People who advocate "chastisement" of little children like to quote Bible verses in support of their theory. However, the verses they quote are all from the Old Testament and from a time when life in general was rough and primitive.

If they studied the teachings of the Christ they claim to follow, they would find no such encouragement for violence. He commended parents who gave their children what they asked for: "Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? ... So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you."

When people tried to keep children out of the way, Jesus indignantly exclaimed, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them." He even told a story about a man who didn't want to answer the door because "my children are with me in bed." Hardly a case for letting them cry themselves to sleep!

Instead of trying to make children over with harsh discipline, the hero of the New Testament admonished people, "Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." (All references quoted are from the New International Version.)

I feel those who teach that spanking is a Christian method of raising children are misrepresenting the truth.

-- Kathleen McCurdy

What's going on here is not a slight difference of opinion in parenting styles. The facts are that when people institute Gary and Anne Marie Ezzos' horrible advice, some of the babies go to the hospital, malnourished, dehydrated and failing to thrive. Newborns are diagnosed with failure to thrive because of the rigid feeding schedules and demands of parents that babies eat when food is offered or suffer the consequence -- waiting another three to four hours. Sometimes feeding tubes are necessary to keep the infants from dying. Babies are left to cry unattended for long periods, sometimes until they vomit, sometimes until there is blood in their mouths. Some babies stop making eye contact with their mothers. Can you blame them? The object of the Ezzos' practices is to break the child's will and spirit, and, by golly, it does.

-- Peggy McGonigle

Bum rap
BY LAWRENCE OSBORNE
(10/27/99)

Lawrence Osborne doesn't seem to have read the book. Eugenio Pacelli had no problem at all standing up against communist atrocities and was quite willing to put himself on the line for that. Also, Osborne is ignoring the single most crucial point: that Pacelli completely dismantled the German Center Party (a Catholic party), which was at the time the strongest opposition party in Germany to the Nazis before they really came to power.

The church before the concordat barred Nazis from receiving the sacraments of the church. Hitler specifically signed this concordat to get Pacelli to declare this political opposition by Catholics wrong and to forbid the church and its members from denying the sacraments to members of the Nazi Party. After this, Hitler's primary opposition was completely dismantled; Catholics considered this the church's official approval of the Nazi party and many joined the party in droves.

Pacelli said nothing condemning specifically the massive Jewish genocide going on, of which he had full knowledge. Several documents uncovered by the author indicate Pacelli's own anti-Semitism as well as the connection he saw between Judaism and communism, which he saw as a far greater threat to the world than fascism or national socialism. He just made two very vague statements denouncing the unfortunate suffering of people during the war due to their race -- without even mentioning Judaism specifically. He did nothing at all to stop the deportation of the Jews of Rome when he was clearly in a position of influence to do so. Hitler wanted to take over the Vatican, but the Roman head of the SS sent a letter explaining exactly why this was completely unfeasible, as it would have enraged the world's huge Catholic population and turned them against the Nazis.

This is not an author who started the book with an ax to grind but, as he makes clear, a devout Catholic who intended to write a completely different kind of book, but could not after confronting the facts, for which I congratulate him. As a Catholic who finds it extremely important that the truth about these matters be addressed and confronted, I find this whole article sickeningly offensive.

-- Cathy Witalka

Most of the reviews of the Cornwell slander against Pius XII have been naively or maliciously favorable. But Lawrence Osborne understands how weak the argument is that Pius' centralization of the Catholic Church weakened the will of German Catholics to resist Hitler. There was no such German Catholic will to resist Hitler. Pacelli did have a disagreeable personality and he did expect to be treated more like an idol than the successor of a flesh-and-blood Simon Peter. But Pacelli was no anti-Semite and no lover of Hitler. He was just too much a diplomat and too little a Christian pastor. Cardinal Tardini reminded Catholics after World War II that Vatican diplomacy originated with Simon Peter's denial of Christ. Blackening Pius XII has become necessary for leftist Catholics and for some Jews; but he was not the worst of popes, though surely not the best.

-- Norman Ravitch
Professor of history
University of California, Riverside

Lawrence Osborne's review cites the slaughter of the Dutch Jews in 1942 to underline the Nazi response to any Catholic criticism of the policy of annihilation. But this situation can't really be compared to what happened in Rome in 1944, since the German position in Italy at that time was much more precarious. The Allied advance was inexorably coming closer to Rome -- and a prominent papal response to the Jewish round-up, one which might even have put the Nazis in the position of actually having to physically imprison the pope, would have tied up precious resources. It was a classic negotiating situation, and that Pius XII didn't do anything is a grave blot on his name -- especially when examined alongside the welcome and protection he extended to Croatian war criminals, who were Catholic, after the war.

Osborne scores debater's points by turning Cornwell's argument into the position that the church, under Pacelli, could have stopped the massacres cold. That argument would, of course, be ridiculous. But the much more interesting argument has to do with whether, in some places and at some points during the war, the church could have operated differently so as to save Jews. The corollary to the proposition that they could have is to show that, due to internal political issues within the Vatican, they didn't take their opportunity. Since we know this to be the case with other governments -- notably, Horthy's in Hungary -- Osborne's rejection of it seems unmerited.

Furthermore, the case against the Vatican is strengthened by the Catholic role in some other places, like Croatia, Slovakia and perhaps Hungary. Slovakia was officially headed by a priest; and the situation in Croatia, in which Serbs and Jews were killed in astonishingly high numbers, was supported by many priests. Because the church was much more concerned about communism than fascism, it did sanction collusion in these cases.

If nothing else, Cornwell's book makes a strong case for the Vatican opening up its records on this period in history. It also makes it plain that Pius XII was no saint.

-- Roger Gathman

It is indeed unlikely that Pius could have swayed Hitler's policies toward European Jews (or Gypsies, homosexuals and Catholic dissidents). However, I disagree that this absolved Pius from his moral responsibility to speak out. Silence about totalitarianism is tacit approval, and in the case of someone in Pius' position, collaboration. We can guess, in hindsight, that Pius could not have changed the course of events, but it's wrong to conclude that he need not have tried.

-- Bill Ravdin
Oakland, Calif.

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