Why Was Pope Pius XII Silent During the Holocaust?

One day in late October 1941, Pope Pius XII received chilling news. A bishop in Slovakia wrote to say that the country's Jews "are simply being shot ... systematically murdered, without distinction of sex or age." We can get a sense of how Pius reacted to this report, the first credible account of Nazi mass murder to reach him; that same day, in addition to blessing 80 Nazi soldiers, the pope sat for a sculptor. Both the pope's sculptor and the head of the household reported his agitation, while a reference photo of the pontiff, holding his spectacles and staring straight at the camera, betrays a beleaguered intensity.