"Before the war horrors and the so-called Shoah, Pope Pacelli was neither neutral nor indifferent. His criticised silence was indeed a conscious and painful choice based upon a clear moral and religious judgment." In this way Cardinal Bertone, Vatican Secretary of State, continued his reflection on Pius II’s alleged ‘silence’ on Shoah. "Many people have spoken even from outside the Catholic world to support these thesis. In 1940, Albert Einstein wrote on the ‘Time’ for instance: ‘Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom’." Yves Congar, later Cardinal, wrote on his counciliar diary the confidence of a witness of the time, brother Rosaire Gagnebet. After the Ardeatine Caves massacre, the Pope had to take a painful decision on whether to denounce it or not: "but all the convents and religious houses in Rome were packed with refugees: communists, Jews, democrats, antifascists, etc. Pius XII had lifted cloister restrictions. If Pius XII had protested publicly, searches would have been carried in those places with dramatic consequences."” “
