VATICAN REVEALS LAST WAR SECRETS

FROM A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT THE LATE Pope Pius considered delegating wide powers to bishops outside Italy during the Second World War in the event of the Nazis capturing him or sealing him off from the outside
world.
This is revealed in the fourth of a series of official volumes about the Vatican's role in the war. Fr. Angelo Martini, one of the authors, gave a preview of its contents in an article for publication in the magazine La Civilta's Cattolica.
The book reported pressures brought on the Vatican by both the Axis and the Allies on matters ranging from appointments of bishops to Vatican radio newscasts and fears of more drastic action.
It quoted the late Secretary of State, Cardinal Maglione, as writing 8 May, 1941, that the Vatican had heard "scare rumours" that Germany allegedly had asked Italy to either remove the Pope from Rome and Europe or isolate him in the Vatican"
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ALLEGATIONS
The book deals with events between June 1940 and June 1941. Like the previous volumes, it was partly intended to answer allegations in German playwright Rolf Hochhuth's The Deputy that Pius kept silent about Nazi crimes.
Reporting pressures brought on the Vatican by both sides in the war, it said the Nazis ordered the Vatican Nuncios out of occupied Belgium and Holland and the Soviets ousted Vatican diplomats from Latvia and Lithuania.
Britain demanded the recall of the Italian-horn Vatican diplomats from Kenya, Egypt and London as enemy aliens, even though Pius gave them Vatican citizenship.
Vatican Radio suspended foreign language broadcasts after London radio picked up Vatican broadcasts for propaganda purposes and Germany repeatedly denounced them as hostile. the hook said.
It also reported that Pope Pius refused Nazi demands for the appointment of a German bishop to the Diocese of Budejovice (Budweis) in occupied Czechoslovakia and similar Hungarian demands for former Rumanian Transylvania.
"His Holiness received the rumours without fear and immediately expressed his determination to stay in his place in any event, ready to face anything rather than abandon Rome and the Vatican," wrote Cardinal Maglione.
He said the Pope informed the Italian Government of the report, saying he thought it "unlikely" and was not disturbed but felt Italy should know.
At the same time, Cardinal Maglione said, the reports gave added urgency to plans for delegation of powers.
"The Secretariat of State has been studying for some time a plan of exceptional powers to be granted if that deplorable hypothesis (impediment of the Pope) came true," Cardinal Maglione wrote.
He said delegation of powers would also apply if the Holy See's communications with other countries became "practically impossible for any reason.
'This unfortunately is already the case in some wide territories such as Russia, Lithuania, the Baltic countries and Poland." he wrote.