Pope Pius XII Letter to Roosevelt Published for 1st Time

(June 10, 2010) A letter from August 1943 that Pope Pius XII wrote to U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt has been discovered and published by the Knights of Columbus. The previously unpublished letter, dated Aug. 30, 1943, asks the president to "spare innocent civil populations and in particular churches and religious institutions." The letter was written after a series of Allied bombings of Rome, two occurring within six weeks prior to the Pope's plea. Pope Pius XII told Roosevelt that too many people took for granted that Rome was "free to follow the policy of her choice" to promote its own best interests. Instead, he affirmed his "conviction that this is far from true. Of Rome's desire for peace and to be done with the war, there can be no doubt; but in the presence of formidable forces opposing the actuation or even the official declaration of that desire she finds herself shackled and quite without the necessary means of defending herself." The Pope also involved himself firsthand in consoling the victims of the bombings. After an attack on July 19, 1943, he went to one of the sites, St. Lawrence Square, to encourage the people of the area. This letter of August 30 was presented in an exhibition about the Knights of Columbus' 90-year presence in Rome. The exhibit was opened Wednesday by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Pope's secretary of state, as well as the mayor of Rome and the supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus.