Is it possible for a Pope to be infallible? When one looks at events, such as the Holocaust, the answer of this question becomes twofold. Were Pope Pius XII’s actions an attempt to save the Catholic Church from persecutions or were they a lack of understanding of Hitler’s ethnic cleansing? Nearly six million Jews were slaughtered during the Holocaust, and when the world became aware of the mass murders that were taking place in Europe, World War II became a moral obligation rather than a fight for power. The Allied powers, Nazi resistance group, and even some Catholic groups invaded Germany to not only save Jews, but also to force the Nazis out of power in Germany. Surprisingly, the Vatican did not assist these resistance groups. Pope Pius XII neglected to help Jewish Holocaust victims and cowardly ignored the moral issue in order to remain neutral, avoid conflict in the war, and avoid the persecution of more Catholics.
Since Pope Pius XI was in power, the Church was pro-neutrality. In 1930, Pope Pius XI appointed Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, later Pope Pius XII, as Secretary of State of the Holy See. Pacelli assisted Pius XI in writing encyclicals, dealing with diplomatic matters, and handling international affairs (Sanchez 16). In fact, Pius XI even selected Cardinal Pacelli to agree to the Reich Concordat of 1933 — an agreement signed by Cardinal Pacelli and Herr Franz von Papen, the Vice-Chancellor of the German Reich — on his behalf. This agreement allowed the Pope to impose laws on the German clergy and ensure the freedom of German Catholic dioceses, schools, religious Orders, congregations and parishes (Concordat). The German Reich agreed to these terms so long as the papacy encouraged the demolition of the Cathol...
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...in his Christmas Message of 1942. In an address to the College of Cardinals in June 1943, Pius XII repeated what he told the Italian ambassador in 1940: “We would like to utter words of fire against such actions (German atrocities) and the only thing restraining up from speaking is the fear of making the plight of the victims even worse” (Phayer 54). His concern was Nazi retaliation against Catholics in the occupied countries.
The silence of the Pope was deafening. If Pope Pius XII had readily shared his knowledge regarding the deportations of Jews and death camps with the rest of the world immediately upon learning this information, it is extremely possible that many lives would have been saved. This silent reaction of the papacy began the controversy of the moral obligations of Pope Pius XII and the omissions of any reactions to the atrocities taking place.
The Holocaust could have been avoided in many ways, the main way is, if people worked as a team to overpower Hitler than the Holocaust would have been avoided. But Hitler, being Hitler wanted power and nothing else. By working together than Hitler could have been taken down. Yet countries wanted to not to get involved with a Nazi Party capable of unimaginable dangers and did not want to start another World War, instead they wanted life to be better and peaceful. So by not helping overthrow Hitler they let him gain more and more power, which eventually lead to the Holocaust killing thousands of people, which could have been avoided if countries stepped in and stopped
The Crusades were the first tactical mission by Western Christianity in order to recapture the Muslim conquered Holy Lands. Several people have been accredited with the launch of the crusades including Peter the Hermit however it is now understood that this responsibility rested primarily with Pope Urban II . The main goal of the Crusades was the results of an appeal from Alexius II, who had pleaded for Western Volunteers help with the prevention of any further invasions. The Pope’s actions are viewed as him answering the pleas of help of another in need, fulfilling his Christian right. However, from reading the documents it is apparent that Pope Urban had ulterior motives for encouraging engagement in the war against the Turks. The documents and supporting arguments now highlight that the Pope not only sought to recruit soldiers to help but also to challenge those who had harmed the Christians community and annihilate the Muslims. He put forth the idea that failure to recapture this lands would anger God and that by participating, God would redeem them of their previous sins.in a time of deep devoutness, it is clear this would have been a huge enticement for men to engage in the battle. Whether his motives were clear or not to his people, Pope Urban’s speeches claiming that “Deus vult!” (God wills it) encouraged many Christians to participate and take the cross.
By explaining the sad, yet undeniably true facts about the concentration camp Treblinka, Wiesel spoke of how far the Nazis were willing to go in order to exterminate the Jewish people. During the year 1942, under the orders of “Operation: Reinhard”, Treblinka opened it doors to the thousands of Jewish masses being crammed inside, su...
He is exemplifying what it takes to be a virtuous person and if we follow these types of beliefs then the world we live in would be a much safer, and happier place. From this speech, I learned that when the Pope speaks about morality that his words are, in fact, infallible. Everything he said was unarguably the truth.
soldiers during the Jewish Holocaust, knew that the Nazi’s actions were inhumane and cruel; hence, he commanded his soldiers to not confiscate property from the Jews. Although the Nazi soldiers did not take valuables away from the Jews, they still dehumanized and exterminated the Jews, rega...
“Angel Of Death.”, The Holocaust Crimes, Heroes and villains, Louis Bülow Privacy, 2012-2014. 7 February, 2014.
America during the years of war had many ideas float around of what to do and how to fix the issue present. But, not much action was effectively taken. The American Jewish Leaders Meeting with President Roosevelt on December 8, 1942 discussed political ideas given to President Roosevelt and his hesitation on taking action. During this meeting, several American Jewish representatives met with Roosevelt and told him the idea of the War Refugee Board. The War Refugee Board’s goal was to aid civilian victims of the Nazis and restrict the Nazi’s actions. Yes this board did save thousands of Jews ,but, it took President Roosevelt almost three years to establish this board even though he knew about the killings occurring. If Roosevelt took action just a little bit early, thousands of more lives could have been spared. This fact truly represents America’s hesitation as a whole by showing that even the President, an extremely powerful person, was uncertain on taking action. Continuing with this point, there were many bills that were presented during the time of war but congress rejected them which ended up hurting many Jews. For example, the Wagner-Rogers bill was created to take in 20,000 endangered Jewish children. The senate did not support this bill which could have saved thousands of Jewish children. Overall, both Roosevelt and America in general were very hesitant in doing anything
FDR and the Holocaust by Verne W. Newton provides a basis for scholarly discourse for the Hyde Park Conference of 1993. The book includes essays, articles, and chapters from different scholars specializing in the Holocaust and Roosevelt in which they examine FDR’s response to the Holocaust. The first chapter of the book is a summary of the participants’ remarks of the “Policies and Responses of the American Government towards the Holocaust,” which was prepared by rapporteur J. Garry Clifford. The objective of the conference was to determine through discussion whether or not the controversy over the Roosevelt administration’s response to the Holocaust was correct. Following this chapter, the first section of the book is filled with essays, articles, and chapters submitted by participants at the conference. The second section of the book includes papers by historians who were not participants at the conference, but whose contributions are relevant to the issues discussed. The articles written by the scholars throughout the book look at the policies between 1933 and 1942, addressing the critiques of FDR and his failure to stop the genocide of the Jewish community in Germany. The overall book not only looks at the rescue efforts during the war and the possibilities for future research and analysis, but also supplies a definitive resource for a pivotal time in United States history.
“We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father’s love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son.” Said by St. Pope John Paul II during one of his World Youth Day homilies this quote perfectly represents the man that St. Pope John Paul II was: a bold, forgiving, selfless, and loving man. Born on May 18, 1920 in Wadowice, Poland; John Paul II suffered a number of tragedies in the early years of his life. By the age of the twenty he lost all of his immediate family, and he credits the death of his father as the point in his life when he heard the call to live a life of religious vocation. In 1939, about one year after John Paul enrolled in The Krawkow Jaggelonian University, the Nazi closed the school and to avoid deportation to Germany all able men had to work. From 1940 to 1941 his holiness did various jobs, but it was during this time period that he was seriously contemplating priesthood. In 1942 John Paul II started studying at the underground seminary run by the Archbishop of Krakow, and during this time he was hit by a truck and recovered in matter of two weeks. To him this was a confirmation of his vocation. Once the war was finished the future pope was ordained priest and was then sent to Rome for further studies. After a two year time period in Rome, His Holy Father received his doctorate in theology and returned to Poland. After serving in several parishes and becoming a well-known religious face in Poland, St. John Paul II became the bishop of Ombi. During the six year time period that his holiness was the Bishop of Ombi, he achieved one of his life’s major accomplishments: he became one of the leading thinkers on the Vatican II council. While he was one the Vatican II co...
Most narratives out of the Holocaust from the Nazis point of view are stories of soldiers or citizens who were forced to partake in the mass killings of the Jewish citizens. Theses people claim to have had no choice and potentially feared for their own lives if they did not follow orders. Neighbors, The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland, by Jan T. Gross, shows a different account of people through their free will and motivations to kill their fellow Jewish Neighbors. Through Gross’s research, he discovers a complex account of a mass murder of roughly 1,600 Jews living in the town of Jedwabne Poland in 1941. What is captivating about this particular event was these Jews were murdered by friends, coworkers, and neighbors who lived in the same town of Jedwabne. Gross attempts to explain what motivated these neighbors to murder their fellow citizens of Jedwabne and how it was possible for them to move on with their lives like it had never happened.
Democratic transitions recently became a topic of great discussion among political scholars as a domino effect of democratization began in Latin America in the 1970s and continued through Eastern Europe in the late 1980s. In many of these transitions, the Catholic Church[1] played a crucial role as the protector of civil society during periods of communist and right-wing authoritarian rule, as well as taking an active role to promote the establishment of democracy (Bruneau 1994, Levine 1980, Stepan and Linz 1996, Peréz-Díaz 1993, Ramet 1987). While the Church’s political role in transition is important, significantly fewer scholars have explored how democracy affected the Catholic Church within the national context (Eberts 1998, Ramet 1999, Vilarino and Tizon 1998). Even fewer have attempted cross-national comparisons of the Church, thus permitting generalizations to be made about the political influence of the Church since the institution of democratic governance (Casanova 1993, Gill et al.1998).
Raguer argued, “…non-intervention appeared to be a democratic principle. In the counter-revolutionary context of the Congress of Vienna and the Holy Alliance, intervention was an expression of solidarity between the great absolute monarchs…who was threatened by revolution. Pius IX, in the Syllabus, thus condemned the doctrine of non-intervention.” For the Spanish and French Catholics called for a humanitarian intervention to the Spanish Civil War. For example, the French Dominican Marie-Dominique Chenu stated that nonintervention “…is the equivalent of denying the solidarity of the whole of the human brotherhood.” From this reaction, the French Catholics denounced the policy of nonintervention by the Popular Front government. For them, it was a humanitarian crisis that superseded the political
This essay gives a brief outline of the major developments in the role of the Papacy between the Early Church and the present day. It will cover four aspects. The development of the papacy as a temporal ruler, Papal elections, the Curia and the development of the ‘mission role’ of the Papacy. It will explore how the papacy changed from being an organisation that had the influence to appoint kings and arrange state borders to one with a billion followers. These followers see the papacy as being responsible for the administration, pastoral and spiritual care of their membership.
...resent. For those who come next, let Schindler’s heroics and selflessness forever be a testament to the power of simple humanity. Not just that, but a call to action, to aid the victims of ethnic violence. While we may think that it is a dog eat dog world out there, if you can be the one to take a stand and have the courage to stand up for justice then you are following in the footsteps of legends like Oskar Schindler. Perhaps Thomas Keneally summed it up best in his 1982 book, Schindler’s Ark, “He'd hate to be a priest, Herr Schindler said, in an era like this, when life did not have the value of a packet of cigarettes. Stern agreed but suggested, in the spirit of the discussion, that the Biblical reference Herr Schindler had made could be summed up by a Talmudic verse which said that he who saves the life of one man, saves the entire world” (Keneally).
.... Whether it was acting as a preserver of knowledge and history, or an advisor to rulers, its influence has always been present. Even during the Renaissance, when secular thought was more prominent that devotion to faith, the Catholic Church's influence persisted, revealing itself through art, science, and law, among other things. The Church has maintained itself through adaptation, supporting fields that the people were dedicated to. Today the Church still holds some of that influence, though controversy in the institution has tarnished its reputation. Pope Francis, the 266th pope, is the Church's chance to make reparations for those mistakes, and to restore some of their influence over the people. With the positive response to Francis so far it appears that this influence is steadily returning, along with what may be very serious reforms to the institution.