Hitler's pope was no saint (Columnists Jerusalem Post)
Pius, who as Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, was the papal nuncio in Germany in the 1920s, the Vatican's secretary of state in the 1930s and became pontiff in 1939. He drew the Church "into complicity with the darkest forces of the era," Cornwell wrote. Pius "was the ideal pope for Hitler's unspeakable plan. He was Hitler's pawn. He was Hitler's pope... [He was] not only an ideal pope for the Nazis' Final Solution, but a hypocrite... to his everlasting shame and to the shame of the Catholic Church."
Tad Szulc, Pope John Paul II's biographer, called Pacelli "the Fuhrer's best imaginable ally." Pacelli even betrayed Catholic leaders who might have challenged Hitler and his extermination policies. "He prevented Catholic protest in defense of Jews, even if they'd converted to Christianity," Cornwell wrote. Pius also rebuffed a personal plea from president Franklin D. Roosevelt in late 1942 to publicly condemn Hitler's extermination of the Jews and refused to meet the chief rabbi of Jerusalem, Isaac Herzog, who came to appeal for his help in saving Jewish lives.
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