The delicate and disturbing possibility of the canonization of Pope Pius XII has been much in the news lately. Recently, a Vatican official suggested that a planned visit to Israel by Pope Benedict could be delayed, if not cancelled, due to the offence caused the Catholic Church by a caption accompanying a photograph of Pius in a display at Yad Vashem. The caption claims that Pius “abstained from signing the Allied declaration condemning the extermination of the Jews” and “maintained his neutral position throughout the war.”

The implied threat in the official’s statement was denied by other officials in the Vatican. But the utterance understandably roiled Israeli sensibilities. President Shimon Peres intervened to try to still the heaving waters of Israeli-Vatican relations by urging the Vatican not to let the photo caption impinge on the proposed visit.

But the possibility of Pius’ elevation remains a sore point between the Vatican, Israel and Jews around the world. At a commemoration on Oct. 9 of the 50th anniversary of Pius’ death, Pope Benedict said he prayed the process that could lead to Pius’ beatification “can proceed happily.” Four days earlier, the chief rabbi of Haifa, Shear-Yashuv Cohen, told Benedict during a synod that Jews “cannot forgive and forget” that some major religious leaders at the time did not speak out against the Holocaust. Rabbi Cohen was the first Jew to address a synod.

Prompted by the public statements generated by renewed debate, leaders of the Jewish communities of Italy and France have also recently spoken out against the canonization of Pope Pius.

Even the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum last week urged the Vatican to delay the canonization of Pope Pius XII until it opens up its World War II archives for comprehensive inspection and study.

Angelo Pacelli – Pope Pius XII – was Rome’s bishop, the highest Roman Catholic temporal and spiritual authority during World War II. To this very day, some historians ask why he failed to speak out publicly against the genocide being perpetrated all around him by the Nazis.

To that very doleful question the Vatican has never delivered a satisfactory reply. Pius was reluctant to speak out publicly, the Church has always said, because he feared the Nazis would take vengeance against it and its own worshippers. But, in any event, the Vatican adds, Pius did secretly save thousands of Jews. Pope Benedict has forcefully defended Pius, saying he “spared no effort” on behalf of Jews during World War II. The evidence however for these assertions has been flimsy, since the Vatican has not opened the entirety of its archives on the subject.

Whether the Vatican proceeds with the canonization of Pope Pius XII is for the Vatican to decide. But it should not delude itself into thinking that the merely internal Vatican decision would be without consequences externally. Until the entire truth of Pius’ wartime record is shared, his elevation to saintly status would cause  great pain to the Jews around the world and cast into doubt the bona fides of past overtures by the Church to the Jewish people.