Saint Pius XII?
Sir: Pope Pius XII was described by Golda Meir, the then Israeli foreign minister, as ‘a true friend of the Jewish people’ at the time of the Pontiff’s death in 1958. His consistent anti-totalitarian policy towards both the Nazis and their blood brothers — the communists — deserves better than the calumnies of Gerard Noel et al, who propagated the modernist Catholic myth of ‘bad old Church pre-1962’ (before Vatican II) and see Pius as the representative of that institution. Andrew Roberts (Books, 19 July) should be aware of the disgruntled ‘modernist’ Catholics who see their youthful 1960s radicalism being steadily undone by the present Pope, who is a worthy successor to Pius XII.
It is worth mentioning that when the chief Rabbi of Rome, Emmanuel Zolli, converted to the Catholic faith in 1948 he chose the baptismal name Eugenio in honour of Pope Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli) for all the assistance he gave to the Jews during the time of Nazi persecution. I look forward to the day when Pius XII is canonised.
Andrew Gray
Via email
Sir: Andrew Roberts’ acknowledgement that Pius XII failed to protest vigorously against the massacre of Serbs by the Croatian Ustasha regime evokes a wry smile from this Serb.
There should have been no surprise when the Krajina Serbs objected, in 1990, to being railroaded into a secessionist Croatia led by Franjo Tudjman, who was unrepentant about the Ustasha’s crimes. Yet most outside observers, including the Vatican, accused the Serbs of unnecessarily dredging up the past.
Tudjman’s 1989 Wastelands of Historical Reality, a revisionist whitewash of the Ustasha, was dismissed as an unfortunate slip of the tongue, and his proud boast during Croatia’s first free elections that his wife was neither Serb nor Jew was deemed a mere indiscretion, while his subsequent withdrawal of the Serbs’ constitutional status as one of Croatia’s two historical nations was brushed aside as a petty detail. No wonder the Krajina Serbs took up arms. The Krajina Serb nation was ethnically cleansed in 1995. It is owed an apology, and not just by Zagreb.
Yugo Kovach
Twickenham, Middlesex
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