Pope Benedict XVI says Vatican saved Jews 'discreetly'
Pope Benedict XVI claimed today that the Vatican and many Italian Catholics had saved Jews during the Second World War, “often in a hidden and discreet way”. He was responding to accusations that Pius XII, the wartime pontiff he has put on the road to sainthood, failed to speak out against the Holocaust.
However, Jewish leaders used the Pope's first visit to the Rome synagogue to condemn Pius XII for failing to raise his voice in defence of “our brothers who were sent to the ovens of Auschwitz”.
In a move to soothe relations with the Jewish world Pope Benedict apologised for Christian responsibility for anti-Semitism and urged Jews and Christians “to come together to strengthen the bonds which unite us and to continue to travel together along the path of reconciliation and fraternity"....