InsideCatholic contributor Ron Rychlak has done yeoman’s work defending Pope Pius XII’s record during World War II against an ever-changing raft of accusations. First it was Pius’s supposed failure to act during the war; then it was what he supposedly failed to do after the war. With both of those charges handily debunked, critics have now moved on to parsing Pius’s comments before he was pope.
The latest example in the latter category is a statement he supposedly made in 1938:
Jesus conquers! He who so often was the recipient of the rage of his enemies, he who suffered the persecutions of those of whom he was one, he shall be triumphant in the future as well … As opposed to the foes of Jesus, who cried out to his face, ‘Crucify him!’ we sing him hymns of our loyalty and our love. We act in this fashion, not out of bitterness, not out of a sense of superiority, not out of arrogance toward those whose lips curse him and whose hearts reject him even today.
Orthodox. Faithful. Free.
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Various scholars took that to be a condemnation of the Jews, but Rychlak and co-author William Doino say that the truth lies in those ellipses: “The manufactured quotation blatantly distorted the words of the future Pope.” Read the full report to see what’s missing, and how critics have gotten it wrong once again.