Israeli Cabinet Minister Ignites Debate Over Pope Pius's Holocaust Actions

Should Pope Pius XII, the pope who led the Vatican through the Second World War, be considered for sainthood? An Israeli cabinet minister surprised experts when he waded into the increasingly heated debate on the issue this week, saying it would be "unacceptable" to consider canonizing Pius XII, whose reluctance to condemn the Holocaust during World War II has drawn accusations that he turned a blind eye to the fate of the Jews.

"Throughout the period of the Holocaust, the Vatican knew very well what was happening in Europe," Isaac Herzog, Israel's social affairs minister, told the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz. "Yet there is no evidence of any step being taken by the pope, as the stature of the Holy See should have mandated." Herzog, whose role in government is to serve as a liaison with the Christian community, insisted that the pope's failure to speak out should disqualify him from being considered for sainthood, a process that has been delayed since Pius's death in 1958. "The attempt to turn him into a saint is an exploitation of forgetfulness and lack of awareness," Herzog said. "Instead of acting according to the biblical verse 'Thou shalt not stand against the blood of thy neighbor,' the pope kept silent—and perhaps even worse."

The Vatican has consistently defended the wartime actions of Pope Pius XII, an Italian cardinal named Eugenio Pacelli, and never more forcefully than last month, when Pope Benedict XVI declared his predecessor had done all he could—and more than most—to stop the Holocaust. "Wherever possible, he spared no effort in intervening in [the Jews'] favor either directly or through instructions given to other individuals or to institutions of the Catholic Church," Benedict said. By necessity, he insisted, these interventions were "made secretly and silently, precisely because, given the concrete situation of that difficult historical moment, only in this way was it possible to avoid the worst and save the greatest number of Jews."

Many viewed Benedict's remarks as an attempt to revive the long-delayed beatification process for Pius, one of the last steps on the path to sainthood. A Vatican spokesperson, however, said Benedict wasn't trying to jump-start the process—which has been postponed for years, largely because of the controversy surrounding Pius's wartime actions—but simply wanted to encourage reflection about Pius, who died 50 years ago this year. "It isn't right to submit [Benedict] to pressures on one side or another," said Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi, who insists beatification, should it occur, remains "in the kingdom of the future."

The historical community remains deeply divided over the Vatican's wartime actions, with Israelis and the Vatican arguing, most recently, over the historical accuracy of an exhibit at the Holocaust museum at Yad Vashem. The exhibit describes Pius as, at best, "neutral" during the war. In a caption, it points out that when he became pope in 1939, the year World War II began, Pius shelved a statement prepared by his predecessor condemning racism and anti-Semitism; he did not protest verbally or in writing when reports of the Holocaust began to reach him; and in 1942, he abstained from signing the Allied declaration condemning the extermination of the Jews. The Vatican has asked the museum to reconsider these conclusions, but the museum has pointed out that the pope's wartime archives remain closed.

While some historians, in provocative books like Hitler's Pope, have gone so far as to argue that Pius collaborated with the Nazis during the war, most serious scholars believe that is not a fair assessment. The current Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, said last year that the idea that the pope was somehow in league with Hitler ''is now so firmly rooted that people just ignore evidence to the contrary.''

Recently discovered documents demonstrate that Pacelli was undoubtedly disgusted by the Nazis. While serving as the nuncio to Germany in 1923, Pacelli wrote a letter denouncing Hitler's putsch. As the Vatican's secretary of state in the 1930s, he protested Hitler's anti-Semitic race laws, which prevented Jews from marrying "Aryans" or owning businesses, among many other restrictions. In 1935, Pacelli gave a speech in which he called the Nazis "miserable plagiarists who dress up old errors with new tinsel," saying they were "possessed by the superstition of a race and blood cult."

Once he became pope, taking the name of his immediate predecessor, Pius XI, who had consistently denounced Nazi doctrines and attitudes, Pius XII does appear to have made an effort to quietly save victims of the Holocaust. Correspondence on Vatican letterhead in 1940 indicates that Pius asked members of the clergy to do whatever they could to help interned Jews. Newly discovered documents in British government archives reveal that Pius may even have been active in plots to overthrow Hitler. The diaries of Adolf Eichmann, the SS officer widely considered to have been the architect of the Holocaust, demonstrate that many in the SS thought the Vatican was attempting to hamper their deportation efforts.

Some Jewish refugees, for their part, have long insisted that the pope's low-profile response to the Holocaust was in their best interests. "None of us wanted the pope to take an open stand. We were all fugitives, and fugitives do not wish to be pointed at," wrote one Jewish couple that escaped from Berlin to Spain with Pius's help. "If the pope had protested, Rome would have become the center of attention. It was better that the pope said nothing. We all shared this opinion at the time, and this is still our conviction today." According to some groups' estimates, the Roman Catholic Church saved more than 800,000 Jews during the war.