Pius XII sainthood process not stalled - Vatican

By Phil Stewart

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican's top saint-maker said on Monday he was moving ahead with the cause of wartime Pope Pius XII, and defended him against accusations he was silent about the Holocaust.

Some critics accuse Pius, who reigned from 1939 to 1958, of being indifferent to the Holocaust and not speaking out against Hitler. His supporters consider him a holy man who worked behind the scenes to help Jews throughout Europe.

Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins denied that the sainthood process had been halted over the controversy, as a newspaper report last year suggested.

"It has not been staggered, much less stopped," Martins, who heads the Vatican department that oversees the sainthood process, told reporters.

But he left the timing of any progress on the case unclear, and confirmed there would be renewed research into the late Pope on the 50th anniversary of his death.

Last May, the Vatican's saint-making department voted in favour of a decree recognising Pius's "heroic virtues", a major hurdle in a long process toward sainthood that began in 1967.

But Pope Benedict has so far not approved the decree, meaning that the process is effectively stalled and that Pius cannot move on to beatification, or the last step before sainthood.

Martins said people should not read too much into that.