Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Jews and Catholics Unite To Pan Film on Pope Pius XII

A new Italian film that attempts to defend wartime Pope Pius XII against accusations he turned a blind eye to the Holocaust has been panned by the Vatican as well as Catholic and Jewish media.

“Shades of Truth” is the account of a fictional present-day American journalist who starts off as a critic of Pius and changes his mind after research in Israel, Rome and elsewhere in Europe.

Some Jews have accused Pius, who headed the Roman Catholic Church from 1939 to 1958, of failing to use his position to bring attention to the extermination of Jews.

The Vatican says he worked actively behind the scenes to save thousands of Jews and did not speak out more forcefully for fear his words could have led to more deaths of both Jews and Christians at the hands of the Nazis.

After a screening on Monday near the Vatican, the film, which calls Pius “the most misunderstood person of the 20th century,” was universally panned.

The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano said the film, which its director Liana Marabini wants to show at the Cannes festival this year, was “naive,” “lacking credibility” and a “frankly clumsy attempt” at defending the wartime pontiff.

The Italian Catholic magazine Famiglia Cristiana said the film would hurt Pius’s already fragile reputation because it was overly apologetic and not sufficiently based on historical documents that defend him.

Pagine Ebraiche, the online paper of Rome’s Jewish community, called it “a blundering soap opera of dubious quality, filled with stereotypes.”

It also faulted the film for a scene in which the journalist dreams he sees Pius wearing a yellow Star of David on his white cassock, like the patch the Nazis forced Jews to wear.

The film stars American actor David Wall and includes appearances by Christopher Lambert and Giancarlo Giannini.

Last year, Pope Francis defended his predecessor in an interview with a Spanish newspaper, saying Pius “has to be seen in the context of that era.” The Vatican’s wartime archives would shed much light on what Pius did to help Italian Jews, he said.

Jewish groups have asked the Vatican to freeze the process that could lead to sainthood for Pius until all wartime archives are fully opened to historians, saying Catholic-Jewish relations could be harmed if the process moved ahead.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.