Raising the Pius XII question

A few years ago, I got to chat with Cardinal Walter Kasper at Graymoor. He’s been in charge of the Vatican’s relations with the Jewish people since 2001, so I asked him if the Catholic-Jewish relationship could overcome disagreements over Pope Pius XII’s efforts to save Jews from the Nazis. He said that the Jewish people were unlikely to ever understand efforts to promote Pius for canonization. But he added that Catholic-Jewish relations were strong enough to overcome it. I thought about his comments when reading about what a rabbi had to say yesterday when addressing the Synod of Bishops at the Vatican. Israeli Rabbi Shear-Yashuv Cohen, the chief rabbi of Haifa—and the first Jew to ever address a Vatican synod—was invited to discuss how Jews interpret Scripture. He did so. But then he said he wanted to turn his attention to “contemporary issues.” He referred to religious leaders who did not speak out strongly enough to pr...