Of the eight Popes who shepherded the Church from 1903 to centuryâ??s end, none is so hotly disputed as Pius XII, who reigned from March 2nd, 1939 until his death on October 9th, 1958. At issue is the Popeâ??s alleged â??silenceâ? in the face of the Holocaust. His defenders point out that in reality he was not silent. At the start of World War II Pius authorized Vatican radio to broadcast reports of Nazi atrocities in Poland. These ceased only at the urgent plea of victims reporting that the broadcasts intensified their sufferings.
In 1942 the Popeâ??s Christmas message spoke of â??the hundreds of thousands who, through no fault of their own, and solely because of their nationality and race, have been condemned to death or progressive extinction.â? Dismissed by his latter day critics as too vague to be understood, the Popeâ??s words were well understood by the Nazis, who called them â??one long attack on everything we stand for. Here he is clearly speaking on behalf of the Jews ... and makes himself the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminal.â? The New York Times also understood, commenting: â??This Christmas more than ever [Pope Pius XII] is a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent.â?
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