The Catholic Church had been offering condemnations of Nazi racism since the earliest days of the Nazi movement . The 1942 Christmas address is significant for the light it throws on the ongoing scholarly debate around the war time policies of Pius XII in response to what would later be termed The Holocaust ( the systematic murder of Europe 's Jews by the Nazis ) . Pius ' cautious approach has been a subject of controversy . According to the Encyclopædia Britannica , his " strongest statement against genocide was regarded as inadequate by the Allies , though in Germany he was regarded as an Allied sympathizer who had violated his own policy of neutrality " . According to concentration camp prisoner , Father Jean Bernard of Luxembourg , treatment of clergy imprisoned in the Priest Barracks of Dachau Concentration Camp worsened when Pope Pius or the German bishops were critical of Hitler or the Nazis
The Holocaust
The Holocaust
Pope Pius XII's 1942 Christmas address