Ukraine war: Pope Francis should learn from his WWII predecessor’s mistakes in appeasing fascism
Pope Francis has provoked fury by suggesting in a television interview that Ukraine should find “the courage to raise the white flag”.
- Pope Francis has provoked fury by suggesting in a television interview that Ukraine should find “the courage to raise the white flag”.
- As Pope Pius XII, Eugenio Pacelli led the Catholic Church throughout the second world war.
- However, while Hitler’s determination to eliminate the Jewish people was brought to his attention, he did not publicly condemn it.
- Though he admired the authoritarian regimes of Franco in Spain and Salazar in Portugal, Pius XII was not pro Nazi.
‘Catholics will be loyal’
- He told the German chancellor:
I am certain that if peace between Church and state is restored, everyone will be pleased. - The German people are united in their love for the Fatherland.
- I am certain that if peace between Church and state is restored, everyone will be pleased.
- He feared that criticism of Hitler’s regime would provoke harm to German Catholics.
- In August 1942 Pius XII received a letter from Andrej Septyckj, a Ukrainian Cleric, bearing news of the massacre of 200,000 Jews in Ukraine.
- Pius XII flirted with public criticism of Nazi inhumanity in his 1942 Christmas Eve broadcast.
Evil then and now
- As I discovered while researching my book, Reporting the Second World War - The Press and the People 1939-1945, he could have learned as much by reading British newspapers.
- In autumn 1942, titles including The Times and Daily Mail reported the World Jewish Congress’s belief that a million Jews had already died.
- Today, his successor might contemplate the damage inflicted on his wartime predecessor’s reputation by his meek collusion with the wrong side.
- Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba responded caustically to Pope Francis’s crass comments with: “Our flag is a yellow and blue one.
Tim Luckhurst has received funding from News UK and Ireland Ltd. He is a member of the Free Speech Union and the Society of Editors