Analyzing the Catholic Church's Response to the Holocaust: A Report

This report analyzes the actions of the Roman Catholic Church during the Holocaust, exploring whether the Church acted as a bystander or a rescuer. It examines the historical context, including the Concordat signed with the Nazis and the role of Pope Pius XII. The report discusses the Church's attempts to assist Jews through baptism, providing visas, and offering shelter, while also considering the Church's reluctance to openly condemn Nazi actions. It delves into the ethical complexities, the impact of political agreements, and the consequences of the Church's decisions. The report draws on multiple sources to provide a comprehensive overview of the Church's response, highlighting the dual role of protector and bystander and the controversial position of Pope Pacelli. The report ultimately concludes that while the Church provided some assistance, the failure to strongly condemn the Nazis may have contributed to the loss of Jewish lives. The report is based on the assignment brief given to Year 10 students at Our Lady's College Annerley.

Running head: RELIGION AND ETHICS
Religion and Ethics
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
The Holocaust is one of the worst crimes to be committed during the Second World
War. It mainly occurred due to Hitler’s hatred of the Nazis whom he considered to be inferiot
to the Germans. The persecution of Jews were carried out in stages, where they were put into
gas chambers and exterminated. However, most shocking was the reactions of the Roman
Catholic Church. The Catholic Church were mainly bystanders in the Holocaust and although
few Popes tried their best to rescue as many Jews as possible, the Church as a whole did not
take any actions to condemn the actions of the Nazis or to protect the Jews.
Discussions
Reactions of the Roman Catholic Church
The position of the Roman Catholic Church during the Second World War is
shocking. This is because of the fact that the Roman Catholic Church did not take any move
to help the Jews during the time of the Holocaust. The main reason for this is the Concordat
(agreement) which they signed with the Nazis and Hitler.
It was in the year 1939 that Pope Eugenio Pacelli was elected as the Pope Pius XII. It
was during this time that he had signed the Concordat with the Nazis. According to this
agreement, the Nazis would not interfere with the actions of the Roman Catholic Church and
at the same time, the Vatican would recognize the Nazi Government (Spicer 2017). The
reason is that the church wanted to be safe from the attacks of the Nazis. It is because of this,
the Pope claimed that the Church’s responsibility was to protect all the Catholics.
It is worth noting in this case, that the Church did try to help the Jews. They baptised
and converted only those Jews who were ready to be baptised. However, the Church did not
associate themselves with the Jews who were bot ready to let go of their own religious
beliefs. It was said that the Pope had brought 3000 visas for the Jews who had been converted

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and had hoped that the Germans would spare these Jews from getting killed. However, it was
said that the Nazis did not spare the converted Jews either (Dietrich 2017). While it was true
that a few of the priests and popes had tried their best to protect the Jews from the Nazis, but
the Roman Catholic Church, as a whole did not take any action to protect the Jews.
When the Nazis invaded Italy, the Jews were asked to provide 50kgs of gold or they
would take 300 hostages. The Church did their best to help the Jews by supplying them with
15kgs of gold. Moreover, he also privately asked his followers to give food and shelter to the
Jews. It is said that The Vatican hid 477 Jews and some 4328 jews were taken to the Roman
monasteries and convents where they were kept safe. In the later years, the Pope after having
passports for the jews, appealed to Latin American Governments for accepting the emergency
passports (Dietrich 2017). The U.S. State Department helped the Vatican in appealing to the
Latin American countries which led to 13 Latin American nations had honoured the
emergency passports of the jews. In addition, the Church had also saved the lives of 6000
Bulgarian children from being killed, by transporting them to Palestine.
It is in this regard that the historians claim the fact that the Roman Catholic Church
should have intervened in the activities of the Nazis. This is because even the Jews were
human beings and it is the aim of Christianity to help all human beings, as taught by Jesus
Christ and found in the Bible (Hanson,2014). The Pope claimed Keeping this fact in mind,
the Church should have condemned the actions of the Nazis. If they would have, perhaps the
Holocaust should not have occurred and so many lives could have been saved. It was the
inability of the Church that led to the loss of many lives in the process (Short, 2015). The
Church had to separate religion from politics due to the signing of the Concordat. Since the
Church was no longer in the control of the politics of the country, they did not want to
interfere in the actions of the Nazis in the country (Spicer 2017). Pope Pacelli faced a lot of
requests at the time to help the Jews from the Nazis, however, he was indifferent to the

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treatment of the Jews. Although he did state the fact that the extermination of the Jews was
not the right thing to do, he did not repudiate the laws against the Jews.
Conclusion
From the above examples, it can be said that the Roman Catholic Church had played
the dual role of being bystander and protector at the same time. While not being able to
protest the activities of the Nazis, they provided every kind of help to the jews as possible.
These included the baptizing of the jews and the obtaining of the passports for them.
However, the controversial position of Pope Pacelli can be considered to be the main reason
behind the jews getting killed in the Holocaust. It is said that if the Roman Catholic Church
would have protested to the actions of the jews in the country, then the lives of the Jews
would not have been lost in the process.
Reference List
Botwinick, R.S., 2016. A history of the Holocaust: From ideology to annihilation. Routledge.
Chamedes, G., 2016. The Vatican, Nazi-Fascism, and the making of transnational anti-
communism in the 1930s. Journal of Contemporary History, 51(2), pp.261-290.
Dietrich, D., 2017. Human rights and the Catholic tradition. Routledge.

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Hanson, E.O., 2014. The Catholic Church in world politics (Vol. 785). Princeton University
Press.
Short, G., 2015. Failing to Learn from the Holocaust. In As the Witnesses Fall Silent: 21st
Century Holocaust Education in Curriculum, Policy and Practice (pp. 455-468). Springer,
Cham.
Spicer, K.P., 2017. Hitler's priests: Catholic clergy and national socialism. Northern Illinois
University Press.