Jewish World Review April 17, 2000 / 12 Nissan, 5760
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
ONLY THE MALEVOLENT could have remained
unmoved by Pope John Paul's heartfelt
prayer of contrition at Judaism's holiest
shrine, the Western Wall.
No, the Holy Father didn't specifically apologize
for the Vatican's inexcusable silence during the Holocaust. Let's be
realistic; even an obtuse condemnation of a predecessor Pope is
impossible under the byzantine constraints of Vatican politics.
But in issuing his mea culpa for church sins committed against Jews
and in carrying out his pilgrimage to the Holy Land possibly the
last trip of his papacy the Polish-born Pope has done more to
advance the reconciliation of Catholics and Jews, and of Catholics
and those of other faiths, than any other Pope in history.
Yet many of history's most painful questions remain unanswered.
Why did Pope Pius XII refuse to unequivocally condemn the
Holocaust or the slaughter of Catholics by the Nazis, for that
matter? Why did he never call on church clergy to extend a helping
hand to Jews? What role did the Vatican play in helping Nazi
fugitives escape from Europe after the war? And what, if any, role
did the Vatican play in harboring stolen assets?
The answers to all these questions lie in the Vatican archives.
Problem is, few states guard their secrets more closely than the
Holy See. Unlike the U.S. and other nations that declassify most
documents after 50 years, the Vatican invokes a 75-year rule.
Even then, the church assiduously selects what it makes available
to outsiders including the ecumenical scholars the Vatican itself
recently appointed to research the war period.
The result has been a heavy cloud over the role of the Vatican and
its wartime vicar. The cloud has only grown heavier in recent years
as other nations have released their once-confidential intelligence
reports.
Witness Catholic John Cornwell's scourging biography, "Hitler's
Pope." And in the research for my own book on the theft of
Jewish assets, "Pack of Thieves," hitherto secret documents
discovered in the U.S., Argentina, France and other countries
make it clear that Pius XII had his own agenda.
Consider a recently decoded report from Harold Tittman, the
American envoy to the Holy See, who indicates in June 1942 that
Pius believes the Nazis will probably defeat the Allies. This insight
into the Vatican view of Nazi power combined with Pius'
obsessive fear of Soviet Communism lends new understanding
to his wartime silence.
It also adds a new dimension to the Vatican's participatory role in
the postwar "Rat-line," the odorous underground railroad that
smuggled "anti-Communist" Nazis from Europe to Latin America
along with loot plundered from European Jews and other victims
of Nazism.
A recent Argentine government report, for example, confirms the
Holy See's hand in seeking Latin American visas for Croatia's
Ustashe Nazis, who played a major role in exterminating tens of
thousands of Serbs, Jews and gypsies. The report confirms that
senior Vatican personalities pressed for the postwar escape of an
"important retinue of followers and looted assets." Included: almost
$50 million in gold, much of it plundered from Yugoslav Jews, and
part of as much as $250 million in Ustashe booty believed stashed
for "safekeeping" in the Vatican treasury at the end of the war.
The Vatican owes it to history and to Pope John Paul to release all
relevant documents. Truth, like compassion, must know no fear.
Only then can we learn and close this
By Richard Z. Chesnoff
JWR contributor and veteran journalist
Richard Z. Chesnoff is a senior correspondent at US News
And World Report and a columnist at the NY Daily News. His latest book is Pack of Thieves: How Hitler & Europe
Plundered the Jews and Committed the Greatest Theft in History.
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