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Pope Pius XII's 1942 Christmas address was a speech delivered by Pope Pius XII over Vatican Radio on Christmas 1942. It is notable for its denunciation of the extermination of people on the basis of race, and came soon after the commencement of the Nazi ''Final Solution'' program to exterminate the Jews of Europe. The significance of the denunciation is a matter of scholarly debate. ==Background== The 1942 Christmas Address by Pope Pius XII was made in the context of the near total domination of Europe by the armies of Nazi Germany. Hitler had broken his alliance with Stalin and was advancing into the Soviet Union. The war had not yet turned in favour of the Allies. From May 1942, the Nazis had commenced their industrialized slaughter of the Jews of Europe - the ''Final Solution''.〔Encyclopedia Britannica : ''World War Two - German-occupied Europe''〕 The brutalization of the Catholic Church in Poland had been underway for three years. The Catholic Church had been offering condemnations of Nazi racism since the earliest days of the Nazi movement. The 1942 Christmas address is significant for the light it throws on the ongoing scholarly debate around the war time policies of Pius XII in response to what would later be termed The Holocaust (the systematic murder of Europe's Jews by the Nazis). Pius' cautious approach has been a subject of controversy. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, his "strongest statement against genocide was regarded as inadequate by the Allies, though in Germany he was regarded as an Allied sympathizer who had violated his own policy of neutrality".〔Encyclopedia Britannica: ''Roman Catholicism - the period of the world wars.〕 According to concentration camp prisoner, Father Jean Bernard of Luxembourg, treatment of clergy imprisoned in the Priest Barracks of Dachau Concentration Camp worsened when Pope Pius or the German bishops were critical of Hitler or the Nazis.〔(''The Priests of Dachau'' ) by Ronald Rychlak; InsideCatholic.com; 8 October 2007.〕 Two Popes served through the Nazi period: Pope Pius XI (1922-1939) and Pope Pius XII (1939-1958). In 1933, Pius signed a Concordat with the Germany - hoping to protect the rights of Catholics under the Nazi government. The terms of the Treaty were not kept by Hitler. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica: "From 1933 to 1936 (XI ) wrote several protests against the Third Reich, and his attitude toward fascist Italy changed dramatically after Nazi racial policies were introduced into Italy in 1938." Pius XI delivered three papal encyclicals challenging the new totalitarian creeds from a Catholic perspective: against Italian Fascism Non abbiamo bisogno (1931; ''We Do Not Need to Acquaint You''); against Nazism Mit brennender Sorge (1937; “With Deep Anxiety”) and against atheist Communist Divini redemptoris (1937; “Divine Redeemer”). He also challenged the extremist nationalism of the Action Francaise movement and anti-Semitism in the United States.〔Encyclopedia Britannica : ''Pius XI''〕 Pius XI's Secretary of State, Cardinal Pacelli (future Pius XII), made some 55 protests against Nazi policies, including its "ideology of race".〔http://spectator.org/archives/2006/08/18/hitlers-pope/print〕 As Cardinal Pacelli, Pope Pius XII had assisted Pius XI, draft the ''Mit Brennender Sorge'' encyclical, a powerful critique of Nazi ideology. Pius XI also commissioned an encyclical demonstrating the incompatibility of Catholicism and racism: Humani generis unitas (“The Unity of the Human Race”). Following his death however, the less confrontational Pius XII did not issue the encyclical, fearing it would antagonize Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany at a time where he hoped to act as an impartial peace broker.〔http://www.britannica.com/holocaust/article-236596〕 With Europe on the brink of war, Pius XI died on 10 February 1939 and Cardinal Pacelli was elected to succeed him as Pope Pius XII. As Vatican Secretary of State, Pacelli had been a critic of Nazism and the Nazi Government was the only government not to send a representative to his coronation.〔 Pius, a cautious diplomat, pursued the course of diplomacy to attempt to convince European leaders to avoid war.〔''Encyclopedia Britannica'': "Pius XII"〕〔http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%20684.pdf〕 Following the outbreak of war, Pius followed Vatican precedent and pursued a policy of "impartiality". Despite this official policy, Pius passed intelligence to the Allies and made a series of general condemnations of racism and genocide through the course of the war.〔〔 and chose diplomacy to assist the persecuted during the war〔 For this he was scorned by Hitler as a "Jew lover"〔(Vatican hopes secret files exonerate 'Hitler's pope' ); Dalya Alberge; The Observer; 9 February 2013〕 and a blackmailer on his back, whom he believed constricted his ally Mussolini and leaked confidential German correspondence to the world〔Hitler's Table Talk 1941-1944: Religion in Eastern Territories, Cameron & Stevens, Enigma Books pp. 269, 671〕 Largely posthumously (and controversially), Pius has been criticized for not "doing enough" to prevent the Holocaust - and by others of being "silent" in the face of it. According to the ''Encyclopedia Britannica'', depictions of the Pope as anti-Semitic or indifferent to the Nazi Holocaust lack "credible substantiation". Upon the death of Pius XII in 1958, he was praised by world leaders for his wartime leadership, with the Israeli Foreign Minister Golda Meir saying: “When fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, the voice of the Pope was raised for the victims. The life of our times was enriched by a voice speaking out on the great moral truths above the tumult of daily conflict. We mourn a great servant of peace.”〔〔http://www.britannica.com/holocaust/article-236599〕 One scholarly critic of the legacy of Pius XII has been Michael Phayer (author of ''The Church and the Holocaust, 1930–1965'' (2000)). He has written that the Catholic possessed a specific knowledge of the Holocaust that rivaled that of the Allied governments.〔Phayer, 2008, pp. 44-45.〕 The Vatican possessed information on the systematic nature of deportations and atrocities, compiled from its own diplomatic corps in Eastern Europe, from Catholic bishops in Germany, the Netherlands, and Eastern Europe, from ordinary Catholics, priests, and laity, from the Polish government-in-exile, the foreign diplomats to the Holy See, and various Jews and Jewish organizations.〔 A variety of historians have comprehensively examined the data received by the Vatican, which "covered not just the activity of mobile killing squads but every aspect of the Nazis' murdering process".〔 However, according to Phayer, until 1942, Cardinal Secretary of State Luigi Maglione had repeatedly and publicly stated that the Vatican was "unable to confirm atrocity reports".〔Phayer, 2008, p. 46.〕 Phayer wrote: "regarding Maglione's oft-repeated rejoinder to the effect that something could not be confirmed, it must be noted that he never took steps to confirm the many reports of atrocities that flowed to his office. Had Pope Pius wished to do so, he could have assembled a comprehensive picture of the genocidal crimes of the Nazis".〔Phayer, 2008, p. 47.〕 Messages to the effect that the pope was losing his "moral authority" due to the failure to condemn Nazi atrocities poured in from diplomats accredited to the Vatican from the United States, Great Britain, Switzerland, Brazil, Uruguay, Peru, Cuba, Belgium, and Poland.〔Phayer, 2008, pp. 48-49.〕 Moreover, the Allies condemned the genocide of the Jews on 17 December 1942 in the Joint Declaration by Members of the United Nations, which—according to Phayer—"must have sent the Holy See scurrying to play catch-up".〔Phayer, 2008, p. 50.〕 Pius XII refused to endorse the Joint Declaration, as urged by Harold Tittmann, his US ambassador, and indeed, his own speech would be "not as bluntly stated as the United Nations' declaration earlier that month".〔Phayer, 2008, pp. 51, 53.〕 A defender of Pius, the eminent historian of the Holocaust, Martin Gilbert portrays Vatican policy in the lead up to the 1942 Christmas message with a very different emphasis: "In his first encyclical as Pope, Pius XII specifically rejected Nazism and expressly mentioned the Jews, noting that in the Catholic Church there is “neither Gentile nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision.”〔Galatians 3,28.〕 The head of the Gestapo, Heinrich Mueller, commented that the encyclical was “directed exclusively against Germany.” So outspoken was it that the Royal Air Force and the French air force dropped 88,000 copies of it over Germany. One strong piece of evidence that Dalin produces against the concept of “Hitler’s Pope” is the audience granted by Pius XII in March 1940 to the German Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, the only senior Nazi official to visit the Vatican during his papacy. After Ribbentrop rebuked the Pope for “siding” with the Allies, the Pope responded by reading from a long list of German atrocities and religious persecution against Christians and Jews, in Germany, and in Poland, which Germany had occupied six months earlier. The New York Times, under the headline “JEWS’ RIGHTS DEFENDED,” wrote on March 14, 1940: “The Pontiff, in the burning words he spoke to Herr Ribbentrop about religious persecution, also came to the defense of the Jews in Germany and Poland.〔(''Hitler's Pope?'' ) by Martin Gilbert; The American Spectator; 18.8.06〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Pope Pius XII's 1942 Christmas address」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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