A superb piece in this month’s First Things by Father Martin Rhonheimer, hardly a card-carrying member of the James Carroll branch of Catholicism, about the Church and Pius XII’s indifference to the fate of the Jews during the Hitler era:
“…the astonishing fact that no Church statement about Nazism ever mentioned Jews explicitly or defended them—cries out for explanation. Also in need of explanation is the lack of any fundamental Church protest against the Nuremberg and Italian racial laws. Even after the November 1938 pogrom against the Jews, the only person to speak out was the Berlin cathedral provost Bernard Lichtenberg (since canonized), whose protest ultimately cost him his life. A Catholic apologetic that seeks to cover over this record by constant repetition of other facts, however undeniable they may be, plays into the hands of those who unfairly criticize the Church.”
Read the whole thing.