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Vatican Condemnation of Nazi War
Crimes: Pope Pius XII’s Denunciation
of Wartime Atrocities
DONALD H. J. HERMANN*
T
ABLE OF CONTENTS
I. I
NTRODUCTION ............................................................................................2
II. C
HARGE OF SILENCE ....................................................................................3
III. C
OMMUNICATION TO THE VATICAN ABOUT NAZI ATROCITIES
AND
DEMANDS FOR A STATEMENT OF CONDEMNATION ................................6
IV. P
OPE PIUS XII’S 1942 CHRISTMAS MESSAGE .............................................10
V. I
NTENTION AND RECEPTION OF THE 1942 CHRISTMAS MESSAGE ................14
VI. P
APAL CONSTRAINTS AND COMMITMENTS: RHETORIC AND
A
NATHEMAS .............................................................................................. 18
VII. O
THER CONTEXTUAL CONSIDERATIONS RELEVANT TO AN
A
PPRAISAL OF POPE PIUS XII’S 1942 CHRISTMAS MESSAGE ......................20
VIII. C
ONCLUSION .............................................................................................22
IX. A
PPENDIX ..................................................................................................24
* © 2017 Donald H. J. Hermann. Professor of Law & Philosophy, DePaul College of
Law. A.B. 1965, Stanford University; J.D. 1968, Columbia University; LL.M. 1974, Harvard
University; M.A. 1979 and Ph.D. 1981, Northwestern University; M.A.A.H. 1993, School of the
Art Institute of Chicago; M.L.A. 2001, University of Chicago; M.A. 2014, M. Div. 2016,
D. Min. (candidate), Catholic Theological Union. Professor Hermann served as a United
States Supreme Court Judicial Fellow during Chief Justice Burger's term, was appointed a
Law & Humanities Fellow at Harvard University, and was a Law & Economics Fellow at the
University of Chicago. He completed his doctoral studies in Philosophy at Northwestern
University and postdoctoral study in art history, theory and criticism at the School of the
Art Institute. Professor Hermann inaugurated the Health Law Institute in 1985, and his research
includes health law, law and popular culture, sexual orientation and the law, and law and religion.
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I. INTRODUCTION
Since World War II, the development of international and regional
organizations provide forums for condemnation of atrocities committed
during periods of international conflicts and national programs of persecution
and genocide of targeted populations. However, during World War II, the
lack of such international forums meant that leaders of neutral countries and
individuals of prominence, including major religious leaders, were looked to
for statements criticizing unjust war activities and persecution of vulnerable
populations. One such person to whom the world looked for condemnation
of the war time abuses and atrocities committed by National Socialist Germany
(Nazi Germany) was the Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Pius XII.
Pope Pius XII, the subject of this Article, has become a controversial
historical figure as some urge his canonization for saintly piety, while others
condemn him as a moral coward; or even worse, as a condoner of the
persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany. Criticism of Pope Pius XII in relation
to the Holocaust has emphasized an apparent lack of public protest by the
Pope against the atrocities committed by the German National Socialist
Government against the Jews and others. There seems to be ample proof
of appeals from clergy in Germany and occupied countries, as well as
requests from international diplomats to Vatican authorities, for the Pope
to make a public statement condemning the killings and persecutions of
Jews and others by the Nazi’s.
1
It is generally accepted that if one limits
consideration to “the area of public pronouncements,” the charge of silence
against the Pope “may be arguable.”
2
However, alternative reading of public
statements by Pius XII suggests that the Pope indeed condemned Nazi
atrocities, but did so in an opaque manner reflecting traditional Vatican style
of rhetoric and institutional reticence which reflected a desire to stand
aloof from the ongoing international conflict.
3
The debate on the silence of Pope Pius XII has been rekindled by recent
close examination of the Pope’s 1942 Christmas Message denouncing
totalitarianism and the killing of persons “only because of their nationality
and race,” along with a particular condemnation of Marxist Socialism and a
call for national and international relations to be based on natural law
1. CARLO FALCONI, THE SILENCE OF PIUS XII 66–77 (Bernard Wall trans., Little
Brown & Co. 1970).
2. John Pawlikowski, The Legacy of Pius XII, C
ATH. INT’L. 459 (Oct. 1998).
3. See M
ICHAEL PHAYER, PIUS XII, THE HOLOCAUST AND THE COLD WAR 42 (2008)
(“Although the word genocide would not be caned until 1944, Pius XII denounced what we
now commonly understand as genocide in his Christmas message of 1942.”).
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principles guaranteeing justice, order, and peace.
4
In particular, Michael
Phayer, a historian writing on the Vatican’s relation to the Holocaust,
suggested a need for renewed attention to the 1942 Christmas Message.
5
According to Phayer:
Historians . . . have been rather too dismissive of his 1942 Christmas address.
Since Pius never spoke out again in a comparable way, the Christmas address has
been judged by the Pope’s critics as falling short of the mark, given the enormity
of the Holocaust. This judgment rests on hindsight. Most of those who heard
or read the Christmas message viewed the statement in a different light, precisely
because it was the Pope’s initial comment about wartime atrocities.
6
Considering views such as Phayer’s, this Article will assess the 1942
Christmas Message to determine whether it in fact provided a response to
the Holocaust, thus defeating the charge of “silence” which has been
directed against Pius XII by revisionist historians and critics.
II. C
HARGE OF SILENCE
In his biography of Pope Pius XII, Soldier of Christ, Robert Ventresca
contrasts two images of the Pope: one reflected in a monumental heroic
bronze sculpture of the pope by the sculptor Francesco Messina, which
was installed in St. Peter’s Basilica shortly after the pope’s death and the
other as seen in the character of an aloof and canny pope presented in Rolf
Hochhuth’s play The Deputy.
7
The sculpture is said to represent “Eugenio
Pacelli, soldier of Christ–a spiritual warrior stirring to resist the gathering
forces of the enemies of Christ, which threatened from all sides.”
8
By
contrast to the view of Pius XII as a valiant spiritual leader in time of war,
Ventresca maintained that “Hochhuth’s pope wears the moral responsibilities
of an institution that failed to defend the weak and powerless in the face
of a ruthless and incorrigible enemy.”
9
It is clear the view today of the
public image of Pius has been significantly affected by his depiction in
The Deputy as an aloof intellectual who refused to protest the exterminations
4. Pope Pius XII, Christmas Message, The Internal Order of States and People
(1942), https://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/P12CH42.htm [hereinafter 1942 Christmas
Message] [https://perma.cc/XA8P-AFEM].
5. Michael Phayer, “Helping the Jews is not an easy thing to do.” Vatican Holocaust
Policy: Continuity or Change?, 21 H
OLOCAUST & GENOCIDE STUD. 421, 422 (2007).
6. Id.
7. R
OBERT VENTRESCA, SOLDIER OF CHRIST: THE LIFE OF POPE PIUS XII 2–4 (2013).
8. Id. at 2.
9. Id. at 3.
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occurring in the Nazi concentration camps. Interestingly, the New York
Times published an editorial at the time of The Deputy’s opening in New
York suggesting that the subject of the play was not the pope but “silence”
itself.
10
According to the editorial:
In the Deputy, the playwright contends that Pope Pius XII, then the Sovereign
Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, might have prevented deportations and
mass murder by speaking out against Nazi concentration camps. The facts may be in
dispute; the history imperfect; the indictment too severe. But the philosophical
issue is ever alive. In a word, it is “silence.”
11
In the film Judgment at Nuremberg, such silence is attributed to all the
ally leaders including Churchill and Roosevelt.
12
To a degree, criticism of the alleged silence of Pius XII is a complaint
about the general or somewhat abstract quality of the Pope’s statement.
The 1942 Christmas Message was criticized because of its lack of effectiveness
due to a failure of specification and particular verbalization, for example,
failing to name the Nazis and the places and dates of mass killings of Jews
and others.
13
John Roth observed in High Ideals and Innocuous Reaction
that Pius XII always had a strong presence and a keen knowledge of
European affairs, including the activities of the Nazis.
14
Moreover, Pius
XII was implored repeatedly to speak out against the persecution and killing
of Jews by the Nazis.
15
According to Roth:
[H]is pronouncements along these lines were as rare and convoluted as his policies
were neutral and his tone measured . . . Pius said very little, particularly in that
problematic Christmas Eve homily that he broadcast to the world in 1942, [even
though the] Nazis and their collaborators had murdered millions of Jews by that
time.
16
Nevertheless, Pius XII himself and his apologists claimed that the Pope
made a significant statement on behalf of the Jews in his 1942 Christmas
Message.
17
Still, Roth and others argue the Pope’s actual words scarcely
10. N.Y. TIMES, Silence, in THE STORM OVER THE DEPUTY 35–36, (Eric Bentley,
Ed., Grove Press, Inc. 1964).
11. Id.
12. J
UDGMENT AT NUREMBERG (United Artists 1961).
13. J
OHN CORNWELL, HITLER’S POPE: THE SECRET HISTORY OF PIUS XII 293 (Viking
Penguin 1999) (2008) (“It is not merely a paltry statement. The chasm between the enormity
of the liquidation of the Jewish people and this form of evasive words is shocking.”).
14. John K. Roth, High Ideals and Innocuous Reaction: An American Protestant’s
Reflection on Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust, in P
OPE PIUS XII AND THE HOLOCAUST 248
(Carol Ritter & John K. Roth eds., 2002).
15. Id.
16. Id.
17. Id.
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support such a defense.
18
In his recent biography of Pius XII, Robert Ventresca
agreed that the Pope kept the public waiting for an explicit condemnation
that never occurred.
19
This Article’s response to Roth and Ventresca is that these critics and
others simply have not read the 1942 Christmas Message correctly, largely
as a consequence of their discounting the traditional ecclesiastical style
and rhetoric employed by the Pope. Moreover, critics ignore the contemporary
situational and institutional constraints operating on the papacy during
World War II. In Reticence and the Holocaust: The Rhetorical Style of
Pope Pius XII, Camilla Kari correctly identified the rhetorical style of
papal pronouncements reflected in the 1942 Christmas Message:
When the frame of responsibility entailed by the papal need for diplomatic reticence
is superimposed upon his [style of] discourse, Pius XII’s decisions provide a
template of one who relied on the mechanisms of law, not oratory from the pulpit,
to accomplish his goals. This task is overlooked by critics who desired the pontiff
to have issued strong words and a warning. For this reason, Pius XII’s Christmas
Address of 1942 [mistakenly] constitutes a major source of grievance for accusations
regarding his silence.
20
Kari suggests that a close reading of the 1942 Christmas Message, along
with an effort to penetrate the conceptualizations and vocabulary employed
in the Christmas Messages, establishes not only that the Message provides
condemnation of Nazism and the killing of persons on the basis of race,
but in fact includes a call to action against the forces attacking humanity.
21
According to Kari:
The philosophical representations, the legalistic vocabulary, the erudite
conceptualizations and the abstract tone of universality all represent a discursive
rhetoric consistent with ecclesiastical pronouncements, [moreover] the lack of
specificity is congruous with the Church’s notion of itself as immutable and
universal. However, if one penetrates the vocabulary, a rallying cry can be heard:
“The call of the moment is not lamentation but [for] action . . . It is for the best
and most distinguished members of the Christian family. . . to unite in the spirit
of truth, justice and love to the call; God wills it, ready to serve, to sacrifice
themselves, like the Crusaders of old.”
22
18. Id.
19. V
ENTRESCA, supra note 7, at 169.
20. Camilla Kari, Reticence and the Holocaust: The Rhetorical Style of Pope Pius
XII, A
DVANCES IN THE HIST. OF RHETORIC 129, 138 (2006).
21. Id. at 141.
22. Id. at 141 (quoting 1942 Christmas Message, supra note 4, at ¶ 36).
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III. COMMUNICATIONS TO THE VATICAN ABOUT NAZI ATROCITIES
AND DEMANDS FOR A STATEMENT OF CONDEMNATION
Phayer in his 2008 monograph, Pius XII, the Holocaust and the Cold
War, maintains the Nazi killing of Catholics and Jews in Poland was the
motivating force for the Vatican to speak out about Nazi atrocities.
23
It is
these Nazi atrocities that lie behind the 1942 Christmas Message:
Because Pope Pius spoke out meaningfully about genocide in Poland at the end
of 1942, we can assume that he took seriously the reports, or at least some reports,
that had come to the Vatican earlier that year . . . . [T]here had to have been a
turning point that caused the Holy Father to address genocide in the Christmas
address. This does not mean that at the end of 1942, Pius XII knew, or was
convinced of the fact that the Final Solution was in the process of being carried
out.”
24
Walter Laquer in his book, The Terrible Secret: Suppression of the Truth
and Hitler’s Final Solution, maintains that the Vatican was among the
first institutions to learn about the fate of deported Jews:
There was a great deal of coming and going throughout the war between the Vatican
and the outside world. It was kept informed by the Jewish representatives in
Geneva who handed long memoranda to the nuncio in Switzerland, Bernardini
(17 March 1942), as well as to Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, at
the time papal nuncio in Turkey; it was bombarded with notes by Myron Taylor
and Harold Tittmann, U.S. Envoys at the Vatican, Sir Ronald Campbell, the British
Ambassador, the Brazilian Envoy and countless others. All the notes contained
information about the mass murders committed by the Nazis.
25
In addition, there were Catholic priests and laymen in Poland and Slovakia
who informed the Vatican of the Nazi atrocities.
26
The Vatican itself had
a diplomatic presence or channels of communication with every country,
except the USSR, all of which provided information about the ongoing
Nazi activities.
27
The call for Pope Pius XII to publicly condemn the Nazi atrocities is
documented in a series of communications between the U.S. envoy to the
23. PHAYER, supra note 3, at 43–44.
24. Id.
25. W
ALTER LAQUEUR, THE TERRIBLE SECRET: SUPPRESSION OF THE TRUTH ABOUT
HITLER’S FINAL SOLUTION 55 (1998).
26. Id.
27. F
ALCONI, supra note 1, at 50–51 (“As regards the Holy See itself, it was always
able to communicate with the various countries of the world through its own normal diplomatic
channels even when the difficulties arising from the war made relations harder . . . . And
in any case the diplomatic network of the Vatican could always rely on a considerable
number of nunciatures and Apostolic Delegations.”).
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Vatican and Cardinal Luigi Maglione, the Vatican Secretary of State.
28
On September 26, 1942, Myron C. Taylor, a U.S. envoy to the Vatican delivered
a note to the Vatican Secretary of State with explicit information about
the Final Solution received from the Geneva Office of the Jewish Agency
for Palestine in a report from two reliable eyewitnesses in April 1942:
1) Liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto is taking place. Without
any distinction all Jews, irrespective of age or sex, are being
removed from the Ghetto in groups and shot. Their corpses
are utilized for making fats and their bones for the manufacture
of fertilizer. Corpses are even being exhumed for these
purposes.
2) These mass executions take place, not in Warsaw, but in
specially prepared camps, one of which is stated to be in
Belzek. About 50,000 Jews have been executed in Lomberg
itself on the spot during the past month. According to another
report, 100,000 have been massacred in Warsaw. There is
not one Jew left in the entire district east of Poland, including
occupied Russia. It is also reported, in this connection, that
the entire non-Jewish population of Sebastopol was murdered.
So as not to attract attention of foreign countries, the butchering
of Jewish populations in Poland, was not done at a single
time.
3) Jews deported from Germany, Belgium, Holland, France
and Slovakia are sent to be butchered, while Aryans deported
to the East from Holland and France are generally used for
work . . . .
29
Harold Tittmann, the U.S. Charge d’Affaires at the United States Mission
to the Vatican reported to the U.S. State Department on October 6, 1942,
that despite receiving reports about Nazi atrocities, the Pope was hesitant
to make a public statement because of possible retaliation by Nazi leaders.
30
There was also apparent sensitivity to the German citizens’ resentment for
what was considered the Vatican’s partiality against Germany during World
War I.
31
These feelings were based on reports to the Vatican that Germans
28. SAUL FRIEDLANDER, PIUS XII AND THE THIRD REICH: A DOCUMENTATION 120–
21 (1966).
29. Id. at 121.
30. Id. at 123.
31. See id.
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resented stat
WWI.
32
The telegram
ements by
fro
Benedict XV that
m Tittmann to t
were criti
he U.S. State Depart
cal of Germ
ment stated:
any during
The Holy See is still apparently convinced that a forthright denunciation by the
Pope of Nazi atrocities, at least in so far Poland is concerned, would only result
in the violent deaths of many more people. Msgr. Montini [later Pope Paul VI],
however stated to me that the time may come, when in spite of such grievous
prospect, the Holy Father will feel himself obliged to speak out . . . . Another motive,
possibly the controlling one, behind the Pope’s disinclination to denounce the
Nazi atrocities is his fear that if he does so now, the German people in the bitterness
of defeat, will reproach him later on for having contributed, if only indirectly, to
this defeat. It has been pointed out to me that just such an accusation was directed
against the Holy See by the Germans after the last war, because of certain phrases
spoken . . . by Benedict XV while hostilities were in progress. When it is borne
in mind that Pius XII had many years of conditioning in Germany, it will not seem
unnatural that he should be particularly sensitive to this particular argument.
33
Despite the Pope’s reluctance to speak publicly about the German activities,
the Vatican continued to receive requests for statements from bishops in
the Nazi occupied countries, particularly Poland.
34
At the same time, the
international community and the Allies mounted significant efforts to
influence the Vatican to make a public statement condemning the Nazi killing
of Jews.
35
One of efforts was a Joint Declaration of the United Nations, a
new twenty-six nation alliance established against the Axis powers, which
condemned the Nazi exterminations.
36
While the Vatican remained reluctant
to specifically condemn the German state, the Pope finally acquiesced to
the urging of these individuals and institutions in his 1942 Christmas
Message.
37
However, evident in the text of the telegram from Harold
32. See id.
33. Id.
34. C
ORNWELL, supra note 13, at 281 (“[A] flow of dispatches came into the Vatican
from various sources in Eastern Europe describing the fate of some ninety thousand
Jews. Among whom there were significant numbers ‘baptized’ who had been sent to camps in
Poland. The nuncio in Bratislava commented that the deportation was the equivalent of
sending a large number to certain death.”).
35. See e.g., Letter from Mr. Harold H. Tittmann, Assistant to the President’s Personal
Representative to Pope Pius XII, to the Secretary of the State (Oct. 6 1942), in 3 F
OREIGN
RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES: DIPLOMATIC PAPERS, 1942, EUROPE 776–77 (1961) (“I
understand that the Pope is giving careful consideration to the matter and the general
impression is that he will say something at an opportune moment.”).
36. Declaration of United Nations, Jan. 1, 1942, 55 Stat. 1600, E.A.S. No. 236, https://
www.loc.gov/law/help/us-treaties/bevans/m-ust000003-0697.pdf [https://perma.cc/A3NP-F77X]
(declaring access to country resources, military or economic against those the Tripartite Pact
are at war with in the quest for victory over Hitlerism).
37. See e.g., Letter, supra note 35 (“The Holy See is still apparently convinced that
a forthright denunciation by the Pope of Nazi atrocities . . . would only result in the violent
deaths of many more people.”) Tittman further speculated “another motive, possibly the
controlling one, behind the Pope’s disinclination to denounce Nazi atrocities is his fear
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Tittmann to the U.S. Secretary of State sent on the eve of the broadcast of
the 1942 Christmas Message, the U.S. envoy anticipated any statement
from the Pope would fall short of the Allies’ desired direct condemnation
of the Nazi extermination of Jews:
In a recent conversation with the Cardinal Secretary of State, I referred to the Joint
Declaration of the United Nations on the mass extermination of Jews in German
occupied countries and asked him whether this was not something Holy See could
along similar lines. He replied as before to the effect that Holy See was unable
to denounce publicly particular atrocities but that it had frequently condemned
atrocities in general. He added that everything possible was being done privately
to relieve the distress of Jews. Although deploring cruelties that have come to
his attention he said that Holy See was unable to verify Allied reports as to the
number of Jews exterminated, et cetera. There are rumors to the effect that the Pope
in his Christmas message will take a strong stand on this subject, but I am afraid
that any deviation from the generalities of his previous messages is unlikely.
38
Although the Vatican initially held back on issuing a public statement
condemning the Nazi atrocities, the evidence nevertheless reveals that
early on, bishops and clergy were encouraged by the Vatican to alleviate
the plight of Jewish victims.
39
Throughout 1942, the Vatican Secretary of
State maintained in discussions with various diplomats that the Vatican
was doing everything it could to alleviate the suffering of the Jews.
40
At
the same time, the Vatican continued to maintain that it was unable to officially
confirm reports of specific atrocities.
41
However, the end of 1942, it appears
that the Vatican was presented with specific information about the mass
killing of Jews.
42
Significantly, representatives of several South American
that if he does so now, the German people, in the bitterness of their defeat, will reproach
him later on for having contributed, if only indirectly, to this defeat.” Id.
38. F
RIEDLANDER, supra note 28, at 124–25.
39. V
ENTRESCA, supra note 7, at 179. Ventresca explains that “[w]hile studiously
avoiding the explicit public condemnation being asked of him, Pius authorized papal
representatives around the world to mobilize whatever resources they could muster to help
those facing persecution and certain death because of race or creed.” Id.
40. F
ALCONI, supra note 1, at 67–69. Pope Pius XII reported to have responded to
material needs of victims of Nazi aggression while remaining silent in regard to formal
and effective denunciation.
41. P
HAYER, supra note 3, at 44. Phayer notes what while “Vatican spokespersons
said that they believed the accuracy of atrocities perpetrated on Catholics but doubted the
stories of greater atrocities on Jews.” Id.
42. See e.g. Letter from The President’s Personal Representative to Pope Pius XII
(Taylor) to the Cardinal Secretary of State (Maglione) (Sept. 26 1942), in 3 F
OREIGN
RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES: DIPLOMATIC PAPERS, 1942, EUROPE 775–67 (1961)
(providing information from two eye-witnesses relating to massacres occurring throughout
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and European Catholic countries directly demanded a papal condemnation
of the Nazi atrocities, warning that a failure to make such a statement
would weaken the moral authority of the Church.
43
These diplomats warned:
“A policy of silence in regard to such offenses [in Poland] against the
conscience of the world must necessarily involve a renunciation of moral
leadership and a consequent atrophy of the influence and authority of the
Vatican.”
44
The 1942 Christmas Message of Pope Pius XII was a response
to this challenge.
IV. P
OPE PIUS XII’S 1942 CHRISTMAS MESSAGE
Pope Pius XII’s 1942 Christmas Message was an address delivered by
the Pope over Vatican radio on Christmas Day, 1942.
45
The text of the address
was twenty-six typed pages and was over 5000 words long; the speech
took over fifty-five minutes to deliver over the radio. The Message calls
for a return to natural law principles to serve as the basis for individual
and social action in face of the current international conflict, citing the
primary concerns of order and peace. Recognition is given to traditional
Catholic Social Teaching especially its teaching on the dignity of the worker
and laborer as a prototype for national order and international peace. Marxist
Socialism is cited for special condemnation as an erroneous and godless
approach to issues of social justice. Principles of human dignity are identified
as providing the basis for restoring the world to justice. The final section
dealing with postwar society identifies areas of injustice which need to be
rectified. Overall, the Message specifically mentioned matters that could
cause a person hearing the Message to draw inferences about the Nazis’
behavior, including failure to adhere to agreements to make war less inhumane
and forcing people into the status of exiles from their native land. Moreover,
the most significant passage in the Message condemned those with
responsibility for “hundreds of thousands of persons who without fault on
their part, sometimes only because of their nationality or race have been
consigned to death or to a slow decline.”
46
The Message consists of an introduction followed by five parts. The Pope
began the Message by acknowledging the sorrowful state of the contemporary
world, and recognized the anguished cries of those in war torn Europe
Europe). For further examples, please see FRIEDLANDER, supra note 28, at 103–10. Friedlander
argued given written communications collected after 1942, it appears the pope may have
been aware of killings in early 1942. Id. at 104.
43. P
HAYER, supra note 3, at 48–49.
44. Id. at 48–49.
45. 1942 Christmas Message, supra note 4. For the text of the Christmas Message,
see infra Appendix.
46. Id.
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who were anxious and suffering. However, the Pope insisted that since
the world was at war, the Church had to remain neutral among the states
at war: “She [the Church] does not intend to take sides for any of the particular
forms in which the several peoples and states strive to solve the gigantic
problems of domestic order or international collaboration, as long as those
forms conform to the law of God.”
47
Essentially, the Pope reiterated that
the Vatican maintained a neutral stance with regard to the warring ideologies
of fascism and democracy, as magisterial teaching had never endorsed
either form of state government. Rather, the Pope saw the role of the Church
as proclaiming the natural and eternal law that should govern all human
affairs. Though only stated later in the Message, this obligation of the Church
to declaim the natural law goes hand in hand with the Pope’s condemnation
of state positive law, which relies solely on compulsion or force for its
legitimacy. This form of the discussion supports the earlier quoted assertion
of Camille Kari that the Message is more legalistic than oratorical, and
the Message is rooted more in the traditional concerns of the Church with
maintenance of natural law underpinning recognition of human dignity as
the obligation of the state, rather than with contemporary political conflict.
48
The first three sections of the Christmas Message deal with the need to
establish an international order governing the countries of the world, reflecting
the internal order of states, which must conform to the fundamental laws
of the natural order. A peaceful international order depends on the existence
of well-ordered states because “[i]nternational relations and internal order
[of states] are intimately related.”
49
The next two sections of the message
discuss the primary elements of natural law that regulate social life, which
include “living together in order, and . . . living together in tranquility.”
50
Those states that are based on a godless social philosophy which views
humankind, independent of the divine, as the supreme good, are led to the
chaos that the Pope maintains is pervasive in contemporary society:
A social teaching on a social reconstruction program which denies or prescinds
this internal essential relation to God of everything that regards men, is on a false
course, and while it builds up with one hand, it prepares with the other the materials
which sooner or later will undermine and destroy the whole fabric.
51
47. Id.
48. See Kari, supra note 20, at 38.
49. Id.
50. Id.
51. Id.
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Upon hearing or reading these remarks, one might well understand this
criticism as referring both to the Fascist or National Socialist philosophy
of Germany, as well as to the Marxist Socialist creed of the U.S.S.R.
Throughout the text of the Message there are statements that have
significance in regard to the persecution of Jews. For example, the Pope
states, “If social life implies intrinsic unity, it does not, at the same time,
exclude differences which are founded in fact and nature.”
52
Religion,
economics, and cultural activity are important in social life; however, the
Pope returns his focus to the importance of a just legal structure.
That social life, such as God willed it, may attain its scope, it needs a juridicial
order to support it from without, to defend and protect it. The function of this
juridicial order is not to dominate but to serve, to help the development and
increase of society’s vitality in the rich multiplicity of its ends, leading all the
individual energies to their perfection . . . .
53
The essence of the Pope’s emphasis on a legitimate legal structure, which
serves the individual, provides a strong argument against a totalitarian or
collective state. Both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were recognized
by the contemporary audience as totalitarian and collective states;
54
thus,
the critical remarks communicated to those hearing or reading the Pope’s
Christmas Message would have been understood as condemnations.
The Pope made an effort to establish how Catholic Social teaching should
serve as a model for overcoming conflict. This model is offered as a basis
for overcoming the conflict of war by the establishment of a just international
order. It is here that the Pope directly condemns Marxist Socialism because
of its godlessness.
The fourth section of the Christmas Message identifies five points for
ordering society, each of which essentially involves recognition of basic
human rights. These include, (1) Dignity of the Human Person (which opposes
“the excessive herding of men, as if they were a mass without a soul” and
involves respect for and the practical realization of fundamental personal
rights);
55
(2) Defense of Social Unity (which rejects “every form of
materialism which sees in the people a heard of individuals who, divided
and without any internal cohesion, are considered as a mass to be forded
over and treated arbitrarily.”);
56
(3) Dignity of Labor (“[B]esides a just wage
which covers the needs of the worker and his family, the conservation and
52. Id.
53. Id.
54. See generally Les K. Adler & Thomas G. Paterson, The Merger of Nazi Germany
and Soviet Russia in the American Image of Totalitarianism, 1930’s – 1950’s, 75 A
M. HIST.
R
EV. 1046 (1970).
55. 1942 Christmas Message, supra note 4.
56. Id.
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perfection of a social order which will make possible an assured, even if
modest, private property for all classes of society.”);
57
(4) The Rehabilitation
of Juridical Order (which “supposes (a) [a] tribunal and a judge who take
their directions from a clearly formulated and defined right. (b) Clear judicial
norms which may not be overturned by unwarranted appeals to a supposed
popular sentiment or by merely utilitarian considerations. (c) The recognition
of the principle that even the State and the functionaries and organizations
[who] depend on it are obliged to repair and to withdraw measures which
are harmful to the liberty, property, honor, progress of health of individuals.”);
58
and (5) Christian Conception for the State (“[H]elp to restore the State
and its power to the service of human society, to the full recognition of the
respect due to the human person and his efforts to attain his eternal destiny.”).
59
These five points of ordering human society could be heard as fundamental
criticisms of National Socialist Germany, which was broadly known throughout
the world as a totalitarian state.
60
However, without explicit mention of
the internal operation of the German state or examples of how the laws of
Germany violated the principles set out by the Pope, it is understandable
how someone unfamiliar with the actual operation of fascism in Germany
could fail to recognize these statements served as a critique of Nazi practices.
Nevertheless, the final section of the Christmas Message reads even more
clearly as a judiciously coded diplomatic critique of the leaders of Nazi
Germany. The Pope talks of those with an “unbridled lust for gain and
power.”
61
Those listening to the Pope would have been well aware of Germany’s
invasions of various conquered territories. The Pope cites the violation of
“[i]nternational agreements to make war less inhuman by confining it to
combatants [and] to regulate the procedure of occupation and imprisonment
of the conquered.”
62
Anyone listening to the Pope’s address, and who read
news accounts available at the time, would have dawn a connection of this
section of the Christmas Message to the acts of invading German forces,
which produced civilian casualties and violence against conquered civilian
populations. Specifically, the Pope cites to the “progressive demoralization
of the people.”
63
Any person hearing or reading the Pope’s message could
57. Id.
58. Id.
59. Id.
60. See generally Adler & Paterson, supra note 54.
61. 1942 Christmas Message, supra note 4.
62. Id.
63. Id.
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certainly draw the connection to the people subject to German occupation,
including any Jews living in conquered lands.
Further, the Pope’s concern for “those numerous exiles whom the hurricane
of war has torn from their native land and scattered in the land of the
stranger” would surely associate this statement with those individuals reported
in the international press as having been removed from their native lands
and shipped to Germany or moved to other work locations.
64
Finally, individuals
aware of the Nazi program of killing Jews, and the significant news reportings
of these deaths, would have by December 1942 been cognizant of the subjects
of the Pope’s reference when he stated, “Mankind owes that vow [to restore
a just society] to the hundreds of thousands of persons who, without any
fault on their part, sometimes only because of their nationality or race,
have been consigned to death or slow decline.”
65
To gauge the response of the contemporary reader or listener to the 1942
Christmas message, one needs to understand the near total domination of
Europe by the armed forces of Nazi Germany by the end of 1942. The Soviet
Union was under attack by Germany following Hitler’s termination of an
alliance with Stalin and the USSR. Poland had been subject to Nazi brutalization
for over three years. By the middle of 1942, it was widely reported that
Germany had begun a systematic program to eliminate Jews. Accordingly,
anyone hearing or reading Pope Pius XII’s 1942 Christmas Message would
have interpreted it against this factual background.
V. I
NTENTION AND RECEPTION OF THE 1942 CHRISTMAS MESSAGE
Pope Pius XII himself felt that he had been clear in his intention to
communicate a condemnation of Nazi atrocities. Harold Tittmann, the
U.S. envoy, reported to the U.S. State Department on December 30, 1942,
about a discussion he had with the Pope about the Pope’s purpose and own
assessment of his Christmas Message as a public rebuke of Nazi atrocities,
stating:
With regard to his Christmas Message the Pope gave me the impression that he
was sincere in believing that he had spoken therein clearly enough to satisfy all
those who had been insisting in the past that he utter some word of condemnation
of the Nazi atrocities, and he seemed surprised when I told him that I thought
there were some who did not share his belief. He said that he thought that it was
plain to everyone that he was referring to the Poles, Jews and wartime hostages
when he declared that hundreds of thousands of persons had been killed or tortured
through no fault of their own, sometimes only because of their race or nationality.
He explained that when talking of atrocities he could not name the Nazi’s without
at the same time mentioning the Bolsheviks and this he thought that this might
64. Id.
65. Id. (emphasis added).
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not be wholly pleasing to the Allies. He stated that he ‘feared’ there was foundation
for the atrocity reports of the allies, but led me to believe that he felt there had
been some exaggeration for purposes of propaganda. Taken as a whole he thought
his message should be welcomed by the American people and I agreed with
him.
66
Tittmann, as a representative of the U.S. Diplomatic Corps, can be viewed
as reflecting the general positive response of the Allies regarding the 1942
Christmas Message as a public condemnation of Nazi atrocities. Tittmann
told the U.S. State Department that: “[T]aken as a whole, the message may
be regarded as an arraignment of totalitarianism. Furthermore, the reference
to the persecution of the Jews, and mass deportations is unmistakable.”
67
The British historian, Anthony Rhodes, quotes extensively in his book
The Vatican in the Age of the Dictators, 1922-1945 from captured wartime
documents that included a statement of Reinhard Heydrich, head of the German
Security Department, commenting on the Gestapo’s view of the Pope’s
1942 Christmas Message:
In a manner never known before . . . the Pope has repudiated the National [S]ocialist
New European Order. 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 . . . God, he says, regards all peoples and races as worthy of the same consideration.
Here he is clearly speaking on behalf of the Jews . . . that his speech is directed
exclusively against the New Order in Europe as seen in National socialism is clear
in that the Papal statement that mankind owes a debt to all who during the war
have lost their Fatherland and who, although personally blameless have, simply
on account of their nationality and origin, been killed or reduced to utter destitution.
Here he is virtually accusing the German people of injustice towards the Jews,
and makes himself the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals.
68
There was extensive reporting on the content of the Christmas Message
worldwide. The New York Times reported about the Pope’s Christmas Message
in a front-page article on December 25, 1942, titled Pope Assails Peril of
Godless State, which included the full text of the Pope’s Christmas Message.
69
The article reported:
66. HAROLD TITTMANN, JR., INSIDE THE VATICAN OF PIUS XII: THE MEMOIR OF AN
AMERICAN DIPLOMAT DURING WORLD WAR II 123–24 (2004).
67. P
HAYER, supra note 3, at 57 (quoting Tittmann to Department of State, Secretary of
State Cordell Hull, Entry 1071, Box 29, RG 59, Location 250/48/29, Jan. 7, 1943).
68. A
NTHONY RHODES, THE VATICAN IN THE AGE OF DICTATORS 1922-1945 272–73
(1974).
69. Pope Assails Peril of “Godless State,” N.Y. T
IMES, Dec. 25, 1942.
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Pius XII reaffirmed the church’s denunciation of Marxist Socialism. He also
castigated the authoritarian form of government that disposed of individuals like
a ‘herd of lifeless things’ and he called upon all those who recognized Christ to
join the crusade for a new social order based on the Christian precept that to serve
is better than to dominate.
70
The Times article draws no explicit connection between the Pope’s remarks
and Nazi Germany; however, the article does mention the pivotal phrase from
the speech, “the thousands of men who through no fault of their own but
for reasons of nationality or race had been doomed to death or decay,” without
linking it to any specific group such as the Jews. Significantly, the article notes
the Pope’s claim to neutrality, reporting that the Pope said: “[The Church]
refused to take sides from one or the other of the human ideologies.”
71
It
should be noted that the Church was not above ideology when the Pope
condemned “Marxist Socialism,” but the Pope seemed to say the Church was
above ideologies when it came to fascism or National Socialism
versus Democracy. This paper later discusses the difference in treatment
of ideologies.
The Chicago Daily Tribune reported on the Pope’s Christmas Message
on page seven of its December 25, 1942, issue in an article titled Pope
Condemns, “Herding of Men By Government.” The article noted:
[While the Pope] mentioned no individuals or nations by name . . . he condemned
the conception of the state as an “absolute and supreme entity,” the “urge for
power and predominance,” the “herding of men as if they were a mass without a
soul,” the breaking of international agreements designed to humanize war, and
noted with sorrow that many people have been consigned to death or a slow decline
solely because of their nationality or race.
72
The Tribune article also included a reference to the papal claim of
neutrality:
The Church, the Pope said, ‘does not intend to take sides for either of the particular
forms in which the several peoples and states strive to solve the gigantic problems
of domestic order or international collaboration, as long as these forms conform
to the law of God.
73
Michal Phayer reports that both members of the hierarchy in Germany
and individuals subject to persecution in Poland were critical of the lack
of specificity in the Pope’s address: “Bishop Preysing in Berlin thought the
Pope’s words referred to Jews, but were not specific enough. Poles thought
the Pope had referred to them, but that he should have identified the Germans
70. Id.
71. Id.
72. Pope Condemns, “Herding of Men By Government,” C
HI. DAILY TRIB., Dec. 25,
1942.
73. Id.
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as perpetrators.”
74
However, the response in other occupied countries such
as France and the Netherlands were more positive.
The harshest criticism of the 1942 Christmas Message came from
revisionist historians such as John Cornwell who in his controversial book
Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII denounces the address.
Cornwell argued:
It is not merely a paltry statement. The chasm between the enormity of the liquidation
of the Jewish people and this form of evasive words is shocking. He might have
been referring to many categories of victims of the many belligerents in the conflict.
Clearly the exhibition of ambiguous language was intended to placate those who
urged him to protest, while avoiding offense to the Nazi regime. But these considerations
are overshadowed by the implicit denial and trivialization. He had scaled down
the doomed millions to “hundreds of thousands” and expunged the word Jews, making
the pointed qualification “sometimes only” [referring to “nationality or race” being
sometimes used to consign people to death]. Nowhere was the term Nazi or Nazi
Germany mentioned. Hitler himself could not have wished for a more convoluted
and innocuous reaction from the Vicar of Christ to the greatest crime in human
history.
75
This is made all the worse according to Cromwell because “[i]t was to remain
the fullest extent of his [the Pope’s] protest and denunciation for the rest
of the war.”
76
Robert Ventresca in Soldier of Christ takes a more nuanced position
basing his criticism on evidence that contemporaries of Pius XII, including
Allied authorities such as U.S. Office of Strategic Services (“OSS”), took
the view “that such papal circumlocution in wartime was less constructive
that more direct language would have been.
77
Ventresca’s criticism is
essentially that “Pius XII really could [have said] things more bluntly.”
78
Ventresca concludes:
The Pope’s refusal to call by name the Nazi war against the Jews fed the growing
perception that Pius XII was not doing everything in his power to condemn Nazi
atrocities . . . It is commonly asserted that the accusation of papal silence during
the Holocaust was an invention of the postwar era first in Soviet propaganda, then
in the contrived historical fiction of Hochhuth’s play The Deputy. In fact, the
74. P
HAYER, supra note 3, at 58–59.
75. J
OHN CORNWELL, HITLER’S POPE: THE SECRET HISTORY OF PIUS XII 293 (Viking
Penguin 1999) (2008).
76. Id. at 292.
77. V
ENTRESCA, supra note 7, at 185–86.
78. Id. at 186.
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criticism of Pius XII’s reluctance to speak out against the Fascist’s stretches back
to the early weeks of his pontificate.
79
Ventresca’s criticism of the “papal circumlocution” is directed at the indirect
character of the Pope’s language in the 1942 Christmas Message. Such
criticism is based on a standard which values bold and direct statements,
especially on such significant matters of life and death as were being
addressed in the 1942 Christmas Message. This view, however, ignores
a long tradition of papal rhetoric to which Pius XII was steeped in and felt
compelled to use in his formal statements.
VI. P
APAL CONSTRAINTS AND COMMITMENTS: RHETORIC AND
ANATHEMAS
Two related aspects of the 1942 Christmas Message deserve further
consideration: (1) the indirect language and the rhetorical style, which
precludes the direct denunciation of Nazi Germany and the killing of Jews,
and (2) the specifically named condemnation of Marxist Socialism while
failing to directly denounce Fascism or National Socialism. Camilla Kari
in her article Reticence and the Holocaust: the Rhetorical Style of Pope
Pius XII, addresses the criticism directed at Pius XII for the lack of specificity
in the public discourse embodied in the 1942 Christmas Message.
80
Kari
identifies the basic premises underlying the pontifical rhetorical styles:
(1) the Church is a transcendent institution, aloof from contemporary social
issues, while at the same time serving as teacher providing guidance for
present concerns with reference to universal principles, and (2) a generalized
and abstract rhetorical style which serves to preserve the functions of a
global faith followed by a diversity of cultures.
81
Kari provided an analysis
of the 1942 Christmas Message based on this established style of papal rhetoric:
[T]he resulting oratory was brief, bland, and a deep disappointment to those who
had advocated his verbal intervention. This reaction puzzled Pius, who believed his
message had been clear. The difference in expectations can be explained by the depth
of familiarity listeners had with the coded style of papal discourse. The dimensions
of interpretation and context also account for the paradox of a pontiff known for his
personal sanctity, whose apparent weak response to those in distress has puzzled his
contemporaries and historians alike. One explanation for this contradiction can be
found by examining the discourse of the popes who preceded him; leaders of
a vulnerable city-state, whose flexibility in addressing on-going events was compromised
by the need to placate multiple factions and remain above particular controversies.
Establishing the rhetorical parameters of a reigning pontiff provides a basis for
comparison with Pius XII’s discourse. They reveal that Pius XII’s “silence” conformed
79. Id.
80. Kari, supra note 20, at 131.
81. Id.
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to the stylistic formulas of his predecessors and provide a dispassionate basis for
his reticence.
82
. . .
The philosophical representations, the legalistic vocabulary, the erudite conceptualizations
and the abstract tone of universality, all represent a discursive rhetoric consistent
with ecclesiastical pronouncements. The lack of specificity is congruous with the
Church’s notion of itself as immutable and universal.
83
An understanding of the rhetorical style of Pius XII should be coupled
with his use of the scholastic method of reasoning associated with St.
Thomas Aquinas. In Soldier of Christ, Robert Ventresca provided an account
of a special report prepared by the U.S. Office of Strategic Services in
January 1943, which provides an analysis of Pope Pius XII’s Christmas
Message.
84
The report suggests that the key to understanding the Pope’s
statement is the use of the “syllogism” as used by Aquinas, which is a “form
of reasoning that presumed the listener or reader could deduce the logical
conclusion of an argument from a statement of basic propositions.”
85
Evaluating the Christmas Message according to this method, the OSS Report
reasoned:
Pius XII’s approach was to begin with the statement of general principles regarding,
for instance, totalitarianism, and assume the ‘his listeners or readers’ would apply
it to the type of totalitarian regime under which they were concerned. Thus, anyone
who paid attention to the Pope’s Christmas address would find “the ideological
guidance they need.” They would infer logically that when he referred to the thousands
of innocents who were facing death or decline because of religion or race, he
meant the persecuted Jews of Europe.
86
When one considers the avoidance of specificity which prevented Pius
XII from directly identifying Germany with the atrocities to which he
referred, it seems perfectly understandable why the Pope would not mention
the USSR. However, the Pope directly mentioned “Marxist Socialism”
(which could be associated with the USSR) and not Fascism or National
Socialism (which was the Nazi ideology prevalent in Germany). Michael
Phayer, in Pius XII, The Holocaust and the Cold War, provides an explanation,
which boils down to the fact that “communism was atheistic, there could
be no compromise with it” while “fascist governments . . . were not viewed
82. Id. at 133–34.
83. Id. at 141.
84. V
ENTRESCA, supra note 7, at 185.
85. Id.
86. Id. at 185–86.
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as godless.”
87
Pius XII’s direct condemnation of “Marxist Socialism” reflected
an established tradition that declared the communist ideology anathema.
Phayer reports that: “Pope Leo XIII first condemned communism as a
social and economic system in 1878 in an encyclical Quo Apostolici Muneris.
Pope Leo repeated the condemnation numerous times, notably in Rerum
Novarum (1891). Each subsequent Pope reaffirmed Leo XIII’s condemnation.
When communism took on the form of Russian Bolshevism, Pope Pius XI
railed against it.”
88
Phayer concludes that “Pius XII inherited this tradition of
fierce rejection of communism” and this perhaps explains the specificity
of his condemnation of Marxist Socialism in his 1942 Christmas Message.
89
VII. O
THER CONTEXTUAL CONSIDERATIONS RELEVANT TO AN
APPRAISAL OF POPE PIUS XII’S 1942
C
HRISTMAS MESSAGE
There are several other contextual considerations relevant to an appraisal
of Pope Pius XII’s 1942 Christmas Message whose full consideration is
beyond the scope of this brief paper. It may be useful, nevertheless, to identify
some of the concerns that influenced Pope Pius XII in making public
statements, including the 1942 Christmas Message.
Pius XII was a career diplomat who had served as papal nuncio to Bavaria
and then as Vatican Secretary of State.
90
The role of the Vatican in facilitating
diplomacy to the end of creating a peaceful and orderly world was of primary
significance to Pius XII. Through the practice of diplomacy, Pius XII envisioned
a role for the Vatican in the post-World War II world as a peacemaker and
reconciler. Thus, it was important for the Vatican to maintain a relationship
with all the warring powers of World War II. The relationships would provide
the basis of confidence in the Vatican as a Peace Broker who could mediate
and produce a peace agreement between the warring powers that would
avoid the failure of World War I’s Versailles Treaty.
An important consideration for Pope Pius XII in making any public
statement was the maintenance of neutrality. During World War I, Pope
Benedict XV was perceived by the Germans to be hostile to their nation’s
cause.
91
Pius XII believed this had hampered Benedict XV from playing
87. PHAYER, supra note 3, at 54–55.
88. Id. at 54.
89. Id. at 55.
90. F
RIEDLANDER, supra note 28, at 3. “On March 2, 1939, Cardinal Eugenio
Pacelli, Secretary of the State to Pius XI, was elected Pope and took the name Pius XII.”
Prior, Pope Pius XII was Nuncio in Munich in 1917, Nuncio in Berlin from 1920 to 1929,
and the Cardinal Secretary of State from 1930 to 1939. Id.
91. P
HAYER, supra note 3, at 55.
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a significant role in the peace negotiations following World War I.
92
By
maintaining strict neutrality, Pius XII believed he enhanced the likelihood
that the Vatican could effectively play the role of Peace Broker after the
cessation of hostilities of World War II.
93
A growing concern for Pope Pius XII, as World War II dragged on, was
the safety of Rome, Vatican City, and the Church in occupied countries.
94
While contemporary critics transform these concerns into selfish preoccupations
of the Pope, it is simply the fact that Pope Pius XII properly regarded himself
as responsible for the safety of Rome and the preservation of the patrimony
of the Church. Such concerns were probably not limited to the protection
of clergy and believers, but also for the preservation of the physical
presence of the Church in Rome, which has enormous religious symbolic
significance for Catholics, as well as for many other Christian believers.
It was the preservation of the Church that caused Pope Pius XII to view
the defeat of the Soviet Union, by Germany, as a desired outcome of World
War II. This hope reflected the Vatican’s unalterable opposition to communism,
as Michael Phayer described this view of “the second World War as a
showdown between the ‘Christian West’ and the ‘Bolshevist East.’”
95
This, of course, put the Pope in opposition to the position of the United
States and Great Britain which viewed the Soviet Union as an ally. Phayer
correctly states: Pope Pius XII’s view of the Second World War was different
from that of the Allies. For the Allies, the war was an uncompromising
struggle to the end with the destruction of Nazi Germany; Communist Russia
had become an ally after Germany’s invasion, code-named Barbarossa.
The Pope hoped that the war would end with the limiting of the Soviet Union’s
boundaries and its exclusion from Europe, if not with the total destruction
of the Communist regime.
96
Pope Pius XII’s vision of the post-World War
92. VENTRESCA, supra note 7, at 44–49. Pope Benedict XV made a futile effort as
peace negotiator urging German concessions, his seven point peace proposal was rejected
as a proposed peace settlement. German resentment can be traced to the fact that: “Benedict
XV suggested that for the sake of peace, Germany might have to renounce some of its
original objectives in prosecuting the war.” Id. at 48.
93. C
ORNWELL, supra note 13, at 284 (quoting a letter from Osborn, the British
minister to the Holy See, to friend Mrs. Bridget McEwen, dated July 31, 1942: “[His
Holiness] hopes to play a great role as peace-maker and that is partly at least for this reason
that he tries to present a position of neutrality as between belligerents.”).
94. V
ENTRESCA, supra note 7, at 189 (“The Fate of Rome was especially close to
the Pope’s heart.”).
95. Phayer, supra note 5, at 427.
96. Id.
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II world was a world in which the Vatican would serve as Peace Broker,
producing a lasting and just peace, in a world without the Soviet Union
and without communism, and a Germany in which the people quickly would
replace the Nazi regime with a government committed to justice and order.
97
A final contextual consideration is suggested in the summer 1942 report
of the U.S. envoy to the Vatican, in which Harold Tittmann stated that the
Pope was not certain that the allies could win the war.
98
It seemed clear
to Tittmann that the Pope foresaw a victory of the allies as the best outcome
from the Church’s point of view. However, there were differing views of
the Pope’s estimation of the likely victor of the war. Tittmann wrote of
these views in his memoir: “One was that the chief reason for the silence
of the Pope was his conviction even at this late date [in 1942] that the Axis
[Germany, Italy and Japan] was bound to win the war and that he did not
wish, therefore, to jeopardize the future of the Holy See by speaking out
now against the future victors.”
99
While one cannot know for sure what
belief was held by the Pope on the likely victor in World War II, it is clear
that in December 1942, the outcome of the war was not certain. Thus, that
uncertainty was likely a significant constraint on the content of the Pope’s
1942 Christmas Message.
VIII. C
ONCLUSION
Pope Pius XII’s Christmas Message is a matter of significant dispute
among contemporary commentators on the Vatican’s reaction to the
Holocaust. It is clear that the address was made in the face of demands
made to the Pope to speak out against German atrocities, particularly the
killing of Jews. The response of those who heard or read the address at
the time it was made was, for the most part, favorable as they heard it as
a diplomatically coded condemnation of Germany’s National Socialist
97. VENTRESCA, supra note 7, at 221. Just as the defeat of the Germans in World
War I, the defeat of the Germans in World War II was viewed by Pope Pius XII and
provided the occasion for the establishment of world communism which provided the
ultimate threat to Christianity. “Pius XII never wavered in the conviction that, together
with the pagan nationalism and racialism of the Nazis, the atheistic materialism of Soviet
Communism constituted one of the greatest heresies of the modern age. Worse still,
Communism’s growing appeal in places like Italy and France constituted an immediate
strategic threat in the very heart of Christian Europe.” Id. See also P
HAYER, supra note 3,
at 55 for further support. “[I]t seemed possible, and from the pope’s perspective, hopeful
that with the German army deep in Soviet territory the war might finally come to an end
with the boundaries of the Soviet Union far removed from Western Europe and, possible,
that Communist leadership would founder as a result thereof.” Id.
98. Id. (citing Tittmann to Department of State, Entry 21131, Box 29, RG 84, Dec.
10, 1942, as paraphrased by Lelane Harrison).
99. T
ITTMAN, supra note 66, at 116.
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policy of deporting and killing Jews and other captured peoples. Some
critics at the time of the address, and more today, maintain that the Christmas
Message lacked specificity, particularly in condemning Nazi killing of Jews,
which the situation demanded. The traditional pontifical rhetoric and the
argumentative style of the message may largely explain the nature of
expression employed by the Pope in his Christmas Message. Consideration
of the discursive style, as well as institutional and contextual constraints, may
explain the apparent limitation on the condemnation of German atrocities
committed against the Jews and others apparent on the face of the address.
One may judge Pope Pius XII’s Christmas Message as a muted legalistic
and theological response to what we now call the Holocaust. However,
this was not the “silence” attributed to the Pope by his harshest critics.
Nevertheless, in the face of the enormity of the Nazi’s killing of Jews and
others, this coded condemnation fell far short of the prophetic expression
of condemnation that one might expect and demand from the Church and
its Pontiff in the face of the moral outrage that seems demanded by the
atrocities against Jews and others perpetrated by Nazi Germany.
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IX. APPENDIX
T
HE INTERNAL ORDER OF STATES AND PEOPLE
POPE PIUS XII
Christmas Message of 1942.
100
My Dear Children of the Whole World:
As the Holy Christmas Season comes round each year, the message of
Jesus, Who is light in the midst of darkness, echoes once more from the
Crib of Bethlehem in the ears of Christians and re-echoes in their hearts
with an ever new freshness of joy and piety. It is a message which lights
up with heavenly truth a world that is plunged in darkness by fatal errors.
It infuses exuberant and trustful joy into mankind, torn by the anxiety of
deep, bitter sorrow. It proclaims liberty to the sons of Adam, shackled
with the chains of sin and guilt. It promises mercy, love, peace to the
countless hosts of those in suffering and tribulation who see their
happiness Shattered and their efforts broken in the tempestuous strife and
hate of our stormy days.
The church bells, which announce this message in every continent, not
only recall the gift which God made to mankind at the dawn of the Christian
Era; they also announce and proclaim a consoling reality of the present, a
reality which is eternally young, living and life-giving; it is the reality of
the “True Light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this World,”
and which knows no setting. The Eternal Word, Who is the Way, the Truth
and the Life, began His mission of saving and redeeming the human race
by being born in the squalor of a stable and by thus ennobling and hallowing
poverty.
He thus proclaimed and consecrated a message which is still, today, the
Word of Eternal Life. That message can solve the most tortuous questions,
unsolved and insoluble for those who bring to their investigations a
mentality and an apparatus which are ephemeral and merely human; and
those questions stand up, bleeding, imperiously demanding an answer,
before the thought and the feeling of embittered and exasperated mankind.
The watchword “I have compassion on the multitude” is for Us a sacred
trust which may not be abused; it remains strong, and impelling in all times
and in all human situations, as it was the distinguishing mark of Jesus.
The Church would be untrue to herself, ceasing to be a mother, if she
turned a deaf ear to her children’s anguished cries, which reach her from
every class of the human family. She does not intend to take sides for any
100. 1942 Christmas Message, supra note 4.
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of the particular forms in which the several peoples and States strive to
solve the gigantic problems of domestic order or international collaboration,
as long as these forms conform to the law of God. But on the other hand,
as the “Pillar and Ground of Truth” and guardian, by the will of God and
the mandate of Christ, of the natural and supernatural order, the Church
cannot renounce her right to proclaim to her sons and to the whole world
the unchanging basic laws, saving them from every perversion, frustration,
corruption, false interpretation and error.
This is all the more necessary for the fact that from the exact maintenance
of these laws, and not merely by the effort of noble and courageous wills,
depends in the last analysis the solidity of any national and international
order, so fervently desired by all peoples. We know the qualities of courage
and sacrifice of those peoples, and We also know their straitened conditions
and their sorrow; and in this hour of unspeakable trial and strife We feel
Ourselves bound to each and every one of them without exception, by a deep,
all-embracing, unmovable affection, and by an immense desire to bring
them every solace and help which is in any way at Our command.
Primary Elements of Social Life
In our last Christmas Message, We expounded the principles-which
Christian thought suggests, for the establishment of an international order
of friendly relations and collaboration such as to conform to the demands
of God’s Law. Today We shall, with the consent, We feel, and the interested
attention of all upright men, pause to consider very carefully and with equal
impartiality, the fundamental laws of the internal order of the States and
peoples.
International relations and internal order are intimately related. International
equilibrium and harmony depend on the internal equilibrium and development
of the individual States in the material, social and intellectual spheres. A
firm steady peace policy towards other nations is, in fact, impossible without
a spirit of peace within the nation which inspires trust. It is only, then, by
striving for an integral peace, a peace in both fields, that people will be
freed from the cruel nightmare of war, and the material and psychological
causes of further discord and disorder will be diminished in a desire for
peace, and hence aims at attaining peace, that “tranquil living together in
order” in which St. Thomas finds the essence of peace. Two primary elements,
then, regulate social life, a living together in order, and a living together
in [tranquility].
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Order
Order, which is fundamental in an association of m
en (of beings, that
is, who strive to attain an end appropriate to their nature) is not merely
external linking up of parts which are numerically distinct. It is rather, and
must be, a tendency and an ever more perfect approach to an internal union;
and this does not exclude differences founded in fact and sanctioned by
the will of God or by supernatural standard.
A clear understanding of the genuine fundamentals of all social life has
a capital importance today as never before, when mankind, impregnated
by the poison of error and social aberrations, tormented by the fever of
discordant desires, doctrines, and aims, is excitedly tossing about in the
disorder which it has itself created, and is experiencing the destructive
force of false ideas that disregard the Law of God or are opposed to it.
And since disorder can only be overcome by an order which is not merely
superimposed and fictitious (just as darkness with its fearful and depressing
effects can only be driven away by light and not by will o’ the wisps); so
security, reorganizations, progressive improvement cannot be expected
and cannot be brought about unless by a return of large and influential
sections to correct notions about security.
It is a return which calls for the Grace of God in large measure, and for
a resolute will, ready and prepared for sacrifice on the part of good farseeing
men. From these influential circles who are more capable of penetrating
and appreciating the beauty of just social norms, there will pass on and
infiltrate into the masses the clear knowledge of the true, divine, spiritual
origin of social life. Thus the way will be cleared for the reawakening, the
growth and fixing of those moral principles without which even the
proudest achievements create but a Babel in which the citizens, though
they live inside the same walls, speak different and incoherent languages.
From individual and social life we should rise to God, the First Cause
and Ultimate Foundation, as He is the Creator of the first conjugal society,
from which we have the society which is the family, and the society of
peoples and of nations. As an image, albeit imperfect, of its Exemplar, the
One and Triune God, Who through the Mystery of the Incarnation, redeemed
and raised human nature, life in society, in its ideals and in its end, possesses
by the light of reason and of revelation a moral authority and an absoluteness
which transcend every temporal change. It has a power of attraction that,
far from being weakened or lessened by delusions, errors, failures, draws
irresistibly the noblest and most faithful souls to the Lord, to take up with
renewed energy, with added knowledge, with new studies, methods and
means, the enterprises which in other times and circumstances were tried
in vain.
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The origin and the primary scope of social life is the conservation,
development and perfection of the human person, helping him to realize
accurately the demands and values of religion and culture set by the Creator
for every man and for all mankind, both as a whole and in its natural
ramifications.
A social teaching or a social reconstruction program which denies or
prescinds from this internal essential relation to God of everything that
regards men, is on a false course; and while it builds up with one hand, it
prepares with the other the materials which sooner or later will undermine
and destroy the whole fabric. And when it disregards the respect due to
the human person and to the life which is proper to that person, and gives
no thought to it in its organization, in legislative and executive activity,
then instead of serving society, it harms it; instead of encouraging and
stimulating social thought, instead of realizing its hopes and expectations,
it strips it of all real value and reduces it to a utilitarian formula which is
openly rejected by constantly increasing groups.
If social life implies intrinsic unity, it does not, at the same time, exclude
differences which are founded in fact and nature. When we hold fast to
God, the Supreme Controller of all that relates to man, then the similarities
no less than the differences of men find their allotted place in the fixed
order of being, of values, and hence also of morality. When, however, this
foundation is removed, there is a dangerous lack of cohesion in the various
spheres of culture; the frontier of true value becomes uncertain and shifting,
even to the point where mere external factors, and often blind instincts,
come to determine, according to the prevalent fashion of the day, who is
to have control of this or that direction.
After the fateful economy of the past decades, during which the lives of
all citizens were subordinated to the stimulus of gain, there now succeeds
another and no less fateful policy which, while it considers everybody with
reference to the State, excludes all thought of ethics or religion. This is a
fatal travesty, a fatal error. It is calculated to bring about far-reaching
consequences for social life, which is never nearer to losing its noblest
prerogatives than when it thinks it can deny or forget with impunity the
external source of its own dignity: God.
Reason, enlightened by faith, assigns to individuals and to particular
societies in the social organization a definite and exalted place. It knows,
to mention only the most important, that the whole political and economic
activity of the State is directed to the permanent realization of the common
good.
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In a conception of society which is pervaded and sanctioned by religious
thought, the influence of economics and of every other sphere of cultural
activity represents a universal and most exalted center of activity, very
rich in its variety and coherent in its harmony, in which men’s intellectual
equality and diversity of occupation come into their own and secure adequate
expression. When this is not so, work is depreciated and the worker is
belittled.
That social life, such as God willed it, may attain its scope, it needs
a juridical order to support it from without, to defend and protect it. The
function of this juridical order is not to dominate but to serve, to help the
development and increase of society’s vitality in the rich multiplicity of
its ends, leading all the individual energies to their perfection in peaceful
completion, and defending them with appropriate and honest means
against all that may militate against those who only by this means can be
held within the noble discipline of social life. But in the just fulfillment of
this right, an authority which is truly worthy of the name will always be
painfully conscious of its responsibility in the sight of the Eternal Judge,
before Whose Tribunal every wrong judgment, and especially every revolt
against the order established by God, will receive without fail its sanction
and its condemnation.
The precise, bedrock, basic rules that govern society cannot be prejudiced
by the intervention of human agency. They can be denied, overlooked,
despised, transgressed, but they can never be overthrown with legal validity.
It is true indeed that, as time goes on, conditions of life change. But there
is never a complete break or a complete discontinuity between the law of
yesterday and that of today, between the disappearance of old powers and
constitutions and the appearance of a new order. In any case, whatever be
the change or transformation, the scope of every social life remains identical,
sacred, obligatory; it is the development of the personal values of man as
the image of God; and the obligation remains with every member of the
human family to realize his unchangeable destiny, whosoever be the legislator
and the authority whom he obeys.
In consequence, there always remains, too, his inalienable right, which
no opposition can nullify—a right which must be respected by friend and
foe—to a legal order and practice which appreciate and understand that it
is their essential duty to serve the common good.
The juridical order has, besides, the high and difficult scope of insuring
harmonious relations both between individuals and between societies, and
within these. This scope will be reached if legislators will abstain from
following those perilous theories and practices, so harmful to communities to
their spirit of union, which derive their origin and promulgation from false
postulates. Among such postulates We must count the juridical positivism
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which attributes a deceptive majesty to the setting up of purely human
laws, and which leaves the way open for a fatal divorce of law from morality.
There is, besides, the conception which claims for particular nations, or
classes, the juridical instinct as the final imperative and the norm from which
there is no appeal; finally, there are those various theories which, differing
among themselves, and deriving from opposite ideologies, agree in considering
the State, or a group which represents it, as an absolute and supreme entity,
exempt from control and from criticism even when its theoretical and practical
postulates result in and offend by, their open denial of essential tenets of
the human Christian conscience.
Anyone who considers with an open and penetrating mind the vital
connection between social order and a genuine juridical order, and who is
conscious of the fact that internal order in all its complexity depends on
the predominance of spiritual forces, on the respect of human dignity in
oneself and in others, on the love of society and of its God-given ends,
cannot wonder at the sad effects of juridical conceptions which, far from
the royal road of truth, proceed on the insecure ground of materialistic
postulates. But he will realize at once the urgent need of a return to a conception
of law which is spiritual and ethical, serious and profound, vivified by the
warmth of true humanity and illumined by the splendor of the Christian
Faith, which bids us seek in the juridical order an outward refraction of
the social order willed by God, a luminous product of the spirit of man
which is in turn the image of the Spirit of God.
On this organic conception which alone is living, in which the noblest
humanity and the most genuine Christian spirit flourish in harmony, there
is marked the Scripture thought, expounded by the great Aquinas: <Opus
Justitiae Pax>—The work of justice shall be peace—a thought which is
applicable to the internal as to the external aspect of social life. It admits
of neither contrast nor alternative such as expressed in the disjunction,
love or right, but of the fruitful synthesis, love and right. In the one as in
the other, since both radiate from the same Spirit of God, We read the
program and the seal of the human spirit; they complement one another,
give each other life and support, walk hand in hand along the road of
concord and pacification, while right clears the way for love and love
makes right less stern, and gives it a higher meaning. Both elevate human
life to that social atmosphere where, even amid the failings, the obstacles
and the difficulties of this earth a fraternal community of life is made
possible.
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But once let the baneful spirit of materialist ideas predominate; let the
urge for power and for predominance take in its rough hands the direction
of affairs; you shall then find its disruptive effects appearing daily in greater
measure; you shall see love and justice disappear; all this as the sad foretaste
of the catastrophes that menace society when it abandons God.
[Tranquility]
The second fundamental element of peace, towards which every human
society tends almost instinctively, is [tranquility].
O blessed [tranquility], thou has nothing in common with the spirit
of holding fixedly and obstinately, unrelenting and with childish stubbornness,
to things as they are; nor yet with the reluctance—child of cowardice and
selfishness—to put one’s mind to the solution of problems and questions
which the passage of time and the succession of generations, with their
different needs and progress, make actual, and bring up a burning question
of the day. But for a Christian who is conscious of his responsibilities even
towards the least of his brethren, there is no such thing as slothful [tranquility];
nor is there question of flight, but of struggle, of action against every
inaction and desertion in the great spiritual combat where the stakes are
the construction, nay the very soul, of the society of tomorrow.
In the mind of Aquinas, [tranquility] and feverish activity are not opposed,
but rather form a well-balanced pair for him who is inspired by the beauty
and the urgency of the spiritual foundations of society, and of the nobility
of its ideals. To you, young people, who are wont to turn your back on the
past, and to rely on the future for your aspirations and your hopes, We
address Ourselves with ardent love and fatherly anxiety; enthusiasm and
courage do not of themselves suffice, if they be not, as they should be,
placed in the service of good and of a spotless cause. It is vain to agitate,
to weary yourselves, to bustle about without ever resting. You must be inspired
with the conviction that you are fighting for truth, that you are sacrificing
in the cause of truth your own tastes and energies wishes, and sacrifices;
that you are fighting for the eternal laws of God, for the dignity of the
human person, and for the attainment of its destiny.
When mature men and young men, while remaining always at anchor,
in the sea of the eterna11y active [tranquility] of God, coordinate their
differences of temperament and activity in a genuine Christian spirit, then
if the propelling element is joined to the refraining element, the natural
differences between the generations will never become dangerous, and
will even conduce vigorously to the enforcement of the eternal laws of
God in the changing course of times and of conditions of life.
In one field of social life, where for a whole century there was agitation
and bitter conflict, there is today a calm, at least on the surface. We speak
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of the vast and ever growing world of labor, of the immense army of
workers, of breadwinners and dependents. If we consider the present with
its wartime exigencies, as an admitted fact, then this calm may be called
a necessary and reasonable demand; but if we look at the present situation
in the light of justice, and with reference to a legitimately regulated labor
movement, then the [tranquility] will remain only apparent, until the scope
of such a movement be attained.
Always moved by religious motives, the Church has condemned the
various forms of Marxist Socialism; and she condemns them today,
because it is her permanent right and duty to safeguard men from currents
as thought and influences that jeopardize their external salvation. But the
Church cannot ignore or overlook the fact that the worker in his efforts to
better his lot, is opposed by a machinery which is not only not in accordance
with nature, but is at variance with God’s plan and with the purpose He
had in creating the goods of earth.
In spite of the fact that the ways they followed were and are false and
to be condemned, what man, and especially what priest or Christian, could
remain deaf to the cries that rise from the depths and call for justice and a
spirit of brotherly collaboration in a world ruled by a just God? Such
silence would be culpable and unjustifiable before God, and contrary to
the inspired teaching of the Apostle, who, while he inculcates the need of
resolution in the fight against error, also knows that we must be full of
sympathy for those who err, and open-minded in our understanding of
their aspirations, hopes and motives.
When He blessed our first parents, God said: “Increase and multiply
and fill the earth and subdue it.” And to the first father of a family, He
said later: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.” The dignity of
the human person, then, requires normally as a natural foundation of life
the right to the use of the goods of the earth. To this right corresponds the
fundamental obligation to grant private ownership of property, if possible,
to all. Positive legislation regulating private ownership may change and
more or less restrict its use. But if legislation is to play its part in the
pacification of the community, it must prevent the worker, who is or will
be a father of a family, from being condemned to an economic dependence
and slavery which is irreconcilable with his rights as a person. Whether
this slavery arises from the exploitation of private capital or from the
power of the state, the result is the same. Indeed, under the pressure of a
State which dominates all and controls the whole field of public and private
life, even going into the realm of ideas and beliefs and of conscience, this
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lack of liberty can have the more serious consequences, as experience shows
and proves.
Five Points for Ordering Society
Anyone who considers in the light of reason and of faith the foundations
and the aims of social life, which we have traced in broad outline, and
contemplates them in their purity and moral sublimity, and in their benefits
in every sphere of life, cannot but be convinced of the powerful contribution
to order and pacification which efforts directed towards great ideals and
resolved to face difficulties, could present, or better, could restore to a world
which is internally unhinged, when once they had thrown down the intellectual
and juridical barriers, created by prejudice, errors, indifferences, and by a
long tradition of secularization of thought, feeling, action which succeeded in
detaching and subtracting the early city from the light and force of the
City of God. Today, as never before, the hour has come for reparation, for
rousing the conscience of the world from the heavy torpor into which the
drugs of false ideas, widely diffused, have sunk it. This is all the more so
because in this hour of material and moral disintegration the appreciation
of the emptiness and inconsistency of every purely human order is beginning
to disillusion even those who, in days of apparent happiness, were not
conscious of the need of contact with the eternal in themselves or in society,
and did not look upon its absence as an essential defect in their constitutions.
What was clear to the Christian, who in his deeply founded faith was pained
by the ignorance of others, is now presented to us in dazzling clearness by
the din of appalling catastrophe which the present upheaval brings to man and
which portrays all the terrifying lineaments of a general judgment even for
the tepid, the indifferent, the frivolous. It is indeed, an old truth which comes
out in ever new forms and thunders through the ages and through the nations
from the mouth of the Prophet: “All that forsake thee shall be confounded;
they who depart from thee, shall be written in the earth; because they have
forsaken the Lord, the Vein of Living Waters.”
The call of the moment is not lamentation but action; not lamentation
over what has been, but reconstruction of what is to arise and must arise
for the good of society. It is for the best and most distinguished members
of the Christian family, filled with the enthusiasm of Crusaders, to unite
in the spirit of truth, justice and love to the call; God wills it, ready to
serve, to sacrifice themselves, like the Crusaders of old.
If the issue was then the liberation of the land hallowed by the life of
the Incarnate Word of God, the call today is, if We may so express
Ourselves, to traverse the sea of errors of our day and to march on to free
the holy land of the spirit, which is destined to sustain in its foundations
the unchangeable norms and laws on which will rise a social construction
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of solid internal consistency. With this lofty purpose before Us, We turn
from the crib of the Prince of Peace, confident that His grace is diffused
in all hearts, to you, beloved children, who recognized and adore in Christ
your Savior; We turn to all those who are united with Us at least by the
bond of faith in God; We turn, finally to all those who would be free
of doubt and error, and who desire light and guidance; and We exhort you
with suppliant paternal insistence not only to realize fully the dreadful
gravity of this hour, but also to meditate upon the vistas of good and
supernatural benefit which it opens up, and to unite and collaborate
towards the renewal of society in spirit and truth.
The essential aim of this necessary and holy crusade is that the Star of
Peace, the Star of Bethlehem, may shine out again over the whole mankind
in all its brilliant splendor and reassuring consolation as a pledge and
augury of a future better, more fruitful and happier. It is true that the road
from night to full day will be long; but of decisive importance are the first
steps on the path, the first five mile-stones of which bear chiseled on them
the following maxims:
1. Dignity of the Human Person. He who would have the Star of Peace
shine out and stand over society should cooperate, for his part, in giving
back to the human person the dignity given to it by God from the very
beginning; should oppose the excessive herding of men, as if they were a
mass without a soul; their economic, social, political, intellectual and moral
inconsistency; their dearth of solid principles and strong convictions, their
surfeit of instinctive sensible excitement and their fickleness.
He should favor, by every lawful means, in every sphere of life, social
institutions in which a full personal responsibility is assured and guaranteed
both in the early and the eternal order of things. He should uphold respect
for and the practical realization of the following fundamental personal
rights; the right to maintain and develop one’s corporal, intellectual and
moral life and especially the right to religious formation and education;
the right to worship God in private and public and to carry on religious works
of charity; the right to marry and to achieve the aim of married life; the right
to conjugal and domestic society; the right to work, as the indispensable
means towards the maintenance of family life; the right to free choice of
state of life, and hence, too, of the priesthood or religious life; the right to
the use of material goods; in keeping with his duties and social limitations
2. Defense of Social Unity. He who would have the Star of Peace shine
out and stand over society should reject every form of materialism which
sees in the people only a herd of individuals who, divided and without any
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internal cohesion, are considered as a mass to be forded over and treated
arbitrarily; he should strive to understand society as an intrinsic unity, which
has grown up and matured under the guidance of Providence, a unity
which within the bounds assigned to it and according to its own peculiar
gifts—tends, with the collaboration of the various classes and professions,
towards the eternal and ever new aims of culture and religion.
He should defend the indissolubility of matrimony; he should give to
the family—that unique cell of the people—space, light and air so that it
may attend to its mission of perpetuating new life, and of educating children
in a spirit corresponding to its own true religious convictions, and that it
may preserve, fortify and reconstitute, according to its powers, its proper
economic, spiritual, moral and juridic unity. He should take care that the
material and spiritual advantages of the family be shared by the domestic
servants; he should strive to secure for every family a dwelling where a
materially and morally healthy family life may be seen in all its vigor and
worth; he should take care that the place of work be not so separated from
the home as to make the head of the family and educator of the children a
virtual stranger to his own household; he should take care above all that
the bond of trust and mutual help should be reestablished between the family
and the public school, that bond which in other times gave such happy results,
but which now has been replaced by mistrust where the school, influenced
and controlled by the spirit of materialism, corrupts and destroys what the
parents have instilled into the minds of the children.
3. Dignity of Labor. He who would have the Star of Peace shine out
and stand over society should give to work the place assigned to it by God
from the beginning. As an indispensable means towards gaining over the
world that mastery which God wishes, for His glory, all work has an inherent
dignity and at the same time a close connection with the perfection of the
person; this is the noble dignity and privilege of work which is not any
way cheapened by the fatigue and the burden, which have to be borne as
the effect of original sin, in obedience and submission to the will of God.
Those who are familiar with the great Encyclicals of Our predecessors
and Our Own previous messages know well that the Church does not hesitate
to draw the practical conclusions which are derived from the moral nobility
of work, and to give them all the support of her authority. These exigencies
include, besides a just wage which covers the needs of the worker and his
family, the conservation and perfection of a social order which will make
possible an assured, even if modest, private property for all classes of society,
which will promote higher education for the children of the working class
who are especially endowed with intelligence and good will, will promote
the care and the practice of the social spirit in one’s immediate neighborhood,
in the district, the province, the people and the nation, a spirit which, by
smoothing over friction arising from privileges or class interests, removes
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from the workers the sense of isolation through the assuring experience of
a genuinely human, and fraternally Christian, solidarity.
The progress and the extent of urgent social reforms depend on the
economic possibilities of single Nations. It is only through an intelligent
and generous sharing of forces between the strong and the weak that it will
be possible to effect a universal pacification in such wise as not to leave
behind centers of conflagration and infection from which new disasters
may come. There are evident signs which go to show that, in the ferment
of all the prejudices and feelings of hate, those inevitable but lamentable
offspring of the war psychosis, there is still aflame in the people the
consciousness of their intimate mutual dependence for good or for evil,
nay, that this consciousness is more alive and active. It is not true that
deep thinkers see ever more clearly in the renunciation of egoism and
national isolation, the way to general salvation, ready as they are to demand
of their peoples, a heavy participation in the sacrifices necessary for social
well-being in other peoples?
May this Christmas Message of Ours, addressed to all those who are
animated by a good and generous heart, encourage and increase the legions
of these social crusades in every nation. And may God deign to give to
their peaceful cause the victory of which their noble enterprise is worthy.
4. The Rehabilitation of Juridical Order. He who would have the Star
of Peace shine out and stand over social life should collaborate towards a
complete rehabilitation of the juridical order. The juridic sense of today is
often altered and overturned by the profession and the practice of positivism
and a utilitarianism which are subjected and bound to the service of determined
groups, classes and movements, whose programs direct and determine the
course of legislation and the practices of the courts. The cure of this situation
becomes feasible when we awaken again the consciousness of a juridical
order resting on the supreme dominion of God, and safeguarded from all
human whims; a consciousness of an order which stretches forth its arm,
in protection or punishment, over the unforgettable rights of man and protects
them against the attacks of every human power.
From the juridic order, as willed by God, flows man’s inalienable right
to juridical security, and by this very fact to a definite sphere of rights, immune
from all arbitrary attack. The relations of man to man, of the individual to
society, to authority, to civil duties; the relations of society and of authority
to the individual, should be placed on a firm juridic footing and be guarded,
when the need arises, by the authority of the courts. This supposes:
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a) A tribunal and a judge who take their directions from a clearly
formulated and defined right.
b) Clear juridical norms which may not be overturned by
unwarranted appeals to a supposed popular sentiment or by
merely utilitarian considerations.
c) The recognition of the principle that even the State and the
functionaries and organizations depend on it are obliged to
repair and to withdraw measures which are harmful to the
liberty, property, honor, progress of health of the individuals.
5. Christian Conception of the State. He who would have the Star of
Peace shine out and stand over human society should cooperate towards the
setting up of a State conception and practice founded on reasonable discipline,
exalted kindliness and responsible Christian spirit. He should help to
restore the State and its power to the service of human society, to the full
recognition of the respect due to the human person and his efforts to attain
his eternal destiny. He should apply and devote himself to dispelling the
errors which aim at causing the State and its authority to deviate from the
path of morality, at severing them from the eminently ethical bond which links
them to individual and social life, and at making them deny or in practice
ignore their essential dependence on the will of the Creator. He should
work for the recognition and diffusion of the truth which teaches, even in
matters of this world, that the deepest meaning, the ultimate moral basis
and the universal validity of “reigning” lies in “serving.”
Postwar Renovation of Society
Beloved Children, may God grant that while you listen to Our voice your
heart may be profoundly stirred and moved by the deeply felt seriousness,
the loving solicitude, the unremitting insistence, with which We drive
home these thoughts, which are meant as an appeal to the conscience of
the world, and a rallying-cry to all those who are ready to ponder and weigh
the grandeur of their mission and responsibility by the vastness of this
universal disaster.
A great part of mankind, and, let Us not shirk from saying it, not a few
who call themselves Christians, have to some extent their share in the
collective responsibility for the growth of error and for the harm and the
lack of moral fiber in the society of today.
What is this world war, with all its attendant circumstances, whether
they be remote or proximate causes, its progress and material, legal and
moral effects? What is it but the crumbling process, not expected, perhaps,
by the thoughtless but seen and depreciated by those whose gaze penetrated
into the realities of a social order which hid its mortal weakness and its
unbridled lust for gain and power? That which in peace-time lay coiled
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[VOL. 19: 1, 2017] Vatican Condemnation of Nazi War Crimes
SAN DIEGO INT’L L.J.
up, broke loose at the outbreak of war in a sad succession of acts at variance
with the human and Christian sense. International agreements to make war
less inhuman by confining it to the combatants to regulate the procedure
of occupation and imprisonment of the conquered remained in various
places a dead letter. And who can see the end of this progressive demoralization
of the people, who can wish to watch helplessly this disastrous progress?
Should they not rather, over the ruins of a social order which has given
such tragic proof of its ineptitude as a factor for the good of the people,
gather together the hearts of all those who are magnanimous and upright,
in the solemn vow not to rest until in all peoples and all nations of the
earth a vast legion shall be formed of those handfuls of men who, bent on
bringing back society to its center of gravity, which is the law of God,
aspire to the service of the human person and of his common life ennobled
in God.
Mankind owes that vow to the countless dead who lie buried on the field
of battle: The sacrifice of their lives in the fulfillment of their duty is a
holocaust offered for a new and better social order. Mankind owes that
vow to the innumerable sorrowing host of mothers, widows and orphans
who have seen the light, the solace and the support of their lives wrenched
from them. Mankind owes that vow to those numberless exiles whom the
hurricane of war has torn from their native land and scattered in the land
of the stranger; who can make their own the lament of the Prophet: “Our
inheritance is turned to aliens; our house to strangers.” Mankind owes that
vow to the hundreds of thousands of persons who, without any fault on
their part, sometimes only because of their nationality or race, have been
consigned to death or to a slow decline. Mankind owes that vow to the many
thousands of non-combatants, women, children, sick and aged, from whom
aerial war-fare—whose horrors we have from the beginning frequently
denounced—has without discrimination or through inadequate precautions,
taken life, goods, health, home, charitable refuge, or house of prayer. Mankind
owes that vow to the flood of tears and bitterness, to the accumulation of
sorrow and suffering, emanating from the murderous ruin of the dreadful
conflict and crying to Heaven to send down the Holy Spirit to liberate the
world from the inundation of violence and terror.
And where could you with greater assurance and trust and with more
efficacious faith place this vow for the renewal of society than at the foot
of the “Desired of all Nations” Who lies before us in the crib with all the
charm of His sweet humanity as a Babe, but also in the dynamic attraction
of His incipient mission as Redeemer? Where could this noble and holy
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crusade for the cleaning and renewal of society have a more significant
consecration or find a more potent inspiration than at Bethlehem, where
the new Adam appears in the adorable mystery of the Incarnation? For it
is at His fountains of truth and grace that mankind should find the water
of life if it is not to perish in the desert of this life; “Of His fullness we all
have received.” His fullness of grace and truth cows as freely today as it
has for twenty centuries on the world.
His light can overcome the darkness, the rays of His love can conquer
the icy egoism which holds so many back from becoming great and conspicuous
in their higher life. To you, crusader-volunteers of a distinguished new
society, live up to the new call for moral and Christian rebirth, declare war
on the darkness which comes from deserting God, of the coolness that
comes from strife between brothers. It is a fight for the human race, which
is gravely ill and must be healed in the name of conscience ennobled by
Christianity.
May Our blessing and Our paternal good wishes and encouragement go
with your generous enterprise, and may they remain with all those who do
not shirk hard sacrifices—those weapons which are more potent than any
steel to combat the evil from which society suffers. Over your crusade for
a social, human and Christian ideal may there shine out as a consolation
and an inspiration the star that stands over the Grotto of Bethlehem, the
first and the perennial star of the Christian Era. From the sign of it every
faithful heart drew, draws and ever will draw strength; “If armies in camp
should stand against me, my heart shall not fear.” Where that star shines,
there is Christ. “With Him for leader we shall not wander; through Him
let us go to Him, that with the Child that is born today we may rejoice
forever.”
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