Documented Illusion

...The fact is that although the pastoral letter was printed, it was never read from a single pulpit or circulated in any form...

...In his introduction, he states: "Diplomatic reports are often influenced by a desire on the part of their authors to cover themselves vis à vis the governments they serve...

...Charitably, one might regard it as a boyscout's excursion into a jungle where he loses his way and disappears...

...What Friedländer quotes as a "note," is in fact the severely edited first half of a note, the purpose of which was to request three specific steps by the Hungarians: 1) To make a clear distinction between baptized and unbaptized Jews, thereby exempting baptized Jews from deportation...

...Lest the reader think that this is an isolated example, two pages later Friedländer quotes at length from a pastoral letter of Cardinal Primate Seredi in which the Cardinal raises "a warning voice against any assault on justice...

...Consequently, it is only by comparing reports on the same event from the greatest variety of sources that one succeeds, sometimes, in obtaining an objective picture...

...Moreover, they are simply diplomatic reports, and Friedländer dilutes whatever possible value they might have...

...To compound the author's obvious difficulties with his material, the book is a translation (from the French and German by Charles Fullman) and the only translator's note is fallacious...

...And two paragraphs later: "In spite of all these difficulties, it seems to me that the German documents can contribute, to a certain degree, to an understanding of the events...

...But can they...

...By basing his commentaries on a misapprehension of facts and an incomplete knowledge of situations, he is led into a number of grave errors which are nothing less than fatal in a work of this type...

...Reviewed by ROBERT MEISTER Editor, "The Journal of Existentialism" In historical research, it is always more prudent to bend over backward than to fall on one's face...

...The documents may have some interest for readers unacquainted with the subject, but certainly none to scholars, since they have been accessible for quite a few years...

...Italics mine...

...For example, he reproduces a note sent on May 15, 1944, by Monsignor Angelo Rotta, Apostolic Nuncio in Budapest to the Hungarian Cabinet (not to the Foreign Minister as stated): "The Hungarian Government is preparing to deport 100,000 people...

...Evidently Friedländer does not really think so, for after 235 pages he writes in his conclusion: "I cannot make any definite answer to the questions raised by the wartime policies of the Holy See toward the Third Reich because I have only incomplete documents at my disposal.' Even if the documentation were complete, however, it is questionable whether Friedländer would be able to come up with answers, for there is no indication in his book that he is capable of drawing proper conclusions from what he has on hand...

...If, however, the church is regarded as a political institution, a sovereign state, whose subjects are scattered around the globe, then the principles of self-interest and expediency-the chief motivations of the secular state-exempt it from the onus of spiritual criteria...

...More critically, one might see a budding scholar exploiting public interest in the Hochhuth controversy yet keeping his hands clean of the moral problems it raises...

...In the latter view, raisons d'état rather than raisons d'église dominated the policies of Pius XII and his failure to achieve his objective-halting the spread of Communism-was purely a political disaster...

...Thus the misinterpretation of what is not even a complete document turns one of the most despicable examples (the date being May 1944) of the Vatican's wartime activities into a noble, courageous protest against deportations...

...An optical illusion, of course, but then his book is exactly that...

...3) to protect ecclesiastic institutions and persons from abuse...

...Friedländer says this letter was "published" on June 29, 1944...

...Hopefully, a future generation will write a sound historical account that will end the perplexing thoughts provoked by this book...

...2) to grant each individual his human rights...

...considering the context of the book, however, it is important to point out that Rotta's note was not-although it is passed off as such-a protest against the impending deportation of 100,000 Jews...

...It is remarkable, too, that Friedländer does not mention that the late Cardinal Primate was very distinctly antiSemitic...

...Having plunged zealously into the arms of power in the 18th century, the Church identified itself with the cause of despotism and ceaselessly preached the evil of tolerance, so that the French Revolution treated it according to its principles...

...The Office of the Apostolic Nuncio regards it as its duty to protest against such measures...

...Since the word is quite translatable as "evacuation" or "deportation," a "Danger -Translation" sign is in order...

...The whole world knows what this deportation in fact means...

...Unhappily this cannot be done in the case of the present study...

...To wit: If one looks upon the Church as it looks upon itself, namely as the repository of spiritual absolutes, available historical evidence as well as my own personal experience in wartime Europe lead to the conclusion that the Church's official conduct in World War II was a travesty of its moral and spiritual values...

...We may overlook the fact that Friedländer either failed or chose to fail to catch the contemptible phrase "not out of a false sense of compassion...

...Perhaps it should be noted that Friedländer displays a letter from Cardinal Tisserant which gives the semblance of an imprimatur...

...Acting not out of a false sense of compassion but in the name of thousands of Christians, it requests the Hungarian Government once again not to continue its war against the Jews beyond the limits prescribed by the laws of nature and God's commandments, and to avoid any action against which the Holy See and the conscience of the entire Christian world would feel obliged to protest...

...Doubtless there are universities where Pius XII and The Third Reich might be acceptable as a PhD dissertation, yet it only adds confusion to an already mangled subject...

...Only a formidable ingenuousness could have enabled Saul Friedlander to do both simultaneously...

...And since the disaster of World War II, which left the Church comparatively unscathed, it has shown consistent, increasing sensitivity to criticism of its spiritual and political conduct, and has been totally unable to admit past errorsa trait that culminated in the grotesque hypocrisy of the so-called absolution of Jews from guilt during Vatican II...

...Curiously, the letter is devoted mainly to summarizing the Cardinal's antiNazi or, more precisely, non-Nazi conduct during the War and contains only one clause of perfunctory praise for Friedländer's work...

...The book consists chiefly of translated documents from the files of the Vatican and Italian sections of the German Foreign Office, interspersed with terse and often agonizingly cautious commentaries by the author himself...

...Unfortunately, that experience demonstrated that the Church is incapable of learning from past mistakes...

...It states that "the German expression Abshub is untranslatably brutal...

...Ultimately, it is difficult to see how the Church can continue to avoid a soul-searching survey of its ideology and creed and show itself capable of acknowledging past errors...