This hasnt attracted quite as much comment as I thought it might, and I find myself wondering how the media would have treated it had the Pope Emeritus been faced with this situation, and not the present Pope. I was particularly interested by it in the light of a friends recent post in which she raised the issue of the Vaticans alleged complicity in crimes against humanity committed by the Third Reich. The Vatican knew and did nothing, she said - a commonly accepted view which obscures the real state affairs. But consider the implications of the Pope Francis not to receive Dali Lama This, it might be argued - is worse than doing nothing - it is actually bending to the pressure exerted by a tyrannical regime which harasses and persecutes catholics within its jurisdiction. So what should the Pope have done? Should he have met a spiritual brother s show his solidarity with all trhose who condemn the Chinese invasion, exploitation, and suppression of liberties in Tibet, or was he right to conclude that doing so might have led to the intensification of persecution of catholics in China? Pius XII (who knew Germany - and the Third Reich - well, having acted as nuncio to Germany (1917-1930) and as Cardinal Secretary of State (1930-19139), and finally as Pope was faced with a very similar dilemma in dealing with the Third Reich. What would we have had him do? Considered assessments of his papacy show that the condemnations made of him are unfair, unbalanced, and made with all the wisdom of hindsight. It is striking that the Jews themselves regarded Pius XII as a person meriting their public expression of thanks and gratitude - a fact not often remembered by those who take the more fashionable view (see the tribute of Rabbi Elio Toaff in 1958, who wrote: Jews will always remember what the Catholic Church did for them by order of the Pope during the Second `World War. When the war was raging, Pius spoke out very often to condemn the false race theory). As for the way in which Europe behaved - well - what I suggest is that you look at Joachim Fests memoir of what it was like being brought up in Berlin as the son of a Catholic teacher and labour party activist from 1933 to 1934. His father was prevented from working, or even taking students; his wife begged him to swallow his principles, and think of his family - which he didnt do. He drew the line at conspiring actively against the State, knowing that anything he did would be easily detected, utterly futile, and visited with condign punishment inflicted not simply on him, but on his family. I tell you - had the same miserable system been imposed in the oh-so-righteous UK, youd have seen exactly the same degree of compromise. People need to is to stop accepting facile, introspective and relativistic arguments that paralyse their capacity for making robust and absolute judgements where the latter are so clearly called for - as in this case.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Dec 2014 15:51:02 +0000
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