Vatican: Stop pressuring pope over Pius XII sainthood
The Vatican on Saturday called on both Catholics and Jews to stop piling "pressure" on Pope Benedict over whether he should or should not promote the sainthood of his controversial Nazi-era predecessor Pius XII.
Pius, who reigned from 1939 to 1958, has been accused by some Jews of turning a blind eye to the Holocaust during World War II, a charge his supporters and the Vatican deny.
Chief Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi issued an unusual statement after an Italian news agency ran an interview with the Rev. Peter Gumpel, the Vatican's chief judge investigating Pius' sainthood cause....
