Writing in Forbes.com, columnist Melik Kaylan evaluates the long-held criticism of Pope Pius XII as doing too little to speak out against Nazi atrocities and (as I concluded through my own research) found it lacking. The WWII pope’s journey to canonization continues at the Vatican. Kaylan’s compelling commentary is here.

Excerpt: “In truth, Hitler hated Pius and Pius deplored both National Socialism and Communism, as countless extant documents show. He struggled against both incessantly, but the Soviets outlasted him, and their revenge has endured even in the West, giving rise to a dubious branch of Holocaust studies devoted entirely to blackening Pius’ reputation. It’s worth citing a few incontestable instances of Pius’ interventions on behalf of Jewish lives:

1. The issuing of 1,600 visas per year from 1939 to 1945 for Jews to escape from Europe to the Dominican Republic. 2. Out of some 8,000 Roman Jews, some 7,000 survived by taking refuge in Vatican buildings. 3. In Hungary, the Church gave an estimated 80,000 certificates to Jews showing they were baptized Catholics to exempt them from harm. 4. The church helped countless thousands to escape to Romania; some 360,000 Jews would leave for Israel from Romania up to the year 1965.”

Tags: canonization, Forbes.com, Jews, Melik Kaylan, Nazis, Pope Pius XII, Vatican, World War II

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 at 9:54 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.