As a papal envoy to Germany from 1917 to 1929, Vatican Secretary of State in the 1930’s, and Pope during World War II, Pius XII established a clear record of supporting the Jewish people against the Nazis. Lapide wrote: “Of the 44 speeches which the Nuncio Pacelli had made on German soil between 1917 and 1929, at least 40 contained attacks on Nazism or condemnations of Hitler’s doctrines.” By their own testimony, the Nazis knew they had an enemy, and Jewish leaders, a faithful ally in Pius XII. To maximize church efforts and minimize Nazi backlash, Pius XII modified his tactics during the war, but his pro-Jewish efforts continued unabated.
As Cardinal Pacelli, he drafted the famous papal encyclical, Mit Brennender Sorge (which means “with burning anxiety” i.e. about the Nazi threat to racial minorities and specifically the Jews), which denounced Nazi paganism, racism and anti-semitism. The document was smuggled into Germany in March, 1937, and read from all Catholic pulpits. The day after Pacelli’s election as Pope (March 3, 1939), the Nazi newspaper, Berliner Morganpost, stated its position clearly: “The election of Cardinal Pacelli is not accepted with favor in Germany because he was always opposed to Nazism.”
In his 1942 Christmas message, Pius XII denounced the growing Holocaust. He cried out for the “hundreds of thousands who without any fault of their own, sometimes only by reason of their nationality or race, are marked down for death or progressive extinction.”
The New York Times editorial (Dec. 25, 1942) was specific: “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’s Christmas message was also interpreted in the Gestapo report: “In a manner never known before… the Pope has repudiated the National Socialist New European Order [Nazism]. It is true, the Pope does not refer to the National Socialists in Germany by name, but his speech is one long attack on everything we stand for. Here he is clearly speaking on behalf of the Jews.”
Pius XII followed the Dutch Roman Catholic hierarchy’s plan to name the Jews explicitly in their condemnation of Nazi deportations, and he intended to issue a similar statement himself. The Nazis threatened to arrest more Jews. The Dutch Reformed Church agreed not to protest openly, but the Roman Catholic hierarchy issued, in May 1943, their famous protest against the deportations. The Nazis then launched an all-out offensive against Jews (except those who had converted to the Dutch Protestant Reformed Church). Ironically, it was the Dutch hierarchy’s letter of open condemnation which led to the arrest and execution of Saint Edith Stein, the Jewish Roman Catholic nun and philosopher.
The news of the increased persecution reached Pius XII. His own protest was due to go into L’Osservatore Romano (the Vatican newspaper) that very evening, but he had the draft burnt saying, “If the protest of the Dutch Bishops has cost the lives of 40,000 people, my intervention would take at least 200,000 people to their deaths.” Such was the result of openly naming the Jews; more death from vain gestures. There is no doubt that if Pius XII had made such a vain gesture, instead of saving more Jewish lives, he would then have been open to the criticism of having made the situation of Jews worse by vain and inopportune public statements. Those who now criticise him for not saying enough would then have attacked him for saying too much.
The Jewish historian Pinchas Lapide sums it up: “The saddest and most thought-provoking conclusion is that whilst the Catholic clergy of Holland protested more loudly, expressly and frequently against Jewish persecutions than the religious hierarchy of any other Nazi-occupied country, more Jews – some 11,000 or 79% of the total – were deported from Holland; more than anywhere else in the West.”
Thereafter, Pius XII adopted his policy of not naming the Jews explicitly. This was partly because of his experience of the diplomatic “deafness” of the allied governments, and partly because of his knowledge and experience of the increased persecution of Jews which followed the condemnatory statements made by the religious authorities. He devoted himself instead to the covert rescue operation to save Jewish lives.