Why is the Vatican adding insult to injury?

By Kidane Alemayehu ǀ January 25, 2010

The Vatican is in the process of beatifying Pope Pius XII to sainthood despite the well known fact that he was part and parcel of the Italian Fascists who perpetrated untold crimes including genocide in Ethiopia. It is also a matter of public record that the Pope had sided not only with Mussolini but also with the Nazis who committed the holocaust against six million Jews. The big question, then, is why, despite Pope Pius XII’s well known record, the Vatican prefers to ignore the crimes he has been associated with and raise him to sainthood at this time?

THE ITALIAN FASCIST CRIME IN ETHIOPIA
During the Italian Fascists’ invasion of Ethiopia during 1935-41, huge losses were incurred including the murder of 1 million Ethiopians (30,000 in a few hours in Addis Ababa alone; over 300 monks, nuns, and clergy at the famous Debre Libanos monastery, etc.), destruction of 2000 churches, 525,000 homes, 14 million animals, and the environment.

ROLE OF THE VATICAN IN THE FASCIST CRIME IN ETHIOPIA
Authors of high repute including Avro Manhattan, Sylvia Pankhurst, Paulos Gnogno, and many others have put on record that the Vatican was fully complicit with the Italian Fascists in the crime against Ethiopia. Following the Lateran Treaty between Pope Pius XI and Mussolini, the Vatican and the Fascists were working in full partnership to facilitate and prosecute the war that played such a huge devastation in Ethiopia. For references and more information, please browse: www.globalallianceforethiopia.org.

WHO WAS POPE PIUS XII AND WHAT WAS HIS ROLE AGAINST ETHIOPIA?
Eugeno Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) was born on 2/3/1876. From 1901 onwards, for 30 years he was working in tandem (with Gasparri, Undersecretary in the Department of Extraordinary Affairs in the Vatican) “during a period in which canon law, and concordat law – the Holy scope of international relations were to shape growth of twentieth – century papal power. By 1930, Pacelli would succeed Gasparri as Cardinal

2. Secretary of State, a post he would obtain until he became Pontiff” (1) in March, 1939 and remained Pope Pius XII until he died in 1958.

According to a quote in the “News That Matters” (http://ivarfield.wordpress.com), entitled: “Pope Saved by Mussolini”, it is stated: “Pope Pius XII would not have been “pope” if Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini had not brought the Papal system back to Rome after 59 years in exile……It was Pacelli’s job to keep the Papal promise of supporting the Fascist dictator.”

It is absolutely incontestable that in his capacities as a close assistant to Gasaparri, the previous Undersecretary, his elevation to become the Vatican’s Cardinal Secretary of State with responsibilities for international relations including treaties entered into with European nations, and, later, in his role as a Pontiff, Pope Pius XII played a key role in the formulation and application of a Vatican policy that supported the Fascists who perpetrated an “unimaginable crime” (2) against humanity in Ethiopia.

According to “Horizon Press”, New York, 1949, “Msgr. Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, then the gray eminence behind Pope Pius XI, sponsored a policy supporting Fascism in Italy and then the Nazis in Germany, to help the prophecy come true. In fact he became the chief instrument in helping Hitler to get into power. This he did by urging the German Catholic Party to vote for Hitler at the last German general election in 1933. The basic idea was a simple one. Fascism and Nazism, besides smashing the Communists in Europe, ultimately would smash Communist Russia”

According to Dr. Ian R. K. Paisley, a noted authority on the role of the Vatican: “The evidence against Hitler’s Pope Pius XII for his pro Hitler ways is overwhelming. So much so that every effort to change history is engaged in the ever increasing embarrassment of the Roman Catholic Church of the 21st Century.” Nevertheless, it is fair to state that there are claims to the effect that Pope Pius XII did attempt to help some Jews while, on the other hand, there are claims that he was coercing some of them to change their religion to Catholicism.

(1)Cornwall, John, “Hitler’s Pope – The Secret History of Pope Pius XII”, 1999
(2)Words used by Pope Benedict XVI describing the Nazi holocaust against Jews.

3. It is further stated in GlobalSecurity.org: “It is known that Pope Pius' hatred for Communism made him share the ideas of the fascist leaders of Italy, Germany, Spain, and other countries. While denouncing Nazi and Fascist ideologies in abstract terms and without mentioning names, like his predecessors, Pius XII took great pains up to the eve of war to exalt with words of high praise the Duce and his government.”

THE VATICAN’S CURRENT POLICY
The Vatican’s policy can only be described as inconsistent. Its long silence on the role of the Vatican in the atrocious crime committed by the Fascists against Ethiopia is, to say the least, deafening! It must nevertheless be stated, with appreciation, that the Vatican has expressed its repeated apology to Jews for its silence during the Nazi holocaust. Regrettably, however, the Vatican has turned a deaf ear to repeated appeals for its apology to the Ethiopian people for its complicity with the Fascists. It is interesting to note here that soon after his accession to being a Pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI, made it one of his primary duties to visit a synagogue in Cologne where he characterized the Nazi holocaust as “an unimaginable crime” against humanity. Repeated letters pleading with His Holiness to apply the same Christian principle to the case of Ethiopia have had no response yet. This is particularly surprising as the Vatican has been apologizing to the Jews for merely being silent during the holocaust whereas in the case of the war crime against Ethiopia, the Vatican had in fact blessed the Fascist army on its way to murder innocent Africans!

APPEAL!
There is no doubt that the Vatican and the Catholic community of 1.2 billion adherents give great value to the respect for human rights and justice whether in the present or historic contexts. That is the essence of the Vatican’s repeated apologies for the holocaust crime against the Jews. Therefore, Pope Benedict XVI is requested, once again, to give due consideration to the Ethiopian case, and offer the much overdue apology to the Ethiopian people and desist from deepening the wound against Ethiopians by beatifying the very Pope (Pope Pius XII) who was responsible for the huge loss of human life. We request Your Holiness, to please not add insult to injury!

We call on all people who believe in justice and human rights to express their support for this appeal by taking all necessary measures including the signing of an international petition which may be viewed at www.globalallianceforethiopia.org. We applaud the effort being exerted by the international Jewish community in opposition to the Vatican’s beatification of Pope Pius XII and fervently call for its support of the appeal by the

4. Global Alliance for Justice – The Ethiopian Cause (www.globalallianceforethiopia.org) for a Vatican apology to the Ethiopian people. We also call upon the Catholic church as well as Ethiopian and other Catholics worldwide to support this international appeal for justice in the light of the crime committed against innocent Ethiopian people.

Mr. John Polifronio (No. 60 in the website’s list of petition signers), a person of Italian origin, and currently residing in California, USA, has submitted the following remarks:
“I’m an Italian, born during this atrocity, and wish to express my
profoundest horror that this was done by members of the government,
who were from the country of my origins. No apology can possibly
begin to deal with this inhumanity directed at the Ethiopian people.
I’m filled with revulsion and sorrow at discovering the extent of the
Italian government’s involvement during the period 1935-41 in these
hideously inhuman actions.”

A particular plea for action is directed to the Ethiopian Patriotic Association, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church which had lost so many churches as well as two bishops at the hands of the Fascists, the World Council of Churches, Amnesty International, the Genocide Watch International, the United nations, the African Union, the European Union, and all other concerned institutions and individuals to voice their opposition to the proposed sainthood for Pope Pius XII and call upon the Vatican to express its formal apology to the Ethiopian people for its complicity with the Italian Fascists.

Ethiopia raises its hands unto God. (Psalm 68/31)