Statement of Pope Pius XII to the Jewish audience—November 29, 1945:
Your presence, gentlemen, is an eloquent refl ection on the psychological changes, the new
directions that the war has brought to maturity. Th e gulfs of discord and hate, the folly of
persecution, which were created among peoples and races by false and intolerant doctrines,
opposed to human and Christian spirit, have devoured many innocent victims, including noncombatants.
Th e Apostolic See, faithful to the principles of natural right inscribed by God in
every human heart, revealed on Sinai and perfected by the Sermon on the Mount, has never
left in doubt at any moment however critical that is repudiated those ideas which history will
list among the most deplorable and dishonorable travesties of human thought and feeling.
La vostra presenza, November 29, 1945. Extracts were published in the Tablet, December 8, 1945. Quoted in
Purdy at 262; Acta Apostolicae Sedis 37 (December 23, 1945) at 317–18; L’Osservatore Romano, November
30, 1945, at 1; the Tablet, December 8, 1945, at 277.
See also Pius XII’s address to representatives of the United Jewish Appeal, on relief work in Europe and
Palestine, February 9, 1948, L’Osservatore Romano, February 9–10, 1948; the Tablet, February 14, 1948, at
105; the New York Times, February 10, 1948, at 13. See Jewish Leaders Have Papal Audience, Catholic World,
January 1946, at 370.
Source: Pope Pius XII and World War II: The Documented Truth