Critics say that a papal protest to the Nazis might have saved millions of lives. But the present pope, Paul VI, insists that “an attitude of protest and condemnation would have been not only futile but harmful.”

Pius XII himself lays bare this very issue in a recently published private letter to the priest who caused “Msgr.” Tardini’s exasperation. As president, the priest, Jozef Tiso,a ruled the Nazi protectorate of Slovakia throughout the war (1939-45). Pius wrote “Monsignor” Tiso that he had hoped that the Slovak government and people, “Catholic almost entirely, would never proceed with the forcible removal of persons belonging to the Jewish race,” and the fact that “such measures are carried out among a people of great Catholic traditions, by a government which declares it is their follower and custodian,” distressed him greatly.​—April 7, 1943.²

No doubt the pope’s “policy” of diplomatic care in dealing with the Nazis did ensure the “convenience” of survival for the Vatican and the Church. Pius himself advised the German bishops that “the danger of reprisals and pressures,” or worse, called for “restraint” in their pronouncements “in order to avoid greater evils. This is one of the motives,” he wrote, “for the limitations” he put on his own declarations.​—April 30, 1943.⁴