Pitching "Hitler's Pope"

This article was posted to my feed today. I could not let it slip by unchallenged. The body of the article and the work it reviews betray an ignorance not only of basic history but also of the history and teaching of the Church. They are but a talisman of a waning fad. Bear in mind that I shall challenge only a few of the inconsistencies, calumnies and detractions made against the Catholic Church in this article. Much more lurks within its depths.

To begin, the allegations that the Church only acted to preserve its political power in Europe betrays a gross misunderstanding of the Church's position at the time. The last vestiges of a "confessional" state―one which answered in conscience to the Church because it "confessed" the Catholic creed―were long since dead in modern Europe: the death blow to political Christendom had been struck at Westphalia in 1648, the revolutions that convulsed Europe from Paris in 1789 to Moscow in 1917 were the funeral procession, and the political machinations following World War I laid the corpse to an uneasy rest. The Church's political power then as now may be measured by the size of Her political state: 109 acres surrounded by ancient stone walls. Her moral authority, however, is not subject to measurements of a political character. Even though states may come to fear that authority, they fear more the truth known to history: that the structure of the Church may collapse into ruin―ruin sufficient to destroy any political entity yet known to man―and yet the Church herself shall not be destroyed. Said renowned anti-Catholic Thomas Macaulay: She [the Roman Catholic Church] may still exist in undiminished vigour when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's. 

Anyone wondering why the Vatican kept silent during this time of crisis need only look at the facts of the matter. Pope Pius XI (Eugenio Pacelli's immediate predecessor) had written to the German bishops in 1933 praising their zealous condemnation of Nazism and encouraging them to speak out even more against the evils that were inevitable should this pernicious ideology take root. Mit Brennender Sorge publicly denounced the Nazis, and Hitler was not sure of enough support to publicly condemn the Church in return. Hitler had to play the game very close to the chest in the early years of his Chancellorship. What might have occurred had the war been delayed and Hitler better solidified his public power? At the turn of the eighteenth century, Napoleon Buonaparte had captured and imprisoned the Pope, forced him to participate in a crowning ceremony, removed him from the public eye, and effectively silenced any criticism the Pope would have voiced against the revolutionary regime in France. Did this possibility―indeed likelihood―not present a legitimate concern for Pius XII? His city and public seat of authority were located in the capital of fascist Italy, Hitler's dedicated ally. As a political entity, the Vatican signed a concordat both with Italy (which recognized the mutual legitimacy of Vatican territory and Mussolini's government, though it did not approve of fascism itself) and with Germany to safeguard the needs of Catholics in both of those countries. How necessary this was in Germany especially, where Bismarck had initiated a sustained and vicious kulterkampf in order to destroy specifically Catholic influence which often barred his aims at German unification and consolidation of government power. Regardless, one cannot infer moral approval from a political treaty. That would be a tremendous leap of logic even if the historical record did not bear witness to the contrary. Hitler's Pope indeed!

Was it Hitler's Pope who became responsible for the hundreds of thousands of Jews and other refugees who were smuggled through Catholic networks and the unknown numbers permanently hidden within the Vatican, and thereby kept safe from the Nazis? It is estimated that nearly 860,000 Jews were rescued by the efforts of the Church. This was possible only as long as the Vatican remained ostensibly neutral. Pius and the clergy of Europe faced tremendous challenges. Protests against the treatment of Jews and other untermensch were not unilaterally effective as a countermeasure across Europe, and in some cases, public clerical protest only aggravated the Nazis' policy toward Jews. Should the clergy have spoken out, if doing so would actively worsen the situation? Should they not then have better worked in secret, as they did? Was it Hitler's Pope who dispensed cloistered monasteries and convents from their rules and allowed them to open their doors to refugees? Was it Hitler's Pope who encouraged cathedrals, chapels, hospitals, orphanages, and countless other institutions run by the Church to act as crucial safe-zones and stops along the various escape routes? Would Hitler's Pope have covered up the issuance of fake baptismal certificates to non-Catholics? What utter rubbish! Nor are these assertions mere Catholic propaganda. Many Jews, including the Chief Rabbi of Rome, publicly thanked Pius XII for his service to the Jewish people to show their gratitude. Personal testaments, awards, documents and historical scholarship stand in stark contrast to the singular allegations popularized by Hitler's Pope and The Deputy and Constantine's Sword. Nor should one ignore the credible assertions that The Deputy was heavily influenced by the active Communist campaign to discredit the Church in Europe as Her influence was challenging and slowly eroding the effects of Soviet conquest. Any works which appeal to The Deputy as a reliable source must be equally suspect.

Much of this defense of Pius XII, however, rests not on the evidence which is available to anyone who looks for it, but on a basic proposition that it appears ludicrous for anyone―let alone a libertarian, as the author of the article in question purports to be―to deny: that a man has the duty to defend first those chiefly under his care. Common sense demands that if fire endangers John's family and Ben's family equally, John ought to protect his own family first, and Ben ought to see to his. Why is this allowance denied to Catholic prelates whose primary concerns are and of right ought to be for their own people? Such unreasonable demands as would force the Church to care for others before her own are truly mystifying in this light.

Who shall condemn Switzerland for neither speaking out against the evils of Hitler and Nazism nor praising the efforts of the Allies? Will no one admonish Sweden? Ireland? Portugal? Andorra? Liechtenstein? No one mentions the failure of the Princes of Liechtenstein to take a public platform, or convicts the cowardice of the Portuguese Prime Minister, or accuses the Irish, Swedish and Andorran governments of complicity by their silence. Rather, they are remembered (if at all) for their actual contributions, however small, not for their public posture. Vatican City is smaller than any of these, and has for an army less than 250 mercenary (but dedicated) guards; yet, it is expected to have done what no one demands of these larger and more capable states. Even so, the Church that protected the victims of Nazi aggression more effectively than any other entity is the more scurrilously condemned for not making its disapproval sufficiently public. Even if the Vatican had not taken these documented and heroic actions, was it not privileged as the other neutrals were to protect its own interests first and to maintain its neutrality in the face of grave danger and war? Or will someone say that these other neutrals were equally selfish and worthy of contempt? At least that would establish some consistency within the narrative, though its timbre would sound equally hollow.

To paraphrase G. K. Chesterton, it swiftly becomes clear to the careful observer that any stick appears good enough to beat the Catholic Church with. The world does not more consistently place any one thing in the unenviable position "damned if you do; damned if you don't" than it does the Catholic Church. Nor does it do so with such obvious bias couched in self-righteous platitudes. Those who value true history cannot too quickly abandon nor too zealously fight to dispel this abusive lie, this false narrative, for it is no more than a canker blossom in the mouth of truth.