Pius defender responds to ADL

We recently cited a column in The New York Post by Gary Krupp of the Pave the Way Foundation defending defending the World War II-era record of Pope Pius XII and the rebuttal from the Anti-Defemation League.

Now the foundation has sent in a response to the ADL’s response:

Pave the Way foundation is Saddened by the Recent Attack on our Work by Abe Foxman Executive Director of the ADL.

Pave the Way Foundation, is a non-sectarian organization, which sought to bring this 46 year old negativity between Jews and Catholics concerning the papacy of Pope Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli) to a public forum. To correct Foxman’s fallacious statements, we held our symposium in Rome in September 2008 not 2009. All of the Holocaust institutions and the critics (including Prof. Paul O’Shea) were invited to attend. We hoped to open an exchange of information in order to reveal newly discovered documents and eye witness testimonies. All of the critics declined our invitation since they didn’t consider it a scholarly forum and it was going to be open to a public group of Rabbis and Jewish leaders. These same critics claimed that the symposium was one sided, which is comical since their refusal to participate created that impression.

The documents, Foxman is referring to, were only recently discovered in Campagna and only showed that there are thousands of Vatican WWII documents that are available for study by those who wish to simply look. To correct Foxman again, according to the report Prof. Paul O’Shea sent to me, the Campagna documents did in fact show how Pius XII directed efforts to send financial aid specifically for care of the Jews. This was in one small diocese in Italy. Just like General Eisenhower, Pius XII had his army of trusted clergy to carry out his instructions and verbal orders. He physically couldn’t do everything as Foxman seems to demand as proof of his benevolence. He acted to save Jews when no one else would. He did this, according to our original documents, fully expecting a full scale invasion of the Vatican where he would have be kidnapped and the clergy would be killed.

The significant evidence that we have gathered is from many other countries. More importantly the testimony from eye witnesses who describe the secret actions that they were ordered to take by the Vatican to save Jewish lives. Pius XII took these actions with German guns 200 yards under his very windows when he expected the imminent attack on the Vatican. He still managed to save more Jews than all of the world’s religious and political leaders combined. Pacelli acted directly to stop the arrest of the Roman Jews 2 PM on the day it began October 16, 1943 and managed to hide over 7000 Jews in just one day. He accomplished all of this anonymously (this is our highest form of charity).

Foxman is calling for the Vatican Archives to be opened when curiously just over 2 years ago Pope Benedict XVI ordered the opening of the archives up to 1939 along with the documents of the Inter Arma Caritas up to 1947. According to the sign in sheets in Rome, none of the recognized critics or institutions showed up to study this material. What should be questioned is why did virtually every Jewish organization, (including the ADL), every major Jewish religious personality and Israeli leader of that era, who lived through the war, praise Pius XII unreservedly? What happened? What smoking gun? What documents were discovered to change this?

I  Invite Foxman and all others to devote 56 minutes to view a narrated power point illustrating just a small part of the evidence we discovered, then you be the judge. Additional documented proof and video testimonies can be viewed on www.ptwf.org. I further challenge the ADL to host its own open forum on this subject and, like in our cherished jury system, allow the public to decide whether Eugenio Pacelli is guilty of these charges.

The ADL shows no signs of backing down. In fact, it’s stepping things up, with a lengthy report attempt at rebutting the documents that Krupp has taken to citing.