The Cause of Pius XII for beatification has stalled, Pope Francis told reporters during an in-flight press conference on his return to Rome from the Holy Land, according to reports.
Francis was asked whether he might declare Pope Pius XII, the wartime pontiff who some claim did not do enough to oppose Nazi atrocities against Jews, a Blessed.
“The Cause is open, I looked into it and no miracle has been found yet,” he said, according to Vatican Insider. “So the process has stalled. We have to respect the reality of this Cause. But there’s no miracle and at least one is required for beatification. I can’t think of whether I will beatify him or not.”
The press conference came at the end of a day during which the Pope visited and spoke at Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
In 2012 an exhibit at Yad Vashem which criticised Pius XII’s record was updated to offer a less-critical assessment of the former pope’s actions in dealing with the Nazi persecution of Jews during World War II. While the new text still points to Pius’s prominent role in the Church’s negotiations with Nazi officials, it paints a more complex picture of the situation decades ago.
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