Refine Search

Papal Visit Reopens Old Wounds

DURING the pope’s visit to Germany last May, he referred to “the hardships the Church faced in the Nazi era.” The Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger reported this, then added: “He failed to mention that some leading Catholic clergymen were lacking in courage, preaching sermons in support of denominational schools but not against persecution of the Jews.”

The beatification rites for Edith Stein​—a Jewess converted to Catholicism—​also became a focal point of controversy. Jews objected to her being represented as a Catholic martyr. The Nürnberger Nachrichten said: “Edith Stein was beatified as a martyr for the Christian faith, which is not strictly true. She was sent to her death in the gas chamber at Auschwitz in 1942 as a Jewess, not as a Catholic nun.” One Catholic group claimed that the beatification was an attempt to gloss over the “embarrassing silence of the Catholic Church after the Nazis came to power.” Another Catholic group said that the beatification “dare not blind us to the fact that the Catholic bishops offered next to no resistance, but rather openly cooperated with the National Socialistic system.”

Some critics demanded an admission of guilt for the silence of the Catholic Church during the Holocaust, but none was forthcoming. “During his meeting with the bishops the previous evening,” the report in the Süddeutsche Zeitung said, “the pope exercised the greatest caution in touching this thorn in the conscience of the church. During the Nazi dictatorship, the Apostolic See sought by means of the concordat ‘to prevent the worst’ but was ‘unable to arrest the calamitous developments.’ The pope said he saw no reason to accuse the German bishops of guilt because of their silence.”