The Righteous Gentile – Pope Pius XII

Thanks to Gerard Charles Wilson.

Is the Black Legend at last dissolving?

Many Catholics, clerical and lay, have worked tirelessly for years to defeat the Black Legend. The Black Legend is the story that Pope Pius XII, regarded as a living saint in the 1950s, did little or nothing to save the Jews from Nazi murder. The legend grew from The Deputy a play by a German author in 1963 and thereafter propagated enthusiastically through the decades in all manner of books, newspaper and magazine articles and television programs. One of the most reprehensible books that developed the Pius XII anti-Semite and Nazi complicity theme was Hitler's Pope, by a self-proclaimed Catholic, John Cornwell.

Despite the work done to clear Pius XII's name, it seemed to many of us that little headway was being made to defeat what we knew to be the greatest calumny of the twentieth century. We knew that not only was Pius XII innocent of the charges, but that he was the very opposite both in deed and belief. Anti-Semitism and Nazism were abhorrent to him, and he did all that was in his power to save as many Jews from Hitler's extermination plans as he could.

But there has been a change, a change so great that it now looks like the Black Legend is dissolving. If it is, it is happening in no small part due to the efforts of an American Jew, Gary Krupp, of the Path the Way Foundation (http://www.ptwf.org/index.htm).

In a number of interviews and written pieces, Gary Krupp says that he 'grew up hating Pius XII, believing him to be an anti-Semite and a Nazi collaborator.' Through a 'providential' set of circumstances, related in an article in Galus Australis (Jewish Knight defends Pope XII), he became exposed to documents and oral histories that told a very different story. He said, 'my eyes were opened to a reality that was literally shocking. My emotions went from shock to anger. We discovered that we have been deceived by those whom we trusted for historical accuracy – that is, the scholars and historians.'

It was the beginning of a tenacious and feverish search for supporting evidence and documentation. In the four years since, he has uncovered literally thousands of documents demonstrating the calumny of the Black Legend, for which there is increasing evidence that the Soviet KGB was its originator.

I want to sincerely thank and pay tribute to Gary Krupp and the Pave the Way Foundation for the work they have done and are doing in undoing a terrible injustice. Immediately below are links to an interview with Gary Krupp and an eye-opening power point display which I strongly urge the reader to follow.

Gary Krupp interview on EWTN on the research of Pope Pius XII

Is Pope Pius XII a Righteous Gentile or Hitler's Pope? Watch this 56 minute narrated Power Point then you decide

More at GerardCharlesWilson.com

Pius XII image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.