Here is the full text of the interview the Head of the monthly Shalom rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni, who criticizes the film broadcast by RAI on Pope Pius XII.
It 's just finished watching two episodes in the drama' Under the sky of Rome 'which chronicles the most dramatic hours of the Nazi occupation and how does the Vatican towards the Jews. What feelings, which judgment draws?
very easy to say that this drama is a fake, pursuing a very specific purpose, to demonstrate the absolute goodness of that Pontiff and the moral and political justification for everything he did. The very question at issue can not be exhausted in a rapid, simplified discussion that ends with a final absolution granted and apologetics, without showing all aspects and all the data. I say this with particular personal regret, having worked long years with the company producing the movie, produced films that when biblical argument was very attentive to different sensibilities. The drama of today is rather one-sided, with the aggravating circumstance of a lack of historical setting, full of errors and inaccuracies, with serious policy choices, such as the removal of responsibility fascist. Among the many errors, even falsely, that the fact that the Vatican's action would end up in advance of the Oct. 16 raid. Not true, the Germans went ahead unhindered according to their program, not only nobody stopped them, but even attempted to do so. In short, it is a pity that with so much investment resources and good actors, the result was only a propaganda film.
So I think this television work has been commissioned so to speak?
This I can not know. I can only note that this story is a dramatic debate over a very long time, with opposing opinions. This fully supports fiction, without mediation, one of two opinions. I also wonder how the RAI has been a realization that allow partial, failing in its obligation to objective information as a public service.
The concerns, criticisms are directed at the bottom of a television product that is pursuing a commercial, which will have a short life, it will not be certainly used by historians and researchers. This is not perhaps a kind of small damping?
The problem is that the television product, unlike the historical essay, it is easily accessible, with arrogance and easily enter the homes of Italians and not everyone has the skills and knowledge to watch it and judge it with a critical eye. Many, this is our concern, to take good omissions, falsifications and acriticità present in fiction. An example: to explain the silence of Pius XII, he cites the case of the Dutch bishops who protested against the persecution of the Jews, which caused a fury by the Nazis with the increase in deportations. The argument of defenders of Pius XII explicitly mentioned in the fiction, is that the Pope in the light of the sad experience of the Dutch bishops preferred to remain silent rather than complicate the situation. But we must make some comments. If there had been a very strong general awakening of conscience, and not only in the Dutch case, what happened might not have happened, millions of Catholics in the military were the Axis powers and the silence of their spiritual leader might sound like tolerance. In another case, unlike the Dutch, the strong religious and then political protest has prevented the deportations: this is what has made the Orthodox Church in Bulgaria, prompting the government and the king is something that involves me closely since my grandparents lived there, who escaped with tens of thousands of Jews. But in Dutch history, there is another aspect that usually do not speak because you think only in terms of Jews opposed to the so-called Aryans. There was actually a third between the two sections of the population, not insignificant, consisting of mixed couples, children of mixed marriages and their descendants of baptized Jews, all types have already been taken into account by the racial laws, that compared to the Jews had to be very longer protected by the Church. Were well aware of this, the Nazis, yes, but not inexperienced criminals from political point of view, that this band used as a tool for pressure on the Church. That 's what happens in the Netherlands, after the protest of the bishops this group is taken and deported to extermination camps. Beware though, the victims of this retaliation were not 40,000 as stated on the evening of casually Porta a Porta, but a group of 694 Jews and 850 Jews Catholics Protestants (the majority of them survived) The most famous victim is Edith Stein, a German Jew who was baptized and had become a nun and is now a saint, patron saint of Europe. Then the blackmail exercised the Nazis, not so much on the same Jews, however, were exterminated in gas chambers, but these mixed cases. And it is contrary to what happened in Rome in the raid of October 16 1943 many people were arrested, after which began the selection and a number was issued. These are the people that the Church is very worried, so active and discreet, knowing that if he complained would not have been released on their own. But perhaps if she had complained they would also save the other 1090 simple Jews. The pope was right to rest and not risk? We can at least admit that this should be discussed without reaching easy conclusions? And why stop at the Roman history of the Jews? Related to the Holocaust throughout Europe, the cradle of Christianity.
E 'the whole structure of fiction that goes one way, starting with the theme that ties the plot, the Nazi project of the kidnapping of the Pope Now admitted the project had a development, one wonders why it has not been realized, apart from the clamor and protest that would have raised, which would have been the reason for the Nazis to kidnap a Pope so acquiescent? On 28 October 1943 the German ambassador in Rome wrote to Berlin in a confidential report: "The Pope, though urged by several parties, has taken no position demonstration against the deportation of the Jews of Rome. .... He has done everything in this situation not to endanger the delicate relationship with the German government and German authorities in Rome. "
Around the papacy of Pius XII must still read many documents and several papers that Vatican have made accessible. But there are still three points between them far apart that we must consider. The first is that the Church of Pius XII in 1943 also continued to demonstrate a strong antiguidaismo, saying 'deserving of confirmation' of the French and Italian racial laws. The second is the work of saving done by many Catholic monasteries and religious institutions, although some of them only against payment. The third chapter deals with certificates of appreciation and gratitude of the Jewish world, from 1945 to the early '60s, such as that of Golda Meir. None of this appears to at least be heard?
The issue is complex as well as throughout the papacy of Pius XII and the subsequent reaction of that papacy. The racial laws first must be said that the Catholic Church arrived in 1943 with a distant and recent past of hostility towards the Jewish people. Hostilities that occurred in Italy with the enactment of racial laws, when the Church did not protest for the entire system, but only expressed criticism that the law did not recognize mixed marriages. You can not understand anything of what happened in those years without taking into account that at the time Judaism was not in sympathy or protection of the Catholic Church, it was still a "perfidious Jews" that discounts the deicide and the their obstinacy. But the fact that there are rescues were during the occupation of Rome is undeniable, a fact that you can not omit or fail to acknowledge with gratitude for individual religious institutions and individual Catholic nuns who work so hard for the salvation of the Jews. It is not possible to review all white or all black, the reality is much more complicated.
The third point must be said that the Jewish people just out of Shoa and tasked to heal wounds and to build the state of Israel was far more urgent problems of facing the historical process on Pius XII. This supposed Jewish silence should investigate better known as a legend. The fact that Golda Meir in a telegram ol'orchestra Israel have expressed thanks with a concert does not change the assessment or at least the terms of the problem, and we must also think about the historical context and the sad necessity of the nascent Jewish state to find help and support before the new attempt to destroy it. Behavior, that of Golda Meir (who was not politically perfect than anything else ....) did not produce any benefit that we had to wait for many more years before the State of Israel saw its recognition by the Vatican. In that famous first decade of the postwar Jewish relations were simply those of the first Christians, institutionally cold. The dialogue was invented later. Attributed to the authorship of the communist secret services Jewish rethinking on the figure of Pius XII after his death is a legend, is a way to circumvent the debate.
secondary element of the debate is not about the work of Pope Pacelli respect to his holiness. This is an aspect of Catholic theology on which the Jewish world has always said is not responsible. But at the same time, the holiness of Pius XII would be possible to further source of misunderstanding. Can you explain this better?
must make a distinction. Beatification is an act within the Church that has its reasons, its rituals, a logic on which we have no right to interfere. The problem is the meaning and impact from historical point of view. Beatification means that if the awards are presented to his heroic virtues and religious is a process that leaves us completely indifferent. But if the Beatification is a recognition of the rightness of certain historical behavior and these behaviors are not clear and indeed are critical for many aspects, if the beatification is a sort of machine memory (of indifference if not hostility of anti-Jewish), then this without really perplexed.
In fact, the Catholic world, like every other world, it is humanly divided between those who can not tolerate the idea of \u200b\u200bhaving to admit past mistakes, especially if such errors may have been committed by his top representatives and those who believe that people and institutions can make mistakes and you can go on taking account of these errors, correcting them for the future. The great debate is not resolved by the simplifications of acquittals.
The question of Pius XII is one of the elements that make it difficult to continue the dialogue between Judaism and Catholicism. Where are we today?
The process of pacification, this is perhaps a better word of dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people is extremely complicated. He made important steps in recent decades and is a historical phenomenon of great importance to which I hold very personally. We must say that this process much there is often difficult, with a common expression, one step forward followed by two steps back any time soon and then we compare this difficult subject to surprises or disappointments. There was certainly a surprise to the final declaration of the Synod of the Churches of the Middle East but it was clearly a disappointment. Instead I want to say that we greatly appreciated the appointment of the new responsible for relations with Judaism, the newly appointed Cardinal Kurt Koch, who during the event in memory of Oct. 16 he used very strong words and precise even on Christian responsibility in the period of Shoa. So the Jewish-Christian dialogue can not take a single opinion: there are many elements of concerns along with many positive reasons and hope.
But I want to emphasize an issue that I consider it crucial. The dialogue between Judaism and Christianity is an urgent need to which we can not escape, and though there may be difficult times, we must not lose sight of the goal.
When it will enable a final decision on the pontificate of Pius XII, only after they were made public all the documents?
The delay in opening of the archives indicates that many things could be revealed and this could mean that it will take quite some time.
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