Rabbi Says Wartime Pope Fumbled On Hitler

(AP)  A Jewish leader says Pope Benedict XVI is considering a request to freeze the sainthood process for wartime Pope Pius XII.

Rabbi Ravid Rosen says the pope was asked to do so during a meeting with a Jewish group Thursday and that the pontiff replied he would give "serious consideration" to the request to wait.

Some Jewish leaders and historians have said Pius didn't speak out enough during World War II to save Jews during Hitler's extermination campaign.

Rosen spoke after the Vatican had rejected Jewish groups' requests for the immediate opening of its secret archives on Pius XII's papacy during the Holocaust years.

Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said the requests to see the wartime archives were "understandable," but added Thursday that cataloguing some 16 million documents is expected to take another six or seven years.

Currently, the archives can be consulted only up through the papacy of Pius XII's predecessor, Pius X, which ended in early 1939, a few months before World War II began in Europe.

Pius XII was Pius XI's secretary of state, as Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli. Some scholars who have examined archive documents dealing with the future Pius XII's diplomacy say Pacelli was a sometimes indecisive diplomat as Nazism and Fascism took hold in parts of Western Europe.

The Vatican says Benedict has been reflecting on documentation gathered by Church officials about Pius XII's virtues as part of the process toward possible beatification, the last formal step before possible sainthood. Benedict, marking the 50th anniversary recently of Pius' death, has described him as a great pope who spared no effort to try to save Jews.

Earlier this month, Israeli president Shimon Peres urged the Vatican not to let a contentious reference to Pius XII stop Benedict from visiting the Holy Land sometime. A caption accompanying a photograph at Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial alleges the wartime pope did not act to save Jews from the Nazi genocide.

Benedict met Thursday with Rosen and others from the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations. The pontiff called for "sincere dialogue" and called Church condemnation of all forms of anti-Semitism a "significant milestone."

Neither Benedict nor Rosen in their speeches mentioned the sainthood controversy.

Rosen said Jews were "profoundly grateful for all that the Holy See has said and done in recent times" to combat anti-Semitism and he expressed thanks for Christians who "saved many Jews" during the Holocaust.

"We reiterate our respectful call for full and transparent access of scholars to all archival material from that period, so that assessments regarding actions and policies during this tragic period may have the credibility they deserve," Rosen said.

The late Pope John Paul II made an official visit to Israel in 2000.

[indianaman13]

How dare this Rabbi ask for anything. Until Israel finds peace with its neighbors it and its religion should just be quite. How many times has Israel struck first?(6 day war the made the first strike) Why, after WW One did Briton occupy Palestine? What possible interest could that country have had there unless it was being influenced by people of the Jewish faith who wished to push another people of the land they have occupied for centuries? To put this in a way Americans can understand, it would be like the Native Americans taking back all the land to the west of the Mississippi with the help of Russia, how would you feel about it?

[babooph]

The Rabbi is likely right -what does he say about Jewish behavior in their Palistinian holocost ??

[tucano2]

One accurate source of information concerning the Vatican being used to pass messages back and forth between the Swartz Capelle group of anti-Nazi German Generals and the British is a 2-volume book "Bodyguard of Lies" written very well indeed by Anthony Cave Brown.

[rayosun9]

Can you believe that this board won''t allow the word for homosexuals , i.e. "g a y s", which I tried to use in my previous post(s) in an attempt to defend and help them!

[rayosun9]

"What''s the big deal?" Famural asks.
I''ll tell you.
A billion people on earth consider their pope the most important moral teacher on earth, practically the 4th person of the blessed Trinity. Yet, as I document fully at a website that I have been working on for years, this "vicar of Christ" allowed the 1/3rd of Germans who were Catholics to follow a bunch of fellow "Christians" - many of them Roman Catholics like themselves - who created a political movement called Nazism, which included the persecution and eventually the destruction of the Jewish race.
Just Google "RCscandal" (one word) and explore the first site recommended.
Because the church has never been held responsible for the results of their promotion of contempt for the Jews for centuries, it can''t see what''s wrong with their continuing to promote contempt for *** in OUR day.

[rayosun9]

"What''''s the big deal?" Famural asks. A billion people on earth consided their pope the most important moral teacher on earth, practically the 4th person of the blessed Trinity. Yet, as I document fully at a website that I have been working on for years, this "vicar of Christ" allowed the 1/3rd of Germans who were Catholics to follow the many Catholics who directed the Nazi holocaust. Just Google "RCscandal" (one word) and explore the first site recommended.
Because the church has never been held responsible for the results of promoting contempt for Jews for centuries, it is now continuing to promote contempt for ***.

[famural]

Saint, Schmaint, who cares? What''s the big deal? The WWII Pope either did more than some say or less; I doubt that pieces of paper will answer the questions about him to anyone''s satisfaction who''s wandering around alive today. What''s the beef? There were a billion plus people on this planet in those years. Should we judge them all on what they did or didn''t do? Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, later Pius XII, was first and foremost a human being, next he was an Italian, next he was a Catholic, next he was Pope, etc., etc.. How about all the others who were closer to the problem? In the middle of the problem? Technically, by the Christian method of calculating these things, he''s either in heaven (and therefore a Saint) or he''s in the other place (and damned for all eternity). --Someone told me that Catholics don''t go to Purgatory anymore.-- So the only question is, when he died, did he go Up the Staircase or Down? I got this wonderful feeling that like most Italians, he went up. Nuf said! See ya in the afterlife. Maybe.