Pius XII (pope)
1876 – 1958 Italian Pope (1939-1958)
Wartime pope whose response to the Holocaust remains fiercely debated.
- Religion
- Catholic; Bishop of Rome
- Affiliations
- The papacy
Pius XII led the Church through the Second World War and its aftermath. His public silence about the Nazi murder of the Jews, weighed against the quiet sheltering of Jews in convents and Vatican properties, has been argued over ever since. In 1950 he used papal infallibility to define the dogma of the Assumption of Mary. He was a firm opponent of communism during the early Cold War.
In the timeline
- 1939 – 1945 Pius XII and the Church during the Second World War central figure
- 1963 The debate over Pius XII and the Holocaust central figure