Another small episode in the long-running saga of Pope Pius XII and the Jews. There is evidence that he was not anti-Semitic – at least according to this account from the Palestine Post of 1944.

In 1941, Pius XII told a Jewish visitor: "Be proud to be a Jew!".

The author was the final individual to approach the Pope that day. He wanted to tell Pius about a group of Jews who were being interned by Italy's Fascist government on an island, in danger of starvation. He tried to speak in broken Italian, but the Pope invited him to use his native language, assuming that it would be German. "You are German, too, aren't you?" asked the Pope. The author then explained that he was born in Germany, but he was a Jew.

Pius invited the author to finish his story. He listened intently then said: "You have done well to come to me and tell me this. I have heard about it before. Come back tomorrow with a written report and give it to the Secretary of State who is dealing with the question. But now for you, my son. You are a young Jew. I know what that means and I hope you will always be proud to be a Jew!"

Pius then raised his voice so that everyone in the hall - including the German soldiers - could hear it and said (in a "pleasant voice"): "My son, whether you are worthier than others only the Lord knows, but believe me, you are at least as worthy as every other human being that lives on our earth! And now, my Jewish friend, go with the protection of the Lord, and never forget, you must always be proud to be a Jew!"

He may not have been personally anti-Semitic, but did Pius XII say enough about the persecution of the Jews during the War? According to the future Pope John XXIII, he failed in this.

An Israeli scholar has discovered evidence that a Vatican emissary and future Pope tried to challenge the Catholic Church's perceived indifference to the Nazi mass murder of Europe's Jews during World War II.

Searching the little-known papers of an Israeli emissary who worked to save Jews during the war, Dina Porat, a professor of Jewish history from Tel Aviv University, found evidence that that Giuseppe Roncalli - who later became Pope John XXIII - criticized the policies of Pope Pius XII, lobbied to save Jews and passed on information about the death camps at Auschwitz months earlier than the Vatican acknowledged receiving it.

The German bishops had managed to put a stop to the Nazi euthanasia programme by protesting about it

On August 3, 1941, a Catholic Bishop, Clemens von Galen, delivered a sermon in Münster Cathedral attacking the Nazi euthanasia program calling it "plain murder." The sermon sent a shockwave through the Nazi leadership by publicly condemning the program and urged German Catholics to "withdraw ourselves and our faithful from their (Nazi) influence so that we may not be contaminated by their thinking and their ungodly behavior."

If Church leaders (not just the Pope) had united in protest over the “plain murder” of the Jews, it is likely the Nazis would have backed down over that, too.