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Pope Pius XII's 1942 Christmas Address
Pope Pius XII's 1942 Christmas address was a speech delivered by Pope Pius XII over Vatican Radio on Christmas 1942. It is notable for its denunciation of the extermination of people on the basis of race, and followed the commencement of the Nazi ''Final Solution'' program to exterminate the Jews of Europe. The significance of the denunciation is a matter of scholarly debate. Background The 1942 Christmas Address by Pope Pius XII was made shortly after the war had turned decisively against Nazi Germany. Hitler had broken his alliance with Stalin and advanced into the Soviet Union, although his army in Stalingrad had been surrounded, decimated, starved and was about to surrender, precipitating disaster on the Eastern Front. Following decisive victories in North Africa, the Pacific and the air war in Northern Europe, the war had turned in favour of the Allies. From May 1942, the Nazis had commenced their industrialized slaughter of the Jews of Europe – the ''Final Solution''. The ...
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Pope Pius XII
Pope Pius XII ( it, Pio XII), born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (; 2 March 18769 October 1958), was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 2 March 1939 until his death in October 1958. Before his election to the papacy, he served as secretary of the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, papal nuncio to Germany, and Cardinal Secretary of State, in which capacity he worked to conclude treaties with European and Latin American nations, such as the '' Reichskonkordat'' with the German Reich. While the Vatican was officially neutral during World War II, the ''Reichskonkordat'' and his leadership of the Catholic Church during the war remain the subject of controversy—including allegations of public silence and inaction about the fate of the Jews. Pius employed diplomacy to aid the victims of the Nazis during the war and, through directing the church to provide discreet aid to Jews and others, saved hundreds of thousand ...
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Divini Redemptoris
''Divini Redemptoris'' (Latin for the promise of a Divine Redeemer) is an anti-communist encyclical issued by Pope Pius XI. It was published on 19 March 1937. In this encyclical, the pope sets out to "expose once more in a brief synthesis the principles of atheistic Communism as they are manifested chiefly in Bolshevism". Mariano Cordovani O.P. (February 25, 1883 – April 4, 1950) professor of dogmatic theology at the College of Saint Thomas, the future Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, ''Angelicum'' from 1912 to 1921 and Master of the Sacred Palace under Pope Pius XI contributed especially to the encyclical and afterward published his ''Appunti sul comunismo moderno'' treating the Church's position on communism. Description The encyclical describes communism as "a system full of errors and sophisms" that "subverts the social order, because it means the destruction of its foundations" as well as removing women from their rightful place in the home. Pius XI ...
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Joint Declaration By Members Of The United Nations
The Joint Declaration by Members of the United Nations was the first formal statement to the world about the Holocaust, issued on December 17, 1942, by the American and British governments on behalf of the Allied Powers. In it, they describe the ongoing events of the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Europe. The statement was read to British House of Commons in a floor speech by Foreign secretary Anthony Eden, and published on the front page of the ''New York Times'' and many other newspapers. It was made in response to a 16-page note addressed to the Allied governments on December 10 by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Polish government-in-exile, Count Edward Raczynski, titled The Mass Extermination of Jews in German Occupied Poland and his official Raczyński's Note addressed to western governments. The Members then stood in silence, an honour usually reserved for the death of a Monarch A monarch is a head of stateWebster's II New College DictionarMonarch Houghton Miffli ...
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Moral Authority
Moral authority is authority premised on principles, or fundamental truths, which are independent of written, or positive, laws. As such, moral authority necessitates the existence of and adherence to truth. Because truth does not change, the principles of moral authority are immutable or unchangeable, although as applied to individual circumstances the dictates of moral authority for action may vary due to the exigencies of human life. These principles, which can be of metaphysical or religious nature, are considered normative for behavior, whether they are or are not also embodied in written laws, and even if the community is ignoring or violating them. Therefore, the authoritativeness or force of moral authority is applied to the conscience of each individual, who is free to act according to or against its dictates. Moral authority has thus also been defined as the "fundamental assumptions that guide our perceptions of the world". An individual or a body of people who are seen as ...
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Luigi Maglione
Luigi Maglione (2 March 1877 – 22 August 1944) was an Italian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He was elevated to the cardinalate in 1935 and served as the Vatican Secretary of State under Pope Pius XII from 1939 until his death. Pius XII never replaced Maglione, opting to assume the responsibilities of the office himself, with the assistance of two undersecretaries. Early career and education Born in Casoria, Maglione was educated at the ''Almo Collegio Capranica'' and Pontifical Gregorian University, from where he obtained doctorates in philosophy and theology, in Rome. He was ordained to the priesthood on 25 July 1901, and then did pastoral work in the Archdiocese of Naples until 1903. Maglione studied at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy from 1905 to 1907; he later taught there from 1915 to 1918. He served an official of the Vatican Secretariat of State from 1908 to 1918, rising to become a Privy Chamberlain (17 June 1910) and a Domestic Prelate (22 February ...
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Polish Government-in-exile
The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile ( pl, Rząd Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej na uchodźstwie), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Poland of September 1939, and the subsequent occupation of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union, which brought to an end the Second Polish Republic. Despite the occupation of Poland by hostile powers, the government-in-exile exerted considerable influence in Poland during World War II through the structures of the Polish Underground State and its military arm, the Armia Krajowa (Home Army) resistance. Abroad, under the authority of the government-in-exile, Polish military units that had escaped the occupation fought under their own commanders as part of Allied forces in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. After the war, as the Polish territory came under the control of the communist Polish People's Republic, the government-in-exile rema ...
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Allies Of World War II
The Allies, formally referred to as the Declaration by United Nations, United Nations from 1942, were an international Coalition#Military, military coalition formed during the World War II, Second World War (1939–1945) to oppose the Axis powers, led by Nazi Germany, Empire of Japan, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy (1922–1943), Fascist Italy. Its principal members by 1941 were the United Kingdom, United States, Soviet Union, and Republic of China (1912–1949), China. Membership in the Allies varied during the course of the war. When the conflict broke out on 1 September 1939, the Allied coalition consisted of the United Kingdom, French Third Republic, France, and Second Polish Republic, Poland, as well as their respective Dependent territory, dependencies, such as British Raj, British India. They were soon joined by the independent dominions of the Commonwealth of Nations, British Commonwealth: Canada, Australia, Dominion of New Zealand, New Zealand and Union of South ...
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The Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were carried out in pogroms and mass shootings; by a policy of extermination through labor in concentration camps; and in gas chambers and gas vans in German extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bełżec, Chełmno, Majdanek, Sobibór, and Treblinka in occupied Poland. Germany implemented the persecution in stages. Following Adolf Hitler's appointment as chancellor on 30 January 1933, the regime built a network of concentration camps in Germany for political opponents and those deemed "undesirable", starting with Dachau on 22 March 1933. After the passing of the Enabling Act on 24 March, which gave Hitler dictatorial plenary powers, the government ...
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Michael Phayer
Michael Phayer (born 1935) is an American historian and professor emeritus at Marquette University in Milwaukee and has written on 19th- and 20th-century European history and the Holocaust. Phayer received his PhD from the University of Munich in 1968 and joined Marquette's Department of History in 1970. He attained the rank of Professor in 1990 and retired in 2002. He is the Ida E. King Distinguished Visiting Scholar of Holocaust Studies at Stockton University. He has published numerous research articles and books relating to Nazi Germany, the Holocaust and the Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ..., including his most recent, ''Pius XII, the Holocaust, and the Cold War'' (2007). His previous work was '' The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930–196 ...
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Golda Meir
Golda Meir, ; ar, جولدا مائير, Jūldā Māʾīr., group=nb (born Golda Mabovitch; 3 May 1898 – 8 December 1978) was an Israeli politician, teacher, and '' kibbutznikit'' who served as the fourth prime minister of Israel from 1969 to 1974. She was the first woman to become head of government in Israel. Born in Kyiv in the Russian Empire, she immigrated to Wisconsin, United States as a child with her family in 1906, and was educated there, becoming a teacher. After getting married, she and her husband emigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1921, settling on a ''kibbutz''. Meir was elected prime minister of Israel on 17 March 1969, after serving as labour minister and foreign minister. The world's fourth and Israel's only woman to hold the office of prime minister, and the first in any country in the Middle East, she has been described as the "Iron Lady" of Israeli politics. Meir was Prime Minister during the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Israel was caught off guard and suffere ...
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The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper. History Origins The first issue, published on 4 December 1791 by W.S. Bourne, was the world's first Sunday newspaper. Believing that the paper would be a means of wealth, Bourne instead soon found himself facing debts of nearly £1,600. Though early editions purported editorial independence, Bourne attempted to cut his losses and sell the title to the government. When this failed, Bourne's brother (a wealthy businessman) made an offer to the government, which also refused to buy the paper but agreed to subsidise it in return for influence over its editorial content. As a result, the paper soon took a strong line against radicals such as Thomas Paine, Francis Burdett and Joseph Priestley. 19th century In ...
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