Lost Opportunity to Stop the Holocaust?

 Michael Streich

Pope Pious XI died in February 1939, leaving unfinished a final encyclical that his successor, Pious XII, chose not to promulgate. Historians and theologians have long suggested that Humani Generis Unitas may have represented a significant statement of justice that might have postponed or even prevented the Holocaust much like the earlier encyclical, Mit Brennender Sorge, lessened state interference with Catholic doctrine. Connor O’Brien, writing in the April 27^th, 1989 New York Review of Books, refers to the 1939 encyclical as a possible “lost chance to save the Jews.”

 

Two Concurrent Goals

 

Both National Socialism and the Catholic hierarchy feared Communism. It was this mutual hatred that initially led prominent prelates to support the Hitler regime. According to Cardinal Faulhaber, Pope Pious XI praised Adolph Hitler, “for his stand…against Communism.”  Guenter Lewy, in his book The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany, states that both Pious XI and Pious XII, “were preoccupied with the threat of Communism and therefore showed considerable benevolence to both Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.” These attitudes would change as the Hitler regime began its systematic racial persecutions that culminated in the Final Solution.

 

Voices of Opposition

 

What was perceived as growing neopaganism in the German Reich was addressed in 1937 through Pious XI’s encyclical, Mit Brennender Sorge (“With Burning Concern”). The papal letter was smuggled into Germany and read in every church, incurring the wrath of the Nazis. Although addressing issues of religious freedom, it marked a turning point in the relationship between Berlin and the Vatican.

 

By early 1939 Humani Generis Unitas (“On the Unity of Humanity”) was prepared for Pious XI’s review. Sub-section 132 addresses “the present persecution of the Jews” and carries a strong message decrying anti-Semitism. Sub-section 152, a summary conclusion titled “Doing the Truth,” urges for “a vigorous condemnation of anti-Semitism and racism” and relates this to “the cause of justice and charity.” Prepared as a draft by two Jesuits, the pope may never have even seen it before his death. Pope Pious XII was elected in March 1939 and refused to publish it. According to Michael Phayer in his book, The Catholic Church and the Holocaust:1930-1965, “diplomacy would now take precedence over justice.”

Speculation and Confrontation

 

Could Humani Generis Unitas have slowed the persecution of Jews or even averted the Holocaust? Conor O’Brien believes it could have and writes that, “the failure to publish…was one of the greatest and most tragic missed opportunities in history.” To what extent might the November 1938 horrors of Kristallnacht have influenced Pious XI had he lived beyond March 1939?

 

In 1941, Clement von Galen, bishop of Muenster, delivered a sermon that Sociologist Gordon Zahn calls, “the single most stirring statement of Episcopal opposition to the Nazi rule.” Galen, elevated to the Cardinalate after the war, slowed state euthanasia policies. The argument can be made that if the Nazis “backed down” in 1941, might they have moderated their treatment of Jews in 1939 had this unpublished encyclical been promulgated?

 

How Hitler might have reacted is, of course, speculation. The Nazis dealt with Catholic opposition ruthlessly. Maximillian Kolbe and Edith Stein died in Auschwitz. Both were canonized by Pope John Paul II. In matters of social justice, Bishop Galen said it best: “it is better to die than to sin.”

 

Sources:

 

Humani Generis Unitas

Lewy, Guenter, The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany (New York: McGraw Hill, 1964)   

 

O’Brien, Conor Cruise, “A Lost Chance to Save the Jews?” The New York Review of Books, Vol. 36, No. 7, April 27, 1989

 

Phayer, Michael, The Catholic Church and the Holocaust 1930-1965 (Indiana University Press, 2000)

 

Zahn, Gordon, German Catholics and Hitler’s Wars (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1962)

 Copyright owned by Michael Streich. Any republishing of any kind requires written permission. First published in Suite101