SIR – Joseph Bottum, who co-edited The Pius War (2004), an exhaustive study of a mass of publications, wrote: “The defenders of Pius XII won every major battle. Along the way, they also lost the war.” It is quite astonishing how, in spite of the evidence amassed, critics persist in repeating the libels of the past.
So often, as now with Anthony Holland (Letter, March 24), critics have depended on a narrow selection of writing that feeds their prejudices: in this case, the questionably researched work of David Kertzer.
The 20th-century popes, like their predecessors, did their best to protect the Jews. Pius X supported Mendel Beilis in a famous trial in Russia in 1913: he was a Jew accused of a blood libel, sacrificing a Christian child. Benedict XV issued a strong statement in 1916.
He supported the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine when he
met Sokolow, the Zionist leader – and said, with regard to the Holy Places, “I believe we shall be good neighbours.” The meeting was arranged by Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pius XII.
Pius XI had studied Hebrew with a rabbi. As director of the Ambrosian Library in Milan and of the Vatican Library, he had cordial relations with Jewish scholars. Appointed nuncio in the newly independent Poland, he was shocked and heavily critical of Polish anti-Semitism.
In 1928, he issued a decree condemning anti-Semitism, Non Abbiamo Bisogno, written in Italian, taken out of Italy and published in Paris (by Mgr Spellman, the future cardinal). It condemned “pagan worship of the state”. There are obvious parallels with the later Mit Brennender Sorge, written in German.
These documents did not mention fascism and Nazism, but the meaning was clear. It is nonsense to suggest that Pius XI came to understand the viciousness of fascism only on his deathbed, or that there was any difference in attitude between him and his successor.
Mussolini’s anti-Semitic action intensified from 1938, after the signature of the Axis. The newly elected Pius XII was faced with this. All Jews were expelled from universities and banned from government jobs. Pius reacted by appointing several distinguished Jewish scholars to Vatican posts.
One, Professor Almagia, he appointed director of the geography section of the Vatican Library. Another, Professor del Vecchio (who had been a leading member of the fascists – which tells you something about Italian fascism), had been dean of the Rome University Law School. Pius XII appointed him to the Vatican Library and to membership of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
Others he helped to posts in Latin America and in emigration to Israel. This is all of a piece with the views of Pius XI and with Pius XII’s action during the war.
Yours faithfully,
Fr Leo Chamberlain and Lord Alton of Liverpool
By email
SIR – Jon Anderson’s assessment of the state of the Irish Church (Cover story, March 31) chimes so much with my own observations of the disheartening Church I encounter in rural Ireland.
It is hard to measure the success or otherwise of Archbishop Brown’s period as papal nuncio. My own sadness is that he did nothing to rationalise the number of Irish rural dioceses and associated clerical bureaucracies at a time when we have witnessed an increase in the number of parishes without a resident priest. My joy was seeing the archbishop’s strong, energetic and joyous interaction with groups such as Youth 2000.
What I consider most lacking in the Irish Church is an almost total lack of pastoral planning and a seeming unwillingness to evangelise. So often the regular 25-minute Sunday Mass in our parish is celebrated without a homily. In the Catholic secondary school which our girls attend, religious education is a Cinderella subject taken by well-meaning teachers with little, if any, professional training in the subject, and without any clear curriculum content.
All of this contrasts badly with the lively parishes and schools that I experienced in London and south-east England. My prayer is that, infused by the Spirit, our next nuncio brings with him the necessary pastoral and evangelical zeal with which to energise a largely demoralised Irish Church.
Yours faithfully,
Alan Whelan
Killarney, Co Kerry, Republic of Ireland
SIR – With reference to Bishop Casey (Letter, March 24), I’d like to point out one obvious issue regarding his exercise of fatherhood. While the bishop no doubt did much good in the area of relieving suffering in the oppressed away from home, it was at the expense of denying his son his right to a father.
What shocks me is not that the bishop fathered a son but that he refused to have anything to do with him, even insisting that the mother put him up for adoption. This would have meant denying the child not only a father but also a mother.
In effect this was a double abandonment. The further shameful aspect of all this was that the Church was complicit in removing the bishop from the scene, especially given its stance on a child’s need and right to a father and a mother.
I begin to wonder if the bishop’s quest for justice for the oppressed was a form of compensation for the guilt he felt at what he’d left behind in Ireland.
Yours faithfully,
Dom Stephen Horton OSB
Prinknash Abbey, Gloucestershire
SIR – The Holy Father challenges us to consider whether the Holy Spirit is calling for the priesthood to be opened to married men (News Focus, March 17).
Through the ordinariate we do, of course, have married priests already. We also have the many thousands of Catholic priests who have withdrawn from exercising their faculty, some or many of whom have gone on to marry.
We could invite these to resume their faculties. Some commentators might argue that this is inappropriate, but the Sacrament of Holy Orders remains valid unless and until the individual is laicised by the Holy See.
Other than these steps, restoration of beauty and depth in the Sacred Liturgy would be more likely to generate vocations than the mediocrity and banality that accompanies, for the most part, the modern version of the Mass, and which is a driver in the tide of lapsation from attendance.
The evidence for this can be seen in churches which retain or have restored such beauty, and in seminaries which retain deeper traditions of liturgical beauty.
Yours faithfully,
Alan Pontet-Piccolomini
Ifield, West Sussex
SIR – There’s one major anniversary that Fr Raymond de Souza (Comment, March 31) overlooked: the 100th anniversary of the promulgation of the 1917 Code of Canon Law – described as “the greatest revolution in canon law” since the 12th century.
Yours faithfully,
Terry Thomas
By email
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