Canadian Jewish News
By PAUL LUNGEN, Staff Reporter
Thursday, 14 January 2010
TORONTO —A growing chorus of Jews from around the world is cautioning the Vatican that interfaith relations could suffer if the Church moves to beatify Pope Pius XII before the Holy See’s wartimes archives are opened.
Canadian Jewish Congress joined Jewish groups around the world urging the Vatican to take into account “Jewish sensibilities about Pope Pius XII’s actions during the Shoah.”
“It is not up to us to determine for the Catholic Church who is worthy of sainthood,” said Congress president Mark Freiman. “We do, however, feel warranted to observe the process of beatification should not be surrounded by a cloud of controversy.”
Beatification is a step that precedes the conferring of sainthood.
In raising concerns, Freiman noted that “in this regard, Congress has long expressed concerns both about what is currently known regarding the war-time conduct of Pius XII in not speaking out regarding the horrors of the Nazi genocide and about the continuing inaccessibility of the Vatican’s secret World War II archives that might shed more light on these matters.”
Congress repeated its longstanding request that the archives be opened and that “in the absence of the full historical record, we believe it is reasonable to raise objections to any potential acceleration of the beatification of Pope Pius XII.”
In mid-December, Pope Benedict XVI issued a decree recognizing the “heroic virtues” of Pius XII, as well as John Paul II, an important milestone on the road to beatification. Critics of Pius XII have argued that he did little to speak out against Nazi atrocities aimed at Jews, although his supporters counter saying he acted behind the scenes to help Jews.
Rabbi David Rosen, former chairman of the International Jewish Committee for Inter-Religious Consultations, criticized Benedict’s “insensitivity” toward Jews, while In Italy, the president of the Association of Italian Rabbis, Giuseppe Laras, called it a sad decision, because “this pope did not shout out loud his outrage and his opposition to the Shoah and against the extermination of people whose only crime was that of being Jewish.”
The U.S. Anti Defamation League (ADL) was also highly critical of Benedict’s decree. An statement on its website said that it’s “a denial of history. And it is an act of aggression against the Jewish people.”
“Pope Pius failed to act in a saintly fashion in one very crucial respect: he did not give Jews the help he could and should have during the Holocaust,” wrote Rabbi Eric Greenberg, the ADL’s director of interfaith policy, and Deborah Dwork, professor of Holocaust history and the director of the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University in Worcester, Mass.
Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, questioned the move to beatify Pius. “As long as the archives of Pope Pius about the crucial period 1939-45 remain closed, and until a consensus on his actions – or inaction – concerning the persecution of millions of Jews in the Holocaust is established, a beatification is inopportune and premature,” he said.
The Vatican responded to Lauder’s comments with a statement saying moves to beatify Pius should not be considered “an obstacle on the path of dialogue between Judaism and the Catholic Church.
And in what is being seen as an important development in Catholic-Jewish relations, Benedict is scheduled to visit Rome’s main synagogue next week. That visit was scheduled prior to the December decree.
Congress CEO Bernie Farber said criticism of the potential beatification of Pius “should not be viewed as an attempt by the Jewish community to dictate regarding the beatification of Pius. That’s their business, not ours.
“But friends can talk to friends” and caution them about steps “that could cause reactions or pain,” Farber added.
Jewish organizations are concerned that until Pius’ wartime role is fully revealed, questions will remain whether he did enough to stand up to the Nazis, he said.
Michael Marrus, professor emeritus of Holocaust studies in the University of Toronto’s department of history, agreed that it’s solely within the purview of the Church to determine who is elevated to sainthood. “But friends owe it to friends to explain what the consequences would be. Frankly, the consequences would not be good for Catholic-Jewish relations. Most people know it.”
Marrus, a member of the International Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission, a team of scholars that disbanded after being denied access to Vatican wartime documents nine years ago, said the controversy over Pius is not simply an issue affecting Jews.
“Most critics of Pius XII are Catholic writers,” he said, and the Church is divided between progressives and traditionalists regarding his pontificate.
There remains an important constituency within the Church that looks back fondly to the days before John XXIII’s reforms of the mid-1960s, he said.
“The truth of the matter is that Pope Pius XII has become a symbol of a certain traditional church – highly centralized with a high degree of authority and reverence for the pope.”
“It’s not just Jews who would be unhappy if Pius is beatified,” he added.
Marrus called for full access to the Vatican’s archives during Pius’ pontificate, which includes the period up to 1958. In addition to questions about the Church’s role during the war, concerns have been raised about its postwar activities, including allegations it helped Nazis escape Europe.
“The Vatican is moving slowly, slowly to open its wartime archives,” Marrus acknowledged.
“This is the way the Vatican operates” but “they’re moving far too slowly.”
Marrus said he remains optimistic that the Vatican will respond to concerns “and they’ll decide not to advance this file as it would cause too much damage to the Church.”
With files from JTA
