BBC admits it overlooked the Catholic Church's role in opposing Hitler

The BBC's editorial complaints unit has recently concluded that a report had mischaracterized the stance of the Catholic Church in relation to the Nazis during World War II.

According to the complaint page, the reporter stated that "silence was the response of the Catholic Church when Nazi Germany demonised Jewish people and then attempted to eradicate Jews from Europe."

The report was broadcast as part of BBC One's 6 p.m. news bulletin in July after Pope Francis' visit to Auschwitz, according to Catholic Herald.

Cross-bench peer Lord Alton of Liverpool and Fr. Leo Chamberlain, the former headmaster of Ampleforth, filed a joint complaint to the network following the broadcast of the report.

After almost six months, the BBC has admitted that the item was unfair. The complaints unit stated that the report "did not give due weight to public statements by successive Popes or the efforts made on the instructions of Pius XII to rescue Jews from Nazi persecution, and perpetuated a view which is at odds with the balance of evidence."

Pius XII, the pontiff during World War II, has been accused of silently acquiescing to the Holocaust in the 1999 book Hitler's Pope by John Cornwell.

Lord Alton pointed out in his blog that Pius XII was praised by several historians for his role in fighting against Nazism. He quoted Jewish historian Pinchas Lapide as saying that the wartime pontiff "was instrumental in saving at least 700,000, but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands."

The peer noted that the Holy See under Pius XII helped the Jews travel safely out of Eastern Europe and issued baptismal certificates to Hungarian Jews to help them escape.

The BBC's editorial complaints unit stated that the editorial team responsible for the report had been notified about the findings.

In response to the network's decision, Lord Alton said: "The BBC is right to recognise that the libel that Catholics said and did nothing against Nazism is precisely that, a collective libel. I am grateful to them for doing so."

He called on the BBC to produce a new documentary that would examine the evidence and make corrections to the misconceptions about the Catholic Church's role during World War II.