Gerard O'Regan: 'Opening files on 'Hitler's Pope' would be major U-turn by secretive Vatican'

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Gerard O'Regan

9 March 2019 2:30 AM

If the current Pope goes ahead and makes available high-risk documentation regarding the relationship between Pope Pius XII and the Nazis, it will unshackle the Vatican from a burden of its past' 

Photo: despositphotos


Adolf Hitler was born and raised a Roman Catholic. Even in his younger years, he was acutely aware how a certain approach to the Church of Rome could help him achieve the power he craved. However, on a personal basis he had ditched all Christian beliefs by his early teens. Nazi ideology would not answer to any god.

But like many another ruthless dictator he was willing to use religion, where necessary, to further his despotic aims. This was especially so in the 1930s as he connived to eliminate all forms of German democracy. Meanwhile, allegations have persisted over the decades that the Catholic Church, pursuing its own interests, was in turn over-accommodating to the Nazis. Most focus is on Pope Pius XII. Should he have spoken out when evidence of the mass extermination of Jews first emerged?
This has remained a contentious allegation. There is evidence the pope worked behind the scenes to protect some Jews from the horrors of the concentration camps. But he undoubtedly tread a fine line, fearful that strident condemnation of the Hitler regime could risk devastation for the Vatican. Charge and counter charge regarding what the pope could and should have done has intensified over the decades.

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