Historiker briefer journalister om paven i pressekonferanse i Vatikanet

VATICAN (CWNews.com) -- At a press conference at the Vatican on October 8, 150 journalists heard the Jesuit historian, Father Pierre Blet, discuss his research on the activities of Pope Pius XII during World War II.

Four more than an hour, Father Blet answered reporters' questions and provided examples of the efforts by Pope Pius to curb Nazi aggression and to save Jews from the prison camps of the Third Reich. The press conference was clearly a response to the publication of a book entitled Hitler's Pope, which repeats and amplifies the charges that Pope Pius XII was silent in the face of the Holocaust. Father Blet dismissed that book as a work "without historical value."

The French Jesuit said that his own latest book on Pope Pius, published in French in 1998, did not offer any new revelations about the conduct of the Holy See during the war. That topic had been thoroughly explored, he pointed out, in the 12-volume collection of documents from the Vatican archives, published in a series of installments between 1965 and 1981. But Father Blet observed that the collection "remains unknown, even among historians."

That massive collection of documents had been prepared by a four- man team of Jesuit scholars, at the request of Pope Paul VI, in response to the emerging criticisms of Pope Pius XII. Father Blet is the sole surviving member of that research team.

CWN - Catholic World News