Christmas, ‘sorrowing humanity,’ and the voice of the popes

Christmas is joy, light, and peace. The birth of a poor Child, lying in a manger, illuminates the world even in the midst of war, famine, calamities, and tragic events that affect the history of nations, peoples and families. The Popes urge us to welcome and embrace this little human child, born in Bethlehem, who comforts suffering humanity.

Pius XII and those destined for death due to nationality or race

A particularly dark and tragic moment – experienced especially by European Jews – occurred during the Second World War.

On 20 January 1942, some of the most senior officials of the Nazi party and the German government gathered in a villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to discuss a topic that was referred to in the minutes of that conference as the “final solution to the Jewish question.”

A little less than a year later, on 24 December 1942, “a lonely voice” rose from the microphones of Vatican Radio, according to an editorial in The New York Times at the time, “crying out of the silence of a continent.” It was the voice of Pope Pius XII delivering his  on Christmas Eve.

The Pope expressed his hope that “the star shining over the grotto of Bethlehem” would shed its “comforting and encouraging” light upon “suffering humanity” in a world marked by the horrors of war.

Among the atrocities of the Second World War, Pope Pacelli also denounced the tragedy that in the vocabulary of the Nazis corresponded to the expression “final solution.”