Talk:Pope Pius XII
Add topicEinstein's Statement about the Church in Germany is originally from November 1940. It is mainly about the catholic church in Germany. So there is no connection to the Holocaust or the Pope either. In this quote Pius XII isn't mentionend.
Im Dezember 1940 schrieb der große jüdische Naturwissenschaftler Albert Einstein im amerikanischen Time Magazine:
„Da ich ein Liebhaber der Freiheit bin, schaute ich mit Vertrauen auf die Universitäten, als in Deutschland die Revolution (der Nationalsozialisten, d.R.) ausbrach, wissend, daß sie sich immer ihres Einsatzes für die Freiheit gerühmt hatten. Aber die Universitäten wurden zum Schweigen gebracht. Danach schaute ich auf die großen Herausgeber der Tageszeitungen, die in brennenden Leitartikeln ihre Liebe für die Freiheit verkündeten. Aber auch sie, gleich wie die Universitäten, wurden zum Schweigen verurteilt, erstickt in einem Zeitraum von wenigen Wochen. Nur die Kirche stellte sich voll und ganz gegen die Kampagne Hitlers, die darauf zielte, die Wahrheit zu unterdrücken. Ich habe nie ein besonderes Interesse für die Kirche gehabt, aber jetzt fühle ich für sie eine große Liebe und Bewunderung, denn nur die Kirche hat den Mut und die Beharrlichkeit gehabt, die intellektuelle Freiheit und die moralische Freiheit zu verteidigen. Ich muß zugeben, daß ich das, was ich früher verachtet hatte, nun bedingungslos lobe“
http://www.ik-augsburg.de/ikw/6-2001.pdf
Einstein's statement is from 1940, one year before the Holocaust began. In this quote he only talks about the situation in Germany. But not only the pope isn't mentioned, Einstein did not make clear whether he meant the Catholic or the Protestant churches in Germany.
By the same token, we must respect the voice of Settimia Spizzichino, the sole Roman Jewish woman survivor from the death camps. Speaking in a BBC interview in 1995 she said."1 came back from Auschwitz on my own. . I lost my mother, two sisters and one brother. Pius XII could have warned us about what was going to happen. We might have escaped from Rome and joined the partisans. He played right into the Germans' hands. It all happened right under his nose. But he was an anti-Semitic pope, a pro-German pope. He didn't take a single risk. And when they say the Pope is like Jesus Christ, it is not true. He did not save a single child." http://www.cc.utah.edu/~rfs4/jkm26.htm
- Anyone familiar with the facts of history will have no hard time discerning what church Einstein was talking about. Certainly not the Protestant church. However, the date should be corrected.
If a source can be found this quote might be of interest [1]
Misquote
[edit]" * "No rebuke has come to Nazism from Pope Pius XI and his successor, Pope Pius XII."
- **Rabbi Louis Finkelstein, chancellor, Jewish Theological Seminary of America in the New York Times, March, 1940."
This was not what Rabbi Finkelstein wrote; in fact, he said the exact opposite. See below:
"No keener rebuke has come to Nazism than from Pope Pius XI and his successor, Pope Pius XII.
~ Rabbi Louis Finkelstein, chancellor, Jewish Theological Seminary of America (N.Y. Times, March 31, 1940, p. 8, 7) My source gives a page number and an exact date. Look at the charlatan's reference.
Why would someone post this malignant error? It has to be deliberate. Further, this is the only negative quote provided prior to year 2000, while all most of the positive quotes are from 1940 through the 60's.
Look for a negative statement about Pius XII and the Jews prior to 1990, and you'll find none.
__________________________________________________________________
I thought I should point out that this quote was listed in the section "Quotes about Pius XII" when it is actually a quote that Pope Pius XII himself said:
"The Nazis are in reality only miserable plagiarists who dress up old errors with new tinsel. It does not make any difference whether they flock to the banners of social revolution, whether they are guided by a false concept of the world and of life, or whether they are possessed by the superstition of a race and blood cult."
Quote not by Pope Pius XII?
[edit]The following quote was on the page, but does not appear to by Pope Pius XII nor is it directly about him. If deemed worthy of keeping, perhaps it belongs elsewhere, such as Nazism)?
- The Nazis are in reality only miserable plagiarists who dress up old errors with new tinsel. It does not make any difference whether they flock to the banners of social revolution, whether they are guided by a false concept of the world and of life, or whether they are possessed by the superstition of a race and blood cult.
- Eugenio Pacelli, quoted in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 4, 1963, quoted in the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, Pius XII and the Holocaust (Milwaukee, Wisc.: The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, 1988), 106–107.