Vatican rejects pressure on Nazi-era pope sainthood

By Phil Stewart
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict must be left alone to decide on whether to promote a controversial Nazi-era pontiff toward sainthood, the Vatican said on Friday, rejecting apparent pressure from within the Church to move ahead.
Pope Pius XII has been accused by some Jews of turning a blind eye to the Holocaust during World War Two, a charge his supporters and the Vatican deny.
The Vatican issued an unusually strong statement hours after Italian media quoted Rev. Peter Gumpel, the chief Vatican judge investigating Pius' sainthood cause, as suggesting Benedict had not yet acted out of fear it would harm relations with Jews.
The Vatican, citing news reports, said the Pope's decision on whether to sign beatification decrees "is the exclusive competence of the Pope, who should be left completely free in his evaluations and decisions".
"If the Pope thinks that study and reflection on Pius XII's cause should be further extended, his position must be respected without interference or unjustified and inopportune declarations," the Vatican's press office said.
Some say Pius did not do enough to save Jews. The Vatican and his Jewish defenders say he worked behind the scenes to help because direct intervention would have worsened the situation.
"HEROIC VIRTUES"
The Vatican's saint-making department in 2007 voted in favor of a decree recognizing Pius' "heroic virtues", a step in a long process toward possible sainthood that began in 1967.
Benedict has so far not approved the decree -- which is needed for beatification, the last step before sainthood -- opting for what the Vatican has called a period of reflection.
Gumpel, a major proponent of sainthood for Pius, said Benedict had been "struck" by some recent meetings with Jewish organizations.
"(Jewish groups) told him loudly and clearly that if he did anything in favor of Pope (Pius), relations between the Catholic Church and Jews would be definitively and permanently compromised," Gumpel was quoted as saying by ANSA news agency.
Jewish groups have asked the Vatican to freeze the procedure that can lead to his sainthood pending more study of wartime records.
Pius is one of several issues that have strained Catholic-Jewish relations. Benedict's decision to readmit to the Church a bishop who denied the extent of the Holocaust in January also strained ties.
Richard Williamson had said in an interview he believed there were no gas chambers and that no more than 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, rather than the 6 million accepted by most historians.

Source: Reuters