The Vatican and the Holocaust

Many people are aware of the failure of Pope Pius XII to speak out against Nazi Germany’s persecution of the Jews during the Holocaust. But few people know that his predecessor, Pope Pius XI, had prepared an address to the world’s Catholics on this very topic in collaboration with an American Jesuit priest and human rights activist, John LaFarge Jr. But Pope Pius XI suddenly died the night before the scheduled speech, and the existence of the planned Encyclical was then suppressed by the Vatican. A fascinating and tragic story of “What if?”