Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to advance Pius XII to the next stage of the canonisation process has brought criticism from within the Jewish community in Britain and elsewhere. Elevation to the status of “venerable” follows recognition of Pius’ “heroic virtues”, an unfortunate expression in the circumstances because the wartime Pope’s heroism – or lack of it – in the face of the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews is still a matter of controversy. It is interesting to reflect how differently things would have turned out had Pope Pius XII borrowed four words from the BBC broadcast by the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Arthur Hinsley, in July 1942 in memory of the 700,000 Jews murdered by the Nazis up to that point in the war – the total was later to reach six million. The cardinal called the killings “black deeds of shame”. And in December of that year, preaching in Westminster Cathedral, Cardinal Hinsley condemned the “brutal persecution of the Jews” and accurately predicted that the Nazis’ “savage race hatred” was “fiendishly planned” to turn Poland into “one vast Jewish cemetery of the Jewish population of Europe”.

Catholic church leaders like Cardinal Hinsley clearly did not feel the need for the caution that so inhibited the Pope. Why Pius XII felt this way is still not resolved. The allegation that he was himself anti-Semitic, or indeed so callous that the fate of the Jews – even of Rome – did not bother him, does not stand up to close scrutiny. Noting that the occupying German forces were still respecting Vatican neutrality, he ordered that Jews should be sheltered from the round-ups in property belonging to the Holy See. All over Italy the Church did likewise. It is beyond dispute that tens of thousands of Jewish lives were saved. Pius XII was never Hitler’s Pope, although that does not mean his canonisation would be wise ...

The crisis surrounding the sexual abuse of children by priests has been used, particularly in the United States, to raise a hue and cry against homosexuality among the clergy. The fault, in other words, was too much tolerance. This illiberal scapegoating has enabled some conservative church leaders to divert attention from deeper structural and cultural problems that led not just to the abuse itself but to the scandal ...

The first decade of the new century was marked at its beginning and its end by world-changing ­catastrophes, the sort of events that can make talk of Christian hope sound like pious escapism. The four-fold attacks of 11 September 2001, known collectively from the American dating as “9/11”, were a startling demonstration that international jihadism – organised terrorism aimed at overthrowing Western ...

Bernard Longley’s enthronement as Archbishop of Birmingham in St Chad’s Cathedral in that city on Tuesday, marks the start of a liturgical year that could prove momentous. His appointment, coming so soon after that of Archbishop Vincent Nichols to Westminster, marks the arrival at the top of what might be called the Vatican II generation – men whose formation years were entirely spent after the council. ...

The Irish Government’s official report into the handling of child-abuse cases in the Archdiocese of Dublin has shone a shaft of light into some very dark corners. It is to the credit of the current archbishop, Diarmuid Martin, that it was only able to do so because he adopted a policy of total cooperation and transparency, searingly painful though the results have been. It is clear from the report that what motivated ...