Editing Pope Pius XII (section)

==World War II==
{{Main|Vatican City during World War II}}
{{See also|Pope Pius XII and the German resistance|Catholic Church and Nazi Germany|Pius Wars}}
[[File:Members of the Royal 22e Regiment in audience with Pope Pius XII.jpg|thumb|Members of the Canadian [[Royal 22e Regiment|Royal 22<sup>e</sup> Regiment]], in audience with Pope Pius XII, following the 1944 Liberation of Rome]]
During World War II Pius saw his primary obligation as being to ensure the continuation of the "[[Church visible]]" and its divine mission.<ref name=oxf>{{cite book|last1=Hayes|first1=Peter|last2=Roth|first2=John K.|title=The Oxford Handbook of Holocaust Studies|date=2012|publisher=OUP Oxford|isbn=9780191650796|pages=363|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b3hUvouXdvYC&pg=PT363|language=en}}</ref> Pius XII lobbied world leaders to prevent the outbreak of World War II and then expressed his dismay that war had come in his October 1939 ''[[Summi Pontificatus]]'' encyclical. He followed a strict public policy of Vatican neutrality for the duration of the conflict mirroring that of [[Pope Benedict XV]].

In 1939, Pius XII turned the Vatican into a centre of aid which he organized from various parts of the world.<ref>O'Brien, p. 8</ref> At the request of the Pope, an information office for prisoners of war and refugees operated in the Vatican under [[Giovanni Battista Montini]], which in the years of its existence from 1939 until 1947 received almost 10&nbsp;million (9,891,497) information requests and produced more than 11&nbsp;million (11,293,511) answers about missing persons.<ref>Corrado Pallenberg, p. 71</ref>

McGoldrick (2012) concludes that during the war:

<blockquote>Pius XII had genuine affection for Germany, though not the criminal element into whose hands it had fallen; he feared Bolshevism, an ideology dedicated to the annihilation of the church of which he was head, but his sympathies lay with the Allies and the democracies, especially the United States, into whose war economy he had transferred and invested the Vatican's considerable assets.<ref>{{cite journal |last1 = McGoldrick |first1 = Patricia M. |year = 2012 |title = New Perspectives on Pius XII and Vatican Financial Transactions during the Second World War |journal = Historical Journal |volume = 55 |issue = 4|pages = 1029–48 |doi = 10.1017/S0018246X12000416|s2cid = 154304692 }}</ref></blockquote>

===Outbreak of war===
====Summi Pontificatus====
''[[Summi Pontificatus]]'' was the first papal encyclical issued by Pope Pius XII, in October 1939 and established some of the themes of his pontificate. During the drafting of the letter, the Second World War commenced with the German/Soviet [[invasion of Poland]]—the "dread tempest of war is already raging despite all Our efforts to avert it". The papal letter denounced antisemitism, war, totalitarianism, the attack on Catholic Poland and the Nazi persecution of the church.<ref name="vatican.va">{{cite web|author=Pius XII |url=https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_20101939_summi-pontificatus_en.html |title="SUMMI PONTIFICATUS" – Section 106 |publisher=Vatican.va |date=11 December 1925 |access-date=23 June 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130703015921/https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_20101939_summi-pontificatus_en.html |archive-date=3 July 2013 }}</ref>

Pius XII reiterated church teaching on the "principle of equality"—with specific reference to Jews: "there is neither Gentile nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision".<ref>[https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_20101939_summi-pontificatus_en.html Pius XII, ''Summi Pontificatus''; 48; October 1939] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130703015921/https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_20101939_summi-pontificatus_en.html |date=3 July 2013 }}.</ref> The forgetting of solidarity "imposed by our common origin and by the equality of rational nature in all men" was called "pernicious error".<ref name="Pius XII">{{cite web|author=Pius XII |url=https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_20101939_summi-pontificatus_en.html |title=Pius XII, 0Summi Pontificatus"; 35; October 1939 |publisher=Vatican.va |date=11 December 1925 |access-date=23 June 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130703015921/https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_20101939_summi-pontificatus_en.html |archive-date=3 July 2013 }}</ref> Catholics everywhere were called upon to offer "compassion and help" to the victims of the war.<ref name="http">{{cite web|author=Pius XII |url=https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_20101939_summi-pontificatus_en.html |title=Pius XII, "Summi Pontificatus"; 109; October 1939 |publisher=Vatican.va |date=11 December 1925 |access-date=23 June 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130703015921/https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_20101939_summi-pontificatus_en.html |archive-date=3 July 2013 }}</ref> The Pope declared determination to work to hasten the return of peace and trust in prayers for justice, love and mercy, to prevail against the scourge of war.<ref>[https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_20101939_summi-pontificatus_en.html Pius XII, ''Summi Pontificatus''; 111; October 1939] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130703015921/https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_20101939_summi-pontificatus_en.html |date=3 July 2013 }}.</ref> The letter also decried the deaths of noncombatants.<ref name="Pius XII 1939"/>

Following themes addressed in ''[[Non abbiamo bisogno]]'' (1931); ''[[Mit brennender Sorge]]'' (1937) and ''[[Divini redemptoris]]'' (1937), Pius wrote against "anti-Christian movements" and needing to bring back to the church those who were following "a false standard&nbsp;... misled by error, passion, temptation and prejudice, [who] have strayed away from faith in the true God".<ref name="vatican">{{cite web|author=Pius XII |url=https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_20101939_summi-pontificatus_en.html |title="SUMMI PONTIFICATUS" – Section 6 & 7 |publisher=Vatican.va |date=11 December 1925 |access-date=23 June 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130703015921/https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_20101939_summi-pontificatus_en.html |archive-date=3 July 2013 }}</ref> Pius wrote of "Christians unfortunately more in name than in fact" having shown "cowardice" in the face of persecution by these creeds, and endorsed resistance:<ref name="vatican"/>

{{blockquote|Who among "the Soldiers of Christ"&nbsp;– ecclesiastic or layman&nbsp;– does not feel himself incited and spurred on to a greater vigilance, to a more determined resistance, by the sight of the ever-increasing host of Christ's enemies; as he perceives the spokesmen of these tendencies deny or in practice neglect the vivifying truths and the values inherent in belief in God and in Christ; as he perceives them wantonly break the Tables of God's Commandments to substitute other tables and other standards stripped of the ethical content of the Revelation on Sinai, standards in which the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount and of the Cross has no place?}}

Pius wrote of a persecuted Church<ref>108: "In the midst of this world which today presents such a sharp contrast to "The Peace of Christ in the Reign of Christ", the Church and her faithful are in times and in years of trial such as have rarely been known in her history of struggle and suffering".</ref> and a time requiring "charity" for victims who had a "right" to compassion. Against the invasion of Poland and killing of civilians he wrote:<ref name="vatican.va"/>

{{blockquote|[This is an] "Hour of Darkness"...&nbsp;in which the spirit of violence and of discord brings indescribable suffering on mankind... The nations swept into the tragic whirlpool of war are perhaps as yet only at the "beginnings of sorrows"...&nbsp;but even now there reigns in thousands of families death and desolation, lamentation and misery. The blood of countless human beings, even noncombatants, raises a piteous dirge over a nation such as Our dear Poland, which, for its fidelity to the Church, for its services in the defense of Christian civilization, written in indelible characters in the annals of history, has a right to the generous and brotherly sympathy of the whole world, while it awaits, relying on the powerful intercession of Mary, Help of Christians, the hour of a resurrection in harmony with the principles of justice and true peace.}}

With [[Fascist Italy|Italy]] not yet an ally of Hitler in the war, Italians were called upon to remain faithful to the Catholic Church. Pius avoided explicit denunciations of [[Hitlerism]] or [[Stalinism]], establishing the "impartial" public tone which would become controversial in later assessment of his pontificate: "A full statement of the doctrinal stand to be taken in face of the errors of today, if necessary, can be put off to another time unless there is disturbance by calamitous external events; for the moment We limit Ourselves to some fundamental observations."<ref>{{cite web|author=Pius XII |url=https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_20101939_summi-pontificatus_en.html |title="SUMMI PONTIFICATUS" – Section 28 |publisher=Vatican.va |date=11 December 1925 |access-date=23 June 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130703015921/https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_20101939_summi-pontificatus_en.html |archive-date=3 July 2013 }}</ref>

====Invasion of Poland====
In ''[[Summi Pontificatus]]'', Pius expressed dismay at the killing of non-combatants in the Nazi/Soviet [[invasion of Poland]] and expressed hope for the "resurrection" of that country. The Nazis and Soviets commenced a [[Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church in Poland|persecution of the Catholic Church in Poland]]. In April 1940, the Vatican advised the U.S. government that its efforts to provide humanitarian aid had been blocked by the Germans and that the Holy See had been forced to seek indirect channels through which to direct its aid.<ref>[http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/psf/box51/a464o10.html Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum – ''The Vatican Files'']; ''[[Note verbale]]'', 26 April 1940</ref> [[Michael Phayer]], a critic of Pius XII, assesses his policy as having been to "refuse to censure" the "German" invasion and annexation of Poland. This, Phayer wrote, was regarded as a "betrayal" by many Polish Catholics and clergy, who saw his appointment of [[Hilarius Breitinger]] as the apostolic administrator for the [[Reichsgau Wartheland|Wartheland]] in May 1942, an "implicit recognition" of the breakup of Poland; the opinions of the ''[[Volksdeutsche]]'', mostly German Catholic minorities living in occupied Poland, were more mixed.<ref>Phayer, 2008, p. 6</ref> Phayer argues that Pius XII—both before and during his papacy – consistently "deferred to Germany at the expense of Poland", and saw Germany—not Poland—as critical to "rebuilding a large Catholic presence in Central Europe".<ref>Phayer, 2008, p. 18</ref> In May 1942, [[Kazimierz Papée]], Polish ambassador to the Vatican, complained that Pius had failed to condemn the recent wave of atrocities in Poland; when Cardinal Secretary of State Maglione replied that the Vatican could not document individual atrocities, Papée declared, "when something becomes notorious, proof is not required".<ref>Report by the Polish Ambassador to the Holy See on the Situation in German-occupied Poland, Memorandum No. 79, 29 May 1942, Myron Taylor's papers, NARA.</ref> Although Pius XII received frequent reports about atrocities committed by or against Catholics, his knowledge was incomplete; for example, he wept after the war on learning that Cardinal [[August Hlond]] had banned German liturgical services in Poland.<ref>Phayer, 2008, p. 8</ref>

There was a well-known case of Jewish rabbis who, seeking support against the Nazi persecution of Polish Jews in the [[General Government]] (Nazi-occupied Polish zone), complained to the representatives of the Catholic Church. The church's attempted intervention caused the Nazis to retaliate by arresting rabbis and deporting them to the death camp. Subsequently, the [[Catholic Church in Poland]] abandoned direct intervention, instead focusing on organizing underground aid, with huge international support orchestrated by Pope Pius XII and his Holy See. The Pope was informed about [[War crimes in occupied Poland during World War II|Nazi atrocities committed in Poland]] by both officials of the Polish Church and the [[Polish Underground]]. Those intelligence materials were used by Pius XII on 11 March 1940 during a formal audience with [[Joachim von Ribbentrop]] (Hitler's foreign affairs adviser) when Pope was "listing the date, place, and precise details of each crime" as described by [[Joseph L. Lichten]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/piusdef2.html |title=The Vatican & the Holocaust: A Question of Judgment – Pius XII & the Jews by Dr. Joseph L. Lichten|publisher=jewishvirtuallibrary.org }}</ref> after others.

====Early actions to end conflict====
With Poland overrun, but France and the [[Low Countries]] yet to be attacked, Pius continued to hope for a negotiated peace to prevent the spread of the conflict. The similarly minded US President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] re-established [[Holy See–United States relations|American diplomatic relations with the Vatican]] after a 70-year hiatus and dispatched [[Myron C. Taylor]] as his personal representative.<ref name="docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu">{{cite web|url=http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/VATICAN1.HTML |title=Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum – "The Vatican Files" |publisher=Docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu |access-date=23 June 2013}}</ref> Pius warmly welcomed Roosevelt's envoy and peace initiative, calling it "an exemplary act of fraternal and hearty solidarity... in defence against the chilling breath of aggressive and deadly godless anti-Christian tendencies".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/psf/box51/a464g02.html |title=Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum – "Letter from Pius XII to FDR, 7 January 1940" |publisher=Docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu |date=27 May 2004 |access-date=23 June 2013}}</ref> American correspondence spoke of "parallel endeavours for peace and the alleviation of suffering".<ref>[http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/psf/box51/a464k03.html Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum – ''The Vatican Files''] FDR letter to Pius XII; 14 February 1940</ref> Despite the early collapse of peace hopes, the Taylor mission continued at the Vatican.<ref name="docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu"/>

According to the Hitler biographer [[John Toland (author)|John Toland]], following the November 1939 assassination attempt by [[Johann Georg Elser]], Hitler said Pius would have wanted the plot to succeed: "he's no friend of mine".<ref>John Toland; ''Hitler''; Wordsworth Editions; 1997 Edn; p. 594</ref> In the spring of 1940, a group of German generals seeking to overthrow Hitler and make peace with the British approached Pope Pius XII, who acted as an interlocutor between the British and the abortive plot.<ref>Conway, Prof. John S., ''The Vatican, the Nazis and Pursuit of Justice''.<!-- ISBN missing --></ref> According to Toland, a lawyer from Munich named [[Josef Müller (CSU politician)|Joseph Muller]] made a clandestine trip to Rome in October 1939, met with Pius XII and found him willing to act as intermediary. The Vatican agreed to send a letter outlining the bases for peace with England and the participation of the Pope was used to try to persuade the senior German generals [[Franz Halder]] and [[Walther von Brauchitsch]] to act against Hitler.<ref name="John Toland p.760">John Toland; ''Hitler''; Wordsworth Editions; 1997 Edn; p. 760</ref>

Pius warned the Allies of the planned German invasion of the Low Countries in 1940.<ref>[http://www.britannica.com/holocaust/article-236596 Encyclopædia Britannica Online] – ''Reflections on the Holocaust''; web April 2013</ref> In Rome in 1942, U.S. envoy Myron C. Taylor, thanked the Holy See for the "forthright and heroic expressions of indignation made by Pope Pius XII when Germany invaded the Low countries".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/PSF/BOX51/A466I02.TXT |title=Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum – "Statement by Myron C. Taylor to Pope Pius XII, 19 September 1942" |access-date=23 June 2013}}</ref> After Germany invaded the [[Low Countries]] during 1940, Pius XII sent expressions of sympathy to Queen [[Wilhelmina of the Netherlands]], King [[Leopold III of Belgium]], and [[Charlotte, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg]]. When Mussolini learned of the warnings and the telegrams of sympathy, he took them as a personal affront and had his ambassador to the Vatican file an official protest, charging that Pius XII had taken sides against Italy's ally Germany. Mussolini's foreign minister [[Galeazzo Ciano]] claimed that Pius XII was "ready to let himself be deported to a concentration camp, rather than do anything against his conscience".<ref>Dalin, David G. ''The Myth of Hitler's Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis''. Regnery Publishing: Washington, D.C. 2005; {{ISBN|0-89526-034-4}}; p. 76</ref>

When, in 1940, the Nazi Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop led the only senior Nazi delegation permitted an audience with Pius XII and he asked why the Pope had sided with the Allies, Pius replied with a list of recent Nazi atrocities and religious persecutions committed against Christians and Jews, in Germany, and in Poland, leading ''[[The New York Times]]'' to headline its report "Jews Rights Defended" and write of "burning words he spoke to Herr Ribbentrop about religious persecution".<ref>{{cite web|last=Hume |first=Brit |url=http://spectator.org/archives/2006/08/18/hitlers-pope/print |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081027155520/http://www.spectator.org/archives/2006/08/18/hitlers-pope/print |url-status=dead |archive-date=27 October 2008 |title=Hitler's Pope? |publisher= The American Spectator|date=18 August 2006 |access-date=23 June 2013}}</ref> During the meeting, von Ribbentrop suggested an overall settlement between the Vatican and the Reich government in exchange for Pius XII instructing the German bishops to refrain from political criticism of the German government, but no agreement was reached.<ref>Conway, Prof. John S., "The Meeting between Pope Pius XII and Ribbentrop", ''CCHA Study Sessions'', volume 35 (1968), pp. 103–16 [http://www.umanitoba.ca/colleges/st_pauls/ccha/Back%20Issues/CCHA1968/Conway.html archives from papers stored at the University of Manitoba] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303235503/http://www.umanitoba.ca/colleges/st_pauls/ccha/Back%20Issues/CCHA1968/Conway.html |date=3 March 2016 }}</ref>

[[File:Bernardinonogara.jpg|thumb|upright|The investments of [[Bernardino Nogara]] were critical to the financing of the papacy during World War II.]]

At a special mass at St Peters for the victims of the war, held in November 1940, soon after the commencement of the [[London Blitz]] bombing by the ''[[Luftwaffe]]'', Pius preached in his homily: "may the whirlwinds, that in the light of day or the dark of night, scatter terror, fire, destruction, and slaughter on helpless folk cease. May justice and charity on one side and on the other be in perfect balance, so that all injustice be repaired, the reign of right restored".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/PSF/BOX52/a467t01.html |title=Harold Taylor 9/30/42 |publisher=Docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu |date=27 May 2004 |access-date=23 June 2013}}</ref> Later he appealed to the Allies to spare Rome from aerial bombing, and visited wounded victims of the [[Bombing of Rome in World War II|Allied bombing of 19 July 1943]].<ref name="britannica">{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.britannica.com/holocaust/article-236597 |title=Encyclopædia Britannica's Reflections on the Holocaust |encyclopedia=Britannica.com |access-date=23 June 2013}}</ref>

====Widening conflict====
Pius attempted, unsuccessfully, to dissuade the Italian dictator [[Benito Mussolini]] from joining Hitler in the war.<ref>[http://www.britannica.com/holocaust/article-236596 Encyclopædia Britannica Online – ''Reflections on the Holocaust'']; web April 2013</ref> In April 1941, Pius XII granted a private audience to [[Ante Pavelić]], the leader of the [[Independent State of Croatia|newly proclaimed Croatian state]] (rather than the diplomatic audience Pavelić had wanted).<ref>Minutes of 7 August 1941. British Public Records Office FO 371/30175 57760</ref> Pius was criticised for his reception of Pavelić: an unattributed British [[Foreign Office]] memo on the subject described Pius as "the greatest moral coward of our age".<ref>Mark Aarons and John Loftus. ''Unholy Trinity'' pp. 71–72<!-- ISBN missing --></ref> The Vatican did not officially recognise Pavelić's regime. While Pius XII did not publicly condemn the expulsions and forced conversions to Catholicism perpetrated on Serbs by Pavelić,<ref>Israel Gutman (ed.) ''Encyclopedia of the Holocaust'' vol 2, p. 739</ref> the Holy See did expressly repudiate the forced conversions in a memorandum dated 25 January 1942, from the Vatican Secretariat of State to the Yugoslavian Legation.<ref>Rychlak, Ronald. ''Hitler, the War, and the Pope'' pp. 414–15, note 61.</ref> The Pope was well informed of [[Catholic clergy involvement with the Ustaše]] regime, even possessing a list of clergy members who had "joined in the slaughter", but decided against condemning the regime or taking action against the clergy involved, fearing that it would lead to schism in the Croatian church or undermine the formation of a future Croatian state.<ref>Phayer, 2008, pp. 9–16</ref> Pius XII would elevate [[Aloysius Stepinac]]—a Croatian archbishop convicted of collaborating with the [[Ustaše]] by the newly established [[Yugoslav Communist regime]]—to the cardinalate in 1953.<ref>Phayer, 2008, pp. 10–15, 147, 150</ref> Phayer agrees that Stepinac's was a "show trial", but states "the charge that he [Pius XII] supported the Ustaša regime was, of course, true, as everyone knew",<ref name="phayerpav">Phayer, 2008, p. 151</ref> and that "if Stepinac had responded to the charges against him, his defense would have inevitably unraveled, exposing the Vatican's support of the [[genocide|genocidal]] Pavelić".<ref>Phayer, 2008, p. 152</ref> Throughout 1942, the [[Yugoslav government in exile]] sent letters of protest to Pius XII asking him to use all possible means to stop the massacres against the [[Persecution of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia|Serbs]] in the Croat state, however Pius XII did nothing.<ref>{{cite book|last=Paris|first=Edmond|year=1961|pages=220|title=Genocide in Satellite Croatia 1941–1945|publisher=King's|isbn=978-1258163464}}</ref>

In 1941, Pius XII interpreted ''[[Divini Redemptoris]]'', an [[encyclical]] of Pope Pius XI, which forbade Catholics to help Communists, as not applying to military assistance to the [[Soviet Union]]. This interpretation assuaged American Catholics who had previously opposed [[Lend-Lease]] arrangements with the Soviet Union.{{citation needed|date=February 2023}}

In March 1942, Pius XII established diplomatic relations with the [[Empire of Japan]] and received ambassador [[Ken Harada (diplomat)|Ken Harada]], who remained in that position until the end of the war.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,777719,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080802113247/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,777719,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=2 August 2008|title=Religion: Rising Sun at the Vatican|magazine=Time|date=6 April 1942|access-date=17 December 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0E15FE3D5E167B93C5AB1788D85F468485F9|title=Envoy to Vatican named; Tokyo Reports Choice of Harada Under De Facto Relations|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=17 December 2011|date=27 March 1942}}</ref>

In June 1942, diplomatic relations were established with the [[Nationalist government]] of China. This step was envisaged earlier, but delayed due to Japanese pressure to establish relations with the pro-Japanese [[Wang Jingwei regime]]. The first [[Embassy of the Republic of China to the Holy See|Chinese Minister to the Vatican]], Hsieh Shou-kang, was only able to arrive at the Vatican in January 1943, due to difficulties of travel resulting from the war. He remained in that position until late 1946.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.hsstudyc.org.hk/en/tripod_en/en_tripod_153_06.html|author1=Chen Fang-Chung|author2=Lou Tseng-Tsiang|title=A Lover of His Church and of His Country|publisher=Hsstudyc.org.hk|access-date=17 December 2011|archive-date=23 March 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120323144055/http://www.hsstudyc.org.hk/en/tripod_en/en_tripod_153_06.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

The pope employed the new technology of radio and a series of Christmas messages to preach against selfish nationalism and the evils of modern warfare and offer sympathy to the victims of the war.<ref name="britannica"/> [[Pope Pius XII's 1942 Christmas address|Pius XII's 1942 Christmas address]] via [[Vatican Radio]] voiced concern at [[human rights abuses]] and the murder of innocents based on race. The majority of the speech spoke generally about human rights and civil society; at the very end of the speech, Pius XII mentioned "the hundreds of thousands of persons who, without any fault on their part, sometimes only because of their nationality or race, have been consigned to death or to a slow decline".<ref>Phayer, 2008, p. 53</ref> According to Rittner, the speech remains a "lightning rod" in debates about Pius XII.<ref>Rittner and Roth, 2002, p. 4</ref> The Nazis themselves responded to the speech by stating that it was "one long attack on everything we stand for.&nbsp;... He is clearly speaking on behalf of the Jews.&nbsp;... He is virtually accusing the German people of injustice toward the Jews, and makes himself the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals." ''The New York Times'' wrote that "The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas.&nbsp;... In calling for a 'real new order' based on 'liberty, justice and love',&nbsp;... the Pope put himself squarely against Hitlerism."<ref>Dalin, David G. "[http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/000/504iizii.asp?page=3 Pius XII and the Jews: A defense] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140105063545/http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/000/504iizii.asp?page=3 |date=5 January 2014 }}", Weekly Standard, Vol. 6, No. 23, 16 February 2001</ref> Historian Michael Phayer claims, however, that "it is still not clear ''whose'' genocide or ''which'' genocide he was referring to".<ref>Phayer, 2008, p. xii</ref> Speaking on the 50th anniversary of Pius's death in 2008, the German Pope [[Benedict XVI]] recalled that the Pope's voice had been "broken by emotion" as he "deplored the situation" with a "clear reference to the deportation and extermination of the Jews".<ref>[https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20081009_50-pio-xii_en.html Vatican Archive – Homily by Pope Benedict XVI]; 9 October 2008</ref>

Several authors have [[Alleged plot to kidnap Pope Pius XII|alleged a plot to kidnap Pius XII]] by the Nazis during their [[Operation Achse|occupation of Rome]] in 1943 (Vatican City itself was not occupied); the British historian [[Owen Chadwick]] and the Jesuit [[Actes et documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale|ADSS]] editor [[Robert A. Graham]] each concluded such claims were an intentional creation of the British [[Political Warfare Executive]].<ref>Chadwick, 1988, pp. 256–257.</ref><ref>Alvarez and Graham, 1997, pp. 86–88.</ref> However, in 2007, subsequently to those accounts, [[Dan Kurzman]] published a work in which he establishes that the plot was a fact.<ref name="kix">Kurzman, 2007, p. 12</ref>

In 1944, Pius XII issued a Christmas message in which he warned against rule by the masses and against secular conceptions of liberty and equality.<ref name=Pius1944>[https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/1944-christmas-message-8963 Pius XII. Christmas message. 1944].</ref>

====Final stages====
As the war was approaching its end in 1945, Pius advocated a lenient policy by the [[Allies of World War II|Allied]] leaders in an effort to prevent what he perceived to be the mistakes made at the end of World War I.<ref>Kent, 2002, pp. 87–100.</ref> On 23 August 1944, he met the [[British prime minister]], [[Winston Churchill]], who was visiting Rome. At their meeting, the Pope acknowledged the justice of punishing war criminals, but expressed a hope that the people of Italy would not be punished, preferring that they should be made "full allies" in the remaining war effort.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/nuremberg/documents/index.php?documentdate=29%20August%201944&documentid=C107-10-54&studycollectionid=&pagenumber=1|title=News Release, 28 August 1944|publisher=Trumanlibrary.org|date=29 August 1944|access-date=12 September 2010|archive-date=21 November 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151121035249/http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/nuremberg/documents/index.php?documentdate=29%20August%201944&documentid=C107-10-54&studycollectionid=&pagenumber=1|url-status=dead}}</ref>

===Holocaust {{anchor|The_Holocaust}}===
{{Main|Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust|Pope Pius XII and Judaism|Pope Pius XII and the Roman razzia|Pius Wars}}

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-H26878, Berlin, Neujahrsempfang in der neuen Reichskanzlei.jpg|thumb|right|[[Cesare Orsenigo]], Pius XII's nuncio to Germany throughout World War II, with Hitler and [[Joachim von Ribbentrop]]]]
[[File:Toasting Polish Dachau.jpg|thumb|Polish prisoners toast their liberation from [[Dachau Concentration Camp|Dachau]]. Nazi persecution of Catholics was at its [[Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church in Poland|most severe]] in [[occupied Poland]].]]
[[File:Pope_Pius_XII_by_Peter_McIntyre_(10044850276).jpg|thumb|Pope Pius XII by [[Peter McIntyre (artist)|Peter McIntyre]] {{Circa|1943–1944|lk=no}}]]
During the Second World War, after Nazi Germany commenced its mass-murder of Jews in occupied Soviet territory, Pius XII employed diplomacy to aid victims of the Holocaust and directed the church to provide discreet aid to Jews.<ref name="britannica.com">{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.britannica.com/holocaust/article-236599 |title=Encyclopædia Britannica : ''Reflections on the Holocaust'' |encyclopedia=Britannica.com |access-date=23 June 2013}}</ref> Upon his death in 1958, among many Jewish tributes, the Chief Rabbi of Rome [[Elio Toaff]], said: "Jews will always remember what the Catholic Church did for them by order of the Pope during the Second World War. When the war was raging, Pius spoke out very often to condemn the false race theory."<ref>Paul O'Shea; ''A Cross Too Heavy''; Rosenberg Publishing; 2008; p. 36</ref> This is disputed by the academic [[John Cornwell (writer)|John Cornwell]], who, in his book, ''[[Hitler's Pope]]'', argues that the Pope was weak and vacillating in his approach to Nazism. Cornwell asserts that the Pope did little to challenge the progressing holocaust of the Jews out of fear of provoking the Nazis into invading Vatican City.<ref>[[John Cornwell (writer)|Cornwell, John]], ''[[Hitler's Pope]]'', 1999.</ref>

In his 1939 ''[[Summi Pontificatus]]'' first papal encyclical, Pius reiterated Catholic teaching against racial persecution and antisemitism and affirmed the ethical principles of the "[[Ten Commandments|Revelation on Sinai]]". At Christmas 1942, once evidence of the mass-murder of Jews had emerged, Pius XII [[Pope Pius XII's 1942 Christmas address|voiced concern]] at the murder of "hundreds of thousands" of "faultless" people because of their "nationality or race" and intervened to attempt to block Nazi deportations of Jews in various countries. Upon his death in 1958, Pius was praised emphatically by the Israeli Foreign Minister [[Golda Meir]], and other world leaders. But his insistence on Vatican neutrality and avoidance of naming the Nazis as the evildoers of the conflict became the foundation for contemporary and later criticisms from some quarters. His strongest public condemnation of genocide was considered inadequate by the Allied Powers, while the Nazis viewed him as an Allied sympathizer who had dishonoured his policy of Vatican neutrality.<ref>''Encyclopædia Britannica'': "Roman Catholicism&nbsp;– the period of the world wars".</ref> Hitler biographer John Toland, while scathing of Pius's cautious public comments in relation to the mistreatment of Jews, concluded that the Allies' own record of action against the Holocaust was "shameful", while "The Church, under the Pope's guidance, had already saved the lives of more Jews than all other churches, religious institutions and rescue organizations combined".<ref name="John Toland p.760"/>

In 1939, the newly elected Pope Pius XII appointed several prominent Jewish scholars to posts at the Vatican after they had been dismissed from Italian universities under [[Italian Fascism|Fascist]] leader [[Benito Mussolini]]'s racial laws.<ref>Dalin, 2005, p. 70</ref> In 1939, the Pope employed a Jewish cartographer, Roberto Almagia, to work on old maps in the [[Vatican Library]]. Almagia had been at the [[Sapienza University of Rome]] since 1915 but was dismissed after [[Benito Mussolini]]'s antisemitic legislation of 1938. The pope's appointment of two Jews to the [[Pontifical Academy of Sciences]] as well as the hiring of Almagia were reported by ''[[The New York Times]]'' in the editions of 11 November 1939 and 10 January 1940.<ref>McInerney, 2001, p. 47</ref>

Pius later engineered an agreement—formally approved on 23 June 1939—with the [[President of Brazil]] [[Getúlio Vargas]] to issue 3,000 [[visa (document)|visas]] to "non-[[Aryan]] Catholics". However, over the next 18 months, Brazil's Conselho de Imigração e Colonização (CIC) continued to tighten the restrictions on their issuance, including requiring a [[baptism|baptismal certificate]] dated before 1933, a substantial monetary transfer to the [[Banco do Brasil]], and approval by the Brazilian Propaganda Office in Berlin.<ref name="30giorni.it">{{Cite web|title=30Giorni {{!}} "Leggete il libro di padre Blet su Pio XII" (Intervista con Pierre Blet di Stefano Maria Paci)|url=http://www.30giorni.it/articoli_id_15523_l1.htm|access-date=17 May 2021|website=30giorni.it}}</ref> The programme was cancelled 14 months later, after fewer than 1,000 visas had been issued, amid suspicions of "improper conduct" (i.e., continuing to practice Judaism) among those who had received visas.<ref name="gutman1136"/><ref>Lesser, Jeffrey. 1995. ''Welcoming the Undesirables: Brazil and the Jewish Question''. University of California Press. pp. 151–68.</ref>

In April 1939, after the submission of [[Charles Maurras]] and the intervention of the Carmel of [[Lisieux]], Pius XII ended his predecessor's ban on [[Action Française]], a virulently [[antisemitic]] organization.<ref>Friedländer, Saul. ''Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Persecution'', 1997, New York: HarperCollins, p. 223</ref><ref name="McInerny-p49">McInerney, 2001, p. 49</ref>

Following the German/Soviet invasion of Poland, the Pope's first encyclical, ''[[Summi Pontificatus]]'' reiterated Catholic teaching against racial persecution and rejected antisemitism, quoting scripture singling out the "principle of equality"—with specific reference to Jews: "there is neither Gentile nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision" and direct affirmation of the Jewish ''Revelation on Sinai''.<ref>{{cite web|author=Pius XII |url=https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_20101939_summi-pontificatus_en.html |title=Pius XII, "Summi Pontificatus"; 7 & 48; October 1939 |publisher=Vatican.va |date=11 December 1925 |access-date=23 June 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130703015921/https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_20101939_summi-pontificatus_en.html |archive-date=3 July 2013 }}</ref><ref>Dalin, 2005, p. 73</ref> The forgetting of solidarity "imposed by our common origin and by the equality of rational nature in all men" was called "pernicious error".<ref name="Pius XII"/> Catholics everywhere were called upon to offer "compassion and help" to the victims of the war.<ref name="http"/> The Pope declared determination to work to hasten the return of peace and trust in prayers for justice, love and mercy, to prevail against the scourge of war.<ref>{{cite web|author=Pius XII |url=https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_20101939_summi-pontificatus_en.html |title=Pius XII, "Summi Pontificatus"; 111; October 1939 |publisher=Vatican.va |date=11 December 1925 |access-date=23 June 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130703015921/https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_20101939_summi-pontificatus_en.html |archive-date=3 July 2013 }}</ref> The letter also decried the deaths of noncombatants.<ref name="Pius XII 1939">{{cite web|author=Pius XII |url=https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_20101939_summi-pontificatus_en.html |title=Pius XII, "Summi Pontificatus"; 106; October 1939 |publisher=Vatican.va |date=11 December 1925 |access-date=23 June 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130703015921/https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_20101939_summi-pontificatus_en.html |archive-date=3 July 2013 }}</ref>

[[Cardinal Secretary of State]] Luigi Maglione received a request from [[Chief Rabbi]] of [[Mandatory Palestine|Palestine]] [[Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog|Isaac Herzog]] in the spring of 1940 to intercede on behalf of [[Lithuania]]n Jews about to be deported to Germany.<ref name="gutman1136"/> Pius called [[Joachim von Ribbentrop]] on 11 March, repeatedly protesting against the treatment of Jews.<ref name="McInerny-p49"/> In 1940, Pius asked members of the clergy, on Vatican letterhead, to do whatever they could on behalf of interned Jews.<ref name="us081117">{{cite book|author=Ewers, Justin|title=Sainthood on Hold|publisher=U.S. News & World Report|date=24 November 2008}}</ref>

In 1941, Cardinal [[Theodor Innitzer]] of [[Vienna]] informed Pius of [[Holocaust in Austria|Jewish deportations in Vienna]].<ref name="gutman1137">Gutman, 1990, p. 1137</ref> Later that year, when asked by the [[Vichy France|Vichy regime]] Head of State [[Philippe Pétain]] if the Vatican objected to antisemitic laws, Pius responded that the church condemned antisemitism, but would not comment on specific rules.<ref name="gutman1137"/> Similarly, when Pétain's regime adopted the "Jewish statutes", the Vichy ambassador to the Vatican, [[Léon Bérard]] (a French politician), was told that the legislation did not conflict with Catholic teachings.<ref name="Perl-p200">Perl, William, The Holocaust Conspiracy, p. 200</ref> [[Valerio Valeri]], the [[Apostolic Nunciature to France|nuncio to France]], was "embarrassed" when he learned of this publicly from Pétain<ref name="Phayer, 2000, p. 5">Phayer, 2000, p. 5</ref> and personally checked the information with Cardinal Secretary of State Maglione<ref>Michael R. Marrus and Robert O. Paxton, 1981, ''Vichy France and the Jews'', New York: Basic Books, p. 202</ref> who confirmed the Vatican's position.<ref>Delpech, ''Les Eglises et la Persécution raciale'', p. 267</ref> In June 1942, Pius XII personally protested against the mass deportations of Jews from France, ordering the papal nuncio to protest to Pétain against "the inhuman arrests and deportations of Jews".<ref>Dalin, 2005, p. 74</ref> In September 1941, Pius XII objected to a [[Slovak Republic (1939–1945)|Slovak]] Jewish Code,<ref>John F. Morley, 1980, ''Vatican Diplomacy and the Jews during the Holocaust, 1939–1943'', New York: KTAV, p. 75</ref> which, unlike the earlier Vichy codes, prohibited intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews.<ref name="Phayer, 2000, p. 5"/> In October 1941, [[Harold H. Tittmann Jr.]], a U.S. delegate to the Vatican, asked the Pope to condemn the atrocities against Jews; Pius replied that the Vatican wished to remain "neutral",<ref>Perl, William, The Holocaust Conspiracy, p. 206</ref> reiterating the neutrality policy that Pius had invoked as early as September 1940.<ref name="Perl-p200"/>

In 1942, the Slovak [[chargé d'affaires]] told Pius that Slovak Jews were being sent to concentration camps.<ref name="gutman1137"/> On 11 March 1942, several days before the first transport was due to leave, the chargé d'affaires in [[Bratislava]] reported to the Vatican: "I have been assured that this atrocious plan is the handwork of ... Prime Minister ([[Vojtech Tuka|Tuka]]), who confirmed the plan ... he dared to tell me—he who makes such a show of his Catholicism—that he saw nothing inhuman or un-Christian in it ... the deportation of 80,000 persons to Poland, is equivalent to condemning a great number of them to certain death." The Vatican protested to the Slovak government that it "deplore(s) these... measures which gravely hurt the natural human rights of persons, merely because of their race."<ref>Lapide, 1980, p. 139</ref>

On 18 September 1942, Pius XII received a letter from Monsignor Montini (future [[Pope Paul VI]]), saying "the massacres of the Jews reach frightening proportions and forms".<ref name="gutman1137"/> Later that month, [[Myron Taylor]] warned Pius that the Vatican's "moral prestige" was being injured by silence on European atrocities, a warning that was echoed simultaneously by representatives from the United Kingdom, Brazil, [[Uruguay]], Belgium, and Poland.<ref>Phayer, 2000, pp. 27–28.</ref> Myron C. Taylor passed a U.S. Government memorandum to Pius on 26 September 1942, outlining intelligence received from the [[Jewish Agency for Palestine]], which said that Jews from across the [[Nazi Empire]] were being systematically "butchered". Taylor asked if the Vatican might have any information that might "tend to confirm the reports", and, if so, what the Pope might be able to do to influence public opinion against the "barbarities".<ref>[http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/PSF/BOX52/a467aq01.html Diplomatic Correspondence: US Envoy Myron C. Taylor to Cardinal Maglione]; 26 September 1942.</ref>

Cardinal Maglione handed Harold Tittmann a response to the letter on 10 October. The note thanked Washington for passing on the intelligence, and confirmed that reports of severe measures against the Jews had reached the Vatican from other sources, though it had not been possible to "verify their accuracy". Nevertheless, Maglione stated, "every opportunity is being taken by the Holy See, however, to mitigate the suffering of these unfortunate people".<ref>[http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/PSF/BOX52/a467ar01.html Diplomatic Correspondence: US Undersecretary of State Summner Wells to Vatican Envoy Myron C. Taylor]; 21 October 1942.</ref> According to [[David Kertzer]]'s ''The Pope at War'',<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler |last=Kertzer |first=David |publisher=Random House |date=2022}}</ref> Monsignor [[Domenico Tardini]] "told the British envoy to the Vatican in mid-December [1942] that the Pope couldn't speak out about Nazi atrocities because the Vatican hadn't been able to verify the information".<ref>{{Cite news |title=Letter suggests Pope Pius XII knew of mass gassings of Jews and Poles in 1942 |date=16 September 2023 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/16/letter-suggests-pope-pius-xii-knew-of-mass-gassings-of-jews-and-poles-in-1942 |work=The Guardian |access-date=20 September 2023}}</ref>

In December 1942, when Tittmann asked Cardinal Secretary of State Maglione if Pius would issue a proclamation similar to the Allied declaration "German Policy of Extermination of the Jewish Race", Maglione replied that the Vatican was "unable to denounce publicly particular atrocities".<ref>Hilberg, Raul, ''[[The Destruction of the European Jews]]'', p. 315</ref> Pius XII directly explained to Tittman that he could not name the Nazis without at the same time mentioning the Bolsheviks.<ref>Hilberg, Raul, ''The Destruction of the European Jews'', (2003) 3rd edition, pp. 1204–05.</ref>

On 14 December 1942, the German Jesuit and [[German resistance to Nazism|German resistance]] activist [[Lothar König]] wrote to Reverend [[Robert Leiber]], the Pope's private secretary and a liaison to the Resistance, to inform him that his sources had confirmed approximately 6,000 Polish and Jewish people were being killed every day in "[[SS]]-[[Nazi gas chambers|furnaces]]" located in an area of what was then [[Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany|German-occupied Poland]] and is now part of western Ukraine.<ref name=KonigLetterFind>{{cite news |title=Wartime Pope Pius XII likely knew about Nazi gas chambers in the Holocaust as early as 1942 |url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-17/pope-pius-xii-likely-knew-about-nazi-concentration-camps/102867366 |access-date=17 September 2023 |work=ABC ([[Australian Broadcasting Corporation]]) |agency=[[Reuters]] |date=17 September 2023}}</ref> It also referenced the Nazi death camps at [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]] and [[Dachau concentration camp|Dachau]].<ref name=KonigLetterFind/> Giovanni Coco, an archivist in the [[Vatican Apostolic Archive]], said that König urged the Holy See to withhold this information to protect the lives of his sources in the resistance.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Winfield |first1=Nicole |title=Letter showing Pope Pius XII had detailed information from German Jesuit about Nazi crimes revealed |url=https://apnews.com/article/vatican-pius-holocaust-jews-pius-pope-poland-8c511a4b99345d98f54af69dda6d2a66 |access-date=19 February 2023 |work=Associated Press News |date=16 September 2023}}</ref>

Following the Nazi/Soviet invasion of Poland, Pius XII's ''[[Summi Pontificatus]]'' called for the sympathy of the whole world towards Poland, where "the blood of countless human beings, even noncombatants" was being spilled.<ref name="Pius XII 1939"/> Pius never publicly condemned the Nazi massacre of 1,800,000–1,900,000 Poles, overwhelmingly Catholic (including 2,935 members of the Catholic clergy).<ref>United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, [http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005473 Polish Victims]. Retrieved 17 December 2008.</ref><ref>Craughwell, Thomas J. [http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=472 ''The Gentile Holocaust''], Catholic Culture. Retrieved 17 December 2008.</ref> In late 1942, Pius XII advised German and Hungarian bishops to speak out against the massacres on the [[Eastern Front (World War II)|Eastern Front]].<ref>Israel Pocket Library, Holocaust, p. 136</ref> In his 1942 Christmas Eve message, he expressed concern for "those hundreds of thousands, who ... sometimes only by reason of their nationality or race, are marked down for death or progressive extinction.<ref>Dalin, 2005, p. 75</ref> On 7 April 1943, Msgr. Tardini, one of Pius XII's closest advisors, advised Pius XII that it would be politically advantageous after the war to take steps to help Slovak Jews.<ref>{{in lang|fr}} Actes et documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre mondiale/éd. par Pierre Blet, Angelo Martini, Burkhart Schneider and Robert Graham (7 April 1943).</ref>

In January 1943, Pius XII declined to denounce publicly the Nazi discrimination against the Jews, following requests to do so from [[Władysław Raczkiewicz]], president of the [[Polish government-in-exile]], and Bishop [[Konrad von Preysing]] of Berlin.<ref>Israel Pocket Library, Holocaust, p. 134</ref> According to Toland, in June 1943, Pius XII addressed the issue of mistreatment of Jews at a conference of the [[Sacred College of Cardinals]] and said: "Every word We address to the competent authority on this subject, and all Our public utterances have to be carefully weighed and measured by Us in the interests of the victims themselves, lest, contrary to Our intentions, We make their situation worse and harder to bear".<ref name="John Toland p.760"/>

On 26 September 1943, following the [[Operation Achse|German occupation of northern Italy]], Nazi officials gave Jewish leaders in Rome 36 hours to produce {{convert|50|kg|0|abbr=out}} of gold (or the equivalent), threatening to take 300 hostages. Then Chief Rabbi of Rome [[Israel Zolli]] recounts in his memoir that he was selected to go to the Vatican and seek help.<ref>Zolli, Eugenio. ''Before the Dawn''. Reissued in 1997 as ''Why I Became a Catholic''.</ref> The Vatican offered to loan 15 kilos, but the offer proved unnecessary when the Jews received an extension.<ref>Israel Pocket Library, Holocaust, p. 133</ref> Soon afterward, when deportations from Italy were imminent, 477 Jews were hidden in the Vatican itself and another 4,238 were protected in Roman monasteries and convents.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.religioustolerance.org/vat_hol12.htm|title=The role of the Roman Catholic Church in the Shoah (Nazi Holocaust)|publisher=Religioustolerance.org|access-date=6 May 2009}}</ref> Eighty percent of Roman Jews were saved from deportation.<ref>Dalin, 2005, pp. 82–85</ref> Phayer argues that the German diplomats in Rome were the "initiators of the effort to save the city's Jews", but holds that Pius XII "cooperated in this attempt at rescue", while agreeing with Zuccotti that the Pope "did not give orders" for any Catholic institution to hide Jews.<ref>Phayer, 2008, p. xiii</ref>

On 30 April 1943, Pius XII wrote to Bishop [[Konrad von Preysing]] of Berlin to say: "We give to the pastors who are working on the local level the duty of determining if and to what degree the danger of reprisals and of various forms of oppression occasioned by episcopal declarations&nbsp;... ''ad maiora mala vitanda'' (to avoid worse)&nbsp;... seem to advise caution. Here lies one of the reasons, why We impose self-restraint on Ourselves in our speeches; the experience, that we made in 1942 with papal addresses, which We authorized to be forwarded to the Believers, justifies our opinion, as far as We see.&nbsp;... The Holy See has done whatever was in its power, with charitable, financial and moral assistance. To say nothing of the substantial sums which we spent in American money for the fares of immigrants."<ref>Letter of Pius XII of 30 April 1943 to the Bischop of Berlin, Graf von Preysing, published in "Documentation catholique" of 2 February 1964.</ref>

On 28 October 1943, [[Ernst von Weizsäcker]], the German Ambassador to the Vatican, telegraphed Berlin that "the Pope has not yet let himself be persuaded to make an official condemnation of the deportation of the Roman Jews.&nbsp;... Since it is currently thought that the Germans will take no further steps against the Jews in Rome, the question of our relations with the Vatican may be considered closed."<ref>{{Cite journal|title = Not Enough vs. Plenty: Which did Pius XII do?|last = Lang|first = Berel|date =Fall 2001|journal = Judaism|volume = 50|issue = 4|page = 448}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/piusdef.html |title=860,000 Lives Saved: The Truth About Pius XII and the Jews |encyclopedia=Jewish Virtual Library |access-date=18 February 2012}}</ref>

In March 1944, through the papal [[Apostolic Nunciature to Hungary|nuncio in Budapest]], [[Angelo Rotta]], the Pope urged the [[Kingdom of Hungary (1920-1946)|Hungarian]] government to moderate its treatment of the Jews.<ref name="gutman1138">Gutman, Israel, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, p. 1138</ref> The Pope ordered Rotta and other papal legates to hide and shelter Jews.<ref>Dalin, 2005, pp. 87–89</ref> 

After [[George Mantello]], Jewish First Secretary of El Salvador in Switzerland, received the [[Auschwitz Protocol]] with much delay around June 22, 1944 he immediately publicized its summary. From about June 24, 1944 in Switzerland that led to large-scale grassroots protests, Sunday masses and about 400 articles in the papers about the barbarism against Europe's Jews.<ref>Lévai, Jenö. Zsidósors Európában, Budapest, 1948 (Hungarian)</ref><ref name=Kranzler2000p9>{{cite book |authorlink=David Kranzler |last=Kranzler |first=David |year=2000 |title=The Man Who Stopped the Trains to Auschwitz: George Mantello, El Salvador and Switzerland's Finest Hour |publisher=Syracuse University Press |pages=9–10 |isbn=0815628730 }}</ref> These unprecedented events created so much "noise" that it  attracted international attention to the large-scale daily deportation of Hungary's Jews to Auschwitz since May 1944. Protests by the King of Sweden, the International Red Cross, the United States, Britain and the Vatican forced Hungary's Regent [[Horthy Miklos | Miklos Horthy]] to order cessation of most deportations of Jews from Hungary to Auschwitz on July 6, 1944 and termination of transports three days later.<ref>Gilbert, Martin, ''The Holocaust'', p. 701</ref>  That saved many of the Jews of Hungary.

In 1944, Pius appealed to 13 Latin American governments to accept "emergency passports", although it also took the intervention of the [[United States Department of State]] for those countries to honor the documents.<ref>Perl, William, The Holocaust Conspiracy, p. 176</ref> The [[Ernst Kaltenbrunner|Kaltenbrunner]] Report to Hitler, dated 29 November 1944, against the backdrop of the [[20 July plot|20 July 1944 Plot to assassinate Hitler]], states that the Pope was somehow a conspirator, specifically naming Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII), as being a party in the attempt.<ref>[http://www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=95893&cat=15 ''Pave the Way Foundation Reveals Evidence of Pope Pius XII's Active Opposition to Hitler''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090912042237/http://www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=95893&cat=15 |date=12 September 2009 }}, 24 June 2009</ref>

====Jewish orphans controversy====
{{Main|Jewish orphans controversy}}
In 2005, ''[[Corriere della Sera]]'' published a document dated 20 November 1946 on the subject of Jewish children baptized in war-time France. The document ordered that baptized children, if orphaned, should be kept in Catholic custody and stated that the decision "has been approved by the Holy Father". Nuncio Angelo Roncalli (who became [[Pope John XXIII]], and was recognized by [[Yad Vashem]] as [[Righteous Among the Nations]]) ignored this directive.<ref>Jerusalem Report, (7 February 2005).</ref> [[Abe Foxman]], the national director of the [[Anti-Defamation League]] (ADL), who had himself been baptized as a child and had undergone a custody battle afterwards, called for an immediate freeze on Pius's beatification process until the relevant [[Vatican Secret Archives]] and baptismal records were opened.<ref>Anti-Defamation League. [http://www.adl.org/Interfaith/adl_vatican.asp "ADL to Vatican: 'Open Baptismal Records and Put Pius Beatification on Hold{{'"}}] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090104082209/http://www.adl.org/Interfaith/adl_vatican.asp |date=4 January 2009 }}. 13 January 2005.</ref> Two Italian scholars, Matteo Luigi Napolitano and [[Andrea Tornielli]], confirmed that the memorandum was genuine, although the reporting by the ''Corriere della Sera'' was misleading, as the document had originated in the French Catholic Church archives rather than the Vatican archives and strictly concerned itself with children without living blood relatives who were supposed to be handed over to Jewish organizations.<ref>Cavalli, Dimitri. [http://www.theamericanmag.com/article.php?show_article_id=387 "Pius's Children"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080527035037/http://www.theamericanmag.com/article.php?show_article_id=387 |date=27 May 2008 }}. ''The American''. 1 April 2006.</ref>

Writings from released Vatican records revealed that Pius XII was personally but secretly involved in hiding the [[Finaly Affair|Finaly children]] from their Jewish family in an ultimately failed attempt to keep them Catholic after their secret baptism done against the wishes of their family. The French Catholic Church received very bad press from the affair, and several nuns and monks were jailed for the kidnapping before the children were discovered and spirited away to Israel. Only recently was the Pope's personal involvement revealed.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Kertzer|first=Story by David I.|title=The Pope, the Jews, and the Secrets in the Archives|work=The Atlantic|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/the-popes-jews/615736/|access-date=20 May 2021|issn=1072-7825}}</ref>