Before we get to the excerpts from this National Catholic Register article by Edward Pentin, I would like to take this opportunity to say...we told you so!
Back in 2006 (and re-posted later in 2008), on our blog, "Church Under Attack" we wrote two articles on the efforts of Pope Pius XII and the Holy See to aid the plight of the European Jews during the Holocaust. They were entitled Pope Pius XII: Misunderstood and Maligned (part one here and part two here). The only comment received at the time was from a Holocaust denier (who's comments were removed by Steve).
Then, in early 2007 Marie wrote this post entitled "KGB smear campaign against Pius XII exposed".
So, I am happy to see that finally, 5 or 6 years later, the rest of the world is finally catching up. It is long past time that Venerable Pope Pius XII was cleared of these calumnious charges, and that his attackers and detractors are fully discredited.
Below are the excerpts from "Claims that Pius XII Was Framed Gaining Support":
- Former Romanian spy chief discusses how the myth of 'Hitler's Pope' started with Stalin.
- Last month, the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem revised a controversial text on Pope Pius XII used in its exhibition, changing it from an unfairly negative assessment of the wartime Pope and his record in saving the Jews, to one that includes a few arguments in his defense.
- But the new text omitted sensational claims, originating from a former Romanian intelligence chief, that efforts to muddy Pius’s reputation began in Moscow very soon after World War II, and that the Soviets later led a campaign of disinformation — called “Operation Seat 12” — against the wartime Pope.
- The claims were made in 2007 by General Ion Mihai Pacepa who once headed the Romanian intelligence service before defecting to the United States in 1978. He also claimed that Rolf’s Hochhuth’s 1963 play The Deputy was used by Soviet intelligence as part of this wider plot to frame Pius. Some voiced skepticism of such KGB involvement, including a few sympathetic to Pius’s wartime record. One of those was University of Mississippi professor Ronald J. Rychlak. But rather than let it go, Rychlak spent two years investigating Pacepa’s story. He has since become so convinced of the veracity of it that he is writing a new book with him on the Soviet plot, called Disinformation.
Claims that Pius XII Was Framed Gaining Support | Daily News | NCRegister.com
