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Pope Pius XII led the Catholic Church between 1939 and 1958
1 hour ago
A recently discovered letter shows that Pope Pius Germany.
This is an important discovery because it contradicts the Holy See’s official position that the information available to the Church at the time about Nazi atrocities was vague and unconfirmed.
The letter was found by the Vatican archivist Giovanni Coco and published last Sunday (17) by the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The message was titled “Pius 12 knew,” and its publication was approved by Holy See officials.
The correspondence is dated December 14, 1942 and was written by Jesuit Father Lother Koenig, a member of the antiNazi resistance in Germany. It was addressed to the Pope’s personal secretary at the Vatican, Father Robert Leiber.
The letter refers to three Nazi camps Belzec, Auschwitz and Dachau and suggests that other letters were exchanged between Koenig and Leiber that have disappeared or have not yet been found.
For Coco, “the novelty and importance of this document rests on the fact that we are now certain that the Catholic Church in Germany has given Pius 12 accurate and detailed information about the crimes committed against the Jews.” And therefore the Vatican “had Information that the labor camps were actually factories of death.”
American historian David Kertzer, author of several books about Pius 12 and his role in World War II, told the BBC that what was new about this letter was that it “speaks specifically of crematoria, of thousands of Jews thrown into the ovens every day were “day”.
Another important point is that it was submitted by a Vatican archivist himself.
“It seems to me evidence that in the Vatican or at least in parts of the Vatican there is an attempt to accept this story,” Kertzer added.
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Before Eugenio Pacelli Pope Pius XII. He left the presidential palace in Berlin in 1927
Shared documents
Coco claims that the letter was among a series of documents that until recently were stored in a disorganized manner in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State.
For Suzanne BrownFleming, director of international academic programs at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, the release of these files shows that the Vatican is taking seriously Pope Francis’ declaration that “the church is not afraid of history.”
Francisco decided to order the war archives to be opened in 2019.
“There is a desire and support for documents to be carefully assessed from a scientific perspective, whether their revelations are positive or negative [ao Vaticano]” says BrownFleming.
“With the opening of the Vatican archives from this period three years ago, we have unearthed a series of documents that show how well informed the Pope was about the Nazi attempts to exterminate the Jews of Europe from the moment they occurred “, he said . Kertzer to the BBC. “It’s just another piece.”
Kertzer adds that in addition to the revelations these documents brought, “the Vatican’s reputation was damaged by its refusal to face this story with open eyes.”
Discussions about the legacy of Pius 12
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Popes Pius 12 (photo) and John Paul 2 were declared venerable in 2009
The newly released document is likely to fuel debate over Pius’ legacy and his controversial beatification campaign, which is currently on hold.
His defenders have always insisted that the pope was working concretely behind the scenes to help Jewish citizens and that he did not comment on the matter to avoid worsening the situation for Catholics in Nazioccupied Europe.
His critics claim that he lacked at least the courage to disclose the information in his possession, despite direct requests from the Allied powers fighting against Germany.
Incidentally, one of Kertzer’s books even revealed a long secret negotiation between Pius 12 and Adolf Hitler with a view to a nonaggression agreement.
However, the evidence collected suggests that Pius 12’s role in World War II was unclear. Although he considered National Socialism to be a pagan political movement that mistreated Catholics, the Pope was not particularly uncomfortable with the Third Reich.
And Pius 12 also did not clearly condemn the extermination of the Jews, although he may have been aware of the barbarism in Europe controlled by the Nazis.