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I don't believe that it was any different than the split we see here in this country with pseudo-Christians supporting Bush, the new Hitler.
Pius XIIth & the Catholic Church are today much maligned for political reasons because Pius XII opposed the creation of Israel on Palestinian lands and the Vatican won't roll over and accept what going on in Palestine today, anymore than they accepted the war against Iraq:For Jewish leaders of a previous generation, this harsh portrayal of Pope Pius XII, and the campaign of vilification against him, would have been a source of profound shock and sadness. From the end of World War II until at least five years after his death, Pope Pius enjoyed an enviable reputation amongst Christians and Jews alike. At the end of the war, Pius XII was hailed as "the inspired moral prophet of victory," and "enjoyed near-universal acclaim for aiding European Jews." Numerous Jewish leaders, including Albert Einstein, Israeli Prime Ministers Golda Meir and Moshe Sharett, and Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog, expressed their public gratitude to Pius XII, praising him as a "righteous gentile," who had saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust. In his meticulously researched and comprehensive 1967 book, Three Popes and the Jews, the Israeli historian and diplomat Pinchas Lapide, who had served as the Israeli Counsel General in Milan, and had spoken with many Italian Jewish Holocaust survivors who owed their life to Pius, provided the empirical basis for their gratitude, concluding that Pius XII "was instrumental in saving at least 700,000, but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands." To this day, the Lapide volume remains the definitive work, by a Jewish scholar, on the subject. <snip> Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, tributes to Pope Pius came from several other Jewish leaders who praised him for his role in saving Jews during the war. In 1943, Chaim Weizmann, who would become Israel's first president, wrote that "the Holy See is lending its powerful help wherever it can, to mitigate the fate of my persecuted co-religionists." Moshe Sharett, who would become Israel's first Foreign Minister and second Prime Minister, reinforced these feelings of gratitude when he met with Pius in the closing days of World War II: "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 the various countries to rescue Jews… We are deeply grateful to the Catholic Church." In 1945, Rabbi Isaac Herzog, the Chief Rabbi of Israel, sent a message to Msgr. Angelo Roncalli (the future Pope John XXIII), expressing his gratitude for the actions taken by Pope Pius XII on behalf of the Jewish people. "The people of Israel," wrote Rabbi Herzog, "will never forget what His Holiness and his illustrious delegates, inspired by the eternal principles of religion, which form the foundation of true civilization, are doing for our unfortunate brothers and sisters in the most tragic hour of our history, which is living proof of Divine Providence in this world." In September 1945, Dr. Leon Kubowitzky, the Secretary General of the World Jewish Congress, personally thanked the Pope in Rome for his interventions on behalf of Jews, and the World Jewish Congress donated $20,000 to Vatican charities "in recognition of the work of the Holy See in rescuing Jews from Fascist and Nazi persecutions." Dr. Raffael Cantoni, head of the Italian Jewish community's wartime Jewish Assistance Committee, who would subsequently become the President of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, similarly expressed his gratitude to the Vatican, stating that "six million of my co-religionists have been murdered by the Nazis, but there could have been many more victims had it not been for the efficacious intervention of Pius XII." On April 5, 1946, his Union of Italian Jewish Communities, meeting for the first time after the War, sent an official message of thanks to Pope Pius XII: The delegates of the Congress of the Italian Jewish Communities, held in Rome for the first time after the Liberation, feel that it is imperative to extend reverent homage to Your Holiness, and to express the most profound gratitude that animates all Jews for your fraternal humanity toward them during the years of persecution when their lives were endangered by Nazi-Fascist barbarism. Many times priests suffered imprisonment and were sent to concentration camps, and offered their lives to assist Jews in every way. This demonstration of goodness and charity that still animates the just, has served to lessen the shame and torture and sadness that afflicted millions of human beings. Many other Jewish tributes to Pius came in the years just proceeding, and in the immediate aftermath, of the Pontiff's death. In 1955, when Italy celebrated the tenth anniversary of its liberation, the Union of Italian Jewish Communities proclaimed April 17 as a "Day of Gratitude" for the Pope's wartime assistance in defying the Nazis. Dozens of Italian Catholics, including several priests and nuns, were awarded gold medals "for their outstanding rescue work during the Nazi terror." A few weeks later, on May 26, 1955, the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra flew to Rome to give a special performance of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, at the Vatican's Consistory Hall, to express the State of Israel's enduring gratitude for the help that the Pope and the Catholic Church had given to the Jewish people persecuted by the Nazis during the Holocaust. That the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra so joined the rest of the Jewish world in warmly honoring the achievements and legacy of Pope Pius XII is of more than passing significance. As a matter of state policy, the Israeli Philharmonic has never played the music of the nineteenth century composer Richard Wagner because of Wagner's well-known reputation as an anti-Semite and as Hitler's "favorite composer," and as one of the cultural patron saints of the Third Reich, whose music was played at Nazi party functions and ceremonies. Despite requests from music lovers and specialists, the official state ban on the Israeli Philharmonic's playing Wagner's music has never been lifted. During the 1950's and 1960's, especially, a significant sector of the Israeli public, hundreds of thousands of whom were survivors of the Nazi concentration and death camps, still viewed his music, and even his name, as a symbol of the Hitler regime. That being the case, it is inconceivable that the Israeli government would have paid the travel expenses for the entire Philharmonic to travel to Rome for a special concert to pay tribute to a church leader who was considered to have been "Hitler's Pope." On the contrary: The Israeli Philharmonic's historic and unprecedented visit to Rome to perform for Pius XII at the Vatican was a unique Jewish communal gesture of collective recognition and gratitude to a great world leader and friend of the Jewish people for his instrumental role in saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of Jews. <snip> During and for close to two decades after World War II, Jewish praise and gratitude for Pius XII's efforts on behalf of European Jewry were virtually unanimous. Indeed, as Pinchas Lapide has so aptly stated: "No Pope in history has been thanked more heartily by Jews." <snip> http://www.catholicleague.org/pius/dalinframe.htm=== Dated June 22, 1943, the letter sent by A. G. Cicognani, the pope's special representative to the US, to Ambassador Myron Taylor, Roosevelt's special emissary to Pius XII, is believed to be the first explicit expression of Pius's policy against Zionism conveyed to the American government. "It is true that at one time Palestine was inhabited by the Hebrew Race, but there is no axiom in history to substantiate the necessity of a People returning to a country they left nineteen centuries before," the letter reads. "If a 'Hebrew Home' is desired, it would not be too difficult to find a more fitting territory than Palestine. With an increase in the Jewish population there, grave, new international problems would arise."================== In recent years, the media have accused the Catholic Church of either helping the Nazis or being silent during the Holocaust. As an example, the January 26, 1998 issue of Time magazine on page 20 claims that the Catholic Church apologized for "collaborating with the Nazis during World War II." Even the new Holocaust Museum in New York unjustly criticized Pope Pius XII for being silent during World War II. The Church has recently spoken on this topic. The Israeli consul, Pinchas E. Lapide, in his book, Three Popes and the Jews (New York: Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1967) critically examines Pope Pius XII. According to his research, the Catholic Church under Pius XII was instrumental in saving 860,000 Jews from Nazi death camps (p. 214). Could Pius have saved more lives by speaking out more forcefully? According to Lapide, the concentration camp prisoners did not want Pius to speak out openly (p. 247). As one jurist from the Nuremberg Trials said on WNBC in New York (Feb. 28, 1964), "Any words of Pius XII, directed against a madman like Hitler, would have brought on an even worse catastrophe... accelerated the massacre of Jews and priests." (Ibid.) Yet Pius was not totally silent either. Lapide notes a book by the Jewish historian, Jenoe Levai, entitled, The Church Did Not Keep Silent (p. 256). He admits that everyone, including himself, could have done more. If we condemn Pius, then justice would demand condemning everyone else. He concludes by quoting from the Talmud that "whosoever preserves one life, it is accounted to him by Scripture as if he had preserved a whole world." With this he claims that Pius XII deserves a memorial forest of 860,000 trees in the Judean hills (pp. 268-9). It should be noted that six million Jews and three million Catholics were killed in the Holocaust.
We must remember that the Holocaust was also anti-Christian. After Hitler revealed his true intentions, the Catholic Church opposed him. Even the famous Albert Einstein testified to that. According to the December 23, 1940 issue of Time magazine on page 38, Einstein said:
Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks...
Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.
In another, similar statement, Einstein referred explicitly to the Catholic Church (Lapide, p. 251). This is an extraordinary testimony by an agnostic German scientist of Jewish heritage. Even though there were traitors in her ranks, the Church still opposed the Nazi movement.
<snip>
Not trusting the new regime, the Vatican signed a Concordat with the Reich on July 20, 1933 in an attempt to protect the Church's rights in Germany. But the Nazis quickly violated its articles. In Lent 1937 Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical "Mit brennender Sorge" (With burning sorrow) with the help of German bishops and Cardinal Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII). It was smuggled into Germany and read in all German Catholic churches at the same hour on Palm Sunday 1937. It did not explicitly mention Hitler or Nazism, but it firmly condemned the Nazi doctrines. On September 20, 1938, Pius XI told German pilgrims that no Christian can take part in anti-Semitism, since spiritually all Christians are Semites.
<snip>
The charity and work of Pope Pius XII during World War II so impressed the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Israel Zolli, that in 1944 he was open to the grace of God which led him into the Catholic faith. As his baptismal name, he took the same one Pius had, Eugenio, as his own. Later Israel Eugenio Zolli wrote a book entitled, Why I Became a Catholic.
<snip>
But Pope Pius XII was not completely silent either, especially in his Christmas messages. His 1941 and 1942 Christmas messages were both translated and published in The New York Times (Dec. 25, 1941, p. 20 & Dec. 25, 1942, p. 10). To prevent retaliation, he did not refer to Nazism by name, but people of that era still understood him, including the Nazis. According to The New York Times editorial on December 25, 1941 (Late Day edition, p. 24):
The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas... he is about the only ruler left on the Continent of Europe who dares to raise his voice at all... the Pope put himself squarely against Hitlerism... he left no doubt that the Nazi aims are also irreconcilable with his own conception of a Christian peace.
Also The New York Times editorial on December 25, 1942 (Late Day edition, p. 16) states:
This Christmas more than ever he is a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent... Pope Pius expresses as passionately as any leader on our side the war aims of the struggle for freedom when he says that those who aim at building a new world must fight for free choice of government and religious order. They must refuse that the state should make of individuals a herd of whom the state disposes as if they were lifeless things.
<snip>
http://users.binary.net/polycarp/piusxii.html
============================
JEWISH HISTORIAN PRAISES PIUS XII'S WARTIME CONDUCT
Michael Tagliacozzo Works at a Center for Holocaust Studies
VATICAN CITY, OCT. 25, 2000 (ZENIT.org).- The closed-door meeting of the Judeo-Christian Historical Commission, which has been meeting in Rome since Monday 23, ends today.
The commission was established last October by Cardinal Edward I. Cassidy, president of the Committee for Religious Relations with Jews, to examine the 11 volumes of archives documents relating to the Holy See's activities during the Second World War.
In recent years Pius XII and the Holy See have been accused of not doing enough to save Jews persecuted by the Nazis.
To shed light on the Pope's role in this part of the war, ZENIT interviewed Jewish historian Michael Tagliacozzo, responsible for the Beth Lohame Haghettaot (Center of Studies on the Shoah and Resistance) in Italy. Beth Lohame Haghettaot in western Galilee in Israel is one of the world's largest museums and centers of documentation on the Holocaust.
* Tagliacozzo: I know that many criticize Pope Pacelli. I have a folder on my table in Israel entitled 'Calumnies Against Pius XII,' but my judgment cannot but be positive. Pope Pacelli was the only one who intervened to impede the deportation of Jews on Oct. 16, 1943, and he did very much to hide and save thousands of us. It was no small matter that he ordered the opening of cloistered convents. Without him, many of our own would not be alive.
* ZENIT: Some maintain that the Holy See looked on in silence while Roman Jews were deported on Oct. 16, 1943.
* Tagliacozzo: It's not true. The documents clearly prove that, in the early hours of the morning, Pius XII was informed of what was happening and he immediately had German Ambassador von Weizsäcker called and ordered State Secretary Luigi Maglione to energetically protest the Jews' arrest, asking that similar actions be stopped. If this had not happened, the Pope would have denounced it publicly.
In addition, by his initiative he had a letter of protest sent through Bishop Aloise Hudal to the military commander in Rome, General Rainer Stahel, requesting that the persecution of Jews cease immediately. As a result of these protests, the operation providing for two days of arrests and deportations was interrupted at 2 p.m. the same day.
Instead of the 8,000 Jews Hitler requested, 1,259 were arrested. After meticulous examination of identity documents and other papers of identification, the following day an additional 259 people were released.
Moreover, after the manhunt in Rome on Oct. 16, the Germans did not capture a single Jew. Those who were arrested were handed over by collaborators. During the trial, Herbert Kappler said: "The Jews were not handed over."
<snip>
* ZENIT: Some scholars deny that there were instructions from the Pope to help the Jews.
* Tagliacozzo: There was much confusion in those days, but all knew that the Pope and the Church would have helped us.
After the Nazis' action, the Pontiff, who had already ordered the opening of convents, schools and churches to rescue the persecuted, opened cloistered convents to allow the persecuted to hide. Monsignor Giovanni Butinelli, of the parish of the Transfiguration, told me that the Pontiff had recommended that parish priests be told to shelter Jews.
I personally know a Jewish family that, after the Nazis' request for 50 kilos of gold, decided to hide the women and children in a cloistered convent on Via Garibaldi. The nuns said they were happy to take the mother and girl but they could not care for a little boy. However, under the Pope's order, which dispensed the convent from cloister, they also hid the boy.
I myself was saved from persecution thanks to the Church's help. I remember it was Oct. 16, a rainy day. It was a Saturday, the third day of the Jewish feast of Sukkot. I had sought refuge in Bologna Square.
When the Germans arrived I was able to escape through a window and I found myself on the street in my pajamas. A family helped me and hid me. I then went to my former Italian teacher who let me stay in her home and asked several priests to find me a safe place.
Finally, after almost a week, thanks to a recommendation of Father Fagiolo, I was hidden in the Lateran. I remember they treated me wonderfully. After not having eaten for two days, Father Palazzini gave me a meal with all God's goods: a bowl of vegetable soup, bread, cheese, fruit. I had never eaten so well.
* ZENIT: What do you think of John Cornwell's book, "Hitler's Pope"?
* Tagliacozzo: I haven't read it, but I know that much nonsense is written and, unable to contribute new arguments, they give exaggerated interpretations. I am an historian and I do not look for controversies. From the diaries on table conversations we learn that Hitler said: "I hate the Jews because they have given that man, Jesus, to the world."
ZE00102502
<snip>
ZE00102605
http://academics.smcvt.edu/pcouture/jewish_historian_praises_pius_xi.htm
=====
No Christmas sermon reaches a larger congregation than the message Pope Pius XII addresses to a war-torn world at this season. This Christmas more than ever
he is a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent."
The New York Times, December 25, 1942
******
"I should like you to take this occasion to express to His Holiness my deeply-felt appreciation of the frequent action which the Holy See has taken on its own
initiative in its generous and merciful efforts to render assistance
to the victims of racial and religious persecutions."
Franklin D. Roosevelt to Myron C. Taylor, August 3, 1944
******
". . . 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 the
various countries to rescue Jews, to save children, and Jews in general."
Moshe Sharett, Later First Israeli Foreign Minister (April 1945)
******
"In all these painful matters, I referred to the Holy See and afterwards I simply
carried out the Pope's orders: first and foremost to save human lives."
Angelo Cardinal Roncalli, Patriarch of Venice, Later Pope John XXIII (1957)
******
"On the day of Pius XII's death in 1958, Golda Meir, Israel's Foreign Minister, cabled the following message of condolence to the Vatican: "We share in the grief of humanity…When fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, the voice of the Pope was raised for the victims. The life of our times was enriched by a voice speaking out on the great moral truths above the tumult of daily conflict. We mourn a great servant of peace." Golda Meir, Israeli Foreign (October 1958)
*******
Before beginning a concert of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Leonard Bernstein called for a minute of silence "for the passing of a very great man, Pope Pius XII."
Leonard Bernstein
*******
"He was a great and good man, and I loved him."
Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery,London Sunday Times (October 12, 1958)
******
"It seems evident to me that the principles, reaffirmed by Pope Pacelli in his first encyclical , and repeated forcefully at every circumstance, above all in the Christmas messages of the war years,
constitute the most concrete condemnation of the Hitlerian type of absolutism."
Eugene Cardinal Tisserant, New York Times (February 26, 1964)
******
"Pope Pius XII did not remain silent."
Jeno Levai (1966)
******
". . . the Catholic Church, under the pontificate of Pope Pius XII was instrumental
in saving at least 700,000, but probably as many as 860,000,
Jews from certain death at Nazi hands."
Pinchas E. Lapide, Three Popes and the Jews (1967)
******
"Pope Pius XII, the one pontiff with whom I was acquainted, was an interesting man who, after 1945, came in for what almost surely is an unfair amount of criticism
because he didn't stop the conflict Hitler started and because he didn't
do more to save Europe's Jews from Nazi extermination."
C. L. Sulzberger, Go Gentle Into the Night (1976)
******
"What we can say already, in light of what we have learned, is that
the Nazis considered Pius XII and his collaborators as their greatest enemies,
and that, reciprocally, the Pope and his entourage saw the Nazis as criminals
working for the destruction of the Church and civilization."
Jean Chelini, Le Figaro (October 8, 1983)
******
"The gratitude of the world Jewish leaders, for deeds to which their own archives are witness, was transformed after 1963 into totally negative commentary. The well-intentioned, informed world Jewish community was downgraded to 'disgraceful testimonials of a few Jews' (New York Times, September 27, 1989), Letters)."
Rev. Robert A. Graham, S. J. (October 1989)
******
". . . that there was no direction given by the Pope in helping the Jews recalls the argument of David Irving, the English author, who in 1977 tried to absolve Adolf Hitler of any responsibility for the Final Solution simply because historians could not find a document proving his responsibility for persecuting the Jews. The failure of historians to find any explicit instructions does not necessarily consititute proof that Hitler was not behind the persecution of the Jews or that Pius XII did not encourage the help given by the Catholic clergy and laity to the Jews, since, as any historian knows, directives can be given orally as well as in writing ."
Rev. Vincent A. Lapomarda, S. J. (July 31, 1992)
******
"Anyone who does not limit himself to cheap polemics knows very well what
Pius XII thought of the Nazi regime and how much he did to help countless people
persecuted by the regime."
Pope John Paul II (1995)
******
"He was a great pope."
Pope John Paul II (March 21, 1998)
******
"In his 1942 Christmas message, which The New York Times among others
extolled, the pope became the first figure of international stature
to condemn what was turning into the Holocaust."
Kenneth Woodward, Newsweek (March 30, 1998)
******
"Before any more fingers are pointed at Pius XII --- who did more to save the Jews than anyone else --- let him first take a hard historical look at what his ideological kinfolk did at the time of the Holocaust. The New Republic, like The New York Timesand The Washington Post, are the ones who need to apologize for their shameful silence in the face of genocide and stop with the scapegoating of Pius XII."
William A. Donohue, President, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights
Catalyst, 27, No. 4 (May 2000), 10
******
". . . Pius XII was, genuinely and profoundly, a righteous gentile."
Rabbi David G. Dalin, The Weekly Standard, February 26, 2001
(also see his "History as Bigotry," in the February 10, 2003 issue).
=====
So what is the problem between state of Israel supporters & Christians, especially Catholics (because that's what most of your links point to)?
It's that Pius XII was against Israel, as is the Catholic Church & all mainstream Christian religions (Lutheran, Anglican, Methodist, ect) today. That's when Pius XII suddenly became a "villain".
=====
POPE PIUS XII AND THE STATE OF ISRAEL
The Vatican, from Pius XII through John Paul I, had refused to recognize the State of Israel. This was underscored in Pius' major disciple, Pope Paul VI who, during his trip to Israel in January of 1964, refrained from even mentioning Israel other than to refer to it in terms of the Holy Land. Since those popes insisted on the internationalization of Jerusalem, the effect was to harden Israel's view towards the Vatican. However, Pope John Paul II turned all that around by recognizing the State of Israel in the agreements signed on December 30, 1993. By following this up with his historic trip to Israel in March of 2000, he dramatically changed relations between Israel and the Vatican in this great turnaround.
Certainly, one of the basic rules of historical judgment is to evaluate a person not only according to our own times but also according to his times. According to his own times, Pius XII was a hero, but according to our own times he is a villain. While that turnaround can be attributed to the works of Rolf Hochhuth, Carlo Falconi, and John Cornwell, this revisionist view of the Pope is tending to irrational behavior since ideas do have consequences. And this is evident today in the outrageous interference in the internal affairs of the Catholic Church by some Jewish leaders who, to the public embarrassment of their own religious colleagues in the Jewish community, have called for a halt to any process leading to the beatificaiton of Pius XII.
At his death, some Israelis had suggested that a forest be planted at Yad Vashem for all that Pope Pius XII had done to save the Jews during the Holocaust. To this day, that expectation remains unfulfilled to the amazement of those who know how widespread was the expression of gratitude by Jews at the end of the war and at the time of the pope's death. That this development has paralleled the attacks by some Jews for the alleged failure of Pope Pius XII during the Holocaust is incomprehensible. This is particularly so when one recalls that the State of Israel wanted to honor a chief assistant to Pius, the future Pope Paul VI, who did not think that he should accept such a distinction for merely doing his duty in organizing the papal relief effort during World War II.
Although leading Americans like Dean G. Acheson, George C. Marshall, and James V. Forrestal also opposed the creation of the State of Israel as a homeland for the Jews, they have not been subjected to the criticism to which Pope Pius XII has been exposed. Certainly, Pius XII had sympathy for the Zionist dream of a homeland for the Jews, but he never did recognize the State of Israel and was not at all enthusiastic about Jersualem becoming the capital of the new nation. <propaganda/information mixed with disinformation snip>
While it is easy today for the Pope's critics to put the Catholic Church on the defensive by saying that Pius XII could have done more, this was not so clear during those horrible days of World War II when he was recognized as "a lonely voice" (and the only voice) raised in defense of those victims, among them many Catholic priests whom he could not save from extinction. Yet, despite what his critics say today to confuse the issue and to belittle the testimonies from prominent Jewish agencies and their representatives during the Pope's own lifetime, such opponents of Pius XII cannot annul the historical record of his help during the Holocaust when he did at least as much as he could for the Jews as he did for his own persecuted Catholics. All this was recognized and affirmed by the World Jewish Congress, the World Zionist Organization, and the State of Israel itself, not to mention such a prominent newspaper as THE NEW YORK TIMES, even though today these same sources hold a contrary view of Pope Pius XII. And today, no less an authority than the Jewish historian, Sir Martin Gilbert, is grateful in his new book, NEVER AGAIN (2000), for all that the Catholic Church did under Pope Pius XII to save Jews during the Holocaust.
http://www.piusxii.info/pius3.htm
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