Pope Pius Xii Quotes

60. The use of the Latin language customary in a considerable portion of the Church is a manifest and beautiful sign of unity, as well as an effective antidote for any corruption of doctrine truth.

When Pope Pius XII died, LIFE magazine carried a picture of him in his private study kneeling before a black Christ. What was the source of their information? All white people who have studied history and geography know that Christ was a black man. Only the poor, brainwashed American Negro has been made to believe that Christ was white, to maneuver him into worshiping the white man. After becoming a Muslim in prison, I read almost everything I could put my hands on in the prison library. I began to think back on everything I had read and especially with the histories, I realized that nearly all of them read by the general public have been made into white histories. I found out that the history-whitening process either had left out great things that black men had done, or some of the great black men had gotten whitened.

The power of sacred music increases the honor given to God by the Church in union with Christ, its Head. Sacred music likewise helps to increase the fruits which the faithful, moved by the sacred harmonies, derive from the holy liturgy. These fruits, as daily experience and many ancient and modern literary sources show, manifest themselves in a life and conduct worthy of a Christian.

Sport, properly directed, develops character, makes a person courageous, a generous loser, and a gracious victor; it refines the senses, gives intellectual penetration, and steels the will to endurance. It is not merely a physical development then. Sport, rightly understood, is an occupation of the whole person, and while perfecting the body as an instrument of the mind, it also makes the mind itself a more refined instrument for the search and communication of truth….

Pope Pius XII, in particular, had failed to condemn the Final Solution, though he knew of it.

New evidence uncovered in the Vatican Secret Archives suggests that the wartime Pope Pius XII – formerly an influential Vatican diplomat named Eugenio Pacelli – may have done more to facilitate Hitler's rise to power than most secular leaders.

The American people have a great genius for splendid and unselfish actions. Into the hands of America God has placed the destinies of an afflicted mankind.

Pius XII, more than half a century ago, said that the tragedy of our age was that it had lost its sense of sin, the awareness of sin. Today we add further to the tragedy by considering our illness, our sins, to be incurable, things that cannot be healed or forgiven.

6) The National General Assembly of the people of Cuba - confident that it is expressing the general opinion of the peoples of Latin America - affirms that democracy is not compatible with financial oligarchy; with discrimination against the Negro; with disturbances by the Ku Klux Klan; nor with the persecution that drove scientists like Oppenheimer from their posts, deprived the world for years of the marvelous voice of Paul Robeson, held prisoner in his own country, and sent the Rosenbergs to their death against the protests of a shocked world including the appeals of many governments and of Pope Pius XII.

62. It is neither wise nor laudable to reduce everything to antiquity by every possible device. Thus, to cite some instances, one would be straying from the straight path were he to wish the altar restored to its primitive table form; were he to want black excluded as a color for the liturgical vestments; were he to forbid the use of sacred images and statues in Churches; were he to order the crucifixes designed that the Divine Redeemer's Body shows no trace of His cruel sufferings; lastly were he to disdain and reject polyphonic music or singing in parts, even where it conforms to regulations issued by the Holy See.

Thus it is that the statement on the Jews issued by Vatican II in 1965 was nothing more (or less) than a forceful restatement of the traditional church teachings in language appropriate for the time. Unfortunately, this particular manifestation of anti-Catholic history lives on with renewed venom in recent indictments of Pope Pius XII as Hitler’s collaborator in the Holocaust, which also is said to be quite in keeping with the pope’s support of Franco and the Spanish fascists. Ironically, this historical libel has mainly been propagated by alienated Catholics, while the most compelling support for the pope has come from Jews.

As the world learned of the horrors of the Nazi death camps, Pope Pius XII was widely praised for his vigorous and devoted efforts to saving Jewish lives during the war. In 1943, Chaim Weizmann, who would become the first president of Israel, wrote: “the Holy See is lending its powerful help wherever it can, to mitigate the fate of my persecuted co-religionists.”77 Moshe Sharett, soon to be Israel’s first foreign minister and second prime minister, met with the pope during the last days of the war: “I told him that my first duty was to thank him, and through him the Catholic Church, on behalf of the Jewish public for all they had done in various countries to rescue Jews.”78 Upon the pope’s death in 1958, Golda Meir, a future prime minister of Israel, noted his efforts on behalf of the Jews of Europe, calling him “a great servant of peace,”79 for it was well-known among that generation of Israelis that Pope Pius XII had made many personal efforts to protect and shelter Jews from the Nazis.

In any event, should you doubt that your knowledge of Western history is distorted by the work of these distinguished bigots, consider whether you believe any of the following statements: The Catholic Church motivated and actively participated in nearly two millennia of anti-Semitic violence, justifying it on grounds that the Jews were responsible for the Crucifixion, until the Vatican II Council was shamed into retracting that doctrine in 1965. But, the Church still has not made amends for the fact that Pope Pius XII is rightfully known as “Hitler’s Pope.” Only recently have we become aware of remarkably enlightened Christian gospels, long ago suppressed by narrow-minded Catholic prelates. Once in power as the official church of Rome, Christians quickly and brutally persecuted paganism out of existence. The fall of Rome and the ascendancy of the Church precipitated Europe’s decline into a millennium of ignorance and backwardness. These Dark Ages lasted until the Renaissance/Enlightenment, when secular scholars burst through the centuries of Catholic barriers against reason. Initiated by the pope, the Crusades were but the first bloody chapter in the history of unprovoked and brutal European colonialism. The Spanish Inquisition tortured and murdered huge numbers of innocent people for “imaginary” crimes, such as witchcraft and blasphemy. The Catholic Church feared and persecuted scientists, as the case of Galileo makes clear. Therefore, the Scientific “Revolution” occurred mainly in Protestant societies because only there could the Catholic Church not suppress independent thought. ► Being entirely comfortable with slavery, the Catholic Church did nothing to oppose its introduction in the New World nor to make it more humane. Until very recently, the Catholic view of the ideal state was summed up in the phrase, “The divine right of kings.” Consequently, the Church has bitterly resisted all efforts to establish more liberal governments, eagerly supporting dictators. It was the Protestant Reformation that broke the repressive Catholic grip on progress and ushered in capitalism, religious freedom, and the modern world. Each of these statements is part of the common culture, widely accepted and frequently repeated. But, each is false and many are the exact opposite of the truth! A chapter will be devoted to summarizing recent repetitions of each of these statements and to demonstrating that each is most certainly false.

By his early-twenties, John F. Kennedy was living one of the most extraordinary young American lives of the twentieth century. He traveled in an orbit of unprecedented wealth, influence, global mobility, and power. As a student and as diplomatic assistant to his father, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1938 to 1940, Kennedy journeyed to England, Ireland, France, Moscow, Berlin, Beirut, Damascus, Athens, and Turkey, pausing briefly from a vacation on the French Riviera to sleep with the actress Marlene Dietrich. He met with top White House officials and traveled to Cuba, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Peru, and Ecuador. He gambled in a casino in Monte Carlo; visited Naples, Capri, Milan, Florence, Venice, and Rome; rode a camel at the Great Pyramid at Giza; attended the coronation of Pope Pius XII; and witnessed a rally for Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. He recalled of these momentous years, 'It was a great opportunity to see a period of history which was one of the most significant.' In a visit to British-occupied Palestine, Kennedy recalled, 'I saw the rock where our Lord ascended into heaven in a cloud, and [in] the same area, I saw the place where Mohammed was carried up to heaven on a white horse.

on 26 January 1944 that ‘The Cardinal Secretary of State sent for me today to say that the Pope hoped that no Allied coloured troops would be among the small number that might be garrisoned at Rome after the occupation. He hastened to add that the Holy See did not draw the colour line but it was hoped that it would be possible to meet the request.’ 32 The role of Pius xii in the Second World War remains highly controversial, because he took the deliberate decision not to denounce publicly the Nazis’ war against the Jews, despite having detailed information about its nature and extent (and indeed that of the persecution of the Catholic Church in

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now in his third five-year term as head of the modern equivalent of the Holy Inquisition, served in the military in Germany during the war, though he saw no combat. By his own admission he was aware of the Holocaust. No German could have been totally ignorant. "The abyss of Hitlerism could not be overlooked," Ratzinger now confesses.22 Yet he overlooked it when it would have cost him something to speak out against it. Surely now, as the watchdog of orthodoxy and the longestserving and most powerful official in the Vatican next to the pope, Ratzinger could make amends both for his own silence and that of his Church all during the Holocaust. Why not offer genuine repentance and sorrowful apology to the Jews? But Ratzinger and John Paul II continue Pius XII's stony silence. And how could they apologize without admitting that their popes and Church have sinned grievously against Christ's natural brethren, and thus that the very claim to infallibility and being the one true Church is a fraud? No Escape from Guilt

...Nessa amedrontadora etapa da história, enquanto se acumulam ruínas espirituais e materiais, essas providenciais iniciativas de caridade, que talvez poderiam parecer suficientes às necessidades comuns de outros tempos, tornaram-se, infelizmente, inadequadas. Vislumbramos, veneráveis irmãos, intermináveis multidões de crianças, que, gemendo e quase exaustas de fome, com suas mãozinhas pedem pão "não tendo ninguém que o reparta" (cf. Lm 4, 4); que, privadas de casa e de roupa, congeladas pelo frio do inverno, estão prestes a morrer, não tendo a mãe ou o pai que as cubra e as aqueça; que, enfim, doentes e talvez também atingidas pela tuberculose, falta o remédio adequado e os necessário cuidados. Trata-se de multidões, que com dor vemos perambulando pelas ruas barulhentas da cidade, impelidas pelo ócio e pela corrupção, ou vadiando incertas pelas cidades, vilas e campos, enquanto, infelizmente, ninguém lhes concede segura protecção contra a miséria, os vícios e os delitos. É por isso, veneráveis irmãos, que amando com "o mesmo amor de Cristo" (Fl 1, 8) esses nossos pequeninos filhos, dirigimos um caloroso apelo a vós e a quantos estão animados de nobres sentimentos de misericórdia e de piedade, para que todo tipo de esforço e iniciativa de caridade cristã seja dedicado com generosos entendimentos e propósitos para alívio e conforto de tantos. Nada se transcure daquilo que os nossos tempos sugerem; e se excogitem também novos sistemas e métodos, onde se possa, com o concurso de todos os bons, levar oportunos remédios aos males presentes, impedindo para o futuro deletérias consequências. Queira Deus, com a ajuda de sua graça, que quanto antes os vícios que arrastam tantas crianças abandonadas sejam extintos, sendo substituídos pela virtude, de modo que o ócio vão e a triste inércia dêem lugar ao honrado e alegre trabalho, e que a fome e a nudez de muitos obtenha o necessário socorro da divina caridade de Cristo, que especialmente nos nossos tempos deve reviver, crescer e flamejar nos seus sequazes. Tudo isso não só é de grande vantagem para a religião católica, mas também para a sociedade civil; já que, como todos sabem, os cárceres e as casas de recuperação não estariam tão repletos de criminosos, se os métodos e as medidas preventivas fossem aplicados oportunamente e em maior escala no que se refere à juventude; e se a infância crescesse sadia, íntegra e operosa por toda parte, mais facilmente haveria cidadãos credenciados com as maiores qualidades morais e físicas. Em uma palavra, de probidade e de firmeza.

Humanity needs mercy and compassion. Pius XII, more than half a century ago, said that the tragedy of our age was that it had lost its sense of sin, the awareness of sin. Today we add further to the tragedy by considering our illness, our sins, to be incurable, things that cannot be healed or forgiven. We lack the actual concrete experience of mercy. The fragility of our era is this, too: we don’t believe that there is a chance for redemption; for a hand to raise you up; for an embrace to save you, forgive you, pick you up, flood you with infinite, patient, indulgent love; to put you back on your feet. We need mercy.

state secret matter.

fifty kilograms of gold

He made not even the briefest mention, indeed no mention at all, of the Nazis’ extermination of Europe’s Jews.

What those courageous actions during the war were he did not say.

Pope Pius XII was certainly not “Hitler’s pope,” as John Cornwell’s intentionally provocative book title would have it.

Spiritually, we are Semites

Pius XII “is good, fine, sensitive, it is even said oversensitive. But in my opinion, he lacks personality, or more exactly he lacks strong character.

Because the humiliations and the punishments inflicted on the Germans this time will be even worse than those that followed Versailles;

How could the Vatican justify taking such a great interest in the Jews, asked Dell’Acqua, when it had not complained about the violence Germany had directed against “Aryan people who have professed the Catholic religion from birth”?

People credit Pope for saving Rome,” explained Osborne in reporting the event to London, “though he had nothing to do with it.

If the Fascists wanted to have them ring, they would be able to do so only by force. In the end, no one made such an attempt. This was not a time to antagonize the pope.

The sharp-tongued Monsignor Tardini dubbed Hitler the “Motorized Attila.

the Vatican’s cooperation.

This was not media hype. Pope Pius XII himself weighed in, announcing his blessing from the Holy See. A few year later, when Khrushchev toured Washington, D.C., in 1959, the supermarket brought a temporary détente to the Cold War. As the Soviet premier scanned the store, he erupted with spontaneous praise: “I want to greet the manager of this supermarket. I am truly filled with admiration over what I see.

It is fashionable today to praise the Church of the first four centuries, to extol primative practice. How would the Church of the first four centuries have regarded Archbishop Whealon? Anyone who is remotely acquainted with Church history can give one answer and one answer only. Archbishop Whealon would have been regarded as an apostate; he would have been anathemized, and every true Catholic bishop would have broken off communion with him. I believe that the Church of the first four centuries was right. I believe that Archbishop Whealon is at least a de facto apostate. It seems a harsh thing to say. It may make me appear harsh and intolerant - but nonetheless it is the truth. Cardinal Newman has a magnificent sermon upon this very point, "Tolerance of Religious Error". He castigates those who concern us not to uphold truth but to avoid the appearance of being intolerant. Once again I must repeat, those who possess the truth, those who love the truth, cannot tolerate error . . . Furthermore, I submit that Archbishop Whealon's conduct would have been considered incompatible with Catholicism not only by the Church of the first four centuries - it would have resulted in his immediate excommunication by every Roman Pontiff up to and including Pope John XXIII. I accept that what I am saying will make me appear singular, intemperate, and extreme in the ecumenical climate of the Conciliar Church but the viewpoint I am putting forward would have been accepted by 99% of Catholics up to Vatican II. Read the encyclical Mortalium Animos of Pope Pius XI, read the relevant encyclicals of Pope Pius XII. If Archbishop Whealon is right, the the Church has been wrong for 2,000 years. (chapter 8)

Pope Pius XII’s encyclical, Humani Generis, (The Origin of Humanity), shows the kind of concerns about the theory almost a century after Darwin.

An Austrian national who was said to be obsessed with Jews, Bishop Hudal moved about Rome throughout the war in a chauffeured car that flew the flag of Greater Germany. Two and a half years after the Allied victory, he hosted a Christmas party attended by hundreds of Nazi war criminals living in Rome under his protection. With Hudal’s help, many would find sanctuary in South America. Adolf Eichmann received assistance from Bishop Hudal, as did Franz Stangl, the commandant of the Treblinka extermination camp. All with the knowledge and tacit support of Pope Pius XII, who believed such monsters to be a valuable asset in the global fight against Soviet communism.

The process of Jewish-Christian reconciliation would therefore have to wait until Pius’s death in 1958. His successor, Pope John XXIII, took extraordinary steps to protect Jews during World War II while serving as papal nuncio in Istanbul, including issuing them lifesaving false passports. He was old when the Ring of the Fisherman was placed on his finger, and sadly his reign was brief. Not long before his death in 1963, he was asked whether there was anything to be done about the devastating portrayal of Pius XII in Rolf Hochhuth’s searing play The Deputy. “Do against it?” the incredulous pope reportedly replied. “What does one do against the truth?

His relations with the papacy had also begun to sour. Escrivá had never warmed to Pope John XXIII, who had been elected after the death of Pius XII in 1958 and quickly became known as the “good pope” for his efforts to liberalize the Church.

Whosoever considers the immense labors undertaken by Catholic exegetes during well nigh two thousand years, so that the word of God, imparted to men through the Sacred Letters, might daily be more deeply and fully understood and more intensely loved, will easily be convinced that it is the serious duty of the faithful, and especially of priests, to make free and holy use of this treasure, accumulated throughout so many centuries by the greatest intellects.

The Catholic Church in Germany offered no official condemnation of the mounting persecution of the Jews, even following the pogroms of 9–10 November 1938. As early as April 1933 the Archbishop of Munich-Freising, the redoubtable Cardinal Michael Faulhaber, had explained to the Papal Secretary of State and former nuncio in Germany, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (later to become Pope Pius XII), why the Catholic hierarchy ‘does not step in on behalf of the Jews. This is not possible at the moment because the fight against the Jews would also become a fight against the Catholics,’ he stated. It was an explanation that went to the heart of the Catholic Church’s passivity towards the fate of the Jews in Nazi Germany.

You must, when called upon, be prepared to defend resolutely and to protect, when possible, the helpless and hidden life of the child, following the divine precept ‘Non occides’: You shall not kill (Exodus 20:13). Such

Pope Pius IX promulgated the dogma of the immaculate conception of Mary in his bull Ineffabilis Deus (December 8, 1854), and Pope Pius XII promulgated the dogma of the bodily assumption of Mary in his bull Munifi-centissimus Deus (November 1, 1950). The result of this view of divine revelation is “that the Church does not draw her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone.

Introduction THE TRUTH of the Second Coming of Jesus at the end of time has proved to be difficult for many Catholics to relate to. It is an area of theology that many find irrelevant to their everyday lives; something perhaps best left to the placard-wielding doom merchants. However, the clarity of this teaching is to be found throughout the pages of Sacred Scripture, through the Tradition of the Church Fathers, notably St. Augustine and St. Irenaeus, and in the Magisterium of the popes. A possible reason for this attitude of incredulity is the obvious horror at the prospect of the end of the world. In envisioning this end, the focus of many consists of an image of universal conflagration where the only peace is the peace of death, not only for man but the physical world also. But is that scenario one that is true to the plans of Divine Providence as revealed by Jesus? In truth it is not. It is a partial account of the wondrous work that the Lord will complete on the last day. The destiny of humanity and all creation at the end of time will consist of the complete renewal of the world and the universe, in which the Kingdom of God will come. Earth will become Heaven and the Holy Trinity will dwell with the community of the redeemed in an endless day illuminated by the light that is God—the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I suspect that the ignorance of many stems from the lack of clear teaching coming from the clergy. There is no real reason for confusion in this area as the Second Vatican Council document, Lumen Gentium, and the Catholic Catechism make the authentic teaching very clear. With the knowledge that the end will give way to a new beginning, the Christian should be filled with hope, not fear, expectation, not apprehension. It is important to stress at this point that it is not my intention to speculate as to specific times and dates, as that knowledge belongs to God the Father himself; rather the intention is to offer the teachings and guidance of the recent popes in this matter, and to show that they are warning of the approaching Second Coming of the Lord. Pope Pius XII stated in his Easter Message of 1957: “Come, Lord Jesus. There are numerous signs that Thy return is not far off.” St. Peter warns us that “everything will soon come to an end” (1 Pet. 4:7), while at the same time exercising caution: “But there is one thing, my friends, that you must never forget: that with the Lord, a “day” can mean a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day” (2 Pet. 3:8). So let us leave the time scale open, that way controversy can be avoided and the words of the popes will speak for themselves.

The Aquarian age would “constellate the problem of the union of opposites.” The “real existence” of evil would have to be acknowledged; it could no longer be understood as the mere absence of good, as was the official Christian stance. This would come about not through politics or any collective effort but through the “individual human being, via his experience of the living spirit,” that is, the unconscious.7 As an example of how the archetypes work on the collective consciousness, Jung notes the then recent papal decree making the Assumption of Mary, Christ’s mother, part of Christian dogma. This was of enormous importance for Jung; it showed that Christianity recognized the need to include the feminine in the Godhead, something it had lacked and which had weakened its appeal. The idea that Mary didn’t die but was taken, body and soul, to heaven, had been accepted for nearly a century, but it wasn’t made part of divine revelation until Pope Pius XII’s decree on November 1, 1950. The masses demanded it and their insistence was, Jung writes, “the urge of the archetype to realize itself.”8

A deep spiritual bond exists between Christians, Moslems and Jews, for as Pope Pius XII said, all Christians are “spiritual Semites” because we are descended spiritually from Abraham.

forehead while we recited the prayers to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, adding, by his desire, three times the Gloria Patri in honor of Blessed Margaret Mary. The novena ended on the First Friday of March.” The time had arrived when Gemma’s great patience was to be rewarded. She was not to die; God intended to glorify her by the fullness of His most extraordinary gifts before taking her to Himself. But in order that she might be delivered from her frightful sufferings, a great miracle was required. This miracle Our Lord in His mercy and goodness was pleased to perform. At the close of the novena to the Sacred Heart, Gemma sent for her confessor and made her Confession. After Holy Communion, Jesus said to her, “Gemma, wilt thou be cured?” Overcome with emotion, she answered only with her heart: “As Thou wilt, my Jesus.” Gemma was restored to health: her cure was as complete as it was instantaneous. Scarcely had two hours passed when she arose. The relatives and members of the household wept with joy. She now received Holy Communion again daily, for she had a consuming desire for this heavenly Food. Three months after her cure, she received the sacred stigmata. During the four years that she still lived, wonderful mysteries were imparted to her, such as have been imparted only to the greatest saints. Since her death God has glorified her through miracles. She was canonized by Pope Pius XII on May 2, 1940. Aid through the Sacred Heart of Jesus

As for Rome, it did not bend one bit. When in Romania the liberal priest Andrea Agotha convened a “Congress” of some forty Catholic clergy in the town of Targu Mures on April 27, 1950 to discuss creating a “democratic” (pro-Communist Party) Church, Pope Pius XII immediately excommunicated them once he received the news in Rome.513

More important, Pius XII released a major encyclical in 1943 endorsing the organic definition of community implicit in Mystical Body theology. Catholic interracialists immediately applied the pope’s words to American race relations. “The stupendous Encyclical Letter of His Holiness on the ‘Mystical Body of Christ’ left me weak and ever so happy,” noted one activist, “For now none who will read it, will be able to justify any kind of prejudice against the Negroes, or Interracial Justice.” Another editorialist observed that “If any one tenet of the Church may be called all-inclusive, it is this doctrine of the Mystical Body. And in its perfected application it has no common ground with racial discrimination of any sort.

But once holy religion is rejected, once the Divine Majesty, establishing what is good and evil, is ignored, it is plain that laws and public authority have little or no value. Then again, once hope and expectation of eternal reward are lost through these fallacious doctrines, men will greedily and without restraint seek things of earth, vehemently covet their neighbor's goods and even take them by force as often as occasion or opportunity is given. Hence hatred, envy, discord, and rivalries arise among men; hence public and private life is perturbed; hence the very foundations of society which can scarcely be held together and maintained by the authority of government are gradually undermined; hence, deformation of morals by evil theatrical performances, books, periodicals, and actual crime.

But where, as is the case in almost all dioceses, there exists a church in which the Virgin Mother of God is worshipped with more intense devotion, thither on stated days let pilgrims flock together in great numbers and publicly and in the open give glorious expression to their common Faith and their common love toward the Virgin Most Holy.

Just as all mothers are deeply affected when they perceive that the countenance of their children reflects a peculiar likeness to their own, so also our Most Sweet Mother wishes for nothing more, never rejoices more than when she sees those whom, under the cross of her Son, she has adopted as children in His stead, portray the lineaments and ornaments of her own soul in thought, word, and deed.

It was fitting that Jesus Christ should have such a Mother as would be worthy of Him as far as possible; and she would not have been worthy, if, contaminated by the hereditary stain even for the first moment only of her conception, she had been subject to the abominable power of Satan.

No such criticism of the racial laws would ever escape the pope’s lips or pen, not in 1939, nor over the following years in which they were in force.

The two men spoke in German, although von Hessen, who had spent years living in Italy, could also speak Italian,

the National Socialists were divided into pro-church and anti-church factions that were “bitterly opposed to each other.

observed the pope. “Some remain secret, others are exploited. Whenever we are told of such cases, we intervene immediately. And severely.

the Church acts immediately.

The story of the earlier decades remains unknown and largely unexamined.

continuing the new pope’s policy of remaining silent about the issue.

pope would have Poland in his prayers.

the pope had blessed Poland. Although Cardinal Maglione and Monsignor Tardini found this unobjectionable, Pius XII demurred,

the pope, speaking in English,

The pope, aware that he had already angered Mussolini with his three telegrams, would do no more.

public opinion is undergoing a major evolution, due to the impressive German victories.

Most of these requests were straightforward and not particularly controversial: They sought the cabinet officers of the genocidal Croatian puppet government that the Germans had installed during the war, for example; leaders of the primitive clerical-fascist Ustashi organization; commanders and guards of the Jasenovac concentration camp; wartime security police officers; and similar suspects.25 But the defeated anti-Tito factions in Yugoslavia had powerful friends abroad, not the least of whom was Pope Pius XII.

Pope Pius XII had fallen under the influence of his chosen confessor and spiritual director, Augustine Cardinal Bea, S.J., who, after the death of Pius XII, took as his personal secretary the young Irish priest Father Malachi Martin, S.J.

The Catholic Church hadn’t helped the Jews during the war, even though Pope Pius XII had been informed early on in the war of their plight.

Princess Enza Pignatelli Aragona—friend of Pope Pius XII

In 1951, Pope Pius XII gave a momentous speech in which he addressed Hubble’s work and the big bang theory, stating that the big bang proved the existence of God by showing there was a moment of creation, which meant there must be a creator.

despite my reluctance to add to the polemics about the record of the Vatican and Pope Pius XII during the Nazi period, the sombre facts, previously unpublished, which emerged during my research could not be ignored.

Hitler invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. Much to the bafflement of the Allies, however, Pope Pius XII said nothing. He refused to condemn the Nazis even as war escalated and casualties mounted on both sides, although it was in 1942, when the world woke up to the reality of the Final Solution, that the papal silence became most unsettling.

how much he admired the pope’s ability to craft his speeches in a way that ensured they would offend no one.

Today, like other times before, contemplating the nativity of the divine Prince of Peace. We are forced to declare how far is the world from the order wished by God in Christ, the order that guarantees the only true and real peace . . . The exhortation [of the Church] in favor of the Catholic social order, as a factor of pacification, is at the same time an encouragement to true liberty. Because, in the ultimate analysis, Catholic order as an organization for peace is essentially an order of liberty. (Radio message of December 24, 1951)

1. Like a star in the darkness of the night, Benedict of Nursia brilliantly shines a glory not only to Italy but of the whole Church. Whoever considers his celebrated life and studies in the light of the truth of history, the gloomy and stormy times in which he lived, will without doubt realize the truth of the divine promise which Christ made to the Apostles and to the society He founded: "I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world." At no time in history does this promise lose its force; it is verified in the course of all ages flowing, as they do, under the guidance of divine Providence. But when enemies assail the Christian name more fiercely, when the fateful barque of Peter is tossed about more violently and when everything seems to be tottering with no hope of human support, it is then that Christ is present, bondsman, comforter, source of supernatural power, and raises up fresh champions to protect Catholicism, to restore it to its former vigor, and give it even greater increase under the inspiration and help of heavenly grace.