Push for Pius beatification part of struggle within Catholicism

Holocaust-era pope symbolizes the pre-Vatican II Church.

By MATTHEW WAGNER
Pope Benedict 248.88 (photo credit: AP [file])
Pope Benedict 248.88
(photo credit: AP [file])
The campaign to grant sainthood to controversial Holocaust-era Pope Pius XII is the result of a desire to reconcile between conservative and liberal camps in the Catholic Church, Israeli sources familiar with the Church said on Sunday. "In 1965, when Pope Paul VI first initiated the beatification process of the conservative Pius XII, his impetus was to send out a message of continuity within the Church," said a senior priest based in Jerusalem who preferred to remain anonymous. "To this day the beatification of Pius, who symbolizes the Church before the reforms of Vatican II, is seen by conservative Catholics as a necessary step in reconciling the old Church with the new Church." This explained why elements within the Church, including incumbent Pope Benedict XVI, were willing to push ahead with the beatification of Pius XII despite the controversy surrounding him, the priest said. Some Jewish historians and leaders have said Pius XII did not do enough during the Holocaust to save Jews. In parallel, some Polish Catholics have leveled similar charges against Pius XII for failing to come to the aid of thousands of Polish Catholic clergy who were murdered during World War II. Benedict XVI eased years of controversy surrounding Pius's proposed beatification by hinting last week that it would be postponed for six to seven years. Rabbi David Rosen, the chairman of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations, agreed that Pius's beatification was being pushed by more conservative elements in the Catholic Church. "There are those in the Church who, for the sake of simplifying things, can be called liberals," Rosen said. "And these clergymen are interested in distancing themselves from the 'old Church' before Vatican II. "By doing so they can confront the past in a less apologetic way by stating that before the reforms of Vatican II the Church was in a sense inadequate. "In contrast, there are those in the Church who, generally speaking, can be termed conservatives. Benedict XVI is one of them. He would like to show the continuity between the 'old Church' and the 'new Church.'" Pius XII, whose pontificate began in 1939 and ended in 1958, was the last pope before the major reforms under Vatican II. Pope John XXIII, who replaced Pius XII, presided over the initiation of these changes. Both John XXIII and Pius XII were to be elevated to sainthood as a symbolic gesture demonstrating that there was a smooth transition between the old and new Church. However, Pius XII, who was praised during and immediately after WWII by diverse sources including Time magazine, The New York Times and Golda Meir, was first attacked in 1963 by German playwright Rolf Hochhuth. In 1999 John Cromwell published Hitler's Pope, a damning account of Pius's legacy. Both the praise and the criticism of Pius XII were dismissed by the vying sides as unsubstantiated. In 1999 the Vatican and the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations appointed a joint commission of three Catholic and three Jewish scholars to address the claims against Pius. Its findings were inconclusive, in part because the commission was not given access to Vatican documents written during Pius's pontificate. Two months ago an international symposium was held in Rome by the pro-Pius Pave the Way foundation, headed by Gary Krupp, an American Jew. At a reception for the symposium, Benedict praised Pius as a pope who made every effort to save Jews during the war. However, last week Benedict hinted that he might postpone Pius's beatification process until documents contained in Vatican archives could be researched and a definitive conclusion could be reached about his role during the Holocaust. A Vatican spokesman said that cataloguing these archival documents could take between six and seven years.