Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church

Pope Pius XII. / Credit: Vatican Media

Ann Arbor, Michigan, Apr 24, 2025 / 12:00 pm (CNA).

“There has been a shift of late regarding Pius XII,” historian William Doino told CNA. The wartime pontiff has often been vilified, Doino said, adding: “He will soon get due recognition” for efforts to rescue Jews and others persecuted by Nazis and fascists more than 80 years ago. 

This year, Yom HaShoah, also known as Holocaust Remembrance Day, is marked on April 24 in the United States and Israel, according to the lunar calendar of Jewish observance. Elsewhere,  International Holocaust Remembrance Day is observed on Jan. 27.

Doino has spent decades researching the legacy of Pope Pius XII and the wartime pontiff’s efforts to rescue Jews, Allied military personnel, and others pursued by Nazi occupiers. He has interviewed clergy and diplomats who knew Pius XII personally and who could give firsthand testimony. Unlike other researchers, Doino recorded these interviews, which inform his reports on the pontiff.

He is also co-author of “The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII.” The editor of the book is Rabbi David G. Dalin, who noted that prominent Jews, including Albert Einstein, Golda Meir, and Chief Rabbi Yitgzhak HaLevi Herzog, lauded Pius XII for saving thousands of Jews.

Doino said “a mountain of evidence” provided by modern research and newly revealed documents offer new insights into Pope Pius XII (the former Eugenio Pacelli), and his efforts have been missed by his critics. However, Doino also said in an interview that the Church must confront the “increasing evils of anti-Judaism and antisemitism, which pose a grave threat to the Jewish community across the globe.” 

Leading Catholic figures, such as Pius XII, responded by fighting “these dangerous sins” and defending Jews. “The God-given dignity and fundamental human rights of every human being needs to be respected at all times — our Catholic faith demands nothing less,” he said. 

Pius XII, like his predecessors, sought to be neutral and work for peace. “He was not just a mild-mannered diplomat. He was willing to think outside the box and take risks,” Doino said. He was under tremendous pressure, and rescuers were under threat of death. Many efforts by the pope and the Church were too dangerous to record on paper, Doino affirmed, presenting a challenge to historians. Doino said Vatican clergy took oral instructions from the pope to rescue Jews.

Multiple authors, including Catholic journalist John Cornwell, have linked Pope Pius XII to the destruction of European Jews. Cornwell argued that before and during World War II, Pius XII legitimized Adolf Hitler’s extermination regime. Cornwell accused him of antisemitism and seeking to aggrandize the papacy. But extensive information exists that challenges the narrative of papal indifference, or even complicity, in the crimes.

Doino said Pius XII used diplomatic and covert means to chastise Nazis for their eugenics and racism and to avert war. But the fascists and Nazis would not listen, Doino said, “for as we know, psychopaths and murderers do not listen to honorable people.” He also pointed out that Pius XI, Pius XII’s predecessor, issued in 1937 Mit Brennender Sorge, an encyclical denouncing antisemitism and fascism, which Pius XII affirmed. 

Sweeping generalizations about the Church and the papacy, Doino said, should be discarded even though there were specific instances of antisemitic European clergy and laity who supported the Axis. Doino also confirmed that the pope actively assisted anti-Nazi resisters and sought to overthrow Adolf Hitler.

Doino said researchers must look beyond Vatican files to document Pius XII’s efforts. He said that in “Myron Taylor, the Man Nobody Knew,” author C. Evan Stewart revealed in 2023 that Taylor — the official U.S. representative to the Holy See — learned that the pope, at a famous 1940 meeting with Nazi diplomat Joachim von Ribbentrop, demanded that two Vatican representatives be given permission to visit Poland to document Nazi atrocities when he learned that Jews were being targeted. The German admitted that Jews were being exterminated and then refused the papal request. “This proves that Pius XII defended the Jews,” Doino said, and gives the lie to claims otherwise.

Pius XII’s critics have a hard time proving that he was antisemitic or indifferent to the plight of European Jews. “What they do is try to link him to other officials who were, sadly, antisemitic or anti-Jewish. But even in those instances, God worked on them. Some who were antisemitic, when faced with the Nazi horrors, changed or allowed their human sympathies to transcend their bigotries so that they could rescue Jews,” he said. 

Archbishop Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, is known to have rescued thousands of Jews while serving as a papal diplomat in Turkey and Greece during World War II. Archbishop Clemens August Graf von Galen of Münster, Germany, protested Nazi euthanasia in 1941.

“This would not have happened if Pope Pius had not authorized them. It was done under his orders and inspiration,” Doino said. “To separate the actions of Roncalli from those of the pope is incorrect.”

Doino said that critics considering the horrors of the Holocaust should “be humble and open to the truth and follow the facts wherever they lead.” He noted that historian Father Hubert Wolf, an acute critic of Pius XII, has since called for a reassessment of the pope’s legacy on the basis of new documentation.

Vatican documents revealed by papal archivist Johan Ickx revealed in “Le Bureau — Les Juifs de Pie XII” (“The Office — The Jews of Pius XII”), published in 2020 and based on a decade of research, that the pope consistently sought peace and set up an office to save endangered people.

Ickx said: “I think there are 2,800 cases, there’s a list equivalent to Schindler’s list, a ‘Pacelli’s list’; I wonder how it is that the Holy See never publicized it.” During the German occupation of Italy, 81% of the 39,000 Jews in Italy were saved.

Suzanne Brown-Fleming of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum told an October 2023 conference in Rome, for instance, that before the Second Vatican Council, many Catholics thought of Jews and Judaism as “something dangerous, something different.” But many battled these prejudices and saved Jews “sometimes at the cost of their lives.” 

Among the rescuers, she said, were those who inspired the Second Vatican Council, such as Pope John XXIII, who inaugurated it. She said laity, parishes, seminaries, religious orders, and papal institutions harbored Jews, producing false identities and smuggling Jews into Switzerland under the threat of death.

The Holy Tunic of Christ on display in Argenteuil, France, in 2016. / Credit: Simon de l'Ouest, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Paris, France, Apr 24, 2025 / 11:00 am (CNA).

Open to the public from April 18 to May 11, the exhibit is galvanizing Catholic faithful across Europe.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks on the U.S. opioid crisis at the Rx and Illicit Drug Summit in Nashville, Tennessee, on April 23, 2025. / Credit: SETH HERALD/AFP via Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 23, 2025 / 17:26 pm (CNA).

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) hosted the inaugural meeting this week of a new task force to counter anti-Christian bias in federal government policies, regulations, and practices.

“Protecting Christians from bias is not favoritism,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said ahead of the meeting. “It’s upholding the rule of law and fulfilling the constitutional promise [in the First Amendment].”

The task force’s first meeting on Tuesday was closed to the public and the media but included the heads of multiple federal departments and agencies along with witnesses who provided testimony on anti-Christian bias within the federal government.

President Donald Trump formally established the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias on Feb. 6 by executive order. His order commissioned a comprehensive review of federal departments and agencies, particularly to reverse certain actions of the previous administration.

Specific concerns of anti-Christian bias

A news release following the meeting detailed some of the concerns and policies administration officials are reviewing.

One Catholic-specific concern discussed in the meeting was the since-retracted January 2023 memo from the Richmond Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which detailed an investigation into supposed ties between “radical traditionalist” Catholics and “the far-right white nationalist movement.”

The document called for “trip wire or source development” within Catholic parishes that offer the Traditional Latin Mass and within online Catholic communities. Later revelations from the House Judiciary Committee found that the Richmond FBI used at least one undercover agent to obtain information on traditionalist Catholics and coordinated with other FBI field offices on the matter.

According to an April 22 news release after the task force meeting, Trump’s FBI director, Kash Patel, discussed “the impact of the anti-Catholic memo” during the gathering and “reiterated the FBI’s commitment to rooting out any anti-Christian bias that could be directing decisions or investigations.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the news release notes, brought up concerns about bias against a Christian Foreign Service Officer who “was threatened with an investigation for child abuse” for insisting on home-schooling his child.

According to the news release, Rubio also expressed disapproval of the Department of State stigmatizing workers who opposed the COVID-19 vaccine mandate on religious grounds and retaliation against employees for “opposing DEI/LGBT ideology.” 

For her part, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon discussed concerns about gender ideology in education policies and school districts socially transitioning children without their parents’ knowledge. 

Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender voiced concerns about the Biden administration removing certain tax classifications from Christian and pro-life organizations and objections to debanking.

Michael Farris, an attorney and founder of Patrick Henry College, was one of the witnesses. Farris called attention to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) investigating and charging Pastor Gary Hamrick of Cornerstone Chapel for alleged Johnson Amendment violations.

Phil Mendes, a U.S. Navy Seal, spoke about how he was relieved of his duty under the Biden administration for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine.

CNA reached out to the DOJ and FBI for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

“As shown by our victims’ stories today, Biden’s Department of Justice abused and targeted peaceful Christians while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses,” Bondi said in a statement after the meeting. “Thanks to President Trump, we have ended those abuses, and we will continue to work closely with every member of this task force to protect every American’s right to speak and worship freely.”

U.S. Vice-President JD Vance meets Pope Francis on Easter Sunday, April 20, 2025, at the Vatican / Credit: Vatican Media/Screenshot

CNA Staff, Apr 23, 2025 / 16:21 pm (CNA).

U.S. Vice President JD Vance said this week that he is refusing to politicize Pope Francis’ death, hailing the late pontiff as a “broad” figure and a “great” leader of the Catholic Church. 

“A lot of people, especially in the American press, want to make the Holy Father — his entire legacy and even his death — about American politics,” Vance told reporters in Agra, India, while on a four-day visit with his wife, Usha, the first Hindu-American second lady. 

“He was obviously a much broader figure than the United States of America. He represents over a billion Catholics worldwide,” Vance said. 

The two leaders publicly disagreed on politics earlier in the year. In February, Pope Francis sent a pastoral letter to the U.S. bishops encouraging officials to recognize the dignity of immigrants after Vance, a Catholic convert, publicly advocated applying “ordo amoris,” or “rightly-ordered love,” to the immigration debate. 

“[A]s an American leader, but also just as an American citizen, your compassion belongs first to your fellow citizens,” Vance said at the time, while acknowledging that the principle “doesn’t mean you hate people from outside of your own borders.”

In the letter, Francis tacitly rebuked Vance’s remarks, arguing in part that “the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution, or serious deterioration of the environment damages the dignity of many men and women.”

When asked about his response to these “disagreements,” Vance said he was “aware” of them but noted that the pope “also had a lot of agreements with some of the policies of our administration.”

“I’m not going to soil the man’s legacy by talking about politics,” Vance said. “I think he was a great Christian pastor, and that’s how I choose to remember the Holy Father.”

When asked what type of pope he would prefer to be elected next, Vance said he would pray for the cardinals who will cast the votes in the upcoming conclave. 

“I won’t pretend to give guidance to the cardinals on who they should select as the next pope,” he said. “We’ve got plenty of issues to focus on in the United States.”

“I’ll just say a prayer for wisdom because I obviously want them to pick the right person, I want them to pick somebody who will be good for the world’s Catholics, but I’ll let them make that decision and obviously they’re entitled to do so,” Vance continued. 

JD Vance was among the last officials to meet with the late Pope Francis before he died on Monday. 

When asked about their providential meeting on Easter Sunday morning, Vance said he had “thought a lot about that.” 

“I think it was a great blessing,” Vance shared. 

In their meeting, Pope Francis gave the vice president three chocolate Easter eggs for his three young children as well as a Vatican tie and rosaries.

“It’s pretty crazy actually, and obviously when I saw him I didn’t know he had less than 24 hours still on this earth,” Vance said.

“He saw a lot of people, he affected a lot of lives,” Vance continued. “I try to just remember that I was lucky I got to shake his hand and tell him that I pray for him every day because I did and I do.”

Vance offered condolences to Catholics around the world in light of Pope Francis’ death.

“We’re very saddened by it,” he said. “Our condolences to Catholics all over the world, but especially [those] back home who love and honor the Holy Father.”

German bishops gather in Rome on Nov. 17, 2022. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA

CNA Staff, Apr 23, 2025 / 12:00 pm (CNA).

The German Catholic bishops have published a handout that offers guidance to pastors on blessings for couples in “irregular” situations such as same-sex relationships.

Dutch flowers decorate St. Peter’s Square for Easter Sunday Mass 2019. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA

Rome Newsroom, Apr 20, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Dutch flowers adorn St. Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday. Here’s how the 37-year tradition was saved in 2022.

According to Stephen de Silva, St. Albans Cathedral’s longest-serving guide of more than 45 years, religious brothers who lived in the cathedral’s abbey in the 14th century invented the original hot cross bun for both charitable and catechetical reasons. / Credit: Photo courtesy of St. Alban's Cathedral

Rome Newsroom, Apr 18, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

The origins of the hot cross bun traditionally made with currants, spices, flour, and eggs are closely linked to a cathedral dedicated to St. Alban.

The Mystery of the Brotherhood of San Benito processes through the surroundings of the cathedral of Seville on Holy Tuesday, April 15, 2025. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Joaquín Carmona

Seville, Spain, Apr 17, 2025 / 13:01 pm (CNA).

The Holy Week processions in the Andalusian capital are one of Spain’s most iconic traditions, and this year was no exception.

Susan Smith (left) and Marion Calder, co-directors of For Women Scotland, with campaigners celebrate outside the U.K. Supreme Court in London on Wednesday April 16, 2025, after the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act were ruled to refer to a biological woman and biological sex. / Credit: Press Association via AP Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 16, 2025 / 16:05 pm (CNA).

The U.K. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that only biological women are protected under Britain’s Equality Act, contradicting prior guidance by the Scottish government.

Father Paul Murphy exits the Central Criminal Court in Dublin on Thursday, April 10, 2025, after giving a victim impact statement in a sentencing hearing for a boy who stabbed him. / Credit: Press Association via AP Images

Dublin, Ireland, Apr 16, 2025 / 12:26 pm (CNA).

The attack occurred on Aug. 15, 2024, as the priest returned to his barracks in Renvyle in Ireland after an evening swim.