Vatican slams claim Jews preventing beatification of Nazi-era pope

[IndianaGreen]

Last update - 01:27 20/06/2009

Vatican slams claim Jews preventing beatification of Nazi-era pope

By The Associated Press

The Vatican has condemned as "unjustified and inopportune" a claim by a church official that pressure from Jewish organizations is delaying the beatification of Pope Pius XII, the wartime pontiff who critics say didn't do enough to stop the Holocaust.

The Rev. Peter Gumpel, a German Jesuit who is spearheading Pius' cause, said at a conference in Rome that Pope Benedict XVI was impressed by warnings that relations with Jews would be ruined if he put the World War II pontiff on the road to sainthood.

Some historians and Jewish groups say Pius didn't do enough to prevent or limit the scope of the Holocaust -the murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators. The Vatican insists Pius used quiet diplomacy to try to help Jews.

<snip>

Jewish leaders also criticized the priest's comments, with Rome's Chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni denying that Jews were responsible for any delay.

"Pius' beatification is first of all an internal problem of the church," Di Segni told ANSA. It is clearly a complex matter that divides the church itself.

Last year, Jewish leaders asked the pope to speed up the opening of the Vatican's secret archives on Pius' papacy to settle the issue of what he did or didn't do to save Jews.

According to participants in the October meeting, Benedict said he would give serious consideration to their request to freeze the sainthood process until the archives were opened.

The Vatican later rejected the request for quick access to the archive, saying it would take another six years for experts to catalog the 16 million documents on Pius' 1939-1958 papacy.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1094280.html

Vatican bullshit! They are getting ready to exalt this Nazi enabler of a Pope, yet they claim that they need 6 years to catalog all the documents of Pius's papacy.

[madeline_con]

1. What could he have done? Talked about it, and held a mass?

[aquart]

2. Yes. He could have done that. Didn't.

[DURHAM D]

3. What an interesting construct.

The question is not what PP12 did to help jews but what he did to help the Third Reich. Good grief.

[Confusious]

4. Greatest moral issue of the last century

and the great moral leader of "god's own church" stays silent. The great moral issue of this century, and the church goes for the greater of two evils.

That 3rd prophecy of fatima wasn't about john paul, it was about the church as a whole.

[The Second Stone]

5. He didn't do nothing, the question is whether he did enough

He hid plenty of Jews in the Vatican.

[Bluenorthwest]

6. Plenty?

Interesting choice of words. Got a figure? Plenty. Wow.

[zbdent]

7. "The Vatican insists Pius used quiet diplomacy to try to help Jews. "

hmm ... how does this sit with the anti-Obama Catholics who side with the Repukes when they insist that "you can't negotiate with terrorists"?

:evilgrin: