 The Pope employed the new technology of radio and a series of Christmas messages to preach against selfish nationalism and the evils of modern warfare and offer sympathy to the victims of the war . Pius XII 's 1942 Christmas address via Vatican Radio voiced concern at human rights abuses and the murder of innocents based on race . The majority of the speech spoke generally about human rights and civil society ; at the very end of the speech , Pius XII mentioned " the hundreds of thousands of persons who , without any fault on their part , sometimes only because of their nationality or race , have been consigned to death or to a slow decline " . According to Rittner , the speech remains a " lightning rod " in debates about Pius XII . The Nazis themselves responded to the speech by stating that it was " one long attack on everything we stand for .... He is clearly speaking on behalf of the Jews .... He is virtually accusing the German people of injustice toward the Jews , and makes himself the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals . " The New York Times wrote that " The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas .... In calling for a ' real new order ' based on ' liberty , justice and love , ' ... the pope put himself squarely against Hitlerism . " Historian Michael Phayer claims , however , that " it is still not clear whose genocide or which genocide he was referring to " . Speaking on the 50th anniversary of Pius 's death in 2008 , the German Pope Benedict XVI recalled that the Pope 's voice had been " broken by emotion " as he " deplored the situation " with a " clear reference to the deportation and extermination of the Jews . " 
