Word: pius
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...Pius XII & the Jews...
...find the play The Deputy [Nov. 1] anti-Catholic. Pope Pius was played in London as a sensitive intellectual, confronted with a moral dilemma to which no other man in recent history was subjected. That the Pope weighed it carefully and had the added political responsibility of determining a buffer against the Communists is also emphasized. What the playwright strongly states is that this religious leader's first responsibility was to speak out against the liquidation of the Jews, and political considerations should then have followed...
...what way is Pius XII's "calculated prudence" to save Nazi-threatened Catholics any different from Neville Chamberlain's appeasement to gain "peace in our time...
Jesuit Leiber admits that Pius "found it difficult" to speak out clearly against the murders, but adds, "This was providential. Otherwise, I fear greater harm would have been the result." Catholics point out that after the Dutch bishops issued a joint pastoral letter attacking the deportation of Jews, the Nazis retaliated by arresting Catholic converts from Judaism. In 1942 Cracow's Archbishop Adam Sapieha pleaded with the Vatican not to broadcast accounts of German atrocities since it would only make things harder for his people...
...best evidence of Pius' own judgment is his 1943 letter to Berlin's Bishop Konrad von Preysing: "We leave it to the pastoral leaders on the spot to weigh whether and to what degree the danger of retaliation and pressure in case of remonstration by bishops make it appear advisable to exercise restraint to prevent greater evil, despite the listed grievances. Here lies one of the reasons why we ourselves impose limitations on ourselves in our public utterances...