The Inside the Vatican Newsflash of May 7, 2007 carries a staff written article titled ‘Nuncio Battles for Truth’ about the Yad Vashem controversy that erupted last month. This piece is scheduled to be published in the May issue of the magazine.
Yad Vashem is
This immediately became a full blown dispute. Earlier, Franco’s predecessor had also protested against the Yad Vashem display in a milder and more diplomatic manner. But the salvo by a seasoned diplomat like Franco surprised many. It also generated apprehensions about the future of the Catholic - Jewish dialogue and the Pope’s to visit to
The Yad Vahsem authorities handled the situation admirably. They insisted that the disputed exhibits represent verifiable facts according to ‘current research’. But they were willing to examine any new documents made available (it is said that there are several secret documents relating to this in the Vatican Archives) and were prepared to go by the evidence. Graciously accepting this as fair enough, the nuncio decided to attend the function on April 15 and the storm blew over.
Was this a conviction based action-reaction situation or is there something more to it? One assessment by Inside the Vatican is: “Franco made a wise choice to try to deal with the Pius issue immediately. As serious as prejudice against Pius is, it does not compare to some of the other complications in the Jewish-Catholic relationship. The injustice against Pius is a manageable problem -- for impartial, fair-minded scholars.” This could very well be true.
The journal presents several points to establish that Pius XII and the Church did, in fact, help in many ways the cause of the Jews under persecution by the Nazis, and that the details are known to the Israelis. If that is so, why did Franco concede to the demand by Yad Vashem for fresh documentation for further study?
The Pope Pius XII-Nazi matter seems to be the greatest PR fiasco ever by the Catholic Church. The accusations against the former Pope have been going around for decades. For some strange reason,
Given here is a quote from an article this author wrote some time back: “Notwithstanding all these, terror, undoubtedly, was Hitler’s main weapon for enforcing the kind of control that he desired. Many Germans genuinely supported him. They appreciated the socio-cultural stability that was established. The Church was maneuvered into doing a tightrope act, but retained a considerable degree of independence. When severe practices like euthanasia and the gassing of the Jews came into light the Church did protest. But an unsavory feeling that the Church could have done more to prevent the outrageous events that occurred, remains. This is accentuated by the fact that those who suffered most were not very friendly to the Church.”
When criticism about the role of Pope Pius XII in the unprecedented tragedy surfaced, the Church tried to ward them off by ineffective measures like accusing the Russians of false propaganda to help the expansion of Communism in post-war
Perhaps the Church’s initial reaction to the accusations was influenced by the words of Pius XII himself. Inside the
Rather belatedly, the Church is taking a more forceful stand on this question. In 2005 Inside the Vatican started an ‘oral history’ project to record accounts by Jews whom the Church had helped to escape the Holocaust. By then most of the refugees involved had died. In the present article the journal comes out with convincing arguments against the display at Yad Vashem. But how many people get to read them?
Archbishop Franco’s protest brought the issue back to public attention and now it is left to the academics to sort out the matter with support from both sides. Fortunately, a stand off like the one between
This leads one to think that the whole episode was, perhaps, choreographed with consensus from both
Let us objectively analyze the situation. Pope John Paul had visited Yad Vashem but that was before the statements about Pius XII were introduced. If the present Pope were to call at the museum without any publicly known mutual understanding about the exhibits it would have been not only highly embarrassing but also could have led to a major controversy damaging the Jewish-Catholic dialogue.
Franco has changed all that. He has registered his protest, Yad Vashem has agreed to look into the matter positively and the Pope can see for himself what exactly the
Strange sometimes are the ways of diplomacy!
Ends.
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