VATICAN:The Vatican ambassador to Israel has said he won't attend a Holocaust memorial ceremony in Jerusalem next week over the Yad Vashem Museum's portrayal of Pope Pius XII's conduct during the second World War.
Archbishop Antonio Franco said yesterday that he had written to the director of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum asking for a revision of a caption there relating to Pope Pius XII, which he felt suggested the pontiff, whose papacy covered the second World War period, had been apathetic to the Jews' plight at the time.
The caption, quoted in the Israeli press, says Pope Pius XII "abstained from signing the Allied declaration condemning the extermination of the Jews" and "maintained his neutral position throughout the war".
Archbishop Franco said he had advised the museum that he "would not feel comfortable going to Yad Vashem" unless the wording was changed or the photo of Pope Pius XII was removed. It is in a new part of the museum which was opened in 2005.
Yad Vashem hosts Israel's annual state ceremony to mark Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day, which will take place on Sunday, April 22nd.
Archbishop Franco said he had not received an answer from the museum. Defenders of Pope Pius XII said he did everything possible to help Jews, while critics have portrayed him as an anti-Semitic whose views were formed while working as papal nuncio in Germany before becoming pope in 1939.
The Yad Vashem Museum contains the largest archive of data on the Holocaust, in which an estimated six million Jews were killed. It said in a statement yesterday that it had told the Vatican's representative "it was willing to continue examining the issue" and that it would welcome an opportunity to study the Vatican's archives relating to Pope Pius XII "to possibly learn new and different information" about him.
Historians have called on the Vatican to fully open archives on the papacy of Pius XII, who died in 1958.
In March 2000 Pope John Paul paid an emotionally-charged visit to the Yad Vashem Museum. He was accompanied by Polish Jews, including Idit Tzirer, whose life he saved as a young man by bringing her food and drink and carrying her on his back for 4km after seeing her one day at the end of the war, too weak to save herself and close to a labour camp where she had been incarcerated. - (Additional reporting Reuters)