THE LAST GREAT ROMAN
In 1941 and 1942, under pressure from U.S. President F.D. Roosevelt and others in the Western Allied camp wanting to soothe any religious objections to the Western Alliance’s military relations with the Soviet Russia, Pope Pius XII was led to believe that acceptance of the Western Alliance’s association with the Soviet Union was the lesser of two evils facing Europe and the Western Christian world at that time. The Pope knew enough about the philosophical creeds of Marxism and National Socialism to make up his own mind, which he did. He looked to the future
of Germany and saw two distinct social realities on the horizon: Soviet Communism and National Socialism under the leadership of Adolf Hitler and knew that only one would survive would take over the immediate political future of Germany.
In the six years that Nuncio Eugenio Pacelli spent in Munich, from 1919 to 1925 he gathered information about this new personage on the scene, Karl Heinrich Marx, German philosopher,economist, and social theorist. He soon learned that much of the gathered information was beginning to frighten him as a man and as a Papal Nuncio. By the time he, Pacelli, was posted to Berlin in 1925 he knew the life and thoughts of Karl Marx in fine detail. Pacelli visited the town where Marx was born and raised, Tier, and visited the University of Bonn where Marx was a student for a year. He had personal interviews with living relatives of Marx and of Jerry von
Westphalen, Karl Marx’s wife.
During his stay in Berlin, Cardinal Pacelli read the records of Karl Marx’s studies at the University of Berlin. He also visited the boarding house where Marx lived while in Berlin and went to Stralau where Marx met regularly with members of the Young Hegelians. Pacelli inspected police records which displayed records of anarchistic activity by the members of the Doktor-Klub of which Marx was a member.
Pacelli noticed that Karl Marx early in his youth had written a composition titled The Union of the Faithful with Christ, in which Marx exalted the social and spiritual Christian brotherly love amongst men and societies. This theme of the value and benefits of Christianity continued in other
early writings. Then suddenly this all changed and Marx wrote poetry and hymns charged with anti-Christian themes which now praised the destructive power expressed in the Faustian phrase “Everything in existence is worth being destroyed.”
Benito Mussolini also saw the menace of the Soviet Communist threat to Italy and to Europe early in his political career. He saw that this threat was not only limited to the Soviet Union, but rather was a threat of world wide sovietization and the very real possibility of a Western European Soviet, not only in the form of an armed military takeover but also a slow peaceful infiltration of the Western World with the philosophical and political programs of Marxism -- a friendly open
form of Marxism posing as fellow comrades with the Christian countries of Europe -- a
diplomatic Marxism.
Pius XII speaks about Benito Mussolini "The greatest man I have ever met and without a doubt among the most kind hearted: for this matter I have a lot of evidence to prove it." As affirmed by Pope Pius XII,. 1952
Bea knows what is bothering the pope. In 1941-1942, under pressure from U.S.President
Roosevelt among others, Pacelli had collaborated in soothing religious objections to the Western Alliance with Soviet Russia against Hitler. He had yielded to the argument that Hitler was the greater of two evils. But what if he had chosen neither? Now Pacelli is afraid that he had thereby helped Marxism in taking over Europe and the whole world. Bea consoles him. “Who could have known that
the Anglo-Saxons would let the Russians go that far.” 4
4 Cardinal Agustin Bea, S.J. to Pope Pius XII - page 266
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church Copyright 1981 MalachI Martin
Academic Press Canada Ltd, Toronto
In 1941 and 1942, under pressure from U.S. President F.D. Roosevelt and others in the Western Allied camp wanting to soothe any religious objections to the Western Alliance’s military relations with the Soviet Russia, Pope Pius XII was led to believe that acceptance of the Western Alliance’s association with the Soviet Union was the lesser of two evils facing Europe and the Western Christian world at that time. The Pope knew enough about the philosophical creeds of Marxism and National Socialism to make up his own mind, which he did. He looked to the future
of Germany and saw two distinct social realities on the horizon: Soviet Communism and National Socialism under the leadership of Adolf Hitler and knew that only one would survive would take over the immediate political future of Germany.
In the six years that Nuncio Eugenio Pacelli spent in Munich, from 1919 to 1925 he gathered information about this new personage on the scene, Karl Heinrich Marx, German philosopher,economist, and social theorist. He soon learned that much of the gathered information was beginning to frighten him as a man and as a Papal Nuncio. By the time he, Pacelli, was posted to Berlin in 1925 he knew the life and thoughts of Karl Marx in fine detail. Pacelli visited the town where Marx was born and raised, Tier, and visited the University of Bonn where Marx was a student for a year. He had personal interviews with living relatives of Marx and of Jerry von
Westphalen, Karl Marx’s wife.
During his stay in Berlin, Cardinal Pacelli read the records of Karl Marx’s studies at the University of Berlin. He also visited the boarding house where Marx lived while in Berlin and went to Stralau where Marx met regularly with members of the Young Hegelians. Pacelli inspected police records which displayed records of anarchistic activity by the members of the Doktor-Klub of which Marx was a member.
Pacelli noticed that Karl Marx early in his youth had written a composition titled The Union of the Faithful with Christ, in which Marx exalted the social and spiritual Christian brotherly love amongst men and societies. This theme of the value and benefits of Christianity continued in other
early writings. Then suddenly this all changed and Marx wrote poetry and hymns charged with anti-Christian themes which now praised the destructive power expressed in the Faustian phrase “Everything in existence is worth being destroyed.”
Benito Mussolini also saw the menace of the Soviet Communist threat to Italy and to Europe early in his political career. He saw that this threat was not only limited to the Soviet Union, but rather was a threat of world wide sovietization and the very real possibility of a Western European Soviet, not only in the form of an armed military takeover but also a slow peaceful infiltration of the Western World with the philosophical and political programs of Marxism -- a friendly open
form of Marxism posing as fellow comrades with the Christian countries of Europe -- a
diplomatic Marxism.
Pius XII speaks about Benito Mussolini "The greatest man I have ever met and without a doubt among the most kind hearted: for this matter I have a lot of evidence to prove it." As affirmed by Pope Pius XII,
Bea knows what is bothering the pope. In 1941-1942, under pressure from U.S.President
Roosevelt among others, Pacelli had collaborated in soothing religious objections to the Western Alliance with Soviet Russia against Hitler. He had yielded to the argument that Hitler was the greater of two evils. But what if he had chosen neither? Now Pacelli is afraid that he had thereby helped Marxism in taking over Europe and the whole world. Bea consoles him. “Who could have known that
the Anglo-Saxons would let the Russians go that far.” 4
4 Cardinal Agustin Bea, S.J. to Pope Pius XII - page 266
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church Copyright 1981 MalachI Martin
Academic Press Canada Ltd, Toronto
