CBC hostile to Pius XII (Canada).

Two recent CBC programs have attempted to smear the Catholic Church.

On March 16, our national broadcaster, the CBC, aired a selectively edited tape of an interview with Fr. Peter Gumbel. The excerpt made it appear that Fr. Gumbel, S.J., the postulator for the beatification cause of Pope Pius XII, was reviving the old 'the Jews killed Christ' story. For some reactions in newspapers and Catholic Insight's reflection on the substance of the accusation, see "Who killed Christ," page30.

The second program occurred on March 20 when CBC's program 'The Magazine' broadcast an item entitled "The Pius Question." This interview again brought accusations which most Catholics have heard before, namely that Pius XII did not do enough to help the Jews during World War II. Interviewer Terrence McKenna (known to many as the maker of the historically revisionist docudrama The Valour and the Horror, which roused the ire of so many Canadian war veterans) edited out much of the same March 16 interview with Fr. Gumbel, to leave airtime for author John Cornwell.

Cornwell, British author of the recently published and discredited book Hitler's Pope, was treated as a legitimate source of truth, while the Church's expert on Pius XII's wartime policies regarding the Holocaust was looked upon as biased.

It is significant that these interviews were aired on the day on which Pope John Paul II arrived in the Holy Land with his message of peace. On the same evening, CTV Newsnet aired statements on the Pope by another hostile commentator, Joanna Mannning, Canadian author of Is the Pope Catholic?

Refutations of Cornwell's arguments may be obtained from the Catholic Civil Rights League. Contact Vanya Gobbi, CCRL, tel: [phone]; fax [phone]; e-mail: [e-mail]. Web site address: www.ccrl.ca. Ask for press release of March 21, 2000.

See also Letters to the Editor.