Was Pope Pius XII a Saint?
The German-born pope, Benedict XVI, is moving full steam ahead in the process of canonization of the germanophile war-time pope, Pius XII. Having declared Pius XII “venerable”, the Church is now moving forward with the process of recognizing Pius XII’s “heroic virtues”. I suppose one way to look at this is that this is simply an internal Church matter and it’s no one else’s business who the Church calls a “saint”. But I beg to disagree. At a time in which the Vatican refuses to open the files of the Vatican Secret Archives containing the documents covering Pius XII’s pontificate, it’s impossible for scholars to assess with any level of accuracy what the Pope’s role really was during the war. The Pope’s apologists claim he was a man devoted to saving all the people oppressed and persecuted by the Germans, including Jews, while many more claim the Pope was aloof, more preoccupied with avoiding a bombardment of Rome during the war and preserving the concordat with Germany after it, than w
