Israeli Holocaust memorial moderates critical tone in description of Pope Pius XII
July 02, 2012
Yad Vashem, the Israeli memorial to Holocaust victims, has changed its description of Pope Pius XII, acknowledging the work of historians who have demonstrated the wartime Pontiff’s efforts to save Jews from the Nazi genocide.
A panel at Yad Vashem, which had been devoted to criticism of Pius XII, has been replaced by a new panel that notes “a more complex picture than previously presented.” The memorial still says that Pope Pius XII failed to offer any public condemnation of the Nazi bid to exterminate the world’s Jews.
Archbishop Antonio Franco, the apostolic nuncio in Israel, welcomed the change as “a step forward, in the sense that it evolves from straight condemnation to the evaluation.” Last year the archbishop had threatened to boycott a ceremony at Yad Vashem because of the harsh treatment of the wartime Pope.
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