Why, then, the campaign of defamation, which has reached the point where one overhears tourists in St. Peter's Basilica, spotting the bronze statue of Pius XII erected by his cardinals, whispering, "That's 'Hitler's Pope'"?
Serious scholars have long suspected that the origins of that campaign lie in the anti-Catholic machinations of the KGB, the Soviet intelligence service. Confirmation of that thesis now comes from General Ion Mihai Pacepa, a former Romanian intelligence officer and the highest-ranking Soviet bloc spymaster ever to defect, in an article posted on National Review Online on January 26.
According to General Pacepa, the Soviets, stung by the public relations bludgeoning they had taken because of the persecution of Catholics in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and elsewhere decided to accelerate the anti-Catholic propaganda offensive they had launched toward the end of World War II by depicting the Church as a bulwark of Nazism. Pius XII was the primary target - because, as the KGB liked to say, "Dead men cannot defend themselves."
George Weigel fills us in how the lie of Pope Pius XII being anti-Semitic was really based in a KGB disinformation campaign designed to undermine support for the Catholic Church.
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