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VATICAN CITY —  Pope Benedict XVI has moved Pope John Paul II one step closer to possible beatification, the milestone before sainthood. Benedict on Saturday approved a decree attesting to John Paul's heroic virtues. Benedict still must sign off on a miracle attributed to John Paul's intercession before the late pope can be beatified. Benedict put the Polish pontiff on the fast track for sainthood just weeks after his April 2, 2005 death, waiving the customary five-year waiting period and allowing the investigation into John Paul's virtues to begin immediately. Benedict also approved a decree on the heroic virtues of Pope...

Francis Phillips hails a stunning study of Catholic resistance to National Socialism 16 October 2009 John Frain subtitles this book, Catholic Resistance in the Nazi Era and at first glance it might seem a well-trodden path, adding little to what is already known. For instance, negative publicity given to the alleged "silence" of Pope Pius XII during the War has led to a succession of scholarly studies of his attitude and behaviour towards Jewish victims of Nazi persecution. But Frain's terms of reference are wider than this; he examines every level of Catholic opposition to Hitler, particularly in Germany: the...

New evidence published today by the newspaper of the Italian bishops gives more credence to the belief that Adolf Hitler had planned to either kidnap or kill Pope Pius XII. It has long been conjectured that Hitler had ordered the SS commander in Italy, General Karl Wolf, to seize the Vatican and take the Pope. Dan Kurzman wrote about it in his 1997 book "A Special Mission: Hitler's Secret Plot to Seize the Vatican and Kidnap Pope Pius the XII," which is based on interviews with Wolf himself. Wolf's accounts, however, could never be verified. New evidence published today by...

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) – Upon the gracious consent of the author, we here publish a translation of the Introduction to the book “In difesa di Pio XII – Le ragioni della storia” (“In defense of Pius XII – The Historical Reasons”), written by Giovanni Maria Vian and published by Edizioni Marsilio. Pius XII? A distant pope, with such faded depictions that he is left almost unrecognizable...or deformed by a controversial representation that is so harsh and insistent that it veils the historical reality. This is the image that today prevails of Eugenio Pacelli, elected to the See of...

Many thanks to Patrick Madrid for granting me permission to reprint in my column the section of his book Pope Fiction titled "Pope Pius XII and the Jews" (pp. 285–306; footnotes are not included in this reprint). Mr. Madrid is an author, radio host, and director of the Envoy Institute of Belmont Abbey College. Pope Pius XII and the Jews By Patrick Madrid Myth: Pope Pius XII was silent in the face of Nazi atrocities against the Jews during World War II, and that silence led to the deaths of many innocent people. If he, as pope, had exercised his...

Pope Pius XII, born Eugenio Pacelli, was pontiff during WWII and considered by many one of the greatest heroes of the war. To others, he is simply "Hitler's Pope." The 46-year-old controversy surrounding Pacelli casts a shadow over Pope Benedict's trip this week to the Holy Land. Benedict's visit will include a stop in Israel, where he will pay respects to Holocaust victims at Yad Vashem but refrain from visiting the museum there that features an exhibit critical of Pius. The exhibit includes a photo of the wartime pontiff with a caption that says he failed to protest the Holocaust...

Pope Pius XII Rome, Italy, Mar 6, 2009 / 01:52 pm (CNA).- Father Peter Gumpel, the promoter of Pope Pius XII’s cause of beatification, revealed this week that he has uncovered new proof of the Pope’s efforts to protect Jews from the Nazis. The evidence consists of a note from the archives of a Roman monastery that includes a direct order from the Holy Father to give shelter to persecuted Jews.In statements to Vatican Radio, Father Gumpel said the note from the archives of the Augustinian Nuns of the Roman Monastery reads: “The Holy Father wishes to save his...

How Pius XII defended the Jews By Jesse Romero   There is a contradiction I wish to explore, beginning with the following two editorials that appeared in the New York Times more than 50 years apart: "The voice of Pius XII in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas . . . . He's about the only ruler left on the Continent of Europe who dares to raise his voice at all." (New York Times, Dec. 15, 1941). "A full exploration of Pope Pius's conduct is needed . . . . It now falls to John Paul and his...

An Israeli expert believes the Vatican will not be able to pull back from its stance on Pope Pius XII because of mistakes made by Israel.  Dr. Yitzhak Minerbi, an expert on Vatican relations, told Ynet that Israel helped speed up the process of turning the World War II pope into a saint, due to lack of a suitable foreign policy and its failure to honor agreements signed with the leadership of the global Catholic Church. Recent days have seen a rise in tensions in the relations between the Jewish state and the Vatican over an inscription accompanying a photograph...

Leading this morning's memorial Mass on the 50th anniversary of Pope Pius XII's death, B16 donned a Roman vestment in tribute to the Eternal City's last native to become its bishop... and indicated that the movement toward Eugenio Pacelli's beatification continues well apace: Among other things, Benedict prayed aloud that the cause to declare Pius XII a saint “may move forward happily.” Benedict XVI’s comments came in a homily for a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica commemorating the 50th anniversary of the death of Pius XII in October 1958. A reminder of the controversy surrounding Pius came earlier in...

Rabbi tells Vatican synod: 'We can't forget' Wartime Silence Philip Pullella, Reuters Published: Tuesday, October 07, 2008 VATICAN CITY - The first Jew to address a Vatican synod told the gathering yesterday Jews "cannot forgive and forget" that some major religious leaders during the Second World War did not speak out against the Holocaust. Rabbi Shear-Yashuv Cohen's words, spoken in the presence of Pope Benedict, were a clear reference to Pius XII, the wartime pope who many Jews say did not do enough to help them. "We cannot forget the sad and painful fact of how many, including great religious...

When one approaches the figure of Pius XII "free from ideological prejudices", one must recognize his "courageous and paternal dedication" to saving, wherever possible, the greatest possible number of Jews, which included working "secretly and silently". A congress organized by the Pave the Way Foundation 50 years after the death of Pope Pacelli gave Benedict XVI the opportunity to recall the "historical truth" about Pius XII's efforts to save Jews, which were recognized after the war by many Jewish figures, including 80 delegates of concentration camp survivors. "So much has been written and said" about Pius XII, the pope noted,...

Pave the Way Foundation Investigating the Papacy of Pope Pius XII New York 1/14/2008 03:08 PM GMT (TransWorldNews)   Pave the Way Foundation Investigating the Papacy of Pope Pius XII Pave the Way Foundation (PTWF), a non-sectarian organization founded to remove obstacles between religions in order to foster cooperation and to end the misuse of religion to justify violence and terrorism, has initiated an extremely important project to investigate the Papacy of Pope Pius XII. Identifying the conflicting information about Pope Pius XII’s actions during World War II, a continued source of discord between Jews and Catholics, PTWF has begun...

Efforts to canonize Pope Pius XII as a saint of the Catholic Church are in high gear. The pope who reigned during the Holocaust, whose detractors have called him "Hitler's Pope" and defenders say used his moral and political influence to save thousands of Jews, is once again dominating conversations in the Vatican. In recent weeks, both supporters and critics have increased their activities relating to the plan to declare the former pope a saint. While Jewish organizations and figures have called on Pope Benedictus XVI to stop the move, conservative circles in the Vatican have been spreading information intended...

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 5, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the first part of a speech given today by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone at the presentation of a book by Andrea Tornielli, "Pio XII: Un Uomo Sul Trono di Pietro" (Pius XII: A Man on the Throne of Peter). Parts 2 and 3 of the speech will be published on Wednesday and Thursday. * * * 1. The "Black Legend" For decades now the figure of Eugenio Pacelli, Pope Pius XII, has been at the center of some volatile polemics. The Roman Pontiff who guided the...

ROME, May 28 (Reuters) - Accusations that wartime Pope Pius XII was an anti-Semite who turned a blind eye to the Holocaust are part of a "black legend" not supported by historical documents, the author of a new biography says. The book by Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli -- his fourth on Pius -- is being published weeks after the Vatican put Pius a step closer to sainthood, a move that angered some Jews. Some Jews have accused Pius, who reigned from 1939 to 1958, of being indifferent to the Holocaust and not speaking out against Hitler. His supporters consider him...

How Future Pope Helped Save Jews New book details efforts of Monsignor Roncalli (Pope John XXIII) during the Holocaust. Jay Bushinsky - Special To The Jewish Week Details of the combined efforts to rescue thousands of Jews during World War II by a representative of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and a Catholic cleric, who later became pope, have come to light through a recently published book. Professor Dina Porat of Tel Aviv University, a historian who has written extensively on the Holocaust, gained access to the private papers of Chaim Barlas, who together with Monsignor Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (Pope...

Vatican officials threatened last week to boycott a Holocaust Remembrance Service at Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem because of what they claim to be a profoundly misleading account of Pope Pius XII’s response to Nazi anti-Semitism.   Pope Pius XII (1876-1958) They agreed to participate only after last minute diplomacy. Underneath a photo of the wartime pontiff is a caption claiming that the pope “abstained from signing the Allied declaration condemning the extermination of the Jews” and “maintained his neutral position throughout the war.”   As a Catholic, with three Jewish grandparents, I too cringed last summer when I saw this display at the...

In a remarkable historical find, testimony has emerged revealing that, in 1941, Pope Pius XII received a German Jewish visitor at the Vatican who was seeking help for certain Jews who were being held in an Italian internment camp. After welcoming the young man and promising him help, Pius told him not once but twice--in emotional language, in front of a large group that included German soldiers--"Be proud to be a Jew!"The amazing testimony, written as a first-hand account by an anonymous Jewish author in wartime Palestine, originally appeared on April 28, 1944 in The Palestine Post (now, The Jerusalem...

ROME, APRIL 2, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Adolf Hitler's No. 1 enemy was the Vatican's secretary of state, Eugenio Pacelli, future Pope Pius XII, according to documents recently found in Europe. In an article published last Thursday by La Repubblica, reporter Marco Ansaldo announced that he has a dossier on Pius XII that complements documentation found in the Vatican Archives. According to the newly discovered documents, Pius XII was considered an enemy of the Third Reich. Memos and letters unearthed at a depot used by the Stasi, the East German secret police, show that Nazi spies within the Vatican were concerned at...