CNN —Wartime Pope Pius XII knew details about the Nazi attempt to exterminate Jews in the Holocaust as early as 1942, according to a letter found in the Vatican archives that conflicts with the Holy See’s official position at the time that the information it had was vague and unverified. “The newness and importance of this document derives from a fact: now we have the certainty that the Catholic Church in Germany sent Pius XII exact and detailed news about the crimes that were being perpetrated against the Jews,” Coco told the newspaper, whose article was headlined: “Pius XII Knew”. His detractors say he lacked the courage to speak out on information he had despite pleas from Allied powers fighting Germany. The letter was among documents Coco said were kept in haphazard ways in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State and only recently handed over to the central archives where he works. Folders containing documents on Pope Pius XII, who reigned from 1939-1958, are seen inside the Vatican archives ahead of the full opening of the secret archives to scholars on March 2, at the Vatican, February 27, 2020.

---

Persons: Pope Pius XII, Holy, Father Lother Koenig, Robert Leiber, Giovanni Coco, Koenig, Leiber, Pius XII, ” Coco, Corriere, Pius, Coco, Dachau –, Guglielmo Mangiapane, Suzanne Brown, Fleming, Pope Francis ’, ”, David Kertzer, “, Brown, Kertzer Organizations: CNN, Holy, Vatican, Jesuit, Catholic Church, of State, US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC, Reuters, Pontifical, Catholic, US State Department Locations: Germany, Vatican, “ SS, Rava, Poland, Ukraine, Auschwitz, Dachau, Nazi, Europe, Vatican’s, Washington