Here it is: Opening the archives will not - indeed, by definition, cannot - settle the historical controversy about Pius XII and his alleged silence during the Holocaust.

That's because the debate is counter-factual, pivoting not on what Pius did or didn't do, but rather what he should have done.

• Should Pius XII have publicly denounced Hitler?
• Should he have threatened to excommunicate anyone involved in the mechanism of the Holocaust?
• Should he have pressured the Allies to liberate Nazi extermination camps earlier?
• Should he have offered himself in ransom for German prisoners in Rome after the 1943 occupation of the city, or come up with some other dramatic gesture to register disapproval?

Answers to those questions involve subjective judgments about what would have produced the best results in a complicated set of circumstances - whether fortune would have favored the bold, or discretion was the better part of valor - and, alas, there's no "smoking gun" in anyone's archives that will provide conclusive resolution one way or the other.

Moreover, the debate over Pius XII is also a moral one, and as anyone who's ever taken moral philosophy or basic logic knows, one cannot deduce an "ought" from an "is."

You can pile up all the historical facts you like, but in themselves they won't tell you what Pius or anyone else ought to have done.

By now, the basic data points about Pius XII and the Holocaust are wearily familiar to anyone who's followed the back-and-forth since 1963, when Rolf Hochhuth published his play "The Deputy" and thereby launched the accusation that the pontiff was complicit, at least through his silence, in the mass extermination of Jews.

Prior to that point, it's well-established that Pius XII enjoyed broad admiration for his leadership during the war years, including within the Jewish community. Continue reading

• Image: Soundcloud

"Church of Spies: The Pope's Secret War Against Hitler" by intelligence specialist Mark Riebling details actions by Pius to stop Hitler.

The author wrote that Pius cooperated in a variety of plots, initiated by patriotic, anti-Nazi Germans, to assassinate Hitler and replace the National Socialist regime with a government that would make peace with the West.

The Nazis were deeply disturbed by the election of Pius XII in 1939, given Eugenio Pacelli's history.

The Nazis commissioned an assessment of the situation from Albert Hartl, a former Catholic priest, who warned that the Catholic Church would prove a serious threat to the Third Reich.

"The Catholic Church fundamentally claims for itself the right to depose heads of state," Hartl wrote, "and down to the present time it has also achieved this claim several times."

This statement seemed to embolden disaffected German officers who were seeking assistance to overthrow Hitler.

In 1938, several high-ranking German officers began turning against Hitler, for fear he would lead the country into a devastating war.

After the invasion of Poland in 1939, the German military conspirators sought to reach out to their adversaries, especially the British, to seek aid in overthrowing Hitler.

In order to do this, they needed a person who could serve as an intermediary and vouch for their integrity, and so they approached Pius XII, who was highly regarded in Britain.

They asked the pope's top assistants to ask Pius one critical question: Would he be willing to contact the British government and receive guarantees that it would back the German Resistance if Hitler was overthrown?

Pius XII replied that he was willing do so, declaring, "The German Opposition must be heard".

In subsequent efforts to overthrow Hitler, anti-Nazi officers received crucial moral and logistical support from Pius XII, as well as from his closest aides, the book seeks to show.

Sources

• Breitbart
• Image: The Guardian

I came to this conclusion after studying about 2,000 pages, entitled "persecuzioni contra gli Armeni", in both the Archives of the Apostolic Delegation in Constantinople and the Secretary of State in the Vatican Secret Archives for an upcoming book[1], many of them for the first time.[2]

There is no doubt that Eugenio Pacelli (who became Pius XII in 1939) was extremely well informed about this dark chapter of World War I.[3]

From 1914 he was Secretary of the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs of the Holy See's Secretariat of State. He became Undersecretary of State when Benedict XV named Cardinal Gasparri as Secretary of State.

In this position he had prime access to all information on the Armenian genocide and indeed we find his characteristic handwriting on several documents dealing with it.

Being responsible for several Papal relief initiatives during the War, he was well-informed about it. In several cases, the Apostolic Delegate in Constantinople, Msgr. Angelo Dolci, addressed Pacelli directly in his letters and reports to the Holy See.[4]

Later on, when Benedict XV appointed Pacelli as Nuncio to Bavaria, Pacelli was involved in a diplomatic intervention to prevent further massacres after the Russian retreat from northeastern Turkey following the Brest-Litovsk treaty.[5]

Indeed, all biographers of Pius XII agree that the wartime diplomacy of Pope Benedict XV served as a model for Pius XII's actions during World War II, when the "Pope of Peace"[6] served as his role model, especially in his stress on the Vatican's "impartiality".[7]

But what did Pius XII learn from his experience with the Armenian genocide? Continue reading

Sources

• MercatorNet
• Image: World War I in the Middle East

"Shades of Truth" is the account of a fictional present-day American journalist and critic of Pius who changes his mind after carrying out research.

Some Jews have accused Pope Pius of failing to use his position to bring attention to Hitler's attempted extermination of the Jews.

The Vatican has said Pius worked actively behind the scenes to save thousands of Jews.

He did not speak out more forcefully for fear his words could have led to more deaths of both Jews and Christians at the hands of the Nazis.

"Shades of Truth", based on the work of Jewish historian Pinchas Lapide, credits Pius XII with saving the lives of 800,000 Jews.

The filmmakers argue that Pius XII was "the most misunderstood figure of the 20th century".

Director Liana Marabini said "Pinchas Lapide is absolutely credible, because he was Jewish, he lived during war and knew Pius XII well".

But Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said the film was naive, lacking credibility and a "frankly clumsy attempt" at defending the wartime pontiff.

Italian Catholic magazine Famiglia Cristiana said the film would damage Pius's reputation.

This is because it was overly apologetic and not sufficiently based on historical documents that defend him.

Pagine Ebraiche, the online paper of Rome's Jewish community, called the film "a blundering soap opera of dubious quality, filled with stereotypes".

This paper particularly criticised a scene in which the journalist dreams he sees Pius wearing a yellow star of David on his white cassock, like the emblem the Nazis forced Jews to wear.

Marcello Pezzetti, director of the Museum of the Shoah Foundation in Rome, said the film presented a "false interpretation of history".

"Shades of Truth" will be released internationally next month.

Its director hopes to be able to show it in the Cannes Film Festival.

Last year, Pope Francis said the cause for beatification of Pius XII had stalled because no miracle attributable to his intervention had been found.

Sources

• The Guardian
• Catholic World News
• The Local
• Catholic Herald
• Image: The Guardian

In an interview with Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia last week, the Pope was asked if he still had a room reserved in a retirement home in Buenos Aires.

Pope Francis said "yes", explaining that it is a "retirement house for elderly priests".

He said that he had been making retirement plans before the 2013 conclave.

"I was leaving the archdiocese . . . and had already submitted my resignation to Benedict XVI when I turned 75," the Pope said in the interview.

"I chose a room and said ‘I want to come to live here'. I will work as a priest, helping the parishes. This is what was going to be my future before being Pope."

In the interview, Francis, 77, said Pope Benedict XVI had created an "institution" of emeritus popes.

"Well, as we live longer, we arrive to an age where we cannot go on with things," Pope Francis continued.

"I will do the same as him, asking the Lord to enlighten me when the time comes and that he tell me what I have to do, and he will tell me for sure."

This was the second time in two weeks that Francis had discussed the possibility of retirement

In the wide-ranging Spanish interview, Pope Francis also spoke of his anguish at images of malnourished children, when the world generates enough food to feed them.

He hit out at an economic system that rejects the young and discards the elderly, while making a god out of money.

Pope Francis also said opening Vatican archives from the Nazi era would reveal a great deal.

He defended wartime Pope Pius XII's record in helping Jews.

"I don't want to say that Pius XII did not make any mistakes - I myself make many - but one needs to see his role in the context of the time."

Pope Francis expressed his annoyance at the focus on the role of Pius XII and the Church, when Allied powers did not bomb railway lines leading to death camps.

Sources

• Catholic News Agency (interview text in English)
• National Catholic Register
• Haaretz
• Catholic Herald
• Image: The Blaze

A report in The Guardian newspaper says Vatican insiders believe this new evidence will restore the late pope's reputation by revealing "the part that he played in saving lives and opposing Nazism".

The author, Gordon Thomas, is a Protestant. His new book, The Pope's Jews, to be published in March, details how Pius gave his blessing to the establishment of safe houses in the Vatican and Europe's convents and monasteries.

The pope oversaw a secret operation with code names and fake documents for priests who risked their lives to shelter Jews, some of whom were even made Vatican subjects.

Priests were instructed to issue baptismal certificates to hundreds of Jews hidden in Genoa, Rome and elsewhere in Italy. More than 4000 Jews were hidden in convents and monasteries across Italy.

More than 2000 Jews in Hungary were given fabricated Vatican documents identifying them as Catholics and a network saved German Jews by bringing them to Rome.

During and immediately after the war, The Guardian reports, the pope was considered a Jewish saviour. Jewish leaders — such as Jerusalem's chief rabbi in 1944 — said the people of Israel would never forget what he and his delegates "are doing for our unfortunate brothers and sisters at the most tragic hour".

The pope's image turned sour in the 1960s, thanks to Soviet antagonism towards the Vatican and a German play by Rolf Hochhuth, The Deputy.

The Guardian said the Vatican is so excited by The Pope's Jews that it is supporting a feature documentary film being planned by a British producer who has bought the rights to it.

Sources:

The Guardian

MacMillan

Image: The Guardian

Church officials' however remain skeptical.

Maria Esposito was ready to give up. Wasted away at 42 kilos, she couldn't bear another dose of chemotherapy to fight the Stage IV Burkitt's lymphoma that had invaded her body while she was pregnant with her second child.

But as she and her family had done since she was diagnosed with the rare and aggressive form of cancer in July 2005, Esposito prayed to the man who had appeared to her husband in a dream as the only person who could save her: Pope Pius XII.

Esposito's case, which the 42-year-old teacher recounted to The Associated Press in her first media interview, has been proposed to the Vatican as the possible miracle needed to beatify Pius, one of the most controversial sainthood causes under way, given that many Jews say he failed to speak out enough to stop the Holocaust.

Pius' main biographer, American Sister Margherita Marchione, has championed Esposito's miracle case and personally presented it to the Vatican's No. 2 official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

Pope Benedict XVI moved Pius one step closer to possible sainthood in December 2009 when he confirmed that Pius lived a life of "heroic" Christian virtue. All that is needed now is for the Vatican to determine a "miracle" occurred.

"I'm certain that inside of me there was the hand of God operating, thanks to the intercession of Pope Pius XII," Esposito said during a recent interview in her cheery dining room in the seaside town of Castellammare di Stabia on the Amalfi coast. "I'm convinced of it."

Other doctors and church officials aren't so sure.

Esposito's local bishop, Monsignor Felice Cece, summoned Esposito earlier this year to testify about her recovery to determine if indeed it was medically inexplicable, one of the key thresholds required by the Vatican to determine if a miracle occurred.

After consulting two outside doctors, Cece determined that Esposito could have been cured by even a single cycle of chemo and essentially closed the case.

Sources

• Stuff

On Sunday he "backed off" the comment, saying his analysis was "premature" and that it was a personal judgement.

Lewy's initial comments were made at a ceremeony on Thursday night to honour an Italian priest who helped Jews. During the course of his speech he mentioned that Catholic convents and monasteries had opened their doors to save Jews in the days following a Nazi sweep of Rome's Ghetto on October 16, 1943.

"There is reason to believe that this happened under the supervision of the highest Vatican officials, who were informed about what was going on," he said in a speech.

"So it would be a mistake to say that the Catholic Church, the Vatican and the pope himself opposed actions to save the Jews. To the contrary, the opposite is true," he said.

Thursday's comments were the warmest ever made by a Jewish official about Pius XII.

Afterwards, however, Lewy was quickly assailed by a group of Holocaust survivors.

Three days later the ambassador cooled his comments, saying they were premature as the matter was still being researched.

"Given the fact that this context is still under the subject of ongoing and future research, passing my personal historical judgment on it was premature," the statement said.

Some Jewish groups labelled Lewy's comments as "morally wrong", "historically inaccurate" and "hurtful" to Holocaust survivors.

Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors said he appreciated Lewy's clarification.

"It takes courage to admit a mistake," he said.

The question of what Pius did or did not do to help Jews has tormented Catholic-Jewish relations for decades and it is very rare for a leading Jewish or Israeli leader to praise Pius.

Many Jews have accused Pope Pius XII of turning a blind eye to the Holocaust, whereas the Vatican says Pius worked behind the scenes because speaking out would have led to Nazi reprisals against Catholics and Jews in Europe.

Sources

• Reuters
• Press Association
• Image: Boston Chronicle