Judging Benedict
In a time when the president of Iran has assumed the mantle of defender of Nazism, the need is great for voices that speak out against the totalitarian mindset. That's why Rainy Day and John Allen found much that was praiseworthy in Pope Benedict's speech on Sunday at Auschwitz. But not everyone took such a positive view. Eric Miller, for one, was angered:
"The second part of Ratzinger's claim — that the annihilation of the Jews was really just a roundabout assault on Christianity — is shocking. How degrading it is, at Auschwitz, to speak of Judaism as 'the taproot of Christianity' rather than as the faith of so many who perished there! How presumptuous, and unforgivable, to see behind the Nazis' annihilation of six million Jews an 'ultimate' motive to strike at Christianity! Was an effort to eliminate Judaism from the world not a complete crime in itself?"
Oliver Kamm, in the calm and measured style that's become his hallmark, was equally critical on the same point:
"At Auschwitz, of all places, Benedict might have referred to the biblical and Catholic roots of European anti-Semitism. He preferred to concentrate on the heroism of Catholic witnesses against Nazism. The picture he gave was thereby highly misleading. (snip)This is why the Church's witness at Auschwitz and elsewhere causes at least as much friction as amity. Hitler retained a certain respect for the outward forms of the Catholic Church, its history and ritual, and explicitly aimed to avoid open confrontation with it. Recent polemic against the wartime Vatican — that the reigning Pope Pius XII was somehow 'Hitler's Pope' — has been a model of overstatement. It has been countered by Catholic apologists talking up Pius's actual acts of defiance — attempting to halt deportations in some occupied countries — and emphasising the pagan elements of Nazism. But the implied question about Christian responsibility is a good one. As the philosopher Emil Fackenheim, a refugee from Nazism, observed: 'For Christians, the first priority may be theological self-understanding. For Jews it is, and after Auschwitz must be, simple safety for their children."
Benedict's views on any issue arouse enormous interest, and it's only to be expected that when he approaches the fault-lines of civilization that the attention given to his statements assumes global significance. So, how can he address mankind's single greatest criminal act without undoing wounds or failing to close those still open? The terribleness of the camps was such that today's apologies and condemnations have a hollow ring to them. Supposedly civilized people opened the gates of hell, and all across Europe, from Holland to France to Greece, willing helpers were not in short supply when it came to furthering genocide.
But the past helps us to deal with the present and, based his bitter experience of the 20th century, Benedict is well equipped to tackle the great totalitarian challenges of today: Chinese communism and Islamic militancy. For an idea of thinking on both, read "The Pope Is Asking China for Freedom, Not Forgiveness" by Sandro Magister and "How Joseph Ratzinger Sees Islam" by Samir Khalil Samir. After Auschwitz, there can be no toleration of intolerance. Benedict's papacy will be judged, in greater part, on how effective he can be in mobilizing a billion Catholics to reject intolerance and to defend freedom.
