Word: pius
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...those laws is surprise. Unless the playwright indulges in revisionist history, the element of surprise is missing. Rolf Hockhuth's argument in The Deputy that Pope Pius XII bore a greater responsibility than Hitler for the deaths of 6 million Jews was distinctly surprising, and while it failed to convince, it certainly contributed to the success of the play. No such element of surprise exists in I Have a Dream and Billy Dee Williams' performance has a snake oil slickness that robs it of the craggy integrity that Hal Holbrook brought to Mark Twain, or Henry Fonda...
Moro and his Christian Democrats have lately received help from an expected-but in some measure unwelcome-source. For the first time since the days when Alcide de Gasperi was the D.C. leader and autocratic Pope Pius XII threatened to excommunicate all Italians who voted Communist, the Vatican is taking a more overt part in an Italian campaign. Addressing a national conference of bishops last month, Pope Paul VI used the personal pronoun I instead of the pontifical we to stress his interest in the election. He obliquely exhorted Catholic voters to remain united behind the traditional Catholic party...
Nevertheless, the church in recent weeks has quietly begun to provide political support for the Christian Democrats. Catholic Action, the lay organization that in Pius' time was the Pope's election spearhead, is now a moribund organization of only 600,000 people; nonetheless, nearly 5 million lay Catholics in Italy have been mounting a well-orchestrated word-of-mouth appeal against voting Communist. The Communists complained that some D.C. workers go so far as to mark sample ballots for householders and warn them, "If you vote Communist, it may be the last time you get a chance...
Pope's best weapons. So far, few have delivered direct pulpit orders to their flocks to vote D.C., as many did in Pius' day. But as Franco Sasso, a parish priest in the southern town of Molfetta, indicated last week to TIME Correspondent Erik Amfitheatrof, he would quietly remind parishioners, "When you make your choice, you must be consistent with your faith...
...conflicting views make only one thing clear: the facts have begun to fall into place, but there is as yet no consensus on the behavior of Pius XII. If anything, Volume IX has heightened the debate rather than resolved...