it mildly among the arab communities against jews and against any christians who supported them and if he had done it at that time it would have been it would have been created a ferocious attack against everyone and would have created a terrible situation but one last thing no no let's move to take another round of questions this is um the the lady uh in in the black and white shirt uh up here just uh yes two two in black and white shirts well they must yes so and then and then behind exactly um and then and then ah sorry up yes um i can hardly see but i can i can i can see some waving so we'll go upstairs after after you hi so um my name is anne throwdall um a very simple question after the very erudite previous questions um what i thought was sort of the most interesting that the con the speakers didn't address was that there were no requiem masses recognizing the loss of jewish lives during the holocaust and is that the case are we just jaded because there have been so many remembrance services in modern times very very good question um then that there were two hands up in the in the balcony um and then hold your question for the next round so you've got a microphone coming so two seconds uh my question i'm sorry robert carnathan um my my question was do might your present eyes sort of um color how you see the situation when we look back now we know that hitler was a madman hitler was evil but at the time um fdr who i think was mentioned positively was saying to his ambassador to the nazi court take it easy don't push back just go along and don't make waves and i wonder if the pope at that time if he's in it instead of looking back with the benefit of of what we now know does that maybe color how you view him because you think he should have been harder at the time maybe you should have known he should have known more okay i think we've got that and then there's someone just in front of you yes well i've got something my name's nicholas johnson um there are two related questions the first is really rather more of a point than a question but isn't it correct to say that the british government itself had considerable misgivings about the creation of the state of israel in 1947 and 1948 firstly and secondly perhaps the um critics of the pope and i suppose by extension the institution of the catholic church might like to explain why the nazis um had such a bitter hatred of the catholic church if it was such a an emollient fellow traveller why is it clear from their statements that if they had won the war that they would have taken action to exterminate and eradicate um roman catholicism in germany and and i would add not lutheranism since the lutheran church had largely gone over to the nazis thank you okay so the first question would you like who would like to take the question on requiem masses no requiem yes i will take that question this is a completely mis uninformed uh assumption if there's one thing we have to understand about popeye's truth is that he truly understood what the word catholic means catholic means all embracing it means universal every time he said a mass every time he issued praise it was for everyone and he constantly spoke about the suffering of the jews it is absolutely false to say that he was indifferent or silent uh our our colleague mr robertson said that at no time did he ever speak out i have and he mentioned in particular the german foreign minister riben trump i have an article here in 1940 very early on the word which states pope is emphatic about just peace jews rights defend and in the body of the article it says it was also learned today that in the confrontational meeting that pius 12th had with ribbon top it was learned that uh pius xii also came to the defense of the jews in germany and poland so he did speak out and he did so in a very personal way okay that wasn't about masses it is common ground or it should be it's historical fact you can read it in john julius's book about the popes uh which isn't anti-catholic you can read it in under his very windows a very good book by susan zaccotti although she'll probably be condemned as a communist dupe that he didn't ever publicly mentioned the jews the guest chambers of the final solution uh there were jeffrey is this is this is okay this is uh an answer to that question is it because we do have a lot of questions to get through okay the simple fact is there were no messes i hope you frame that and that you're uh um who would like to make a comment who would like to make a comment on the difficulty the historian's difficulty of looking back how do you judge what it would have been like to have been in that situation at the time are we using too much hindsight in condemning is this side using too much hindsight in condemning the pope wasn't there quite a lot quite condensing it wasn't there quite a lot of ambivalence towards the nazi regime there was ambivalence towards the nazi regime i think in the 1930s uh certainly by uh by 1939 there was virtually no ambivalence i know of in in this country at all there was considerable ambitions of course in america there were there was lindbergh and father cochran all that uh strong isolationism but in this particular country i think we had absolutely or with very very few exceptions uh in the 1930s perhaps yes but by 1940 uh i mean good heavens we've seen hitler breaking every promise uh we'd seen we we'd let down czechoslovakia ourselves we weren't going to do it with poland he was perfectly obvious he was going to go on he didn't do with jews he was god and god knows he was doing bad enough things with them but this was also the general expansion the aggrandizement of nazi germany and nobody could watch that and and not feel petrified you can't be neutral in the face of the gas chambers in the face of the final solution to exterminate a human race uh what do you need to know about the gastro well towards the end they do at the end of this yeah and then neutrality becomes a morality and at the nuremberg trials it was fascinating when they showed to the nuremberg defendants and the whole court pictures of belson and auschwitz that afternoon at nuremberg goring and all the nazi defendants hid their eyes they couldn't face it nice william william i just want to say one thing very clearly the fact of the matter is that pope pius 12 did condemn the holocaust in his 1942 christmas dress as well as in the june 2nd 1943 allocation to the college of carlen in which he explicitly used the term extermination of people based upon the race now that was crystal clear language everybody at the time understood and so the claim is that once he knew he did condem but he didn't he did condemn it and he was condemned by the nazis as a mouthpiece of the jewish war criminals for doing that mr robertson has things completely reversed where did he mention the jews he he mentioned the jews in the confrontational meeting with yes when did he know that the final solution was underway well he he could not confirm it independently but he knew that it was going on as early as late 1941 early 1942 and when as the information came in he had vatican excuse me i've got the actual words that he said to the college of cardinals on the 2nd of june 1943 on which you rely he said and i quote those who have turned an anxiously imploring eye to us tormented as they are for reasons of their nationality or dissent by major misfortunes and by more acute and grave suffering and destined sometimes even without guilt on their part to exterminatory measures no mention of jews nazis racism excuse me gas chambers that's your evidence excuse me that's not my evidence we have we have a whole book an 80 000 word annotated bibliography of evidence which you obviously have not read and i would like to say one thing i've got it yeah no that that's not that's not the book i was referring to yes that's that's wrong book you have to i will be glad i i will be happy to send you an autographed copy of the pious work now um can we okay thank you there was there was another very good question which was why uh if your side is right did the nazis hate the catholic church so and the catholic more than the lutheran church well because the catholics had stopped their extermination of the mentally disordered in the 30s and i have i think it's very interesting that hitler is supposed to have said to general wolf at one point that we might have to attack the vatican and you would be in charge of securing protecting the pope uh and perhaps moving him to liechtenstein under our protection and ribentrop went mad and he said this let me quote ribbon trop if you send an aircraft over to bomb the vatican it will be the last move we the nazis will make our own people the germans can overlook much even our attacks on priests in other countries but if we attack the vatican we will most assuredly have a civil war in germany within the hour the first bomb falls so they're not and that ended any question of attacking the vatican so the nazis themselves were aware that if they bombed the vatican they'd have civil war in germany uh so i think that's yet more uh evidence to show that the nazis really all they asked of the pope was to stay silent so so and they would never have that the hatred of the church is evidence of the power of the church and the power which was not used i think is the argument on that side which is absurd uh the uh it was the church's uh continual intervention not see the point is it's not the pope it's the bishops it's it's at the local level because if the pope responds in a given way that's applied across the universe across the occupied area a statement from the pope isn't going to get into occupied areas where the everything is controlled uh it's not going to have any in fact that way if it does it's going to lead to retaliation and bad stuff so the pope said let my bishops where they can press for more do more let my bishops where they know it's going to cause bad stuff uh you know do what they can if the best we can do is hide and shelter let's hide in shelter if we can give false baptismal certificates so that jews can show that they in fact have been baptized and therefore not subject to deportation let's do that if we can provide food and clothing let's do that you know whatever we can do let's do as much as we can do but let's do it by focusing on the ground level okay now we're running short on time what i'm going to do is i'm going to take as many questions as i can take and if you could uh listen to those questions and maybe integrate any points that you want to pick up in your summing up speeches so the lady right in the front row and then in the blue shirt the front carol conrad in amongst this very heated exchange it seems to me we've lost sight of the motion which said pope pius did too little to save the jews from the holocaust many of mr donah's statements show that he tried to do something but that doesn't mean that he did enough and i think we should as we are about to vote focus on what the motion is actually about very good can i uh can i ask jeffrey robertson my old friend can you introduce me sorry daniel johnson editor of standpoint uh jeffrey's one of my contributors um can i ask him is it or is it not the case that when the dutch bishops did condemn the deportation of the jews there was a massive roundup specifically actually of jews who converted to catholicism one of the victims who was taken to auschwitz was of course edith stein later canonized great philosopher yeah so in other words there was a genuine fear in the vatican that being too explicit might lead to that kind of retaliation and this wasn't a fantasy okay understood we uh we have someone up in the gallery and while the microphone gets to you um the lady right in the middle in the in the uh stripe or tartan i can't quite see and and then we'll go to the bottom here and then to the gallery no no sorry wait a second this one first hello um helena scott those who um remember the storm of protest from jewish people around the world i think as late as the 1990s when there was an attempt to establish a carmelite convent at auschwitz um there was such a protest from jewish people that uh the convent in fact had to be moved um can those who remember this really condemn pope pius xii um as anti-jewish for not saying requiem masses for jewish people which might have provoked for a provoked unequal protest for all we know um secondly um those uh coming back to this very thorny issue of the state of israel who look at the state of israel now and the question of the palestinian people and what is happening to them can they really condemn pope pius xii as anti-jewish for being reluctant to say firmly that the jewish state should be in that particular piece of land thank you down here and then we'll go up to the top yes um my name is selena o'grady and my question is a very simple one why after the war did the pope not excommunicate any answers very good in the gallery yeah i'm andrew benson um in those in those difficult times and um jeffrey robertson um noted that it was uh incredibly difficult times and he also noted that the pope at that point in time was aware that the the nazi germany was killing priests i mean he had to make difficult uh decisions and mighty possibly have made the decision to try and protect his own flock as a priority over protecting a different flock and that no matter how bad that was and and that wish to protect his flock was perceived or can be conveyed as anti-semitism when it was simply a decision of priority to protect his his catholic church okay um we probably have time for just one or two very short questions um uh okay this one yes gentleman with the glasses halfway up and then the young man right at the back uh my name's simon levine i'm no relation to the bolshevik max question for ronald richard do you think when the pope died and he went to heaven and met and peter at the gates some peter said you did a great job and you were effective in you know at the edges trying to uh do the right thing down there on earth do you think that you'd have got a pat on the back or do you think that uh i i think we've got by the greatest judge that there is uh he might have been marked down a little bit thank you um and then final question uh young man at the back um before our summing up speeches uh i'm thomas burick and um my question is uh what if the pope really wanted to save jewish lives then why didn't he speak out against hitler excommunicate him and say about how bad well how horrible the things he had done thank you for that question um right we're now going to go to the vote remember that if you have been convinced by this side of the argument then you want to put your agree slip in if you've been convinced by this side of the argument disagree if you still don't know please put both of them in while the voting is going to be uh uh is proceeding we will ask our speakers to sum up and to take into account the questions that they have just heard so going in reverse order ronald no do stay at stay at your uh stay at the same table voting is important but please let the speakers uh please be quiet while the speakers sum up i suppose suppose two of the questions one directed to me uh but we're fairly similar about how in the end we assess pope pius xii for how he is assessed uh and i believe that in a very difficult situation he did what the best i think he did the best thing that he could do if we take the literal uh uh thing po did pope pius did do too little to save the jews from the holocaust he didn't stop the holocaust he tried to stop the holocaust he wanted to stop the holocaust he asked for prayers he he tried to stop the war i think no one doubts that he wanted to end the war he tried to end the war tried very hard to end the war the holocaust could not go on but for the war if he'd been successful in avoiding the war or stopping the war he would have prevented the holocaust he did what one man could do i think he did more than any other individual did i put the allied armies ahead of him but i think uh there's a headline from the new york times that says uh the pope is speaking out of the silence of a continent uh he was the only one pointing his finger at hitler that was the 1942 new york times uh editorial lead editorial the pious 12 more than ever was was identifying hitler in in a very confined context there's a matter of what can you do the truth of the matter is at the end of the day the nazis despised the pope the rescuers cited him as their inspiration and there were lesion a legion of victims who thanked him and offered him the the greatest praise you could get from gold to my ear to virtually every major jewish group both at the end of the war again at his death wrote to the vatican offering their thanks to him those are the real witnesses those are the people we need to listen to and i appreciate you listening to me tonight thank you jeffrey you have two to three minutes well i'll only say this that edith stein who we share admiration for wrote as early as 1933 a wonderful letter uh saying that he should the former pope should ershesh issue an encyclical condemning both the nazi attacks on the jews and the attacks on catholics and i agree that there was a genuine argument in the vatican over whether speaking out would uh cause more trouble than uh it was worth and the pros and cons were discussed but over five years from uh the beginning of the war in 39 right to the end it said every day it was discussed every day the wrong decision as the evidence comes out as auschwitz in 1944 becomes clear what is being done is of such monstrous and unprecedented evil that any man of god in our submission must have done more than he did obviously the pope didn't was not a nazi he was not in hitler's pocket but he did what the nazi wanted the nazis wanted all they wanted was that he should remain silent and he did when the germans entered rome there was one thing von weisicker did want he wanted a document to satisfy to to satisfy the world that they treated the vatican well and the pope signed that document he went on as you've heard from those telegrams which i think are devastating evidence that the pope did not do as much as he could and uh for the leader of the great religion as much as he should he should have spoken out uh there was certainly concerns that speaking out would lead to more danger uh as i've read you from von ribentrop's memorandum to hitler there was never any doubt that the germans would the nazis would not have bombed or attacked the pope by or or they would have had civil war but uh to make to wake up every morning in between 1939 or like in fact it was first known with slovakia in 1941 and croatia uh until the very end of the war until in our view until 1958 when he died he never spoke out to denounce this horror he could have done more thank you very much i think we've already replied to the statements that our opponents have made the pope did speak out he did intervene quite forcefully during the german occupation of rome and the nazis hated them because of it i just like to bring the subject back to uh what the lady said very generously she said i have shown that the pope of course did something but did he do enough ladies and gentlemen could any of us say that anyone did enough when six million people died no one quote did enough not even the most righteous gentiles that's not the question whether one person had the power to do enough you could always say that even the most righteous gentile the question was given the extreme situation the life and death daily situation that pope pius 12 faced did he do what was reasonably expected of the vicar of christ and we know from the catholic rescuers themselves the answer is an overwhelming yes let me just cite you one priest who was in turn in the concentration camp what he had to say about this matter he said during pious quote this is father mikhail michelle rickway who spent years in a concentration camp because of his stand against the nazis quote pius xii has spoken pius xii has condemned pius xii has acted throughout those years of horror when we listened to radio vatican and to the pope's messages we felt in communion with the pope in helping persecuted jews and fighting against nazi violence i pointed out in my opening statement that as early as 1930 as the cardinal secretary of state adolf hitler himself was condemned the german bishops in fact did try excommunication against hitler in the nazis and it didn't work people who are apostates who are mad men they don't pay attention to things like that okay one last thing i want to say if there's one i want to say this from the bottom of my heart okay i have spent years involved in the jewish christian dialogue and if i believe for one second that pope pius xii was anti-semitic that he did not do enough that he did too little that he turned his back on the jewish community i would not defend him i would not have come all the way to america to defend someone who i thought was a bad person the reason but the reason i am doing so ladies and gentlemen is because every person i have spoken to who has worked with pope pius xii during the rescue of so many jews countless jews told me that he was a good and honorable and decent man and i'd just like to end with one quotation from one of the dearest priests that i know monsignor john patrick carol abby in his book but for the grace of god he goes over all the questions that have been raised tonight and he says comparing what was actually being done at the time by the pope to what is now said today he said quote never in those tragic days could i foresee even in my wildest imaginings that the man who more than any other had tried to alleviate human suffering had spent himself day by day in the unceasing efforts doing so who would years later be made the scapegoat for men trying to free themselves from their own responsibilities and from the collective guilt that obviously weighs so heavily upon them this is a testimony of a man himself monsignor carol abbing who fought the nazis in conjunction with pope pius 12 to rescue so many jews and one last question i think it's very important for us not to allow this situation not to allow this controversy wherever we stand to drive a wedge between the jewish and christian community it's we have come so far in so many ways and it's too important to allow the bonds of unity that we have among christian jews to allow good faith countries like this but i do believe the evidence is turning in favor of pious 12th as indicated by yet hashem and i'm very encouraged about the future thank you all very much you have three minutes well there is why are we all here we're here to debate we if if pious the 12th had not left us with some very very nasty questions uh on our minds uh we would not be here this evening there's no smoke without a fire we all have heard we've all known we have all sometimes some of us even remember right some some of us even remember uh the rage and frustration that people felt at the time i can remember my father in an absolute fury um about about about the silence of of paul he uh he uh he he made absolutely no secret of it he had a tremendous rouse with his catholic friends who tried to uh to defend to defend it i think the problem was we all know that he the the pious didn't speak out whatever our uh most eloquent um friends say here about it the fact remains that even they have not actually been able to produce quotations where he spoke in public mentioning the germans the nazis and the jews this there is there is no such quotation because he'd be very careful not to do it and all right perhaps he felt that he was saving people's lives and all that but i think if you are the leader of the greatest if you are a moral leader of the st of on the scale of the pope you mustn't you you can't hide behind what you think may be better for people you've got to speak out you've got to lead you can't lead from behind and say oh well it's so dangerous and a lot of people might might get killed you've got to stand up and say what you believe and this is what pope pius xii did not do i think that's it seems to me to be as plain as that uh here is a man who believed possibly that he was doing right but in fact he was doing desperately desperately wrong and i think probably one of the reasons i'm afraid was covetous thank you ladies and gentlemen it's been a fantastic debate and the vote is in if you remember uh before the before the debate 170 of you didn't know um a lot of work convincing has been done and it's now at 28. now where did those votes go we had 146 before the debate for the motion and 41 against coming out of the debate we have 227 for the motion and 103 against so the fours carry the motion and they also carried the largest number of don't knows ladies and gentlemen thank you very much you

Channel: Intelligence Squared

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Id: gHr0M7C_o3E

Length: 93min 54sec (5634 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 16 2012