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Rabbi William Rudolph on Pius XII and the Holocaust

Monday, May 2, 2005

Transcript of the presentation by Rabbi William Rudolph, part of a Dialogue Toward Consensus and Healing, at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church

Introduction and Comments on the "Star Struck" Phenomenon
A member of my congregation told the story of his previous rabbi, who was invited to the White House one day to meet President Carter. He had prepared a speech in which he was going to give Carter a piece of his mind, for not having done enough for the Jewish people or for Israel, I can't remember which. And when he actually came before the President for his allotted ten seconds, he was full of praise and affection and practically hugged him. So it could be related to the factor that Michael Marrus mentioned, with regard to Jews and the Pope.

Here on the pulpit, we have two suits and two collars, and I represent one of the suits. I'm supposed to give a pastoral view of the issues before us, Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust. I want to say exactly four things.

1. The Importance of the Holocaust and the State of Israel
First, the Holocaust is and remains very high on the Jewish radar screen to this day, because of the enormity of the loss: about a third of the Jewish people, from 18 million to 12 million, and we're still only at about 14 million these many years later. So we have yet to overcome that loss. I'm not sure when we will. It's high on the radar screen also because of the way the lives were taken—the graphic way that we hear so much about, the mechanical way, the systematic way, the failure of the world to do very much about it, and the bravery of the few who did help. All these things make the Holocaust still very alive for us.

Survivors and children of survivors are very holy and burdened people. Some of them are in my congregation, and they have many issues. And non-survivors (meaning the rest of the Jewish people who were not involved in this) have different kinds of feelings about it. Some anger for sure, some guilt—why did we survive and not they?—some relief about being alive, but also a general feeling that we did not do enough as a people to bring this issue before the world.

So some of these feelings—guilt , anger, relief, not doing enough—work themselves out in our support for the rebuilding of the State of Israel, which was a haven for some of the survivors after the War and would have been a haven for many, many of the victims, if it had been the independent state it is, before 1948. Hitler, I believe honestly, did not want to kill the Jews at first, but there was no place for them to go, so he had to get rid of them in other ways. And had there been a place for the Jewish people to go, there would have been many fewer than six million victims.

So we channel our labors of heart, displacement, or whatever feelings we have, into the rebuilding of the State of Israel, which we call the reishiyt tz'michat g'ulatenu, the beginning of the flowering of our redemption. We channel a lot of energy into that. So the Holocaust and Israel are high on our radar screen, that's point number one.

2. Pius XII Infrequently Mentioned in Jewish Discussions of the Holocaust
Point number two is that, in our discussions about the Holocaust, Pope Pius XII, at least in my experience, doesn't come up much in the conversation. There was notice of my appearing here tonight in all of our synagogue publications, and I see that actually a few congregants came. But not one person said to me, "Rabbi, you go get 'em!"—or anything at all about my talk. (One person did ask me for directions—I wisely declined that.) At any rate, in all our discussions about the Holocaust, the name Pius XII doesn't come up that much, at least in my experience.

The comments of one survivor may appear most appropriate in this regard. She said, "I don't think he [Pope Pius XII] was an anti-Semite, and I don't think he was a collaborator. He was just someone who might have made a difference but didn't." That's what she said. At the same time, she was quick to remind me that she was alive because of three groups of brave Catholic nuns, and she wanted to make sure that I mentioned their names: the Sisters of St. Francis, the Franciscan nuns, and the nuns of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows. These are three different monasteries or convents that saved her life. So whatever she would say about the Pope isn't important. For her, it was people of the Church, which she sees as something much bigger than the Pope, to whom she's grateful for her life. There are many lives that came from hers: her children, her grandchildren, etc. So that's point number two, Pope Pius XII is not high on the radar screen, at least with people to whom I've spoken in my pastoral duties.

3. Jews Hold a Wide Range of Views on Pius XII
Point number three: My little study of Pope Pius XII and what he did or didn't do is not on a level worthy of being enunciated in this august company, and I won't do that. All I'll say is that there are all kinds of views, which you probably have heard, from the one extreme, which is that he was just the right pope for the Nazis' Final Solution (that's one extreme), to the other view that there should be a grove of trees numbering 860,000 in the Judean hills to recall the number of Jews that the Church, under his leadership, saved during the time of the Holocaust. Those would represent the extremes. I obviously am not on either of those sides, but somewhere in the middle, and I lean more to the first view. But I just think that a pope like John XXIII or John Paul II would have done things differently, and the outcome for the Jewish people would have been different. That's just my opinion. But you didn't come to hear me talk about that.

4. The Past, the Present, and the Future of Catholic-Jewish Relations
Point four: So what do we actually focus on, since it's not Pius XII, in regard to the Holocaust and related matters that have to do with the Pope? There's the past, the present, and the future. With regard to the past, I think that, as Professor Marrus said, the Pope is really a symbol, and he's a symbol of whatever there was in Catholic teaching that helped provide a foundation for anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, which is the ultimate expression of anti-Semitism. What is it in Catholic teaching, which he would symbolize, that could lead to such a foundation of anti-Semitism and ultimately the Holocaust? There's plenty there to talk about, Dr. Fisher is the one you should talk to about it. And it's a story of different kinds.

It's true that the Holocaust was more inspired by Martin Luther and his teachings—and he was not Catholic—than by the Church. And I'm certainly glad to see the progress in the last half century: the Church both taking more responsibility for its teachings that may have led to the Holocaust and also cementing relationships with Jews in ways that have not existed for, I think, as long as we can look back. So that's the past: what was there, of which the Pope was a symbolic representation, that might have been responsible in some part for the Holocaust.

As for the present, the present is the popes of today. And when I think about John XXIII and John Paul II, and already I think about Benedict XVI, these are responsible for outreach to the Jewish people, and support for the State of Israel, such as has not been seen. Certainly, Israel didn't exist before them, but outreach to the Jewish people. There's a whole litany of things that John Paul II did: visiting synagogues for the first time, Israel for the first time, etc.—a whole list of firsts in Catholic-Jewish relations, for which they are to be praised.

So the present is one about which I'm very positive. And the future, who can predict? But all I would say for sure is that the more dialogue the better. We don't want to be stuck in the past; we need to be part of the present and to shape the future. And so it's great to be part of this opportunity to move along towards consensus and healing, as it's called, at least by saying, as I'm trying to, that I think Jews have mostly moved on from Pius XII. They are encouraged by the actions of the recent popes and anxious to meet together in dialogue more.