Messages 2014
A Pope’s Mistake.
January 26th, 2014
Berkeley, California
Received by FAB
I am here, the pope that was Pius XII.
Oh, how I have regretted what I did in promoting the Concordat with the Third Reich! Though some Roman Catholics condoned the brutalities and savagery of the Nazis, I did not. I was concerned with the welfare of my church. That’s why I did it.
But I came to see over here that the actual effect of the Concordat was disastrous. It legitimated the Nazi regime and thus promoted this reign of terror. It was shortsightedness to an egregious degree.
I see that you have wanted to know the truth regarding the pope who reigned when the Nazi terror was at its height, and I have given you the truth. I served my church as Secretary of State and pope. I wanted to protect her from communism and atheism.
I am aware of the great controversy that has raged regarding my relationship with the Third Reich. I often agonized over it. But my priority was the welfare of the church.
I now see that Jesus would have behaved entirely differently. I did what I could to help, but it wasn’t enough. This is what I have learned.
Pope Pius XII , born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (2 March 1876 - 9 October 1958), was the head of the Roman Catholic Church from 2 March 1939 to his death in 1958. He is the most recent pope to take the pontifical name of “Pius” upon his election. His pontificate coincided with the Second World War and the commencement of the Cold War.
Before his election to the papacy, Pacelli served as secretary of the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, papal nuncio to Germany (1917-1929), and Cardinal Secretary of State, in which capacity he worked to conclude treaties with European and Latin American nations, most notably the Reichskonkordat with Nazi Germany, with which the Vatican sought to protect the Church in Germany and Adolf Hitler sought the destruction of ‘political Catholicism’. A pre-war critic of Nazism, Pius XII lobbied world leaders to avoid war and, as Pope at the outbreak of war, issued Summi Pontificatus, expressing dismay at the invasion of Poland, reiterating church teaching against racism and calling for love, compassion and charity to prevail over war.
While the Vatican was officially neutral during the war, Pius XII maintained links to the German Resistance, used diplomacy to aid the victims of the war and lobby for peace and spoke out against race based murders and other atrocities. The concordat of 1933, and Pius’s leadership of the Catholic Church during World War II-including allegations of silence in public about the fate of the Jews-remain the subject of controversy. (Source: Wikipedia)