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Pope Defends Memory Of Pius XII

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 10, 2008

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI gave World War II pontiff Pius XII a push toward possible sainthood Thursday and defended his memory from accusations that he did little to spare Jews from the Holocaust.

Benedict vigorously defended Pius as he celebrated a solemn Mass in St. Peter's Basilica to mark the anniversary of the pontiff's death in 1958.

The Vatican has been using the 50th anniversary of the death to mount an aggressive campaign to rebut decades-old accusations that Pius did not sufficiently wield his moral weight against Adolf Hitler's regime to try to stop the extermination of 6 million Jews.

Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Benedict, in his homily, wanted to unite himself to the "widespread hope" of faithful who want Pius to be beatified, the last formal step before sainthood.

Lombardi stressed that Benedict was not setting any timetable for beatification and that the pontiff wanted to reflect on a voluminous church dossier about Pius, before signing a decree approving his "virtues."

Pius, an Italian, had been serving as Vatican secretary of state when he was elected pontiff in 1939, a few months before war broke out in Europe.

Benedict drew upon previous Vatican contentions that the pontiff used behind-the-scenes diplomacy to try to help the Jews.

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