The Vatican secretly issued instructions to the Catholic church in France not to return Jewish children to their families after World War II, it emerged on Tuesday.
The children were entrusted to the church's care to save them from the death camps. But if the parents survived the war and came forward to reclaim their sons or daughters, the children were only to be returned "provided [they] have not received baptism," the Vatican ordered.
The instructions, contained in a letter dated Oct. 20 1946, were sent by the Holy Office, the Vatican department responsible for church discipline, to the future Pope John XXIII, Angelo Roncalli, who at that time was the Holy See's envoy in Paris. The letter was published yesterday by the Italian daily Corriere della Sera.
The letter ends with the words: "Please note that this decision has been approved by the Holy Father." This may well have been a warning to the then Monsignor Roncalli, who, in his previous job as the pope's nuncio, or ambassador, in Istanbul, was suspected by some in the Vatican of an excessively pro-Jewish outlook.
The letter deals a new and crushing blow to the reputation of the wartime pope, Pius XII.
Research for a film released two years ago by the documentary maker Aviva Slesin concluded that fewer than than 10 percent of the 1.5 million Jewish children living in Europe in 1939 survived the conflict. In a desperate attempt to save their sons and daughters, many parents made arrangements with Christian couples or left them in orphanages.
The Vatican's letter indicates that Pope Pius wanted both to obstruct and minimize the return of those children who had been put in the church's care. "Children who have been baptized may not be entrusted to institutions that are not in a position to guarantee them a Christian upbringing," it said.
The position with regard to unbaptized Jewish children was more complicated.
The Vatican's officials ruled that those who had lost their parents ought not to be entrusted to "persons who have no rights over them." Only where the parents had re-emerged to claim their children was it permissible for them to be handed back, and even then only if they had not been christened.
The revelation represents a fresh setback for the cause of Pius XII's canonization. The present Pope is known to have wanted to beatify his predecessor as a first step towards declaring him a saint.
But the process was halted by a host of articles, books and films questioning Pius XII's failure to speak out publicly against Nazism and, in particular, the Holocaust.
His record is still a matter of heated dispute and the controversy surrounding him is unlikely to be resolved until the Vatican opens its wartime archives.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of