The Vatican Exposed: Money, Murder, and the Mafia (8 page)

Hitler was ecstatic. In a letter to the Nazi Party of July 22, 1933,
he wrote: "The fact that the Vatican is concluding a treaty with the
new Germany means the acknowledgement of the National Socialist
State by the Catholic Church. The treaty shows the whole world
clearly and unequivocally that the assertion that National Socialism is
hostile to religion is a lie." 14

The Holy See was also pleased. Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo, the
papal nuncio to Germany, celebrated a solemn high mass of thanksgiving for the ratification of the concordat at St. Hedwig's Cathedral
in Berlin. At the conclusion of the liturgy, as Nazi banners waved with
Catholic flags, the congregation sang "Horst Wessel," the official
anthem of the Nazi Party. The lyrics of the anthem, sung to the tune
of the Christian hymn "How Great Thou Art," were as follows:

The song was relayed through loudspeakers to the thousands who
had gathered outside the cathedral.

As money from the Kirchensteuer began to pour into the papal
coffers, Pacelli turned a blind eye to the atrocities committed against
the Jews, stating that such matters were issues of German internal
affairs, and to the execution of leading Catholic lay leaders, including
Erich Klausner, head of Catholic Action; Dr. Edgar Jung, also prominent in Catholic Action; Adalbert Probst, leader of the Catholic
sports organization; and Fritz Gerlich, editor of Der Gerade Wee. ib
The executions took place during the "Night of the Long Knives" on
June 30, 1934, when Hitler purged the Reich of Ernest Rohm and
members of the SA (Sturmabteilung or "storm troopers") who had
expressed misgivings over the direction in which the Fatherland was
headed. Also murdered that night were Hitler's political enemies,
including the above-mentioned Catholic laymen, whose names
appeared on "The Reich List of Unwanted Persons." 17

Eventually, in January 1937, three German cardinals (Adolf
Bertram, Michael Von Faulhaber, and Karl Josef Schulte) and two
German bishops (Clemens August von Galen and Konrad von
Preysing) arrived at the Vatican to plea before Pius XI for a vigorous
protest against the Nazi harassment of the Catholic Church. The
harassment, the members of the German hierarchy said, was evidenced
by the suppression of Catholic associations (including diocesan "sewing
circles" for winter relief) and the restrictions on the Catholic press.

Pius XI received the delegation in his bedroom. The pope was ill
with diabetes, heart disease, and ulceration of the legs and remained
in bed "almost unrecognizable, pale, emaciated, his face deeply lined,
and his eyes swollen and half-shut"'s as the delegates spoke.

At last the ailing pope resolved to issue an encyclical to the
faithful about the plight of the Church in Germany. Written by Faulhauber and edited by Pacelli (who was obliged to serve the Holy
Father), Mit brennender Sorge ("With Deep Anxiety") was read from
pulpits throughout Germany on Passion Sunday, March 14, 1937. It
began with these words: "With deep anxiety and increasing dismay,
we have for some time past beheld the sufferings of the Church in
Germany." In place of true belief in God, the encyclical said, there
existed a deification of race, people, and state. It warned the German
bishops to be on their guard for pernicious practices that must arise
from such teachings. Although the encyclical is cited as proof of the
Vatican's opposition to the Third Reich, it contained no explicit condemnation of anti-Semitism and failed to mention National Socialism
and Adolf Hitler by name.

Upon expressing grave concerns over the issuance of the
encyclical, the German diplomat to the Vatican was comforted by a
smiling Pacelli, who assured him that "normal and friendly relations"
with Hitler and Nazi officials would be restored as soon as possible.19
But this promise was about to be broken. In the summer of 1938 Pius
XI decided to issue a harsh condemnation of Hitler's anti-Semitism in
an encyclical that was to be called Humani Generis Unitas ("On the
Unity of the Human Race"). The pope was prompted to such action
not by newly found love for the "perfidious" Jews but rather by
reports about Hitler's confiscation of convents and religious houses in
retaliation to charges of nuns and priests molesting young children.
Like his previous encyclical, Pius XI's new letter represented not a
polemic against anti-Semitism but a criticism of Nazi terrorist tactics.

The new encyclical was prepared by Jesuit scholars in Rome and
completed on February 10, 1939. One of the drafters of the document was Fr. John La Farge, a young Jesuit from the United States.20
The author of a celebrated work on segregation entitled Interracial
Justice, La Farge had been summoned by the Vatican to serve as a
papal secretary.

If La Farge had not been involved in the preparation of Humani
Generis Unitas, no one would know that this encyclical had been prepared for publication. The Jesuit proved to be an inveterate pack rat who saved all of his papers, including his class notes from Harvard. La Farge
also kept drafts in French of the final encyclical and cryptic notes in which
he referred to Pius XI as "Fisher One" and Pius XII as "Fisher Two."

After Le Farge died in 1967, Thomas Breslin, a Jesuit seminarian,
came upon the draft of the papal letter while sorting through his
former mentor's papers. News of the lost encyclical was reported in
the National Catholic Reporter in 1972, but the Vatican dismissed
the story as a fabrication.2' Two Belgians-Georges Passelecq, a
Benedictine monk, and Bernard Suchecky, a Jewish historianrefused to accept the Vatican's dismissal, and based on the notes of
Le Farge, set out in search of the "lost encyclical." In 1997 they
found an extant copy among the papers of Cardinal Eugenio Tisserant, who had served Pius XI as dean of the Sacred College. After
Tisserant died on February 21, 1972, his papers were removed from
the Vatican and conveyed to Switzerland, where they were locked in
the vault of a Swiss bank. This was done in accordance with the cardinal's instructions. Tisserant confided to his intimate friends that his
papers contained "bombshells" that could rock the Vatican on its
foundations. One "bombshell" was a copy of the encyclical that Vatican officials continued to insist had never been written.22

News of the "lost encyclical" caused a sensation in academic and
ecclesiastical circles and led to a reassessment by scholars of the relationship between Nazi Germany and the Vatican. Many scholars,
including Thomas Breslin, who discovered the original draft, now
believe that the publication of the encyclical would have saved "hundreds of thousands, or millions, of people's lives."23 They argue that
the pronouncement from the pope would have upset the political
support of almost one-third of the Germans, who were devout
Roman Catholics, to say nothing of Nazi sympathizers throughout
the world. Such a reaction, they insist, could have caused Hitler to
reconsider his war plans and saved millions from the death camps.

The encyclical condemned the "struggle for racial purity that targeted the Jews for acts of inhumanity." It maintained that the persecution of the Jews is "in every way reprehensible." Although the
encylical upheld the traditional Catholic enmity toward Jews as a
people "blinded by their dreams of worldly gain and material suc cess," it cried out for attention to their plight by saying: "Denied
legal protection against violence, innocent persons are treated as
criminals even though they have scrupulously obeyed the law of their
native land. Even those who in time of war fought bravely for their
country are branded as traitors and the children of those who laid
down their lives in their country's behalf are branded as outlaws by
the very fact of their parentage."

Pope Pius XI, according to Cardinal Tisserant, intended to promulgate the encyclical on February 12, 1939. Preparations were made
for the announcement. The original manuscript was placed on the
pope's desk for signing, and copies were printed by the Vatican press
for circulation to bishops and priests throughout the world .2' In
preparation of this event, he called for a meeting of the Italian hierarchy on February 11.

The pope's change in attitude toward Hitler most likely was not a
result of the reported "persecutions" of the Church by German
bishops. Such persecutions were far from severe or intolerable, consisting, for the most part, of the suppression of Catholic associations
that were deemed to be political in nature and outlawed by the concordat and the censorship of inflammatory editorials and columns
against the Third Reich in the Catholic press. His decision to issue the
encyclical may have been caused by his desire to denounce the forces
of evil-forces that he had helped to unleash-before his impending
death. Two days before his death Pius XI was reported as pleading
with his physicians to keep him alive: "I want to warn Catholics everywhere not to support Hitler and Mussolini. It might help to stop the
outbreak of the war. Let me live another forty-eight hours! "21

Cardinal Tisserant added in his journal that a few Vatican officials,
including Cardinal Pacelli, were highly concerned about the release
of the encyclical and its effect on the Vatican's relations with Nazi
Germany. They were most particularly concerned with the fact that
Hitler might terminate the Kirschensteuer, which was now producing
for the Holy See nearly $100 million a year.

But the encyclical never saw the light of day. Pius XI died on February 10, one day before his scheduled meeting with the hierarchy.
The pope was old and gravely ill with heart congestion. Yet myste rious circumstances surround his death, circumstances that are documented by Cardinal Tisserant in his journals and give rise to the
reports of evil deeds within the Vatican.

Tisserant's journals are voluminous and, like the lost encyclical,
are only beginning to come to light.

Dr. Francisco Petacci, according to Tisserant, became the official
physician to Pius XI in February of 1939. From the moment he
assumed the position, Tisserant says, Dr. Petacci acted "with extreme
circumspection" and became resentful when additional physicians were
called for consultation. He demanded to be present when they examined the pope and dismissed their recommendations for treatment.26