Pontiff will open files on ‘Hitler’s Pope,’ says friend
Role of Pius XII during war hotly debated still
LONDON Decades of doubt over the role played by “Hitler’s Pope” under the Fascist regimes of Italy and Germany in the 1930s and 1940s may be put to rest after a close friend of Pope Francis suggested the Pontiff may open the Vatican archives.
Rabbi Abraham Skorka, who has known the Argentine Pope for 20 years, said he had discussed the role of Pius XII — the man long known to critics as “Hitler’s Pope” — at length with the new pontiff.
The rabbi, who recently co-authored On Heaven and Earth, a book of interviews with Pope Francis, said he had made clear that he thought Pius’s legacy ought to be “investigated thoroughly.”
Skorka said he was convinced his friend favoured opening the archives to clarify once and for all Pius’s role.
It follows decades of speculation about the extent to which Pius cooperated with the Fascist regime in Italy and Nazi Germany during his reign, which began in 1939.
Critics have accused him of remaining silent over the Holocaust — and suspicions have only been strengthened by the Vatican’s refusal so far to give scholars access to the archives from his reign. But there is also evidence Pius may have helped arrange the exodus of 200,000 Jews from Germany in the 1930s.
Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, as he was known before his election as Pope, is said to have written to archbishops around the world urging them to secure visas for “non-Aryan Catholics” and Jewish converts to Christianity to travel to their countries from Germany.
Skorka built a close friendship with Pope Francis during his time as Archbishop of Buenos Aires.