BERLIN - An influential German cardinal has called for the Vatican to open all of its Nazi-era archives for the first time to help defuse persistent criticism that the Roman Catholic Church, and in particular Pope Pius XII, failed to speak out against the Holocaust, a magazine reported Tuesday.
The Vatican has been under pressure for years by Jewish groups to release its wartime archive material, particularly in light of its plans to beatify Pius. It announced in February that it would open parts of its archives beginning next year to help put an end to speculation surrounding Pius' actions.
In an interview with Stern magazine, Mainz Cardinal Karl Lehmann argued for opening the archives completely, saying it would help put an end to allegations that incriminating documents were being deliberately withheld.
"We have to acknowledge the whole truth. I'm sure much also would be found to exonerate the church," Lehmann said. "There are always claims that important documents are missing, but I don't know of any evidence."
A church spokeswoman, Martina Hoehns, confirmed the cardinal's remarks, which are to be published Wednesday, but said she didn't know if he had lobbied the Vatican directly. Vatican officials were unavailable for comment Tuesday.
Allegations have persisted for decades that Catholic Church leaders actively supported the Nazi takeover in Germany and turned a blind eye to the fate of the Jews in order to safeguard their own power and because of the church's own deep-seated anti-Semitism.
In the interview, Lehmann reiterated the church's defense of Pius, arguing that the pontiff used discrete diplomacy to help Jews and other victims, and "feared that a sharp word could cost more lives."
Of the 900,000 Jews who survived in areas controlled by the Nazis, 70-80 percent owed their lives to the initiatives of the church, Lehmann said. More than 6 million Jews were exterminated by the Nazis.
But Lehmann, acknowledged that the church didn't do enough to speak out for Jews.
"They saw their responsibility mostly for their own people," Lehmann said. "One has to be dismayed about that."
Lehmann, the head of the German Bishops Conference, also responded to criticisms of the church in a new book by a disputed Holocaust scholar.
Daniel Goldhagen, an American professor who previously wrote a book saying average Germans willingly participated in Hitler's plans to exterminate the Jews, accuses the church of trying to conceal how long-held institutional anti-Semitism helped pave the way for the Holocaust.
In the book, "A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair," Goldhagen also writes that the church failed to properly acknowledge its guilt.
The topic was previously explored in John Cornwell's 1999 book, "Hitler's Pope," which said that Pius XII betrayed Christian teachings by making deals with the Nazis to protect the church's power.
Lehmann said Goldhagen's new book, which goes on sale in Germany and the United States next month, failed to acknowledge how many church officials shielded Jews and made no mention of long periods of peaceful coexistence between Jews and Christians, especially in Germany.
He also said the current pope, John Paul II, has acknowledged the church's heavy responsibility and that the German church had already done so at the end of the war.
"Admissions of guilt don't become more credible by being repeated," Lehmann said.
The cardinal also called for closer contacts between Christians and Jews in order to dissolve enduring anti-Semitism in Germany and elsewhere.
"When I say something conciliatory in relation to the Jews, I still get a lot of questionable reactions, most of them anonymous and anti-Semitic," he said. "That's why we must intensify the dialogue."