Vatican Envoy Threatens To Boycott Holocaust Memorial

The Vatican's representative in Israeli is threatening to boycott a Holocaust commemoration ceremony because of a public attack on Pope Pius XII.

Archbishop Antonio Franco, the apostolic nuncio in the Holy Land, has lodged a strong objection against the display of a photo of Pope Pius XII, with a caption that suggests the Pope was indifferent to the suffering of Jews under the Nazi regime, at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.

The caption claims that the wartime Pope refused to sign a statement condemning the Holocaust, and "maintained his neutrality throughout the war."

In a private letter to the head of the Yad Vashem museum, suggesting that either the photo should be removed from a new exhibit, or the caption should be corrected to provide a more balanced perspective.

As it stands, he said, the caption does not reflect the weight of historical evidence, which shows that Pope Pius worked actively to protect Jews from the Nazi extermination drive.

Because Yad Vashem officials have not corrected the caption, Archbishop Franco told the AsiaNews service that he had written to the museum director, pressing his case.

He warned that if the offensive caption remains, he would feel obliged to be absent from Holocaust memorial ceremonies at the museum next week.

The papal representative stressed that he did not intend to cause a public controversy. His letter was a private communication, he pointed out, "not a press conference." But museum officials chose to make the letter a public matter, he told AsiaNews: "They gave it to the press."

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