What was the Roman Catholic Church role in the holocaust?

Question

Im doing reasearch for school and any answers and articles that you could give me would be helpful?

Answer 1

It is only right to place the Jews first on the list of the Nazis' victims. The 6,000,000 murdered Jews (1,500,000 of them were children) represented two-thirds of all Jews in Europe and one-third of all Jews worldwide.

However millions of Catholics and other Christians were also killed. No one knows exactly how many. I've seen claims of up to 42,000,000 but I could not find documentation for this number.

One example, over 6 million Poles perished during WWII. That was 22% of the population of the country. Three million were Jews. Most of the rest were Catholics.

Also remember most the the allied military dead were Christians.

A Soviet KGB plot to implicate Pope Pius XII and the Catholic Church with the Nazis in the Holocaust has recently been uncovered. See these articles:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTUzYmJhMGQ5Y2UxOWUzNDUyNWUwODJiOTEzYjY4NzI=
http://www.the-tidings.com/2007/021607/difference.htm

With love in Christ.

Answer 2

The Catholic Church saved the lives of more Jews during the Holocaust than any other organization.

Check out the Catholic League website, www.catholicleague.org, for a lot of information about it.

There's a trendy belief nowadays that the Church and the Pope were "silent" during the Holocaust -- and some people even believe the Pope was a Nazi collaborator.

Both notions are utterly ridiculous.

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Answer 3

Pope Pius XII instructed the monestaries and convents of Rome to shelter any Jew who came seeking assistance. Many Jews hid there disguised as Catholic monks and nuns, and the children were brought into the schools and taught what they needed to know to pass as Catholics.

The Pope also gave his summer home at Castle Gandolfo to shelter Jews.

He did not speak much openly because Hitler often followed criticism with an escalation in killing.

It is also important to point out that after the Jews and the Gypsies, Catholics were the next largest number dead in the Holocaust.

Check info about St. Maximilian Kolbe and his heroic actions- before and afer he was put in a Concentration camp.

Answer 4

As individuals there were many Roman Catholics, priests or otherwise who helped the Jews, hiding them etc, but the Church as a Church was at best indifferent and at worst perpetrated their own holocaust in countries like Serbia/Croatia where a group called the Ustasa carried out mass conversions of villages under pain of torture and death for those who would not become Roman Catholic.

Check out some of the literature written by a man called Avro Manhattan such as 'The Vatican’s Holocaust ' 1986, 'Catholic Terror in Europe'.

According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center (citing the Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust):

"Ustasa terrorists killed 500,000 Serbs, expelled 250,000 and forced 250,000 to convert to Catholicism. They murdered thousands of Jews and Gypsies."

For the whole duration of the war, the Vatican kept up full diplomatic relations with the Ustasa state (granting Pavelić an audience), with its papal nuncio in the capital Zagreb. The nuncio was briefed on the efforts of religious conversions to Roman Catholicism. The true extent of Vatican support/involvement is unlikely ever to be known due to the destruction of evidence.

Avro Mahattan was born in Milan, Italy on April 6, 1914 to American and Swiss/Dutch parents, Manhattan was educated at the Sorbonne and the London School of Economics.

During World War Two, Manhattan was jailed in Italy for refusing to serve in Mussolini's fascist army. Later during the war, he operated a radio station called "Radio Freedom" broadcasting to nations occupied by the Axis Powers. For this service he was made a Knight of Malta.


JB

Answer 5

Well, some believe the Pope was complicit in so much as he did not speak out against it and apparently forbade any of the clergy to help, that said however, there are many documented stories of Jews being sheltered and hidden from the nazies by churches, priests and nuns. So I guess the answer is, officially the Catholic Church was silent, but unofficially, Catholics were helping.

It was a difficult time and many people of many faiths, backgrounds and nationalities all did good and evil things. That is the reality of war and despotism.

Answer 6

Mostly they tried really hard to ignore it and pretend that it wasn't happening. That is the same as most of the countries that were not involved in the war including the US.

I saw a History Channel show that looked to dispel the myth that the information wasn't available till after the war. They showed articles that were in the New York Times that repeatedly showed just what was happening and how big the numbers were. The problem was they were buried on like page 13 most of the time before the war because the mood was one of not wanting to know. They added up all the numbers that were in all the articles and got about 75% of the total.

Answer 7

Pastor Billy says: it is extremely sad at how many people believe in a myth and not the truth. In the city of Rome alone the Catholic Church helped to save over 80% of the Jewish population, many where taken into the Vatican and housed as Swiss guards others stayed (over 2000 families) at the Pope's summer residence, castle Gandolfo. After the war the head Rabbi of Rome Rabbi Zolli converted to Catholicism and took the baptismal name of Pius XII. Upon PiusXII death Golda Meier stood before the UN and made a compelling speech on behalf of the European Jews only true allie the Catholic Church and Pope Pius during the Nazi persecution. There are numerous articles from the New York Time from the 40's and 50's on individual acts of bravery by Catholic priests and nuns who helped the Jewish people during this terrible time.

Contrary to what critics claim (which by the way is very in vogue today) the Catholic Church at the instruction of Pope Pius openly stood up to the Nazis but did it quietly. It was not a very intelligent thing to do it openly for example the Dutch Catholic Church published or broadcast a statement against the Nazi actions in Holland and immediately afterward the Nazis only intensified their persecution rounding up more Jews, priests and nuns and Catholic laypersons. In occupied territory the only response was to go underground and use clandestine methods and that is what the church did.


Prior to the war Pope Pius was papal nunicio to Germany meaning the Vatican representative in that country he reported the terror of Nazism to the current Pope who wrote a papal letter against this facist movement damming it terribly.

There is so must more to write, don't believe the 1960's claims of Catholic Church support for Nazism it is a terrible lie.
As many Catholics died as Jews in the war and I'm not talking about soldiers but civilians. Before Auswitz was now as a Jewish death camp it was a Catholic one.

Try finding the book and broadcasts by Rabbi Dalin you can look for it at http://www.ewtn.com

download this soundfile and listen to it

Raymond Arroyo w/ Rabbi David Dalin.
http://www.ewtn.com/vondemand/audio/dload1.asp?rafile=wo_10142005.rm&source=seriessearchprog.asp&seriesID=-6892288&T1=

he clearly presents much of what is not expressed by non-Catholics wishing to damn the Church.

Answer 8

For the most part, it was indifference and inactivity. There had been many opportunities for the Roman Catholic Church to help the Jews, but this all failed due to the Holy See adopting a policy of non-interference.

Answer 9

The Church turned over hundreds of names of Jews in Italy to the Nazis and facilitated the escape of Nazis after the war. Many individual catholic clergy bravely protected jews in spite of the Church hierarchy support for Hitler however. Also the german Catholic Center party which was basically controlled by the church and was one of the largest political parties in Germany supported and voted for the resolution giving Hitler dictatorial powers.

Answer 10

There is much controversy on the subject, and much speculation. Here is a good article:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/pius.html

Also, do a Google search for Pope Pius XII and "holocaust" and you should get all of the info you will need.