On Monday the Vatican’s top diplomat defended Pope Pius XII’s record on helping Jews during the Holocaust while historians offered a more critical view, and Rome’s chief Rabbi cautioned against morally defending anti-Jewish prejudice.
Gaza conflict casts shadow over Vatican Holocaust conference malaya.com.ph - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from malaya.com.ph Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The conflict in Gaza cast a shadow on Monday over a major conference on the Vatican and the Holocaust, with one participant calling the carnage the worst slaughter of civilian Jews in one day.
The Vatican secretary of state on Monday strongly defended World War II-era Pope Pius XII as a friend of the Jews as he opened an historic conference on newly opened archives that featured even Holy See historians acknowledging that anti-Jewish prejudice informed Pius’ silence in the face of the Holocaust. Cardinal Pietro Parolin’s defensive remarks were delivered before the conference observed a minute of silence to honor victims of the Hamas incursion in Israel. Standing alongside the chief rabbi of Rome, Parolin expressed solidarity with the Israeli victims and “to those who are missing and kidnapped and now in grave danger.”