Contentions Magazine : Pope Pius the XII Not That Heroic

Above is a Movie Trailer which is based on the not very "heroic Pope. Click and enjoy

So Contentions has a little abstract they are highlighting today. See Two Popes, One Holocaust via Contentions.

I am not going to spend a lot of time refuting the slander against Pope Pius the XII. It is really enough to say that Jews of Pius the XII time period were praising him for his efforts during WWII.

There is a Jewish American man has made it his life's work to reclaim Pope Pius the XII reputation. See his efforts here.

Let me try to put this in a modern sense. John Allen commented on the tough spot that many religious leaders found themselves as to the Uganda gay legislation. See Why Catholics aren't speaking up in Uganda about anti-gay bill

Allen made a point at end:
Nkunzingoma struck precisely this point: “Needless to mention,” he told me, “there are fears, or, perhaps it’s better to say, suspicions that the whole homosexuality debate is being more engineered by foreign human rights activists than by locals.”
Coupled with that is a perception that Westerners spend a disproportionate amount of time critiquing Africa’s treatment of homosexuals, and not enough engaging what many Africans regard as more burning challenges. Again, Nkunzingoma makes the case: “We have more pressing issues to tackle, such as development, the environment, population and poverty, [rather] than the issue of homosexuals, who are a very small fraction in our society,” he said.
The unspoken point seems to be this: We’ll listen to the West on gay rights when you listen to us on these other matters of justice, which affect a much larger swath of our people.

All this poses an acute dilemma for Catholics elsewhere who might want to embolden the Ugandans to speak out: The more outsiders try to influence the debate, the less likely many Ugandans may be, including the country’s bishops, to be seen as carrying water for the West.
In recent days, I’ve spoken on background to Catholic leaders in the States and elsewhere who are wrestling with precisely this problem. My hunch is that the Vatican and national bishops’ conferences around the world would be eager to lend their support should the Ugandan bishops say something, but they also realize that any effort to compel a statement could easily backfire.
Africa’s Catholic leaders have an opportunity to carve out a distinctive approach to what the West knows as the “culture wars,” one that blends traditional positions on sexual ethics with a holistic embrace of the church’s broader social justice concerns. That may indeed require bucking conventional wisdom in the West – but it may also require challenging some social conventions at home, too.

In other words while it is easy to make high sounding statements in safety thousands of miles of a way and pat our selves on the back the result could be more persecution of gays. In fact it appears that is very likely. So the Church has to act quietly and forgo the secular applause and cheers . It is not one of those times where the Church Universial can go LOOK WORLD LOOK AT ME is it not so great what I am doing

In World War II Pius the XII who spoke out in many ways could have have gone to war with Hitler and the Nazi's. No doubt Hitler would have invaded the Vatican and good ole Pius the XII could have possibly died a Martyr.

However Pius the XII was the Bishop of Rome. As Bishop of Rome he took upon himself to hind thousands of Jews around ROME, at the Papal estate, and indeed in the Vatican itself. Had he done what would have been a statement that would have produced nothing those Jews would have been killed.

Pius the XII put himself , his Priests , His Religious, and the Laity involved in constant danger by their efforts in hiding the Jews from the Nazis. How is that not heroic or does only heroism occur when one must draw attention to yourself at the expense of others.