Word: pius
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...Vatican, and shipped off in cattle cars to Hitler's extermination camps. And within the papal apartments, according to German Playwright Rolf Hochhuth, sat a man who by a word might have stayed that mass murder. The Deputy is a hammerblow "J'accuse" hurled at Pope Pius...
...question of conscience that The Deputy raises is bound to survive the play and to condition any future judgment of Pius XII: Is it morally defensible for the Vicar of Christ on earth to remain silent in the face of such monstrous evil? And must not every man of good will or religious conscience bear witness to what he believes before and sometimes against the world? But Hochhuth does not stick to this lofty issue. As a German, he lives guiltily with guilt, the knowledge that the Nazi leaders and the people who brought them to power must bear...
...recital of the statistical horrors of the "factories of death for people" at Treblinka and Belzec. "I'm sorry . . . why must you come to me?" says the nuncio in visible dismay, advising the SS man to see Herr Hitler. But Father Riccardo is heartstricken and is positive that Pius will protest as soon as he knows...
...cardinal (Fred Stewart) is a jovial, fleshy connoisseur of wine, rare flowers, and the chess game of international politics. "Trouble tempers dictators," he remarks after Hitler loses Stalingrad, and presses Father Riccardo to be a realist, since "the realist compromises." In his uncompromising way, the young priest finally sees Pius and begs him to damn Hitler openly. The Pope knows Hitler's wrongs, but he reminds Father Riccardo that "a diplomat must see with discretion...
...Hochhuth has portrayed him, Pius is all discretion and no valor, and as Emlyn Williams plays him, he is gently dignified but bloodless, Christ's bookkeeper rather than his vicar. While Hochhuth robs Pius of all stature, even he cannot deprive him of sound sense. The Pope reminds Father Riccardo of the mounting Communist danger from the East, thus proving at least as prophetic as Winston Churchill at Fulton, Mo. Pius keeps silent, he tells Father Riccardo, to prevent worse misfortunes -and Hochhuth is scarcely in a position to argue that Hitler was not capable of further madness...