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Tue 11 Nov 2008Scrutiny of Pius XII's reign required before canonisation
OPINION:Some leading Catholic and Jewish scholars have called for the proposed canonisation of Pius XII to be delayed. Here one of them explains why
LAST MONTH was the 50th anniversary of Pope Pius XII's death, an occasion when Pope Benedict XVI expressed his support for the canonisation process. At a solemn Mass in St Peter's Basilica on October 8th, Pope Benedict promoted his beatification and rejected all allegations that Pius had ever acted improperly, insisting that he had done everything possible to halt the murders in the second World War. Yet Pius XII's response to the Holocaust is the subject of a vigorous historical debate of profound significance for contemporary Jewish-Christian relations.
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