Encyclical

* Rabbi Marvin Hier’s commentary (“Hidden Encyclical Could Have Changed World,” March 8) is an appeal to reason and justice. The encyclical in question, an official letter commissioned by Pope Pius XI denouncing racism and anti-Semitism, was to have been published and distributed worldwide in 1939. Pius XI died the same year and the encyclical was not published.

Georges Passelecq and Bernard Suchecky, authors of a scholarly treatise on the subject, “The Hidden Encyclical of Pius XI,” revealed that Pope Pius XI had been sabotaged by a cabal of Vatican conservatives including his secretary of state and the next pope, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (Pius XII). The authors concluded that the delay and subsequent refusal to publish the encyclical resulted in the lost opportunity to oppose Nazi racial policies that led to the Holocaust.

Beatification (bestowing sainthood) of Pius XII, as currently considered by Pope John Paul II, is a bitter irony and an insult to the memory of Pius XI and the millions who died in the Holocaust.

LEE KUDROW

Tarzana