This letter appeared in the May 11, 1998 issue of the New Republic.
To the editors:
Predictably, The New Republic didn’t like what the Vatican had to say in its document on the Holocaust, We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah (“With Burning Anxiety,” April 6). Instead of trying to recount line by line the editorial on this subject, I have just one question: Which institution, or group of people, did more to save Jews than the Catholic Church? According to Israeli diplomat and scholar Pinchas Lapide, the Vatican saved 860,000 Jews. That is why Albert Einstein, who had previously “despised” the Church (his words), exclaimed during the war, “only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing truth.” By contrast, Einstein said, the universities and the newspapers did nothing. And now those who did nothing have the gall to point fingers at the Catholic Church!
William Donohue
President, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights
