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Originally posted by Mojo_PeiPei
How about you go educate yourself
Pope Pius worked to save over 800,000 jews secretly.
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He worked behind the scenes with governments such as Hungary and Sweden. Very well, I'll grant you that some Jews were saved as a result of these clandestine actions. This doesn't alter the fact that he remained publicly silent during the Holocaust, when direct action could have saved the lives of so many more. That, in my book, constitutes nothing less than tacit support.
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Golda Meir... said ," When Fearful martydom came to our people in the decade of Nazi Terror, the voice of the pope was raised for the victims."
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Um, what on earth did Pius XII ever say? That's the whole point: the Catholic Church stood mute. It failed to excommunicate Hitler, ban his book, or even raise its voice and its not-inconsiderable temporal political power in defense of the Jews. This is a documented fact stipulated to in literature both denouncing and supporting Pius XII.
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a radical SOCIALIST German author tried to place the church and jews against each other, his name was Rolf Hochhuth and he was a member of HItler's youth group.
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This Rolf Hochhuth?
"A Protestant German playwright, Hochhuth's play, "The Deputy", (1964) aroused a storm of protest due to its condemnation of Pope Pius XII, for his failure to denounce Nazi anti-Jewish policies. The play, which was well documented, concluded that Pope Pius sacrificed morality for short term financial and political gain."
You can agree or disagree with him, but Hochhuth's accusations have stood the test of proof and time. It's a simple fact that Pius XII stood mute, and the Catholic Church with him, during the Holocaust. However many Jews he saved behind-the-scenes, how many more would he have saved had he simply acknowledged what was going on and using the Church's temporal political power to stop it? It's a legitimate question, one to which I've seen no good answers. If taking a stand would have been the moral thing to do, what does that make Pius XII's failure to take a stand?
This is an attempt to bring this thread back to why religion and government should never intertwine. Too often, religion, and Christianity in particular, acts counter-intellectually and does the immoral thing instead of the moral one. Too often, religion, and Christianity in particular, is used to justify the various ways in which men do evil. Too often, religion, and Christianity in general, has blinders that cause it to look the other way when atrocities and other horrifying acts occur. Pius XII is the best example of this, but there are many, many others througout recorded history.