More bad news for Clark University's historical revisionist Deborah Dwork (and others like her)

Recently released documents from the so-called "closed period" of the Vatican Archives are once again revealing the heroism of Pope Pius XII and his care for Jewish people who were persecuted during the Second World War.  The Telegraph's Nick Squires writes, "The document to cast Pius in the most flattering light is a letter from October 1944, after Italy signed an armistice with the Allies and switched sides, in which former inmates expressed their gratitude for his support during their imprisonment. 'While in nearly all the countries of Europe we were persecuted, imprisoned and threatened with death because we belong to the Jewish people and profess the Jewish faith, Your Holiness not only sent notable and generous gifts to our camp through the apostolic nuncio...but also showed your fatherly interest in our physical and spiritual well-being,' they wrote in German.

'(You) intrepidly raised your universally venerated voice against our enemies – still so powerful at that time – to openly support our rights to human dignity. When in 1942 we were under the threat of deportation to Poland, Your Holiness extended your fatherly hand to protect us and prevented the deportation of the Jews imprisoned in Italy, thereby saving us from almost certain death.'

This is more bad news for historical revisionists such as Deborah Dwork, Director of Clark University's Strassler Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies.  In a previous post I refuted her asinine assertion that that Pope Pius XII "failed Europe's Jews miserably, unconscionably."  And I explained here why her accusation is so damnable.

I would ask Ms. Dwork to apologize for her slander of Pius XII.  But what would be the point?  Some people are prisoners of their own deeply-held bias.  And no amount of historical proof will ever penetrate her wall of conviction.  But honest people will be moved at Pius XII's efforts on behalf of the Jewish People.

Clark University's Deborah Dwork: Why her slander of Pius XII is so damnable...

In a previous post, this Blog examined how Deborah Dwork, Director of Clark University's Strassler Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies, has engaged in historical revisionism, insisting that Pope Pius XII "failed Europe's Jews miserably, unconscionably."  This asinine accusation was thoroughly refuted.  What makes this slander all the more damnable is that Hitler and the Third Reich desired "to trample the Catholic Church as one does a frog." It was on September 9, 1943 that Hitler said, "I'll go into the Vatican when I like. Do you think the Vatican worries me? We'll grab it. Yes, the whole diplomatic bunch is in there. I couldn't care less. That bunch in there, we'll drag them out, the whole swinish pack of them. What does it matter? We can apologize afterwards, that's nothing to worry about."

Contrary to what some may believe, the Nazis and the Italian Fascists knew that the Catholic Church and Popes Pius XI and Pius XII were their enemies. For example, Benito Mussolini told his foreign minister Count Ciano (on August 8, 1938): "I do not underestimate [Pius XI's] strength, but he must not underestimate mine either....A sign from me would be enough to unleash all the anti-clericalism of the Italian people who already find it hard enough to swallow a Jewish God." And Roberto Farinacci, the editor of Italy's official Fascist newspaper, Regime Fascista, wrote the following in October of 1942: "The Church's obstruction of the practical solution of the Jewish problem constitutes a crime against the New Europe."

Reflect carefully on those words and what they mean: "The Church's obstruction of the practical solution of the Jewish problem."  We all know what the Reich meant when it referred to "The Final Solution" of the "Jewish problem."  And it was the Catholic Church which, as Farinacci acknowledged, opposed this "practical solution."

In 1998, Cornell University released documents from the Nuremberg Trials which revealed that Hitler planned to end Christianity at the end of World War II.  See here. Furthermore, General William Donovan, a senior member of the U.S. prosecution team at Nuremberg, as part of his work documenting Nazi war crimes, compiled copious amounts of documentation which show that the Nazis planned to systematically destroy Christianity.  See here.

As this EWTN article notes:

"In a March 6, 1939 editorial, "Leadership for Peace," the Palestine Post in Jerusalem said: "Pius XII has clearly shown that he intends to carry on the late Pope's [Pius XI] work for freedom and peace... we remember that he must have had a large part to play in the recent Papal opposition to pernicious race theories and certain aspects of totalitarianism..."


In praising Cardinal Pacelli's election, the Jewish Chronicle in London on March 10, quoted an anti-Nazi speech he delivered in Lourdes in April 1935 and the hostile statements expressed about him in the Nazi press. "It is interesting to recall... on January 22 [1939], the Voelkischer Beobachter published pictures of Cardinal Pacelli and other Church dignitaries beneath a collective heading of 'Agitators in the Vatican against Fascism and National Socialism,"' the Jewish Chronicle noted.

Also on March 10, the Canadian Jewish Chronicle commended the College of Cardinals for resisting Nazi attempts to influence the election and prevent Cardinal Pacelli from becoming Pope. "The plot to pilfer the Ring of Fisherman has gone up in white smoke," the editorial quipped.

Many Jewish organizations also expressed their enthusiasm for the new Pope. According to the Jewish Chronicle in London (March 10), the Vatican received congratulatory messages from "the Anglo-Jewish Community, the Synagogue Council of America, the Canadian Jewish Congress, and the Polish Rabbinical Council."

Pius XII's decision to appoint Luigi Cardinal Maglione as the Vatican's new Secretary of State also brought favorable reactions. The March 16, 1939 Zionist Review in London said that the Cardinal's appointment "confirms the view that the new Pope means to conduct an anti-Nazi and anti-Fascist policy."

Certainly, such statements made by Jewish newspapers and organizations show they considered the newly elected Pope Pius XII a friend of democracy and peace, and an enemy of racism and totalitarianism. Cardinal Pacelli's role in negotiating the concordat with the Nazis did not cause any concern. Instead, many Jews cited his anti-Nazi speeches, and his role as Vatican Secretary of State, which helped produce the 1937 anti-Nazi encyclical, Mit brennender Sorge, and numerous protests against the persecution of the Catholic Church in Germany.

Less than two months after World War II broke out, on October 27, Pius XII issued his first encyclical, Summi Pontificatus. On the same day, the New York-based Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the equivalent of the Associated Press, reported that, "the unqualified condemnation which Pope Pius XII heaped on totalitarian, racist and materialistic theories of government in his encyclical Summi Pontificatus caused a profound stir... Although it had been expected that the Pope would attack ideologies hostile to the Catholic Church, few observers had expected so outspoken a document..."


...On January 26, 1940, the Jewish Advocate in Boston reported, "The Vatican radio this week broadcast an outspoken denunciation of German atrocities in Nazi [occupied] Poland, declaring they affronted the moral conscience of mankind." Exiled Polish Cardinal August Hlond of Gnezo and Poznan had given the Vatican detailed reports about the Nazi persecution of the Church in Poland. On the Pope's orders, Vatican Radio broadcast the cardinal's reports. The front-page story quoted one Vatican Radio broadcast as saying, "Jews and Poles are being herded into separate ghettos, hermetically sealed and pitifully inadequate for the economic subsistence of the millions designed to live there." This broadcast was also important because it gave independent confirmation of media reports about Nazi atrocities, which were previously dismissed as Allied propaganda..."

Read the entire article at EWTN.  It is overwhelmingly clear, to anyone not crippled by hatred against the Catholic Church in general and Pope Pius XII in particular, that the Church stood squarely against Nazism and that Pope Pius XII of happy memory was a courageous Shepherd who conducted an anti-Nazi and anti-Fascist policy.

Deborah Dwork has slandered a truly great Pontiff.  Her attack on Christ's Vicar is an attack on the entire Catholic Church and on the Lord Jesus.  It is utterly vile and morally reprehensible.

Pray for Clark University, an institution which is constrained by secular humanist ideology, radical homosexual agitprop, and a bitter Christianophobia.

More intellectual dishonesty from the Cohen Center at Keene State College

Readers of this Blog will recall how the Cohen Center for Holocaust Studies at Keene State College has engaged in revisionist history with regard to the Catholic Church and the Holocaust. See my previous posts here, here and here. The Cohen Center is at it again, posting an article which unfairly criticizes Pope Benedict XVI over the Bishop Williamson affair. See here.

Driven by what is obviously an anti-Catholic agenda, the Cohen Center is anxious to portray the Holy Father as hard-hearted and callous. But as Catholic League president Bill Donohue explained in a statement which may be found here: "This is a man who as Cardinal Ratzinger unequivocally condemned the Holocaust at a Jerusalem conference in 1994 and wrote a book about it, Many Religions, One Covenant: Israel, the Church and the World."

In the same statement, Bill Donohue noted how, "..the Vatican announced that Williamson must 'unequivocally and publicly distance himself from his positions on the Shoah' if he is to be reinstated (he is still not in full communion with the Church, and may never be). The pope, the Vatican statement said, was unaware of this bishop's views when he lifted his excommunication." This shouldn't come as a total surprise since there are roughly 3,500 Bishops throughout the world.

If the Cohen Center for Holocaust Studies at Keene State College really wants to contribute something positive to Catholic-Jewish relations, it must refrain from engaging in historical revisionism and from politicizing the Holocaust to advance an anti-Catholic agenda.