The following article was written by Ronald Rychlak, Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi Law School. He also serves on the Board of Advisers of the Catholic League.
Picture: Rolf Hochhuth, wikicommons, CC-BY-SA
Rolf Hochhuth has passed away in Germany at the age of 89. He is best known as author of the 1963 play The Deputy (Der Stellvertreter), which first raised serious charges against Pope Pius XII and his leadership of the Catholic Church during the Holocaust. The play tried to make the case that Pius, if not actually pro-Nazi, at least feared Communism more than he feared Hitler.
Prior to the play, Pius had been hailed as a hero to the victims, an inspiration to the rescuers, and as the New York Times editorialized in 1942, “a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent.” After the play, his reputation was that of a silent enabler if not a collaborationist. While the play was fictional, Hochhuth claimed that it was based on “provable facts,” and …More