Catholic leader has supported move to reveal truth about pope Pius, and a close rabbi friend expects him to follow through


Pope Francis attends a vigil for peace in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, on Saturday, September 7, 2013. (photo credit: AP/Riccardo De Luca)


 


The relationship between the Vatican and the Jews has improved greatly over the past 30 years, and confidants of Pope Francis I say he intends to take another step forward: opening up the Vatican archives to address accusations that the Holy See, led by then-pope Pius XXII, neglected the plight of Jews during the Holocaust.


“The pope is consistent with all he said as a cardinal, and as pope he will undoubtedly make happen what he said he would do when he was a cardinal,” Argentinian Rabbi Abraham Skorka, a friend of the pope, told The (London) Sunday Times, based on conversations with Francis.<!-- dfp adslot -->


“What we said to each other was between us, but I believe that, yes, he will open the archives…. The issue is a very sensitive one and we must continue analyzing it,” he said.


Francis’s close ties to the Jews of Argentina is fairly well known. He and Skorka have been close friends since the days when Francis was known as cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, archbishop of Buenos Aires. In September 2013, in fact, Skorka spent a week at St. Martha’s House, the papal residence at the Vatican. The two have also coauthored a book, On Heaven and Earth, and have prayed from each other’s pulpits.


Earlier this month, the pope confirmed a much-anticipated first official visit to the Holy Land, scheduled for May 24-26, during which he will visit Israel, the West Bank and Jordan.


Relations between the Vatican and worldwide Jewry underwent a renaissance under Pope John Paul II, who oversaw the establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel in 1993 and visited Yad Vashem and the Western Wall in 2000, but they became frayed during the papacy of his successor, Benedict VXI, who reinstated British bishop Richard Williamson, who had publicly denied the Holocaust.


Rabbi Abraham Skorka speaks during an interview at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York on Wednesday October 30, 2013. (photo credit: AP/Tina Fineberg)

Rabbi Abraham Skorka speaks during an interview at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York on Wednesday October 30, 2013. (photo credit: AP/Tina Fineberg)



The controversy surrounding the Vatican’s actions during the Holocaust has also been a hot-button issue in relations between the Vatican and the Jews as the church has moved Pius along the path to sainthood, most recently declaring him venerable in 2009. Many people have criticized Pius for failing to publicly condemn the Nazis and to warn the Jews of the Rome ghetto before they were rounded up for deportation. However, his defenders contend that he refrained from directly confronting Hitler in order to preserve the church’s ability to save Jews, by encouraging religious orders to hide them.




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Rocky
I was quite literally stumped! I wondered how we could have had a Pope Pius XXII when the last Pius was the XII. But of course, that was an error...... The truth about Pius.....yes, I'd like to know the truth. I thought he was a very good Pope.
  • January 21, 2014
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