Defending pius.

In his "Et Papa Tacet" (April 8), Michael Phayer charges that Pope Pius XII was indifferent to Hitler's persecution of Polish Catholics. Material in print, most of it for decades, tells a different story.

Phayer says that after denouncing Nazi atrocities early in the war, Vatican Radio "plunged into silence" after January 1940. The reason for this was stated in the memoirs of FDR's representative to the Holy See, Harold H. Tittmann: "The Polish bishops hastened to notify the Vatican that after each broadcast ... the various local populations suffered 'terrible' reprisals. The superior general of the Jesuits, Fr. Ledochowski, personally gave the order to desist. He later [said]: 'How I hated to give the order to stop these broadcasts, especially since I am a Pole myself. But what else could I do?'" (Inside the Vatican of Pius XII).

Carlo Falconi's The Silence of Pius XII recounts a 1942 visit to Archbishop Adam Sapieha of Cracow by the Italian Msgr. Quirino Paganuzzi, who bore papal letters of support for the suffering Poles. Sapieha read the letters and immediately burned them, explaining: "If I give publicity to these things, and if they are found in my house, the head of every Pole wouldn't be enough for the reprisals [Nazi governor] Gauleiter Frank will order."

On June 2, 1943, in an address to the cardinals broadcast on Vatican Radio and clandestinely distributed in Poland, Pius XII said: "No one familiar with the history of Christian Europe can ignore or forget the saints and heroes of Poland ... For this people so harshly tried, and others, who together have been forced to drink the bitter chalice of war today, may a new future dawn worthy of their legitimate aspirations in the depths of their sufferings, in a Europe based anew on Christian foundations." Archbishop Sapieha wrote from Cracow: "The Polish people will never forget these noble and holy words" (Robert Graham, The Pope and Poland in World War II).

Phayer emphasizes the wartime criticism of the pope by the Polish Bishop Karol Radonski. He does not tell us that Radonski spent the war in London, where he could not know the pressures in his homeland that caused Sapieha to burn Pius XII's letters immediately after reading them.

The charge that Pius XII was indifferent to the sufferings of Hitler's victims is refuted by Falconi's account of the Italian military chaplain, Fr. Pirro Scavizzi: "I was enabled to deliver important papal documents in Austria, Germany, Poland, and the Ukraine, as well as secret and practical arrangements to defend and help the persecuted, and especially the Jews.... I went to see Pius XII secretly to tell him everything.... Before my eyes he wept like a child and prayed like a saint."

By ignoring available evidence, Phayer has produced not history but propaganda.

(REV.) JOHN JAY HUGHES

St. Louis, Mo.

THE AUTHOR REPLIES:

I have never written or said that Pope Pius XII was indifferent to wartime suffering, whether that of Jews or Gentiles.

Regarding the Tittmann quote, let historians be warned that the son's edition of the father's papers that Fr. Hughes cites is far from an accurate reflection of the diplomat's voluminous official correspondence. For example, according to a letter Tittmann wrote to the State Department, Fr. Ledochowski urged Pius in December 1942 to speak out about Nazi atrocities in Poland.

The appeals from Polish bishops, including Archbishop Sapieha, to Pius XII to speak out about the atrocities being perpetrated on Catholics may be found in Actes et Documents du Saint Siege relatif a Seconde Guerre mondial, volume 3. Fr. Hughes should heed his own counsel: Actes et Documents has been in print for decades.

Yes, Bishop Radonski was in exile--as I wrote. In London he had access to the most up-to-date news from Poland because that is where the Polish government-in-exile was located.

Fr. Hughes's reference to Pius XII's June 1943, address indicates that he has completely missed the point of my article. By 1943, Germany was no longer intent on exterminating the Poles, who were needed as laborers as Hitler prepared for the second battle of Stalingrad. What Pius said in 1943 is what the Polish church wanted him to say in 1942.

Those interested in a detailed study of the question may refer to my article, "Pius XII and the Genocides of Polish Jews and Polish Catholics during the Second World War," printed in the journal Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte.

MICHAEL PHAYER