Word: benedict
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Thursday's Mass in Rome, Benedict lavished praise on Pius, who was the Pope when the then young German first became a priest. Like those who have actively campaigned for his beatification, the Pope said that Pius used a few pointed public - but mostly private - acts of diplomacy to try to prevent what turned into the slaughter of 6 million European Jews. He cited Pius' 1942 Christmas radio message. "With a voice broken with emotion, he deplored the situation of 'hundreds of thousands of persons who, for no fault of their own, only for reason of nationality or ethnic roots...
Pius, said Benedict, "often acted secretly and silently because, in the light of the concrete realities of that complex historical moment, he saw that this was the only way to avoid the worst and save the largest possible number of Jews...
Though Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said Benedict's homily Thursday does not necessarily mean that Pius will be beatified, it does seem as though the road to sainthood has now been reopened by the unequivocal words of the Pope...
Jewish leaders, who were observing Yom Kippur on Thursday, are expected to be deeply disappointed by Benedict's latest word on the matter. Earlier this week, Shear-Yashuv Cohen, chief rabbi of the Israeli port city of Haifa, who had been invited by the Pope to speak about the Bible at the current synod of bishops in Rome, told Benedict that Jews "cannot forgive and forget" the silence during the Holocaust from world religious leaders. Later, Cohen told reporters that Pius "should not be seen as a model, and he should not be beatified...
...would have made matters worse for Jews, while critics say he was too cautious, at best. Before becoming Pope, Pius, then known by his birth name, Eugenio Pacelli, served as both the Vatican envoy to Nazi Germany and later as the Vatican's secretary of state. Indeed, even while Benedict and most of the church hierarchy stand firmly behind Pius, Italian Jesuit scholars say they have recently turned up documents showing that Pacelli's secretary of state office in 1938 put its focus on saving Jews who converted to Catholicism, a revelation likely to reinforce opposition to Pius...