Panelist vows to push for truth on Pope Pius XII
Eric Silver

An Israeli historian, named in late November to serve on a joint Roman Catholic-Jewish panel to review the Vatican's World War II record, hopes it will finally resolve the dispute about the role of Pope Pius XII, currently a candidate for sainthood, who has been accused by Jewish and other critics of facilitating the Holocaust.

On the present evidence, Robert Wistrich, a professor of Jewish history at the Hebrew University, believes the Pope was culpable, but he says he will press for full disclosure as a means to settle the issue once and for all.

"Pius XII did not perform in a way that reflects any credit on the Vatican or on the Catholic church," Wistrich argues. "He wound up in a position where he was complicit in German policy. He certainly saved some Jewish lives, but how many is the big unknown."

Wistrich charges that the Italian-born pontiff, who headed the world's largest church from 1939 to 1958, chose the road of diplomacy and appeasement instead of publicly condemning the Nazi persecution of the Jews. "It has been claimed that he was not silent," the professor adds. "Again, we have to see the documentation."

The six-member review team, appointed by the Vatican's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and the New York-based International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations, is meeting for the first time in December. It will begin by studying 11 volumes of Vatican archives published between 1965 and 1981. But, according to Wistrich, the scholars will be authorized to pursue any questions not answered in those papers. "I shall," he says, "be looking to see how far we can push."