Name Filippo Bernardini | ||
Filippo Bernardini (1884–1954) was an Italian Roman Catholic Archbishop and Diplomat of the Holy See. He was Apostolic Nuncio to Switzerland during World War Two and later served as Secretary of the Congregation for Propagation of the Faith. He was active in Catholic resistance to Nazism, providing assistance to Jews during the Nazi Holocaust.
Biography
Bernardini was born in Pieve di Ussita, Italy in 1884. He was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1910 and appointed Apostolic Delegate to Australia and Titular Archbishop of Antiochia in Pisidia in 1933.
In 1935 he was posted to Switzerland as Apostolic Nuncio. In this capacity, he served as a Vatican diplomat in a neutral country during the period of the Second World War and Nazi Holocaust. Michael Phayer noted that Bernardini was among the many Vatican diplomats who acted honourably to assist Jews during the Holocaust. He sent intelligence to the Vatican about the Nazi plans against the Jews. In 1944, he was instrumental in maintaining the lines of communication between Lelio Vittorio Valobra, head of the clandestine DELASEM Jewish rescue organisation (settled in Zurich) and the organisation's Fr. Francesco Repetto, who was still in Genoa. At the Genoa Curia many letters arrived from Jews in the Vatican seeking news of their relatives and acquaintances in northern Italy. The flow of money between Switzerland (where Valobra and Raffaele Cantoni operated) and the DELASEM headquarters in Genoa always remained active due in part to the assistance of Bernardini.
After the war, Bernardini was appointed Secretary of the Congregation for Propagation of the Faith in 1953, but died the following year.