http://www.theconservativevoice.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5669
CATHOLIC-BASHERS AND PIUS' DEFENDERS
by Pat Buchanan

Leave it to The New York Times. On the eve of Pentecost, the birthday
of the church, this Catholic-baiting newspaper opened its op-ed page to
a venomous anti-Catholic rant by Arthur Hertzberg, "a visiting
professor of the humanities" at New York University.

http://www.theconservativevoice.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5669

CATHOLIC-BASHERS AND PIUS' DEFENDERS
by Pat Buchanan


Leave it to The New York Times. On the eve of Pentecost, the birthday
of the church, this Catholic-baiting newspaper opened its op-ed page to
a venomous anti-Catholic rant by Arthur Hertzberg, "a visiting
professor of the humanities" at New York University.

Hertzberg slandered no fewer than three popes. Not only did the church
of Pius XII remain "silent while Europe's Jews were murdered," he
alleges, the church of John Paul II taught Catholics that the "sin of
letting the Holocaust happen at its doorstep need not haunt the church
..."

As for Benedict XVI, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he is guilty
of a mortal sin of omission.

"What Cardinal Ratzinger did not do ... was to question the orthodox
Catholic position that though individual Catholics can err morally, the
church and pope cannot. Until the Vatican reconsiders that outlook, one
of the Holocaust's greatest wounds will continue to fester -- namely,
that the major European institution that stood for morality looked away
from genocide."

Reading this, I exploded -- in laughter, trying to imagine Professor
Hertzberg instructing Cardinal Ratzinger that he must renounce the
dogma of papal infallibility. Yet, this is no jesting matter.

For Hertzberg and the Times are perpetuating a blood libel that is
Hitlerite in dimension. Just as Hitler blamed Bolshevism on the Jewish
people by constantly denouncing "Judeo-Bolshevism," because some Jews
had collaborated in the monstrous crimes of Lenin and Stalin, so
Hertzberg damns the church because some Catholics participated in the
crimes of Hitler.

Beyond a vile slander, this is a moral outrage. For Hertzberg seeks to
lay the crimes of a Nazi regime at the door of a church and pope who
spoke out with greater moral clarity and did more to save the Jews of
Europe than any other institution.

In a brilliant new anthology, "The Pius War," every lie about the
church and libel against Pius XII is addressed. Ronald J. Rychlak,
Rabbi David Dallin and others scatter the jackal pack with the sword of
truth. Here is but a fraction of what they discovered:

-- Of the 44 speeches Cardinal Pacelli, the future Pius XII, gave as
papal nuncio in Germany from 1917 to 1929, 40 condemned some aspect of
Nazi ideology.

-- In March 1935, as Vatican secretary of state, Pacelli wrote an open
letter to the bishop of Cologne calling the Nazis "false prophets with
the pride of Lucifer."

-- Though slandered as "Hitler's Pope" today, in the German press of
the 1930s, Pacelli was called the "Jew-loving" cardinal because of 55
protests he sent to Germany as Vatican secretary of state.

-- In 1939 and 1940, Pius XII acted as the secret intermediary between
the German plotters against Hitler and the British.

-- In 1940, the Pope granted an audience to Joachim von Ribbentrop, who
chastised him for siding with the Allies -- at which Pius XII began to
read to Hitler's foreign minister a list of Nazi atrocities. Wrote a
newspaper of record: "In the burning words he spoke to Herr Ribbentrop,
(Pius) came to the defense of Jews in Germany and Poland." That
newspaper was The New York Times.

-- After hearing the Pope's Christmas address of 1941, the Times wrote:
"The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness
enveloping Europe this Christmas. ... In calling for a 'real new order'
based on 'liberty, justice and love' ... the pope put himself squarely
against Hitlerism."

-- In October 1944, after the liberation of Rome, The New York Times
wrote, "Under the Pope's direction, the Holy See did an exemplary job
of sheltering and championing the victims of the Nazi-Fascist regime."

Pius XII's sterling record stands for all time. All that has changed is
the moral character and commitment to truth of The New York Times.
Consider:

-- In 1943, Chaim Weizmann, later the first president of Israel, wrote,
"The Holy See is lending its powerful help wherever it can, to mitigate
the fate of my persecuted co-religionists."

-- In 1944, Rabbi Isaac Herzog, chief rabbi of Israel, declared, "The
people of Israel will never forget what His Holiness ... (is) doing for
our unfortunate brothers and sisters in the most tragic hour of our
history, which is living proof of Divine Providence in this world."

At war's end, Moshe Sharett, who would become the second prime minister
of Israel, met with Pius XII and "told him that my first duty was to
thank him and through him the Catholic Church on behalf of the Jewish
public for all they have done in the various countries to rescue the
Jews."

On Pius' death in 1958, he was eulogized by Golda Meir.

Is it likely Jewish leaders of the war generation would dissemble about
a matter like Hitler's pogrom? No. They spoke the truth -- and
Hertzberg's falsehoods are exceeded in baseness only by his
ingratitude.

Pope Benedict XVI should proceed with the canonization of Pius XII, and
terminate "dialogues" with men who look on dialogue only as a
methodology of moral shakedown.

http://www.theconservativevoice.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5669

CATHOLIC-BASHERS AND PIUS' DEFENDERS
by Pat Buchanan


Leave it to The New York Times. On the eve of Pentecost, the birthday
of the church, this Catholic-baiting newspaper opened its op-ed page to
a venomous anti-Catholic rant by Arthur Hertzberg, "a visiting
professor of the humanities" at New York University.

http://www.theconservativevoice.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5669

CATHOLIC-BASHERS AND PIUS' DEFENDERS
by Pat Buchanan