Soviets tried to frame Pius XII as "Hitler's Pope"
Important new findings have emerged on the relationship between Pope Pius XII and Hitler's Third Reich.
- Edward Pentin
- International
- August 20, 2012
Professor Ronald J. Rychlak is an expert on the “Hitler’s Pope” controversy surrounding Venerable Pope Pius XII.
But despite being a defender of Pius XII’s wartime record in saving Jewish lives from the Holocaust, the American law professor at the University of Mississippi was initially skeptical of claims, first disclosed by former Romanian intelligence chief General Ion Mihai Pacepa in 2007, that efforts to blacken Pius’s name were driven by a Soviet plot.
Yet after two years of research and regular contact with Pacepa, his perception changed, and he is now convinced that the KGB played a key role in framing Pius XII by promoting The Deputy – Rolf Hochhuth’s 1963 play that gave birth to the “Black Legend” of Pius as a Nazi sympathizer.
He has now co-written a new book with Pacepa on the plot, called Disinformation, due to be published soon.
Below is Professor Rychlak’s own account of how he changed his mind.
Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa and the Plot Against the Pope
Ronald J. Rychlak
The 2007 revelations from Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa about the theatrical play, The Deputy, were new to all of us who had studied Pius XII and the Holocaust. According to Pacepa, that play, which was the source of the false charges of papal indifference to Jewish suffering, was a Kremlin-directed plot. When I first heard this claim, I did not simply trust Pacepa; I decided to investigate.
At first I engaged in some long email exchanges with friends and colleagues. Most of us did not know where or how to look into these claims. Bill Donohue of the Catholic League offered to fund travel to Russia or elsewhere if that would help, but I could not figure out where to look. It would have been a waste of money.
Some of my colleagues said just to forget it – it would be a “footnote” in the Pius XII debate. Pacepa’s account, however, deserved at least some attention.
I went back to the place I began my original work on Pius XII some 15 years earlier: the local public library. Within 15 minutes I found an interesting book written by a former KGB officer that told of how he had obtained control over a small but influential periodical.
I was also able to confirm that the periodical in question had promoted the play The Deputy, which Pacepa had just said was a Soviet plot. That made things interesting.
I spent the next two years researching Pacepa’s claim, and bit by bit all the pieces fell in place. The new picture answered many questions and made sense out of things that had previously been inexplicable.
Full Story: The Framing of Pius XII - From Skepticism to Belief
Source: National Catholic Register
But despite being a defender of Pius XII’s wartime record in saving Jewish lives from the Holocaust, the American law professor at the University of Mississippi was initially skeptical of claims, first disclosed by former Romanian intelligence chief General Ion Mihai Pacepa in 2007, that efforts to blacken Pius’s name were driven by a Soviet plot.
Yet after two years of research and regular contact with Pacepa, his perception changed, and he is now convinced that the KGB played a key role in framing Pius XII by promoting The Deputy – Rolf Hochhuth’s 1963 play that gave birth to the “Black Legend” of Pius as a Nazi sympathizer.
He has now co-written a new book with Pacepa on the plot, called Disinformation, due to be published soon.
Below is Professor Rychlak’s own account of how he changed his mind.
Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa and the Plot Against the Pope
Ronald J. Rychlak
The 2007 revelations from Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa about the theatrical play, The Deputy, were new to all of us who had studied Pius XII and the Holocaust. According to Pacepa, that play, which was the source of the false charges of papal indifference to Jewish suffering, was a Kremlin-directed plot. When I first heard this claim, I did not simply trust Pacepa; I decided to investigate.
At first I engaged in some long email exchanges with friends and colleagues. Most of us did not know where or how to look into these claims. Bill Donohue of the Catholic League offered to fund travel to Russia or elsewhere if that would help, but I could not figure out where to look. It would have been a waste of money.
Some of my colleagues said just to forget it – it would be a “footnote” in the Pius XII debate. Pacepa’s account, however, deserved at least some attention.
I went back to the place I began my original work on Pius XII some 15 years earlier: the local public library. Within 15 minutes I found an interesting book written by a former KGB officer that told of how he had obtained control over a small but influential periodical.
I was also able to confirm that the periodical in question had promoted the play The Deputy, which Pacepa had just said was a Soviet plot. That made things interesting.
I spent the next two years researching Pacepa’s claim, and bit by bit all the pieces fell in place. The new picture answered many questions and made sense out of things that had previously been inexplicable.
Full Story: The Framing of Pius XII - From Skepticism to Belief
Source: National Catholic Register
