Some have accused him of being Hitler’s pope. The decision to open the archives will show if he was guilty of something more than indifferenceCompared with other popes, Pius XII was not an egregiously wicked man. He held the office all through the second world war and the first decade of the cold war. Those who rush to condemn Pope Pius today might ask themselves how history will judge the British government which chooses to sell arms to Saudi Arabia in its murderous and unjustified war in Yemen. Perhaps the civilian victims of that war seem as the Jews of Europe seemed to Pope Pius, not really quite as human or as valuable as other people.

Source: The Guardian March 10, 2019 18:22 UTC