Editing Pope Pius XII (section)

===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>