Hold the praise for Pius XII

Earlier this week The New York Post published an opinion piece by Gary Krupp defending the World War II-era record of Pope Pius XII:

After years of research in documentary evidence and eyewitness testimony, what we found shocked us. We found nothing but praise and positive news articles concerning Pius’ actions from every Jewish, Israeli and political leader of the era who lived through the war.

A few articles in the postwar era suggested that he should have done more to confront the Nazis — but it wasn’t until 1963, in the wake of the fictitious play "The Deputy" (written five years after Pius died), that accusations began flowing that he had failed to act, that he was a cold-hearted Nazi sympathizer who couldn’t care less about the Jewish people.

The evidence strongly suggests this was part of a KGB-directed and -financed bid to smear Pius, a Soviet disinformation campaign meant to discredit the Catholic Church, which at that time was profoundly anti-Communist.

In any case, the facts simply don’t match what so many have come to believe about Pius.

It is unquestionable that Pius XII intervened to save countless Jews at a time most nations — even FDR’s America — refused to accept these refugees.
 

The Anti-Defamation League, which wants the push to turn the late pope into a saint to be put on hold, has now issued a statement calling on the Vatican to ignore Krupp’s "flaed" arguments:

Founded by New York businessman Gary Krupp, the Pave the Way conference was dominated by Pius apologists and eschewed by independent historians.  Krupp has claimed that some 2,300 pages of wartime documents from Campagna, Italy — site of an Italian internment camp for Jews — illustrated "Pope Pius XII’s efforts to help Jews in the face of Nazism."  But a careful review by a team of scholars working with ADL found Krupp’s claims to be fallacious.

"To use the Campagna files to suggest that Pope Pius XII was active in attempting to rescue Jews is to demand something that historical record cannot sustain," concluded historian Paul O’Shea, author of A Cross Too Heavy: Eugenio Pacelli, Politics and the Jews of Europe 1917-1943.

"Our examination serves as a salutary reminder of the distinction between alleged claim and verifiable fact," said Debórah Dwork, Rose Professor of Holocaust History and Director of the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.

"This apparent campaign of misinformation presented to Pope Benedict makes it all the more crucial for the Vatican to open its Holocaust-era archives to independent scholars and historians now," said Abraham, H. Foxman, ADL National Director and a Holocaust survivor.  "We reject the claim that the world and aging Holocaust survivors must wait another six years until all 16 million documents from Pope Pius’ papacy are catalogued by the Vatican.  We note that Pope John Paul II opened a cache of Holocaust records from Pope Pius XI before the records of his entire papacy were catalogued.  We request that Pope Benedict take the same courageous decision and order the relevant Holocaust era materials be opened now."

Special bonus: Check out Abe Foxman’s end-of-the-year video pitch.