"God Protect Austria" -- New Book About Pius XII Confirms Rejection of Hitler's Ideology

(Vatikan/Vienna)  A new book about Pope Pius XII affords a further confirmation that future Pope Pius XII would stand against National Socialism and Adolf Hitler. "It betrays the clarity with which Pius XI and his State Secretary and future successor, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, rebutted the attempt, and the danger to underestimate, that was assessed to the German Reich's desire to seize nearby Austria."   With a discussion of the new book, "God protect Austria!"  by Paolo Valvo Osservatore Romano attempts to explain the relationship of Pius XII to National Socialism.

Valvo presents new material from the Vatican Archive.  "The freeing up of Vatican Sources to the end of the Pontificate of Pius XI. in 2006, allowed for a new appreciation and a deeper understanding about the events then, above all for the time at the end of the First World War till the dawn of the Second,"  says Msgr Antonio Filipazzi in his review.  Naturally, said Msgr Filipazzi, it will not fail those who, because of their  opinions and deep prejudices or look for "verification of their preconceived notions" and choose to "ignore" the plentiful documentation, which don't correspond to their prejudices.  Athough they are not found, they don't correct their opion, rather they they are determined to promote archive openings.

The situation which Valvo substantiates, establishes on the contrary, that Pius XI and the future Pius XII., "show they held the possible collaboration between the Hitler Movement and the Catholic  Church as a complete impossibility , and not even in an anti-Bolshevist function,"  says Filipazzi.

The Italian ambassador to the Holy See, Bonfiacio Pignatti, attempted to advise the past Cardinal Secretary "despite his famous, insurmountable opposition against everything that savored of Nazism, that it would is beneficial to Austria, to improve its relationship to the Reich".  For it was from this demonstrable opposition against National Socialism which dictated the complete policy of Cardinal Pacelli's during his years in Austria and left him, to be described according to the accommodating disposition of some of the Austrian Bishops toward Hitler as "the most shameful chapter in Church History."

From Katolishces Info....