Roman Catholicism: Open City, Silent City

On Broadway, the curtain falls on The Deputy after two acts. Offstage, the bitter dialogue continues over the question raised by Rolf Hochhuth's inquisitorial drama: Should Pope Pius XII, in 1943, have publicly condemned Hitler's campaign to exterminate the Jews? Last week in Rome, Eugène Cardinal Tisserant, Dean of the College of Cardinals, more or less agreed with those Catholics who argue that a statement by Pius would not have stopped the genocide. At the same time, the Frenchman lent support to critics who insist that the Pope, as a moral authority, should have spoken out.

Tisserant, 80, recalled a...

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