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James Martin, S.J.January 17, 2010

Pope Benedict XVI, in his address to the synagogue in Rome today, said that Pope Pius XII had saved Jews during the Holocaust "in a discreet way."  But the president of the city's Jewish community told the congregation that the "silence" of Pius "still hurts."  The two grafs of this story in the London Times provide a good summary of this long-awaited visit: 

Pope Benedict XVI claimed today that the Vatican and many Italian Catholics had saved Jews during the Second World War, “often in a hidden and discreet way”. He was responding to accusations that Pius XII, the wartime pontiff he has put on the road to sainthood, failed to speak out against the Holocaust.

However, Jewish leaders used the Pope's first visit to the Rome synagogue to condemn Pius XII for failing to raise his voice in defence of “our brothers who were sent to the ovens of Auschwitz."

Read the Times's coverage here.

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Anne Danielson
14 years 10 months ago
F.Y.I.:

http://users.binary.net/polycarp/piusxii.html
Vince Killoran
14 years 10 months ago
Does the Pope ask anyone to read his speeches before he delivers them?  What an awful choice of words!
Mary Kennedy
14 years 10 months ago
If my forbears had perished in the gas chambers, discretion would not be the trait I would value most.
14 years 10 months ago
JSB has support for his view point on the meeting not focusing on Jesus Christ.

'Fr. Floriano Abrhamowicz, a traditionalist priest who has been excommunicated by the Vatican and expelled by the Society of St. Pius X, the main Lefebvrite body, and who celebrated the “Mass of reparation” on Sunday

“The one missing in all of this is Jesus Christ.”

Jim McCrea
14 years 10 months ago
Per Nancy's reference above:
IMPRIMATUR:Most Reverend Fabian W. Bruskewitz, D.D., S.T.D.Bishop of Lincoln
Righty-o on that.
Jeff Bagnell
14 years 10 months ago
Poor Ed can't get his facts straight.  I didn't say the meeting should have ''focused'' on JC, I said that he isn't even mentioned.  Abraham is mentioned, the torah, various Hebrew words and customs, but not JC.  It seems verboten. But I don't expect more coming from a man who has such an ideological axe to grind against Pius XII.
And I'm sure he doesn't mean to marginalize our separated brethren in the SSPX, does he?  Why that would be like marginalizing our separated brethren in the protestant world, the jews, and muslims.  We're all God's creatures.

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