The Vatican’s own Cardinal Eugène Tisserantb supplies one reason with the candor and openness of a private letterc to a friend. After the fall of France in 1940, he wrote complaining to Cardinal Suhard of Paris that “Fascist ideology and Hitlerism have transformed the consciences of the young, and those under thirty-five are willing to commit any crime for any purpose ordered by their leader.” But how could these Church-trained consciences be so easily “transformed”? After all, Hitler had been working on them only about seven years, while the Church had been training its flock for well over a thousand!

“Vital Point of Christianity”

Surely Pope Pius could do something about this Nazi encroachment into traditional Church territory​—the human conscience! But Cardinal Tisserant mourns:

“Since the beginning of November [1939], I have persistently requested the Holy See to issue an encyclical on the duty of the individual to obey the dictates of conscience, because this is the vital point of Christianity.” (Italics added)

However, history reveals no papal statements during the war on this “vital point of Christianity.” In fact, Tisserant went on to make the melancholy forecast: “I fear that history may have reason to reproach the Holy See with having pursued a policy of convenience to itself and very little else. This is sad in the extreme.”³

Thus when the head of the Church did speak on matters affecting conscience, as did almost all of his clergymen, he applauded the consciences of those who ‘loyally’ served in military forces of any stripe. In fact, when the Vatican’s Berlin correspondent for the official newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, once asked Pius XII whether he would protest the extermination of the Jews, the pope told him that he could “not forget that millions of Catholics serve in the German armies. Shall I bring them into conflicts of conscience?”⁹