Rome, June 3, 2008 (CWNews.com)—Th e future Pope Pius XII opposed Polish legislation that he
judged as anti-Semitic during his term as Vatican Secretary of State, the Italian newspaper Il Giornale has
discovered.
Th en, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, who was Secretary of State in 1938, wrote to the Apostolic Nuncio in Poland
to encourage opposition to a piece of pending legislation, Il Giornale reports. Th e future Pontiff had been
alerted to the danger of the proposed legislation by another prominent Vatican offi cial, the French Cardinal
Eugene Tisserant.
Th e papal Nuncio then serving in Poland, Archbishop Filippo Cortesi, replied to Cardinal Pacelli that he,
too, thought the legislation in question was anti-Semitic. But he assured the Secretary of State that the bill
would not be passed into law—an assessment which proved correct.
Source: Pope Pius XII and World War II: The Documented Truth
