REFLECTION PAPER on Pope Vs.

Hitler
The name Adolf Hitler is a ringing name, popularly known to be the great dictator of the
th
20 century, leader of the Nazi’s, subject to all media platforms such as books, magazines, films
and documentaries. His existence and what he left in the world bringing about injustices,
leadership and power, both the good and the bad, has been such a large impact that it can’t ever
be forgotten by human kind. Throughout studying, I’ve always known him to be the perfect
example of evil, killing millions of Jews and other innocent people. For all I know, he started the
World War II! He’s that kind of evil! I thought I’ve known enough until I watched the
documentary “Pope Vs. Hitler”. It helped me understand more about his governance and how the
Catholic Church was involved in it.
It was new to me that the Pope during that time, Pope Pius XII, had relations to the Axis
and Allies to stop Hitler and end World War II. I thought that the encyclical by the preceding
pope was all that reigned during the time as a solution to Hitler’s reign. I did not think that he
went that far, risking his life and the life of many people as well to fight the Nazi power. I
remember in the film when Hitler knew about the pope’s connection to people against him and it
caused his rage over the Jews. Although it was unexpected, the risk that Pope Pius took made a
big turndown for the worst. I guess this motivated him even more to help get rid of the said
dictator.
This now question my beliefs as a Catholic. He secretly supported the plans to eradicate
Hitler which means killing him and allowing the rise of a new government, hence having any
ruling without Hitler and his beliefs in it. I agree to his intention to free the people from war and
racism but his acts to support on assassinating him question the notions of morality, right? They
say that no matter how bad a person is, he or she is a child of God, has a rights and dignity to be
protected. Despite all of those, I believe there is an exception. When many lives are involved,
lost and wasted, all by one person, something must be done to immediately and totally get rid of
the evilness. I thought at first, why not have him arrested? Then I thought of the answers myself,
as well. Getting him captured would take too long and many killings would prevail. He’s too
powerful to topple over and they are running out of time. It seemed like there’s no option left but
to do that. This is where I stopped questioning Pope Pius’ decision to make connections with the
German resistance. He prayed to God about this upon making the decision to help save the lives
of millions in exchange of one.
The film was really interesting, shedding light on the stories of other people involved in
stopping the Nazis, of what it took to finally win over the bad. I’ve learned that good still
prevails in the end after seeing how many attempts happened before Hitler was defeated. I
realized that demons really do exist as they protect people that are on their side, that people are
subject to temptation if they have little to no faith in God. They can be easily persuaded by evil
like the Nazis who worship Hitler. The Pope’s courage and resilience is also very notable. Here I
learned that when we are faced with such hard situations, it’s hard to trust people therefore we
must have someone we can really rely upon. The relationship of the Church and State can also be
analyzed in the film. Pope Pius support to the German resistance show that the church and state
could work together to fight for peace and justice.
Overall, I still think that what happened in history was meant to happen anyway. History
happens for us to learn from our mistakes. Now, to prevent these things, I believe several talks,
treaties, encyclicals and the like have been created uniting the different countries. And May
Adolf Hitler and the Nazis remain in the past only in books and documentaries studied in
classrooms.