Pious Xi News Today

>> as the war rages outside the vatican walls, pius xii becomes a target. rumors fly about a nazi plan to kidnap the pope. >> hitler actually got a general and told him to draw plans to invade the vatican. he gathered everyone together and released them if they wanted to leave, but he also submitted a letter that was his resignation that said, if i am captured, i resign the papacy. so, they will not capture the pope, they will capture eugenio pacelli, but not the pope. >> as bombs go off and jew...

Passed, including a boycott of all jewish businesses. enemies of the state, including catholic priests, are put on trains to labor camps. >> the concentration camp some have described it as the worlds biggest seminary. at one point in time there were thousands of catholic priests there. >> 2,500 catholic priests died at daka. not catholics, catholic priests. >> at this point theres no way that the church and the third reich are going to get along. >> the vatican writes more than 50 complaints to...

The reichs concord ant. >> like the treaty, this was a defensive measure. the state says, okay, we will allow the church control over its affairs, but the price to be paid is that the church is not to be involved in politics. its a controversial agreement. some see it as sort of a pact with the devil. it effectively takes the church out the political realm at the moment when opposition to evolving dictatorship was more needed than ever. it was a fatal stepping back from confronting pure evil. >>...

Wilheln whom pacelli met when he was in germany in the 1920s. he reached out to his friend and said, help me and help germany get rid of hitler. canares then had access to explosives. >> between 1940 and 1944, there would be three failed attempts to assassinate adolf hitler. information about these plots are still shrouded in conspiracy theory, undocumented proof of pope pius xiis role is almost nonexistent. >> the pope knew he had to keep quiet about it. if he kept written records, he could get...

>> in 2016, as pope francis walked through the shadows of auschwitz, he must face the legacy of his predecessors. he prays for the mistakes he has inherited and for the lessons that will carry the church forward. >> pope francis is a radically different kind of pope than the catholic church has seen for a long time. he has the rule of love. thats it. love your neighbor. and if youre diagnose that, then youre a good catholic. >> modern popes engage in politics at the highest level. regularly meet...

Deportation to extermination camps. they are held at the military college of rome, mere blocks from st. peters basilica. but despite the a trotrocities unfolding right at his doorstep, pope pius xii remains publicly silent. >> he takes the path of diplomatic caution in terms of his public pronouncements, but its not that the pope was inactive. there is a view that the pope worked behind the scenes to try to put an end to the round up. there is some evidence, in fact, that actually worked. >> the...

In the two years after pope pius xi releases his antiracism encyclical, the party remains unsure about the regime. on the eve of 1938, nazi violence against the jews reaches a fever pitch. >> crystal night was the night of shattered glass. its the night when the nazis went to the jewish businesses, the synagogues and smashed everything. >> 30,000 jewish men were sent to a concentration camp. it was a very public violent attack on jews. and after that it was game over. >> bishops from all over eu...

Ground. >> there were some vatican trucks that would go around and take food and blankets and bring additional supplies to where it was needed. >> some believe that pope pius xii silence is a cover. that throughout the war, he is secretly involved with covert operations with the allies. >> the pope did secretly tape his conversations. during the week of his election in 1939, the vatican tapes show quite clearly that he opted for public acquiescence with the nazis, and at the same time deciding t...

Publicly against hitler. >> latter part of the 1930s, pius xi began to prepare himself and the church with something against the fascist regime. >> he was personally not very friendly with the jews. he shared the widespread christian belief that the jews as a people had been responsible for jesus death, but he thought that that didnt mean you had a right to invade their human rights. and, in fact, wrote in a cyclical condemning it. >> enlisted bocellis health. he drafts an encyclical. >> it is t...

>> despite pius xii public neutrality, hitlers march towards world domination reaches the popes doorstep. in september of 1943, hitler invades rome. >> it was a situation where the pope thought that they had an operating agreement, did not think this was going to happen, but about 2000 jews were rounded up. >> the day of the round up, the pope says he doesnt want to have to come out and condemn explicitly nazi behavior. its obviously a veiled threat to do precisely that, but he says he doesnt wa...