Friday, April 17, 1998 | 12:09 p.m.
BETWEEN THE NEW YORK TIMES and the Jerusalem Post, a reader could come to think the Catholic Church had produced a document that is historically insulting to Jews. "We Remember, A Reflection on the Shoah" is a Vatican statement that steps forward with an apology for lack of more resistance when Hitler was killing the Jews. Both the Times and the Post wanted the document to blame Pope Pius XII for the lack of Christian action, and anything less is looked upon as not an act of full contrition. The Post called it "incomplete repentance."
So what did the Vatican reflection say? In part, "This century has witnessed an unspeakable tragedy, which can never be forgotten: the attempt by the Nazi regime to exterminate the Jewish people, with the consequent killing of millions of Jews. Women and men, old and young, children and infants, for the sole reason of their Jewish origin, were persecuted and deported. Some were killed immediately, while others were degraded, ill-treated, tortured and utterly robbed of their human dignity and then murdered. Very few of those who entered the camps survived, and those who did remained scarred for life. This was the Shoah. It is a major fact of the history of this century, a fact while still concerns us today. ...
"In addressing this reflection to our brothers and sisters of the Catholic Church throughout the world, we ask all Christians to join us in meditating on the catastrophe which befell the Jewish people, and on the moral imperative to ensure that never again will selfishness and hatred grow to the point of sowing such suffering and death. Most especially, we ask our Jewish friends, 'whose terrible fate has become a symbol of the aberrations of which man is capable when he turns against God,' to hear us with open hearts."
The document then says: "While bearing their unique witness to the Holy One of Israel and to the Torah, the Jewish people have suffered much at different times and in many places. But the Shoah was certainly the worst suffering of all. The inhumanity with which the Jews were persecuted and massacred during this century is beyond the capacity of words to convey. All this was done to them for the sole reason that they were Jews. ..."
The Vatican statement then goes on to relate the long history of tormented relations between Jews and Christians and the sad results. The Nazis' first attack on the Jews was their desire to produce a super race and was strictly one of racism, "Pope Pius XI too condemned Nazi racism in a solemn way in his encyclical letter 'Mit brennender Sorge,' which was read in German churches on Passion Sunday 1937, a step which resulted in attacks and sanctions against members of the clergy. Addressing a group of Belgian pilgrims on 6 September 1938, Pius XI asserted, 'Anti-Semitism is unacceptable. Spiritually, we are all Semites.' Pius XII, in his very first Encyclical, 'Summi Pontificatus,' of 20 October 1939, warned against theories which denied the unity of the human race and against the deification of the state, all of which he saw as leading to a real 'hour of darkness."'
Hitler's following also rejected Christianity and desired "to see the Church destroyed or at least subjected to the interests of the Nazi state." Then the document uses the history lesson given earlier by showing how the insensitivity over centuries contributed to the silence of many Christians.
Before Americans get too smug about what happened in Europe, we should recall our own history during this terrible time. The Vatican document reminds us that: "At first the leaders of the Third Reich sought to expel the Jews. Unfortunately, the governments of some Western countries of Christian tradition, including some in North and South America, were more than hesitant to open their borders to the persecuted Jews. ...
"Many did but others did not. Those who did help to save Jewish lives as much as was in their power, even to the point of placing their own lives in danger, must not be forgotten. During and after the war, Jewish communities and Jewish leaders expressed their thanks for all that had been done for them, including what Pope Pius XII did personally or through his representatives to save hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives. Many Catholic bishops, priests, religious and laity have been honored for this reason by the State of Israel."
Several Jewish leaders and a New York Times article are willing to give credit to Pope John Paul II: "Since becoming pope in 1978, John Paul is widely credited with having taken the Catholic Church far down the road toward reconciliation with the Jews. Building on the Second Vatican Council's rejection of the last remnants of anti-Semitism in Catholic teachings and liturgy, John Paul went on to become the first pope in modern history to visit a synagogue, the first to establish relations between the Vatican and Israel and the first to condemn anti-Semitism repeatedly and forcefully. ..."
Newsweek magazine points out some inconsistency in the New York Times' criticism of Pius XII with the editorial excerpts from 1941 praising his speaking out and a more recent editorial condemning him for not speaking out against the Nazi evil.
The Newsweek editorial concludes: "No one person, Hitler excepted, was responsible for the Holocaust. And no one person, Pius XII included, could have prevented it. In choosing diplomacy over protest, Pius XII had his priorities straight. It's time to lay off this pope."
More will be said about this issue during the coming years. In the meantime, the condemnation of "We Remember, A Reflection on the Shoah" will do little to pacify those who insist on finding fault with it. The document does promote an understanding of the shame and sorrow felt by the church and what it expects of Catholics and calls for them to practice. It was produced by a Vatican commission that probably is wondering if its efforts were understood. We can only hope the ill-conceived criticism made by some people and publications doesn't result in the delay of further study and statements from the Vatican about the Holocaust.
I'd suggest the critics read the entire document again, or for the first time, before continuing their ranting. It would also be wise for the nuts who profess the Holocaust never happened to spend some time reading "We Remember, A Reflection on the Shoah."
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