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The Catholic Church and World War II

A lot of nonsense is being perpetrated against the Catholic Church and World War II. What were the roles of Pius XI and Pius XII? Was the Church in collaboration with the Nazis? When so many contradictory statements are made how do we know the truth? When someone accuses your mother shouldn’t you first research what really happened before accepting accusations? Where do we find evidence of the past?

My answer is don’t rely on hear say, go to the sources. What are the sources? Hitler’s book Mein Kampf (at the Project Gutemberg), the transcripts of the Nazi trials in Nuremberg (at Yale University), the Popes letters (at the Vatican). Here there are. Study for yourself and make up your own mind.

The Vatican and Fascism

During the civil war of the Italian reunification in March 1861 the first Italian Parliament declared Rome the capital of the Kingdom of Italy. The Papal States were annexed to the Kingdom of Italy on 20 September 1870. The Pope became a prisoner in Rome.

In 1929 the Lateran Treaties created the state of the Vatican City and guaranteed full and independent sovereignty to the Holy See. The Pope was pledged to perpetual neutrality in international relations and to abstention from mediation in a controversy unless specifically requested by all parties. The Concordat established Catholicism as the religion of Italy. The financial agreement was accepted as settlement of all the claims of the Holy See against Italy arising from the loss of temporal power in 1870.

The Concordat (1929)
http://www.aloha.net/~mikesch/treaty.htm

In 1929 Mussolini promised freedom of religion to the Catholic Church.

Art. 1. Italy, in the sense of Art. I of the Treaty, assures the Catholic Church of the free exercise of her spiritual power, the free and public exercise of worship, and of jurisdiction in Ecclesiastical matters in conformity with the norm of the present Concordat [...]

On Catholic Action In Italy
Encyclical Of Pope Pius XI
(Non Abbiamo Bisogno, June 29, 1931)
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_29061931_non-abbiamo-bisogno_en.html

By 1931 the fascist party systematically disbands, destroys and kills Catholic Youth Organizations.

1. We do not need to acquaint you, Venerable Brethren, with the events which have recently occurred in this Our Episcopal city of Rome, and throughout Italy, that is to say, in the very territory of which We are Primate - events which have had such a wide and deep repercussion especially in all the dioceses of Italy and throughout the Catholic world. These occurrences can be summarized in very few and very sad words. An attempt has been made to strike a mortal blow at that which was and always will be dearest to Our heart as Father and as Shepherd of Souls;

10. Already on several occasions, Venerable Brethren, in the most solemn and explicit manner and assuming entire responsibility for what We were saying, We have protested against the campaign of false and unjust accusations which preceded the disbanding of the Associations of the young people and of the University students affiliated to Catholic Action.

11. But, in sad contrast with the manner of acting of these officials, how many acts of brutality and of violence there have been, even to the striking of blows and the drawing of blood!

The Vatican and Nazism

Before and during the Second world war the popes never stopped condemning the war. The Nazis were bent on destroying specifically 3 types of enemies: the Jews, the Catholic Church, and the Labor Unions.The popes, Pius XI and Pius XII, worked for peace and at the same time warned the world of the impending danger. They spoke out against Nazi Germany as much if not more than Roosevelt, Churchill and Chamberlin combined.

Mein Kampf (Adolf Hitler)
(Translation of March 21st, 1939)
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200601.txt

Speaking of the Pan-German party Hitler says the Church did not approve of the Pan-German party and was being persecuted for her stand against German policies.

Therefore it looked as if the Catholic Church was not in sympathy with the German people but that it unjustly supported their adversaries. The root of the whole evil, especially according to Sch”nerer’s opinion, lay in the fact that the leadership of the Catholic Church was not in Germany, and that this fact alone was sufficient reason for the hostile attitude of the Church towards the demands of our people.

The so-called cultural problem receded almost completely into the background, as was generally the case everywhere throughout Austria at that time. In assuming a hostile attitude towards the Catholic Church, the Pan-German leaders were influenced not so much by the Church’s position in questions of science but principally by the fact that the Church did not defend German rights, as it should have done, but always supported those who encroached on these rights, especially the Slavs.

Avalon Project (Nuremberg Trials)
Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression Volume 2, Chapter XV Part 2, Proceedings (1946)
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/document/nca_vol2/chap15_part02.htm

Hitler, Bormann, Himmler made it a point of persecuting the Church. Notice the “completely and finally” destruction of the Church. Same language used against the Jews, “the final solution.”

Bormann, (chancellor and private secretary to Hitler) issued a secret decree addressed to all Gauleiter, entitled “Relationship of National Socialism and Christianity” (D-75). In this decree Bormann flatly declared that National Socialism and Christianity are incompatible and that the influence of the churches in Germany must be eliminated:

“* * * Our National Socialist ideology is far loftier than the concepts of Christianity, which, in their essential points, have been taken over from Jewry. For this reason also, we do not need Christianity. * * * It follows from the irreconcilability of National Socialist and Christian concepts that a strengthening of existing confessions and every demand of originating Christian confessions is to be rejected by us. * * *

For the first time in German history, the Fuehrer consciously and completely has the leadership of the people in his own hand. With the Party, its components, and attached units, the Fuehrer has created for himself, and thereby the German Reich leadership, an instrument which makes him independent of the Church. [...] More and more the people must be separated from the churches and their organs, the pastors. [...] never again must an influence on leadership of the people be yielded to the churches. This influence must be broken completely and finally.”

Mit Brennender Sorge
Encyclical Of Pope Pius XI
On The Church And The German Reich
March 14, 1937.
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_14031937_mit-brennender-sorge_en.html

Notice the language of the Pius XI. How much stronger can it be? Nazi Germany is equaled to the “enemy of Holy Scripture” i.e. Satanic. Nationalism and racial prejudice is equaled to idolatry. How does a Pope fight German panzers, with Swiss guards?

4. If then, the tree of peace, which we planted on German soil with the purest intention, has not brought forth the fruit, which in the interest of your people, We had fondly hoped, no one in the world who has eyes to see and ears to hear will be able to lay the blame on the Church and on her Head. The experiences of these last years have fixed responsibilities and laid bare intrigues, which from the outset only aimed at a war of extermination. In the furrows, where We tried to sow the seed of a sincere peace, other men - the “enemy” of Holy Scripture - oversowed the cockle of distrust, unrest, hatred, defamation, of a determined hostility overt or veiled, fed from many sources and wielding many tools, against Christ and His Church. They, and they alone with their accomplices, silent or vociferous, are today responsible, should the storm of religious war, instead of the rainbow of peace, blacken the German skies.

8. Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community - however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things - whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds.

39. The Church cannot wait to deplore the devastation of its altars, the destruction of its temples, if an education, hostile to Christ, is to profane the temple of the child’s soul consecrated by baptism, and extinguish the eternal light of the faith in Christ for the sake of counterfeit light alien to the Cross.

Dum Gravissimum
Radio message of His Holiness Pius XII
3 March 1939
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/speeches/1939/documents/hf_p-xii_spe_19390303_dum-gravissimum_it.html

The heart of the Pope and his prayers for peace, 6 months before the war.

As God, in His mysterious design, put on our shoulders a tremendous responsibility, we are touched and humbled. We also feel the need to join our thoughts and our fatherly words to the whole Catholic world.

Nonetheless, our thoughts run to all those who, outside the Catholic Church, will learn with joy that we, in this solemn hour, have implored for them the utmost help from the utmost God.

In these terrible hours, when so many difficulties are opposed to conclude a true peace, this is our most profound aspiration.

This is, precious children, this is, venerable brothers, this is the first vow that springs from the paternal beat that God has burning in our heart.

To all People and Governments to Avoid War.
Radio message of His Holiness Pius XII
Un’ora Grave
24 August 1939
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/speeches/1939/documents/hf_p-xii_spe_19390824_ora-grave_it.html

The heart of the Pope and his prayers for peace, 1 month before the war.

The danger is imminent, but there is still time.

Peace is not lost. But all can be lost with war. Return, men, to mutual understanding. Return to treaties. Treating with good will and mutual respect of the rights of others it will be seen that to the sincere and factual negotiations never preclude honorable success.

It will be true greatness when silence will be imposed to the voices of passions, either private or collective, and when letting reason win, we will have saved the blood of our brothers and the destruction of our nations.

The heart of the Pope and his prayers for peace, the first Christmas. He decries the war, the crimes against basic human dignity and the “premeditated aggression against a small, laborious and pacific people” i.e. the Jewish people.

In Questo Giorno
Radio message of His Holiness Pius XII
24 Decmber 1939
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/speeches/1939/documents/hf_p-xii_spe_19391224_questo-giorno_it.html

The heart of the Pope and his prayers for peace, on the first Christmas Eve of the war.

The untold calamity of the war that Pius XI foretold with extreme mourning has now burst into a tragic reality.

In front of it an immense bitterness floods our soul, meek and thoughtful that the Holy Birth of Lord, the Prince of Peace, should be celebrated among the deadly and somber rumbling of canons.

We have had to assist to a series of irreconcilable acts either against international law as well as natural law or even more against the most basic human nature. We have seen from what chaotic vicious circle has fallen the sense of law into pure utilitarian considerations. In this category are the premeditated aggression against a small, laborious and pacific people, with the excuse of a threat that does not exists, never was willed neither is possible. The atrocities (whomever they came from) and the use of destruction against non combatants and refugees, against the old, the woman and the children, the depreciation of human dignity, freedom and life, are all acts that cry vengeance unto the God: “the voice of your brother’s blood cries unto me from the earth.” (Gen., 4, 10).