What was the Role of Catholic clergy in the Holocaust?

Answer 1

The answer to this is not straightforward, as they had different positions at different times, as the treatment of the Jews became worse.

We can credit many Roman Catholic clergy with saving and assisting in the saving of victims (especially children) of the Holocaust, but it the lead up and the early stages of the Holocaust they were not as motivated to help.

The criticism of the Roman Catholic clergy, and indeed Roman Catholics (outside of Poland) is generally that they did not do anything until they were under threat themselves. (ie. with the protest against the eugenics programme).

Answer 2

The role of the Clergy in WWII, and the Holocaust, starts at the same time the Nazi Party started, since they were the cause of WWII. I shall cover what I see as typical response from the clergy, The Priests in general, a Bishop, and the Pope.

In the beginning some of the Catholic Clergy felt they could ally with Hitler against communism. It can be noted that even some Jewish clergy, such as rabbi Joachim Prinz, who in his 1934 book, Wir Juden (We Jews).


Priests
The main concentration of Priests killed in WWII on all sides, died in Dachau Concentration Camp, in the so called the "Pfarrerblock" English the "Priest Block" Which held 2720 Clergy, of them, 2579 were Catholic. In total, 1034 of all denominations and religions died in the camp. The number of Catholic Priests killed here, and in other places, was so large, that in Second Vatican council the Catholic Church went out of its way to bring the laity (Non-ordained Catholics) into the Church to preform duties that were normally only done by Priests.

Recommended reading
Priestblock 25487: A Memoir of Dachau By Fr. Jean Bernard
(ISBN 978-0972598170)


Bishops

A Notable example of this is German Bishop Clemens August Graf Von Galden, who on October 28, 1933 with Storm troopers attending, standing in formation with swastika flags in Münster's cathedral as he was consecrated Bishop. Later (1941), his opposition to Euthanasia program, forced sterilization, concentration camps, the closing of Catholic institutions, and general terror put into the people became legendary, so much so that his sermons inspired resistance groups, such as the White Rose (A non violent Catholic intellectual movement, who were mostly captured and executed in 1943) Who used one his sermons as their first pamphlet. Some of these were later smuggled out of the country, back to England where they were dropped on the German people by air as allied Propaganda.

After the War, he was elected as a Cardinal of the Catholic Church, at his durring which, the Pope quoted some of his sermons, as the Cardinal told others, he responded to the Pope's thanks for his work during the war "Yes, Holy Father, but many of my very best priests died in concentration camps, because they distributed my sermons." It is noted that the "Lion of Münster"

was not arrested solely because he was to high profile a target, and the Gestapo feared a Catholic uprising. His most famous feat was when the Nazi Party orderd that all Jews wear a star of David, he ordered ever statue of Jesus, Mary, and other religious figures be given one.

One of the Priests who served under him was his Diocesan Youth Leader, Blessed Karl Leisner, who died of TB shortly after liberation in Dachau, and is considered a martyr. He was secretly ordained a Priest by a French Bishop (He had been only a deacon, studying for the Priesthood). He is register as prisoner No. 22,356.

Blessed (Half way to being declared a Saint of the Catholic Church) Clemens August Graf von Galen died shortly after his elevation to Cardinal in 1946.


- Bishop Ignacy Jez (Poland) interned in Dachau as prisoner no. 37196, Died the day before he was to become a Cardinal, in 2007.


The Papacy.

It is necessary to start again, before the War, with the Papal Encyclical, Mit Brnnender Sorge (With burning concern) Which was written in German, as opposed to the normal Latin

to make it easier to read and distribute. It was created in 1933, Under the direction of Pope Pius XI, and the Future Pope Pius XII (The Pope during WWII) worked on it's introduction. It condemned Nazi ideology, race inequality, the rejection of the Old Testament books of The Bible, and other Nazi errors.

The German Hierarchy responded by sending the Gestapo to visited the offices of every German diocese and seized all the copies they could find. Every publishing company that had printed it was closed. Diocesan newspapers were forbidden by law, and limits imposed on the paper available for Church purposes. To prevent further publishing of Anti-Nazi propaganda. In addition, Catholic flags were prohibited at religious ceremonies and towns with religious names were renamed.

October 20, 1939, the now Pope Pius XII published Summi Pontifucatus (On the Unity of Human Society). Which denounced ideologies of racism and cultural superiority and the totalitarian state (Nazism), as well as the destruction of Poland by the German-Russian alliance. The allies dropped 70,000 Copies of this on Nazi Germany.

The New York Times (now a famously liberal news agency) sums it up in a headline, "Pope Condemns Dictators, Treaty Violators, Racism: Urges Restoring of Poland." October 8th, 1939.

He followed this up with Mystici Corporis Christi (The Mystical Body of Christ). Which condemned the following error; Exclusion based on race or nationality, murdering handicapped, and forced conversions.

Answer 3

Nothing. Germany killed many enemies of the State, prisoners of war, ethnic minorities, homosexuals and Jews without any need for assistance from the Roman Catholic Church.