pope rejects criticism of vaticans behaviour during ww2.. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3835679,00.html
I don't know if "supported" is the proper word here. Pius was not likely to condemn the attack on the "godless communists", but I don't know that he supported it either.
What Pacifici actually said was that the Pope should have been more vocal-Jewish leader confronts pope on Holocaust silence | Reuters But hindsight is a wonderful thing.
The only times either Pius XII or his predecessor spoke out concerning the treatment of Jews at the hand of the Nazis, it only resulted in the increased hostility toward those in Holland at the time. And an increase in the speed of their deportation. Both WW2 era Popes quickly recognized that their or the church's word would not deter the Nazis in their quest for a Jew free Europe. However, the Jews themselves don't see him in that light, and he is honored as a "Righteous Gentile" and a forest has been planted in his name in Israel (or proposed, don't know if it is planted). For Jewish leaders of a previous generation, this harsh portrayal of Pope Pius XII, and the campaign of vilification against him, would have been a source of profound shock and sadness. From the end of World War II until at least five years after his death, Pope Pius enjoyed an enviable reputation amongst Christians and Jews alike. At the end of the war, Pius XII was hailed as "the inspired moral prophet of victory," and "enjoyed near-universal acclaim for aiding European Jews." Numerous Jewish leaders, including Albert Einstein, Israeli Prime Ministers Golda Meir and Moshe Sharett, and Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog, expressed their public gratitude to Pius XII, praising him as a "righteous gentile," who had saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust. In his meticulously researched and comprehensive 1967 book, Three Popes and the Jews, the Israeli historian and diplomat Pinchas Lapide, who had served as the Israeli Counsel General in Milan, and had spoken with many Italian Jewish Holocaust survivors who owed their life to Pius, provided the empirical basis for their gratitude, concluding that Pius XII "was instrumental in saving at least 700,000, but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands." To this day, the Lapide volume remains the definitive work, by a Jewish scholar, on the subject. The campaign of vilification against Pope Pius can be traced to the debut in Berlin in February 1963 of a play, by a young, Protestant, left-wing West German writer and playwright, Rolf Hochhuth. The Deputy, in which Hochhuth depicts Pacelli as a Nazi collaborator, guilty of moral cowardice and "silence" in the face of the Nazi onslaught, is a scathing indictment of Pope Pius XII's alleged indifferences to the plight of European Jewry during the Holocaust. Hochhuth's play ignited a public controversy about Pius XII that continues this day. Despite the fact that The Deputy was a purely fictional and highly polemical play, which offered little or no historical evidence for its allegations against Pope Pius XII, it was widely discussed and acclaimed. Indeed, it inspired a new generation of revisionist journalists and scholars, who were intent on discrediting the well-documented efforts of Pope Pius XII to save Jews during the Holocaust. Their denunciation of Pius received widespread publicity with the commercial success of Hitler's Pope, in which John Cornwell denounced him as "the most dangerous churchman in modern history," without whom "Hitler might never have…been able to press forward with the Holocaust." Although an unusually harsh and bitter judgment, it was one with which Pius XII's other recent detractors, such as Wills and Zucotti, implicitly concur. Moreover, in their persistent efforts to vilify Pius, and defame his memory, his detractors have largely dismissed or completely ignored Pinchas Lapide's seminal and comprehensive study that so conclusively documents the instrumental role played by Pope Pius XII in rescuing and sheltering Jews during the Holocaust. See: A Righteous Gentile While this is from the Catholic League Press, it includes statements from powerful Rabbis as well. The Jews appreciated his efforts, and those of his successor Pope John who (as Cardinal in Turkey), with Pius' blessing and encouragement, supplied false documents to Jews so they could transfer into the then Palestinian territories which were still under British Mandate.
Despite the source, I can vouch for it as I have read similar things in essays, books, etc for my Religious Studies classes a few months back. I've also read the "other side" of the argument, it seems critics largely references the loose policies of Pope Pius XII in comparison to Pope Pius XI who was more vocal about the Nazi uprising. I still think Pope Pius XII did his best, if people are seriously going to put the man on trial for not doing enough they might as well do the same to many other leaders of the time who surely could have done a lot more to stop Hitler. In regards to the Soviet Union, IIRC, Pope Pius XII was vocal to a certain extent but remained quiet since he believed that if the Nazi's had overthrown the Communist government they could restore religion to the Soviet Union/Russia. Keep in mind, Russia before the Soviet Union was one of the most "Catholic places" in the world, if that made sense. After Stalingrad he may have changed his stance a little bit, although that is not to say he remained completely silent about the S.S. and in some cases Wehrmacht atrocities. I'm personally growing a bit tired of this "debate", wasn't it common knowledge by now that Hitler was planning a invasion of the Vatican to "silence" Pope Pius XII only to have his generals convince him to not do it? Would the revisionists prefer that Pope Pius XII become a martyr before the war had ended?
With the persecution of the Catholic church that went on at the hand of the Nazis. what could Pius do? I think in recent days, enough information has come out to show that Pope Pius did what he could, both publicly and secretly to help the Jews. He wasn't "Hitlers Pope", and in fact (as it was suggested before) every time he took public action, it resulted in more death. Riccardo Pacifici said; "Maybe it would not have stopped the death trains, but it would have sent a signal, a word of extreme comfort, of human solidarity, toward those brothers of ours transported to the ovens of Auschwitz,". True, it might have shown solidarity for the Jews, but more likely, it would have brought every Catholic church, convent and monastery throughout Europe under scrutiny, thus hindering the actions of Faithful Catholics helping the Jews across all of Europe. So what was the more appropriate action? For him to limit what he said publicly, or to just let it fly, and cause more damage? Ever heard of the 108 martyrs of Auschwitz? Maybe we should look at them, and what they did, instead.
