The debate has filled many books. Some painted Pius XII as a hero who worked to undermine the Nazis and save Jews; other have depicted him as unmotivated and doing little to help the victims of the Holocaust. Which view is correct?
This brief blog post cannot hope to answer this question.
A complex situation can be disentangled by recalling that the Pope, the Vatican, and the Roman Catholic church are three distinct, if closely intertwined, entities.
The Curia is the bureaucracy which operates the Vatican. The Vatican is the complex of buildings and organizations serving as the leadership of the Roman Catholic church. The pope can influence, but not control, the Vatican.
Regarding efforts to thwart the Holocaust and save the lives of Jews (and other victims like Slavs), there are three questions: Could more have been done? Could something different have been done? Could something better have been done?
These questions need to be posed separately regarding the pope, regarding the church, and regarding the Vatican.
These same questions also need to be posed regarding the English, the Soviets, and the United States.
In each case, it will be found that something a bit more, or a bit better, could have been done - but not significantly more or significantly better.
The question, it is to be noted, is about what was possible.
The best response was not possible.
In the case of the Soviets, however, unlike the English, the Americans, and the Vatican, there were actions clearly designed to maximize the number of Jews murdered, e.g., when the Soviet army stopped outside Warsaw so that the Nazis could continue murdering Jews before the Soviets occupied Warsaw.
While some isolated individuals, like FDR, were unmoved by the plight of the Jews, such inertness cannot be attributed to, e.g., the U.S. government as a whole.
What must be dismissed is the notion that there was some widespread conspiracy to allow the Nazis to murder many Jews. Allied responses, when they were suboptimal, were usually so because of physical limitations.
The Holocaust remains one of the most horrific genocides and one of the most shocking human rights violations in history. There is a natural psychological tendency to respond by blaming someone - the English, the Americans, the Vatican - who should have been able to stop it or prevent it.
While the efforts of the Western Allies and of the Vatican, of the pope, and of the Roman Catholic church were imperfect, they were sincere, significant, and represented a major effort.
