Vatican defends wartime Pope Pius XII as conference honors Israeli victims of Hamas incursion

By NICOLE WINFIELD
Associated Press

ROME (AP) — The Vatican secretary of state has strongly defended World War II-era Pope Pius XII as a friend of the Jews. That defensive line came at a conference where even Holy See historians acknowledged the anti-Jewish prejudice in the Vatican that informed Pius’ silence in the face of the Holocaust. The conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University was remarkable because of its unprecedented high-level, Catholic-Jewish organizers and sponsors. Among them were the Holy See, Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust research institute, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the U.S. and Israeli embassies to the Holy See and Italy’s Jewish community.