L'homme qui s'appelait Jean

The Roman Catholic Church has come under attack recently for its supposed "silence" with regard to the Holocaust in World War II. This is a rare film that demonstrates the actual record.

Angelo Roncalli, who later became Pope John XXIII, was serving as the Holy See's Apostolic Nuncio (ambassador) to Turkey in World War II when Germany sought to pressure Turkey to expel Jewish refugees there. The film shows how Roncalli foiled this effort. His was one of many similar efforts across Europe.

I would also recommend, for those interested in films in this general area, "The Scarlet and the Black," a 1983 made-for-TV movie with Gregory Peck as Monsignor Flanigan and Christopher Plummer as the Nazi officer.

This compelling true story is one of the most memorable I have seen on TV. Raymond Burr's performance was magnetic. The screenplay brought to life a little known historical event. Roncalli is a true model for all Christians, willing to save the lives of Jewish children by obtaining Catholic Baptismal certificates for them. I wish this program were available somewhere. Does anyone know of a tape that exists of this program? I have visited the Raymond Burr vineyards in Sonoma, California and have talked with Burr's long time companion who says that the distribution rights to this Harbor Production are now with Universal. In the winery shop there is a cover from the TV Guide in 1973 showing Raymond Burr in profile as Pope John XXIII. I implore anyone who reads this to contact Universal and help get this program out to the public again. It should not be in some archive.

I enjoyed seeing that the person telling the story of what John XXIII did to help the Jewish children turned out to be one of those children who had grown up. Many knew of what this man did after becoming Pope. Not many knew of his unsung accomplishments that were done in the fearful times of Nazi threats.

I just happened to see it on television as a small child, and I can remember whole segments of it. Burr was amazingly powerful as the great voice for sanity and compassion in the Church, Angelo Roncalli, the only Pope that I, raised a Catholic, can truly say I revere and admire as a man.

Roncalli's magnificent efforts to save Jewish children in Turkey and Bulgaria, depicted in this film, do not absolve the entire Church from complicity in the Holocaust, and he himself knew this all too well. Hannah Arendt met with him, and asked what he planned to do against "The Deputy", a play that depicted Piux XII as silent and uncaring in the face of the Nazi exterminations. His reply was "What can you do against the truth?"

So don't use this great and holy man to whitewash the memory of a small and banal one. Pius was not an anti-semite, so much as he was a coward, afraid of what the Nazis would do to him if he spoke out too strongly--in truth, he made it clear early on that he was only concerned with Jewish converts to Christianity. Most of the Jews saved under his watch were not saved by him directly--the Gregory Peck film about Father Flannery shows that he was really only concerned with the survival of the Church as an Institution. He was quite willing to collaborate with the Nazis, if the Nazis won. He was also a racist, and refused to let black American GI's come inside Vatican City, because he thought they'd rape the nuns.

Not a good man. But John XXIII was as great and good a man as the 20th century ever saw. This film is a moving tribute to his humanity and faith. I only wish the Church he tried so valiantly to change better appreciated how right he was.

The choice of the name John XXIII by the newly elected Pope, the former Angelo Cardinal Roncalli, caused a stir among Church history scholars. The problem was that there already was a Pope John XXIII in the Middle Ages. But he was an anti-Pope. This, however, was in dispute among some circles with some alleging that the medieval John was duly elected. Thus, for hundreds of years no Pope had taken the name of John fearing perhaps that, one way or the other, they would be passing erroneous judgment on this controversy. It is said that Roncalli decided to end the controversy by becoming the 23rd John, thus affirming that the other John XXIII was not a valid Pope.

When I was a child, the just departed Pope John was viewed by many as a Saint.

I was, therefore, both scandalized and amused that this movie should portray him as a forger and a dissembler. He was involved in rescuing east European Jewish children from the Nazi holocaust by supplying them with Baptismal Certificates to "prove" that they were Catholics and therefore should be allowed to emigrate and issued passports by sympathetic members of the international diplomatic corps who were colleagues of Msgr. Angelo Roncalli, Papal Nuncio to Turkey. The foreign diplomats considered him (elected?) their "Dean."

About the moral question: In Acts, we read about Paul hiding in one of the jars laden on a donkey when he was being pursued by soldier agents of the Sanhedrin. When asked of his whereabouts, his companion answered: "He has not gone far" therefore leading the soldiers on a wild goose chase. Did Paul's disciple lie? He did not. Did he deceive the questioners? No. The soldiers deceived themselves.

I thought about this when I saw the movie but somehow I found that the position of St. Paul's companion did not exactly match that of Msgr. Roncalli. As Papal Nuncio, the latter signed documents which stated facts which he knew were not true. Not only that, he ordered their preparation.

The question is begged: Were the Nazis entitled to the truth? Were the immigration authorities of other countries concerned similarly entitled? (They would have turned back the children if they knew they were Jews.) The answer to both questions is : No. Did Msgr. Roncalli "bear false witness against thy (his) neighbor"? Again the answer is : No. Not that the Nazis were not Roncalli's neighbors but in the sense that he did not bear witness against them. It may even be said that he was performing an act of charity in their favor by depriving them of the opportunity to commit the heinous crime of murdering innocent children.

In my humble opinion, we could safely say that Angelo Roncalli or Pope John XXIII is not now burning in hell or even undergoing purgation for what he did to save Jewish children. Pope John Paul II obviously agrees for he has promoted our good Pope John from Venerable to Blessed.

By the way, Raymond Burr, delivered a very credible and "look alike" performance closely mimicking the mannerisms and almost hunchback stoop of the late Pope. To think that in movies, I often saw Burr as a bad guy "heavy" except of course on TV's Perry Mason where he was the hero.