111 - The Deputy and Christian Conscience?

The Deputy and Christian Conscience
By James H. Nichols*

HOCHHUTH'S The Deputy is a powerful and passionate arraignment of the honesty and relevance of the Christian church in the modern world. The specific issue is more restricted, an indictment of Pope Pius XII for not speaking out against Nazi atrocities. But the scope of the indictment extends itself in the minds of the hearers to broader dimensions, perhaps, than the author himself had in mind. Here is an unrelenting accusation of the moral bankruptcy of Christianity in one of the great crises of history, and further, the probing challenge to religious faith itself-how can one believe in God in the stench of Auschwitz? The dramatic form is only a vehicle of convenience for a denunciatory sermon. There are conspicuous lapses and failures of artistic realization, but the preacher's passion sustains the needed intensity, and those most grateful for the play feel least like clapping.

Taken as the representative of organized Christianity generally, Protestant as well as Catholic, and as the spokesman of the Christian conscience, the "deputy" of Christ, the Pope, is legitimately pilloried as guilty of betrayal. He stands for all of us well-intentioned, decent, respectable Christians who could not believe what was whispered, who did not want to know what was going on, who had so many institutional interests and responsibilities, political and ecclesiastical, which would certainly suffer if we admitted the truth. Pius XII, the Catholic Church, the Protestant churches, all of us "made the great refusal" even more despicably than the Pope whom Dante placed in hell on that charge. The Pope and the churches which

* Rolf Hochhuth's drama, The Deputy, which has caused a stir during the past year wherever it has played on the Continent, is now the subject of controversy in this country. Playing to full houses on Broadway, and available in at least two different English texts, the whole tangled ethical question of Christian conscience in the face of evil is being explored afresh in dramatic form. James H. Nichols' a Protestant Observer at Vatican Council II, presents in this brief but perceptive review his initial reactions to the play.

112 - The Deputy and Christian Conscience?

claim to speak for Christ proved themselves unsafe guides in faith and morals. Can we deny that the Lieutenant Gerstein's and the Father Fontana's were the exceptions, alike in Roman Catholicism and in Protestantism?

That, you may say, is a Protestant reaction. Indeed it is. How can one respond to such a searching religious and moral assault without revealing his own commitments? It is curious how afraid everyone is of "dialogue," despite all the perpetual talk about it. The National Conference of Christians and Jews urges that viewers strip themselves of religious convictions and view the play "solely by its merits or demerits." And the opponents of dialogue who mill around before the theatre marquee with the Nazi thugs seem to suppose that the Roman Catholic Church lacks the resources to defend its cause before literate people. Of course, no one can or should strip himself of religious convictions in the face of issues to the understanding of which they are indispensable. The function of such a play as this is precisely to make men acknowledge and test their deepest religious differences in a dialogue, not to deny they have any.

How can any Gentile, however sympathetic, react to these scenes of the moral and physical degradation of Jews with the same identification as a Jew, who may well have known relatives who played these roles in life? How can any Protestant react to the treatment of Pius XII with the shock of a Roman Catholic brought up to revere this specific man as well as his office?

Here is the greatest difficulty of the presentation. The central and deeper meanings of the play are likely to be obscured by unresolvable bickering about the adequacy of the portrayal of the Pope. Hochhuth invites such debate. He supplies documentation to support his historical prosecution of this man. His case is more inclusive than the Pope; the Pope is only a representative of the churches, yes, but Hochhuth will not leave it there; he wants a verdict on this particular man. And he has evidence to give color to these charges, of anti-semitism at the Vatican, of the moral corruption of anti-communism-at-any-price, of pro-German and authoritarian sympathies, of prudential concerns with finance and property. Yet even if one were to grant all the charges, the Pope is unbelievable, dramatically unconvincing. The dramatist here fails, and the prosecuting attorney takes over. For a humanly credible presentation of the prudential compromises of the Vatican we must turn rather to the Cardi-

113 - The Deputy and Christian Conscience?

nal, who makes a serious case for the less-than-Christian course, and with less of the sanctimonious cant of Hochhuth's pontiff. Protestants may be expected to take this in stride emotionally, and the usefulness of the play is probably greatest for them, provided they locate themselves within the arraignment of the Pope. Few Roman Catholics can be expected to sustain the shock of the attack on the Pope sufficiently to appreciate the more comprehensive meanings of the play. Yet surely one who undertakes to stand as Christ's deputy opens himself to more searching moral scrutiny than ordinary men.

The issue, to be sure, is argued often on too low a level, of speculations as to how many Jews might have been saved by explicit papal protest, as against calculations of exacerbated Nazi atrocities and retaliations. Surely what was really at stake was fidelity to the teaching office for the clarification of consciences, and the genuineness of faith in God on which such fidelity rests. The real charge is betrayal of man by a Vatican and a church leadership which no longer dared to believe that the mind and will of Christ were really of God. How else to explain the confident blasphemy of the doctor of Auschwitz? The explanation of unbelief in the world, as Frederick D. Maurice once put it, is unbelief in the church.