Vatican Says Pius XII Wasn’t Anti-Semitic

The Vatican rejected new allegations Friday that Pope Pius XII was an anti-Semite who did little to help Europe’s Jews during the Holocaust, arguing instead that the pope had worked prudently for peace.

The recent biography “Hitler’s Pope,” by British writer John Cornwell, has raised new questions about whether Pius could have saved more Jewish lives.

The renewed debate comes as the Vatican is considering the World War II pope for beatification, the penultimate step before sainthood.

To support its defense, the Vatican presented the book “Pius XII and the Second World War,” a compilation of documents from the Vatican archives gathered by Father Pierre Blet, a French Jesuit.

“Certainly he wasn’t an anti-Semite. He helped the Jews,” said Blet, who together with Cardinal Pio Laghi presented the book of archives at a Vatican news conference.

Blet and Laghi denied that the Vatican ever received concrete evidence of the extent of Hitler’s campaign to exterminate Jews.

Although modern satellites can detect “a cow in the field in Nicaragua,” it is unfair to judge the World War II era by such standards, Laghi said. Moreover, bishops in both Germany and Poland had advised Pope Pius to be prudent and not to “raise your voice too loud,” Laghi added.

In the book of archives, Blet acknowledges that “Pius XII proceeded silently, with discretion, at the risk of appearing inactive or indifferent.”

“And yet the work of assisting the war’s victims was his favorite undertaking,” Blet wrote.