To be accurate, this is simply false.
Hundreds of Roman Jews spent the war living in the Vatican to escape the Nazis, and the rabbi of the Roman Jewish community, Israele Zolli, converted to Catholicism after the war.
According to British soldier and founding father of the Israeli foreign service Pinchas Lapide, the Pope personally saved thousands of Italian Jews from the Nazis.
This despite the fact that he was surrounded by a hostile Fascist government and had only a handful of armed men to defend the Vatican.
And, while he was saving all those lives, he also hosted secret meetings between foreign ambassadors and representatives of the officers who conspired to kill Hitler.
the Pope did not speak up
He certainly did speak up, but his actions spoke even louder than his words.
Zolli converted when he was not named Chief Rabbi of Israel. It was a sour grapes move.
Everything you said was true.
But also, the Italian Fascists were never really ardent anti-Semites. Mussolini referred to anti-Semitism as “That German Disease”.
Unlike the German Protestant Churches, the German Catholic Church never embraced Nazism.
Everything you said was true.
But also, the Italian Fascists were never really ardent anti-Semites. Mussolini referred to anti-Semitism as “That German Disease”.
Unlike the German Protestant Churches, the German Catholic Church never embraced Nazism.