Truth about Pius

It is said that if an untruth circulates long enough it will eventually be taken as truth. I was saddened, therefore, to read “Hitler’s Pope” in a Scotsman headline reporting the Holy See’s recent decision to open up Vatican wartime archives relating to Pius XII and the Jews (your report, 1 December).

While the report itself was balanced in content, the headline was misleading, incorporating, as it did, the aforementioned title of John Cornwell’s long-discredited book, which in turn was based on the seriously flawed revisionist works that followed on from Rolf Hochhuth’s 1960s German play, The Deputy.

The truth about Pius XII has always been there for historians who wish to review his wartime pontificate with an objective mind. It is the truth of the universal gratitude expressed by Pius’s Jewish contemporaries, the world’s leading Jewish figures and organisations upon the death of the Pontiff in 1958.