The newly discovered letter, written by a German Jesuit to Pope Pius XII’s personal secretary, suggests that the pope knew of Hitler’s atrocities but chose to remain silent.
Not condoning this at all, but could it be because the Vatican was literally surrounded by Hitlers biggest ally and thought it would be unwise to provoke the Axis?
No reason not to come out with this information afterwards though.
The Catholic Church was also friendly with Franco's fascist Spain.
So, the Church was actually surrounded by friends.
The catholic church was deeply tied with the fascists movements of the time. They weren't threatened, they were allies
Probably didn't want to draw attention to the 13,000 Jews they were sheltering in the Varican
My impression is that the Church wasn't of one mind about whether fascism was cool. On the one hand, Mussolini was their bro. On the other, they had decided racism wasn't cool already sometime before that point.
I think that number might be high, though, Wikipedia suggests hundreds, which is reasonable considering how big a place it is.
