All language subtitles for Pope The Most Powerful s01e05 The Wartime Popes.eng

male narrator: One of the most
powerful men on Earth

holds a position
that has existed

for nearly 2,000 years.

As the world changes
and faith evolves,

his authority remains.

What began with one apostle

has become 1.2 billion
followers under one man.

He is the head
of the Catholic Church,

the pope,
and this is his path to power.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

In this episode...

choices in the face of war

leave an indelible mark
on the papacy.

While the world
debates sainthood

for one of the most
controversial popes

of the modern era...

history is forced to consider:

did the Catholic Church
do enough?

♪ ♪

[solemn chanting]

♪ ♪

Pope Francis is the third
sitting pope

to visit a Nazi death camp.

On July 29th, 2016,

he makes an historic visit to
Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland.

[melancholy music]

♪ ♪

In this camp alone,
the Nazis put

more than one million people
to death.

♪ ♪

- According to
Catholic teaching today,

anti-Semitism is a sin.

Jewish people
are to be respected.

They are not to be converted.

They have their own
relationship with God.

But this was
a Christian society

that somehow was able
to view Jews

as enough of an other,
an outsider,

that they could live with this.

♪ ♪

narrator: Pope Francis' visit
to Auschwitz

immerses the pontificate
in a harrowing time

in both world
and Church history.

♪ ♪

Faced with the haunting
images of the Holocaust,

Pope Francis is confronted

by the legacies
of his predecessors.

♪ ♪

- The question is not only
what we think the pope did

during the Second World War
and during the Holocaust

but what we think
the pope should have done.

[cymbal shimmers]

[dramatic music]

narrator: Pope Pius XII
is a polarizing figure.

Many praise his bravery
in the face of fascism,

while others believe
he could have done more.

- There's a controversial move
to canonize Pius XII,

to have him declared a saint.

I think the real crux
of the issue

is whether the actions
of this pope,

in the midst
of one of the great tragedies

of human history,

whether that's the stuff
of the vicar of Christ.

Is that the stuff of a saint?

narrator: The controversy
surrounding Pius XII

begins long before
he ever becomes pope.

[percussive music]

From 1917 to 1929,
Eugenio Pacelli,

the future Pope Pius XII,

serves as a papal ambassador
stationed in Germany.

- Pacelli was tapped
by the Vatican

to try to go to Germany
to bring an end to World War I.

He didn't bring an end
to the war,

but he stayed in Germany.

He was helping
displaced persons,

injured persons.

Then the soldiers come back.

♪ ♪

- Because of World War I
and Germany losing World War I,

Germany was in
a state of chaos,

and as a result,
there was political unrest.

There was revolution.

- You've got a bunch of young
men who don't have jobs,

and they feel like they were
betrayed by their country,

and there's this violence
in the streets.

[man shouts indistinctly]

They start forming
these organizations

that eventually morph into
the Nazis.

[cymbal shimmers]

narrator: Oppressive
government regimes

across Europe
gain traction by blaming

outsiders, immigrants,
and Jews

for the post-war
economic and political crisis.

In 1922,
Benito Mussolini leads

the National Fascist Party
to a victory in Italy...

while Hitler and the Nazis
rise to power in Germany,

where Pacelli is stationed.

New pope Pius XI is faced
with unprecedented unrest.

- Pius XI was
an interesting pope.

♪ ♪

A diplomat,

very experienced
in international politics,

and he saw the evil of Nazism.

narrator: The Nazi Party
stands firmly

as anti-religion,

putting Jews and Catholics

in their crosshairs.

Alarmed by what he sees
happening in Nazi Germany,

Pius XI implores Pacelli

to be his eyes and ears
on the ground.

- Hitler's in Munich,
and the future pope Pius XII

is in Munich at the same time.

He sees Hitler seizing power,

and he's reporting back
to Rome about what's going on.

[solemn piano music]

- Pius XI and Eugenio Pacelli

had a very unique
relationship.

Pacelli was really, really
critical in helping to steer

much of the major decisions
that Pius XI made.

Pius XI asked Eugenio Pacelli

to become
his secretary of state,

and so Pacelli becomes,
effectively,

the second most powerful man

in the government
of the Church.

narrator: As fascism explodes
all over Europe,

Catholics become
enemies of the state.

- The thing about Catholics
in particular...

[boys singing]

Catholics had a relationship,

a devotion to something
outside the government.

- There's gonna be conflict
over the status

of Catholic youth groups

and whether these youth groups
ought to be

brought under the umbrella
fascist organization.

- There are some Catholic
bishops who were beaten...

[cheering and shouting]

Who had their homes
and their offices ransacked.

- The Church, of course,
to be able to operate,

has to be physically secure.

narrator: The Vatican is faced
with an extraordinary dilemma.

Because of his experience
as a papal diplomat,

Pope Pius XI enlists
Pacelli's help to negotiate

with the fascist
Italian government.

The result
is the Lateran Treaty.

♪ ♪

- Italy and the Vatican
reached an agreement

to allow the Church
to function,

allow the pope to feel secure

when he left
the Vatican itself.

- 1929 was really a milestone.

The Italian government
at this point is

a dictatorship in the hands
of Benito Mussolini,

and the Lateran Treaty
returns to the pope

territorial sovereignty,
which meant independence.

- The Lateran Treaty
made Vatican City into

an independent nation state.

narrator: In exchange
for Vatican autonomy,

the pope agrees
to halt all opposition

to Mussolini's regime.

The 1929 agreement
sets a precedent.

The Church is willing
to negotiate with dictators

in exchange for sovereignty.

[dramatic music]

narrator: In 1929,

the Vatican signs
the Lateran Treaty,

an agreement with Mussolini

establishing autonomy
for the Church

in exchange
for political neutrality.

- It gave the Church a hold
on Italian society.

♪ ♪

- From the pope's perspective,
it's a major victory,

but there's a price
to be paid.

I mean,
Mussolini gets something

for having given something.

Part of the deal
was that the Church

was to remain
outside of politics.

narrator: With Church
opposition out of the way,

Mussolini's fascist government
flourishes.

- The Lateran Treaty
is a major step

in the consolidation
of a fascist dictatorship

because one of the things that
Mussolini's able to do in fact

is turn to a population
that is largely Catholic

and show that in fact
he's made peace

with the spiritual leader
of the Church.

narrator: While Mussolini
and the Church

mutually benefit
from their peace in Italy...

Adolf Hitler is elected
Chancellor of Germany,

and Nazism becomes
the law of the land.

- [speaks German]

- Jews were a target
almost immediately.

- [speaks German]

- January 30th, Adolf Hitler
becomes Chancellor of Germany.

The first anti-Jewish law
is April 1st.

And the Nazi movement
not only was anti-Semitic,

they were anti-communist,
anti-socialist, anti-Catholic.

[men chanting]

For Catholics, suddenly,
they couldn't join

their youth group organization

without fighting
with the local Nazi youth.

Their schools
would be confiscated.

Day-to-day violence
was an everyday occurrence

from 1933 onward.

narrator: After the success
of the Lateran Treaty,

Pope Pius XI looks again
to Eugenio Pacelli

to help him defend Catholics
in the face of another

increasingly troubling
dictator.

In July 1933,

Pacelli negotiates
another treaty,

this time
with the German government,

called the Reich's Concordant.

- Like the Lateran Treaty,
this was a defensive measure.

The State says,
"Okay, we will allow

"the Church control
over its affairs,

"but the price to be paid
is that the Church

is not to be involved
in politics."

It's a controversial
agreement.

Some see it as sort of
a pact with the devil.

It effectively takes
the Catholic Church

out of the political realm
at the moment

when opposition
to an evolving dictatorship

was more needed than ever.

- It was a fatal stepping back
from confronting pure evil.

narrator: Although
the Reich's Concordant

officially prevents
the Vatican

from working against Hitler,

many German Catholics
refuse to stay silent.

- An anonymous woman
in Dusseldorf

writes to Pius XI,
and she says,

"I'm walking along
in the streets day to day,

"and children are beating up
their Jewish neighbors.

"How can we be good,
moral-thinking Catholics

with this going on around us?"

narrator: Despite the tenets
of the agreement,

Nazis continue to interfere
in Catholic life.

Nuns and priests
continue to be arrested,

and Hitler passes
sterilization laws,

which stand
in diametric opposition

to Catholic doctrine.

- Because, of course,
Hitler was not a man

you could ever trust...
and, of course,

you could never do a deal
with Hitler.

- And yet the Vatican
just stays on course.

"We have a treaty.
We have a treaty.

We have a treaty."

- And so,

the oppression of the Church
went on...

And it got worse.

Infinitely, horribly worse.

narrator: As the 1930s
wear on,

Hitler's dictatorship becomes
more and more violent.

A litany of anti-Jewish laws
are passed,

including a boycott
of all Jewish businesses.

Enemies of the state,
including Catholic priests,

are put on trains
to labor camps.

[train bell echoing]

- The concentration camp
at Dachau--

some have described it

as the world's biggest
seminary.

At one point in time,
there were thousands

of Catholic priests there.

- 2,500 Catholic priests
died at Dachau.

Not Catholics,
Catholic priests.

At this point, there's no way

that the Church
and the Third Reich

are gonna get along.

narrator: The Vatican writes
more than 50 complaints

to Nazis about violations
of the Reich's Concordant,

but Pius XI does not speak out
publicly against Hitler.

- Latter part of the 1930s,
Pius XI

began to prepare himself
and began to prepare the Church

for some kind
of direct confrontation

with the fascist regimes.

- He distrusted Hitler.

He was also opposed to racism.

He was personally
not very friendly to the Jews.

He shared the very widespread
Christian belief that the Jews,

as a people,
had been responsible

for Jesus' death,
but he thought

that that didn't mean
you had a right

to invade their human rights...
and, in fact,

wrote an encyclical
condemning it.

narrator: In 1937,
Pius XI enlists

Pacelli's help yet again.

He drafts an encyclical

regarding the situation
in Germany.

- An encyclical is
the most formal statement

from the Vatican.

It's the highest statement
a pope can make.

narrator: Pope Pius XI calls
his 1937 German encyclical

"Mit Brennender Sorge,"

which means
"With Burning Concern."

In it, he condemns racism

from a theological
perspective.

- It was talking about
how it's foolish to think

that God would lock all
of what is great in humanity

into a single race.

narrator: With the Nazis
on high alert

for any subversive activity...

The Vatican uses
a secret courier network

to smuggle the encyclical
into Germany.

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

- It was read from the pulpits
in Catholic churches

throughout Germany
on Palm Sunday.

- It was the only time
that the whole of Germany

heard a denunciation
of the regime from pulpits,

an extraordinarily brave thing
to do.

narrator: But the papal risk
is a measured one.

Although the encyclical
denounces racism,

it fails to mention Hitler
or the Nazi Party by name.

- It's a document
that bears Pacelli's hand.

He is ever mindful of the need
and of the desire

to try to maintain
a diplomatic relationship.

So it's an interesting
sort of doctrinal statement

that perhaps lacks
some of the political punch

that-that hour called for.

narrator: Regardless
of its ambiguous language,

Hitler sends Gestapo
into every German church

to confiscate the document.

- Anyone who said it,
printed it, repeated it,

possessed it,
was getting arrested

or getting beat up,
or their property

was being seized.

That kind of fear
of retaliation,

that's what Hitler
played upon.

narrator: In 1938,
Hitler's regime expands

into Austria.

More anti-Semitic laws
are passed.

More Jewish homes
and businesses are destroyed,

and still the Vatican
remains publicly neutral.

But on the night
of November 9th, 1938,

Germany will explode
in violence,

marking a sinister shift
in the Nazi agenda

that the world will not
be able to ignore.

narrator: In the two years
after Pope Pius XI

releases
his anti-racism encyclical,

the Vatican remains
publicly silent

about Hitler's
growing fascist regime...

and on the eve
of November 9th, 1938,

Nazi violence against the Jews
reaches a fever pitch.

- Kristallnacht was
the Night of Shattered Glass.

It's the night when the Nazis
went to the Jewish businesses,

the synagogues,
and smashed everything.

- 30,000 Jewish men were sent
to a concentration camp.

♪ ♪

It was a very public,
violent attack on Jews,

and after that, it was--
it was game over.

[dramatic music]

narrator: Bishops
from all over Europe

write to the Vatican's
secretary of state,

Eugenio Pacelli,
demanding a response

to the violence in Germany.

- The Primate of the Catholic
Church in England

wrote to Pacelli and said,

"We need to be clear that this
is Nazi terrorism against Jews.

Can you make a statement?"

And Pacelli writes back saying,
"Well, it's a difficult issue,

"and what we need to do
is just issue

"a statement of general love

and concern and mercy for all
in a universal way."

[fevered shouting]

narrator: In January 1939,

Hitler makes
a bone-chilling speech,

threatening the annihilation
of the Jewish race in Europe.

More men, women, and children

are sent
to concentration camps.

Despite the Vatican's
neutrality treaties,

Pope Pius XI...

can no longer remain silent.

- It's quite clear
that when Pius XI was dying,

he was about to denounce
fascism

in quite explicit terms.

[bell rings]

♪ ♪

narrator: Pius XI begins
to draft "On the Human Race,"

an encyclical in which
he condemns anti-Semitism...

♪ ♪

But he dies
before it is ever released.

Now with Europe on the brink
of another war,

the cardinals must elect
a new pope.

- The conclave of 1939
comes, of course,

at a critical moment.

It's very clear
that Nazi foreign policy

is becoming
increasingly aggressive,

and so the election
of a new pope

garners a great deal
of interest

well beyond
the Catholic world.

- Pius XI had clearly groomed
Pacelli

to become the next pope.

narrator: After a conclave
lasting less than 24 hours...

Vatican Secretary of State
Eugenio Pacelli

is sworn in as pope.

He chooses to call himself
Pius XII to honor his mentor.

- One of the things that made
Pacelli the right choice

at this point in time
was that all the rival parties

believed that he was
in their camp.

He was, as it were,
all things to all men.

- He was widely recognized
for his diplomatic skill.

It was seen that--
given that the world

was in a state
of such tension,

that a diplomat pope,

and one who had
considerable experience

in international affairs,

might be in order.

narrator: As tensions
in Europe continue to rise,

Pope Pius XII is faced
with a daunting task.

He must navigate the role
of a religious leader

in an increasingly
secular world.

♪ ♪

- Compels popes
to ask themselves

who they represent,
and for whom should they speak?

- Pius XII was trained
as a papal diplomat.

He deeply internalized
the doctrine

that papacy functioned best
as a neutral force.

But can the papacy really be
neutral in the face of Nazism?

[dramatic music]

narrator: Six months
after his election,

the Nazis invade Poland...

And World War II is officially
declared in Europe.

[gunfire]

- The Nazi invasion of Poland
in September 1939

is catastrophic for Catholics.

Poland is a Catholic country.

Polish Catholics
were dealt with very harshly.

Priests were often murdered
right on the spot.

Women were raped--
it was brutal,

and the Vatican was receiving

reports of this
and cries for help.

- This was a war
against religion,

against Jews,
against Catholics,

against anything
that was non-German.

narrator: Pius XII is forced
to reexamine his commitment

to quiet diplomacy.

With the Church under attack,

it is up to the pope
to defend the faithful.

narrator: Six months
after Eugenio Pacelli

is elected pope...

The Nazis invade Poland,

catapulting Europe
into World War II.

Despite pressure
from Allied forces,

including U.S. President
Roosevelt,

Pius XII's statements
remain measured and neutral.

Meanwhile,
Hitler's agenda only grows

in scope and horror.

- The Nazis started a program
to eliminate

people with mental
and physical disabilities.

That eventually morphed
into the Final Solution.

- There was a decision
to exterminate

every Jewish man, woman,
and child anywhere in Europe.

narrator: In the 1930s,
Nazis had sent Jews,

outspoken Catholics,
communists,

and the handicapped
to concentration camps...

♪ ♪

But in 1940,

Hitler opens
Auschwitz-Birkenau,

the first and most lethal
of what will be eight

Nazi death factories...
camps engineered

for the systematic mass murder
of Jews.

♪ ♪

By the end of the war...

more than 1 million Jews
will perish

in Auschwitz alone.

- News, letters and cables

of exactly what
the Nazi regime was doing

went to and from the Vatican
daily by the hundreds.

- Many of his own reliable
sources are telling him

that the Nazis are engaged
in a particularly cruel

and unique campaign
against Jews.

He receives one memo
from a military chaplain

that begins simply,

"The Jews. Period.
A dreadful situation. Period,"

which dates to 1942.

- The Vatican knew

precisely what was going on.

There was no better informed
organization in Europe

than the Vatican.

narrator: As
the horrific images

from Germany and Poland

spread across the globe...

♪ ♪

The devout look to the pope
for guidance,

but ever the diplomat,

Pius XII worries
that action against Hitler

might provoke more violence
against Catholics.

- If Pius XII spoke out,

would it make things worse
for Polish Catholics?

Well, you could actually
hardly make things worse

for Polish Catholics.

- As he himself says,

"I have to watch what I say...

because I want to avoid
a greater evil,"

but what he can do,
he will do.

And a great example
of the way

Pius XII dealt with
this question comes

in the Christmas address
of 1942.

[Pius XII speaking Italian]

narrator: In his
Christmas address,

broadcast internationally

on Vatican radio,

Pope Pius XII makes
one of his only

public statements
about the war.

In it, he speaks for human
rights and against racism,

but he fails to mention
Hitler, the Nazis,

or the Jewish people by name.

- He made
a very generalized statement

about the rights of people
that he thought

was all he needed to say
about the Jewish question.

- The bottom line was,
even after violence

against Jews,
the decision in Rome was,

"We're not going to
name the Nazis,

"and we're not
gonna name Jews.

We're just gonna offer
universal love and charity."

So it's another opportunity
that was missed,

and a critical one.

- He worried a lot about the
consequences of speaking out.

One wonders,
did he ever really think

about the consequences
of not speaking out?

[cymbal shimmers]

narrator: Despite Pius XII's
public neutrality,

Hitler's march
towards world domination

reaches the pope's doorstep.

In September of 1943,

Hitler invades Rome.

- It was a situation
where the pope thought

that they had
an operating agreement,

did not think
this was going to happen,

but about 2,000 Jews
were rounded up.

[dramatic music]

- The day of the roundup,

the pope says he doesn't
want to have to

come out and condemn,
explicitly, Nazi behavior.

It's obviously a veiled threat
to do precisely that,

but he says
he doesn't want to do it.

So the threat of a public
condemnation is dangled,

which tells us in fact
that he and his men understand

the power and the value
of the pope's words.

And repeatedly, consistently,

even as people
were being rounded up,

he declines to utter
that clear word.

[solemn music]

♪ ♪

narrator: As the war rages
outside the Vatican walls...

Pius XII becomes a target.

[cymbal shimmers]

Rumors fly about a Nazi plan
to kidnap the pope.

- Hitler actually got a general
and told him to draw up plans

to invade the Vatican.

Pius XII gathered
everyone together

and essentially released them

if they wanted to leave,

but he also submitted a letter
that was his resignation

that said, "If I'm captured,
I resign the papacy.

"So they will not
capture the pope.

"They will capture
Eugenio Pacelli,

but not the pope."

narrator: As bombs go off
and Jews are rounded up

right under
the pope's windows,

Pius XII must take stock.

His diplomatic efforts
have failed,

and the Vatican is now
directly in Nazi crosshairs.

[dramatic music]

narrator: In September 1943,
Nazi troops invade Rome.

An imminent attack
on the Vatican looms,

and more than 2,000 Roman Jews

are rounded up for deportation
to extermination camps.

♪ ♪

They're held at
the Military College of Rome,

mere blocks
from St. Peter's Basilica.

♪ ♪

But despite the atrocities
unfolding

right at his doorstep,

Pope Pius XII
remains publicly silent.

- He takes the path
of diplomatic caution

in terms of
his public pronouncements,

but it's not that
the pope was inactive.

♪ ♪

There is a view that the pope
worked behind the scenes

to try to put an end
to the roundup.

There is some evidence in fact
that that actually worked.

♪ ♪

- They got several Jews
released,

primarily because
they were married to a Catholic

or they invoked the Concordant

to help some of them
avoid deportation.

- He also then says,
"Well, let's do

what we can to alleviate
suffering on the ground."

♪ ♪

- There were
some Vatican trucks

that would go around
and take food

and take blankets
and try to bring

additional supplies
to where it was needed.

narrator: Some believe
that Pope Pius XII's silence

is a cover...
that throughout the war,

he is secretly involved
with covert operations

with the Allies.

- The pope did secretly tape
his conversations.

During the week
of his election in 1939,

the Vatican's tapes
show quite clearly

that he opted
for public acquiescence

with the Nazis
and at the same time deciding

that they must be resistant
behind the scenes.

♪ ♪

Pius XII received information
from a Vatican spy in Germany,

and he passed this information
on to the Western Allies.

narrator: Some historians
even speculate about

papal involvement in a plan
to assassinate Hitler.

[ominous piano music]

- The key figure in the
German resistance to Hitler

was Admiral Wilhelm Canaris,

the head of German
military intelligence,

whom, as it happens,
Pacelli had met in the 1920s

when he was in Germany.

Canaris reached out
to his old friend Pacelli

and said, "Help me
and help Germany

get rid of Hitler."

Canaris then had access
to explosives.

♪ ♪

narrator: Between 1940
and 1944...

there would be three
failed attempts

to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

Information about these plots

is still shrouded
in conspiracy theory,

and documented proof
of Pius XII's role

is almost nonexistent.

- For a long time,
it wasn't known about,

because the pope knew
if he kept written records,

it'd get people killed.

- To be really clear,
the pope was not involved

in any of the details.

He does help to facilitate

these contacts plotting
to remove Adolf Hitler,

and that's important.

It was risky.

It was something that he kept

from his closest advisers,

and it shows us that for all
of our understanding of him

as very cautious
and maybe too cautious,

he could, at times,
take some very bold

and even risky actions.

♪ ♪

narrator: Despite
the uncertainty surrounding

any papal involvement
in a plan to kill Hitler,

the Church's role
in hiding Jews during the war

is undeniable.

- There's good,
reliable evidence

that Church institutions,
religious houses

were used
to rescue and house Jews.

narrator: There is
even evidence

that Jews were hidden

on Vatican-owned properties.

- There's some
fascinating photographs

where you see people
not only sleeping

on the floors in churches,

not only in the hallways,
but even on the staircases,

up and down the staircases,
three across.

♪ ♪

narrator: Close to 6 million
European Jews

perish during World War II...

but nearly 80% of the 12,000
Roman Jews survive.

♪ ♪

- A large percentage of Jews
in Rome survive,

in large part
because of the actions

of many of these
religious houses.

- The debate around that is,

was there a central order
to do this?

Did Pius XII remain silent
during the actual roundup

but secretly issue an order

that as many Jews should
be hidden as possible?

And we've never found an order
from Pius XII

to shelter and hide
Italian Jews,

and there were even some cases
where he was displeased

because it put
that particular religious order

or religious house at risk.

narrator: Despite more than
70 years of retrospect,

the pontificate of Pius XII
is still veiled in mystery.

Who was he,

and does he deserve

to be called a saint?

[mournful singing]

narrator: To be canonized
a saint is to be recognized

as one who shares an eternal
life with God in heaven.

In the last 1,000 years,

only seven popes
have been made saints.

Reigning
for nearly two decades,

many Catholics see Pius XII as
a prolific religious leader,

responsible for shaping
the modern Church...

but as the world
debates canonization

for the wartime pope...

we are forced to consider
the holiness of his actions

during one of
the most turbulent times

in world history.

- The heart of the controversy
really is whether

his diplomatic caution
saved lives.

Those who advance his cause

see that as an argument
to make him a saint.

[dramatic music]

- Pius XII is often excused
for not having condemned

the extermination of the Jews
because,

as he himself said...
had he done so,

it wouldn't have done
any good,

and it might have
made things worse.

But I think it's hard
to avoid the feeling

that there was some kind
of moral failure.

narrator: The crux
of the debate

lies in the character
of Pope Pius XII.

♪ ♪

Who was he,

and why did he make

the decisions he did?

- There are those who see
in his reluctance

to identify the suffering
of Jews in particular,

some see in that
the strains of anti-Semitism.

- Eugenio Pacelli's time
in Germany as a papal diplomat

is really critical
to his formation,

his thinking about Germans
and Germany,

and, one could argue,
his thinking about Jews.

He describes
meeting with Jewish officials,

who he describes
as dirty communists

with slanted eyes.

We can see
his negative stereotypes

about Jews in his writings,

and I'm not convinced they ever
really exited his thinking.

- The whole
of Pius XII's papacy

is dominated in our memory
by questions.

Seems a bit simple to say

that there are evil people
and good people,

because most of us aren't
actually one or the other.

We're a mixture.
It's much more complex.

♪ ♪

narrator: But the complexities
of Pope Pius XII

are yet to be unraveled.

Questions about what he did
and did not do

during the Holocaust
remain unanswered.

- We don't yet have access
to all of the wartime archive,

so we don't really have a full
historical record for Pius XII.

- Once they are available,
and scholars

can make a determination

of exactly what he did
or didn't do,

then we can say definitively

what the record of Pius XII
was,

and before we can do that,

it would be premature
to move forward with sainthood.

[melancholy
acoustic strumming]

♪ ♪

narrator: Until the records
are released,

the world can only speculate.

♪ ♪

Polarized opinions color
the emotional debate

over the canonization
of a deeply controversial

historical figure.

- If in fact he wanted
to protect his own church

and his own coreligionists

in the face of the Holocaust,

that decision
had consequences.

I think Pius XII was a human
being who made mistakes,

and maybe he didn't make

the right decision
in this case,

and maybe that's a lesson
for this church,

that sometimes we don't
make the right decision,

and we need to atone,

and we need to
correct ourselves,

and we need to do better
in the future.

♪ ♪

narrator: In 2016,
as Pope Francis

walked through the shadows
of Auschwitz...

♪ ♪

He must face the legacy
of his predecessors.

♪ ♪

He prays for the mistakes
he has inherited

and for the lessons that
will carry the Church forward.

♪ ♪

- Pope Francis is a radically
different kind of pope

than the Catholic Church
has seen for a long time.

He has the rule of love.
That's it.

Love your neighbor,
and if you're doing that,

then you're a good Catholic.

narrator: Modern popes
engage in politics

at the highest level...

regularly meeting
with world leaders

and taking meaningful stands

against atrocity
and injustice.

John Paul II worked tirelessly
to end communism

and help the African continent
heal

in the wake of colonialism
and apartheid.

Pope Francis continues
in that brave legacy,

a champion for human rights,

unafraid to fight for
the freedoms of the oppressed.

- Francis and John Paul II
have moved us on

very significantly.

They opened the door.

Now the Vatican is actually
a player in world politics,

particularly in
humanitarian aspects,

and that's been
an enormously important aspect

of its ministry.

During the Second World War,
there was this sense

that the Church was very
different from the world.

The pope was isolated.

- I'm a lifelong
practicing Catholic

who has worked for 17 years
at the Holocaust Museum,

and I'm a historian.

[melancholy piano music]

And so it's difficult
to just look clinically

at a document where
a Ukrainian Catholic shooter

is taking a Jewish child
by the neck

and shooting them
while their mother watches

and then going to church
the following Sunday.

♪ ♪

To see that Catholics
have the capacity

to set their faith to one side

and be part of the Holocaust

that destroyed
6 million families,

and to this day these families
come to the museum,

and you can see
that it goes generations deep,

it makes one question--

what is the point of my faith
at all?

What is the point of a pope
leading a church

where love and mercy
is not paramount?

And it makes you wonder.

♪ ♪

narrator: In times
of tragedy...

♪ ♪

Humanity continues
to wrestle with faith.

♪ ♪

The world looks to the pope
for guidance and comfort...

and in the darkest of times,

lessons of the past
must light his way.

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