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.”
