Pope Pius XII stayed silent while Mussolini let Nazis round up Italian Jews in order to murder them.

Recently opened Vatican archives show he was persuaded by an advisor who argued that it would appear inconsistent for the Catholic Church to object to oppression of Jews, after having itself oppressed them for centuries.

The archives also show that later, after the war ended, the pope ordered followers to keep Jewish orphans away from their relatives so as to raise them as Catholics.