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.
The yellowed letter, dated Dec. 14, 1942, was written by an anti-Nazi German Jesuit named Father Lothar König and addressed to the personal secretary of Pope Pius XII, another German cleric named Father Robert Leiber.