• KEIRAN Proffer (Of politics & predictions, October 5) lauds religion today, but needs to analyse the last two weeks’ Middle East inhumanity (on both sides).

He excoriates and traduces Dr Sigmund Freud for linking authoritarian politics and authoritarian religion, but should read Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII by John Cornwell (1999) before using the legerdemain of the “Pius XI condemned the Nazi movement” trope. A bit late!

Pius XI encouraged the Centre Party to co-operate with the Nazis, and then Pius XII visualised an authoritarian state and authoritarian church directed by the Vatican bureaucracy.

German priests mainly obeyed Nazi rules in supplying blood purity details through baptism registries which ended in The Nuremberg Laws (distinguishing Jews from non-Jews). There was no word from the Vatican following Kristallnacht, 9/11/38, and no co-ordinated protests from churches against the nationwide persecution of Jews. If the churches had opposed that, there would have been no Final Solution.

The Vatican had a concordat with the Nazis (for non-intervention re the Jewish question) and a pact with Benito Mussolini.

Pius XII was neutral towards the greatest crime in human history because he linked Judaism with Bolshevism. The rat-run for fleeing senior Nazis was through Vatican contacts.

MIKE BOR, W2