Pope sought mediation in wwii after Pearl Harbor attack

ROME Kyodo met Pope Pius XII and his secretary of state during World War II to seek mediation in a desperate attempt to avert war with the United States, eight months before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Vatican documents recently seen by Kyodo News.

Yosuke Matsuoka wanted the Holy See to speak to President Franklin Roosevelt to try to prevent a war of mutual destruction, telling Cardinal Luigi Maglione that Tokyo also wanted a cease-fire with China after more than three years of war, according to a summary by the cardinal's office on April 2, 1941.

According to the documents, Matsuoka, who served as Japan's top diplomat between 1940 and 1941 and was indicted after World War II as a war criminal, said that the U.S. leader would be able to bring peace to the Far East by mediating on Japan's behalf with Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek.

Matsuoka held talks with the pope before he met with the cardinal, but what the pope said during the discussions remains unknown to the public.

After Japan launched a full-scale Sino-Japanese war in 1937, Washington and Tokyo's relations worsened, which later overlapped with Japan's military advances in European colonies in Southeast Asia. The country's alliances with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy exacerbated hostilities.

Matsuoka told the cardinal that he did not want the war to escalate - by then fought in Asia, Europe and Africa. He said that the present civilization would be destroyed by a U.S.-Japanese conflict because neither would hesitate to resort to extreme means, with both sides determined to win, as a result of the U.S.-Japanese conflict.

The Vatican summary notes that it would be very helpful if the Catholic Church could persuade the United States not to participate in the war and not to conduct provocative acts against Japan.

The diplomat, who spent his formative years in the United States and had a University of Oregon law degree, maintained that the September 1940 Tripartite Pact between Tokyo, Berlin and Rome was meant to prevent fighting the United States, not to provoke the country.

Matsuoka asked the Holy See to persuade Roosevelt to intervene with his high authority with Chiang to get him to understand Japan, explaining that it was not fighting China and its people, but Communists.

The Vatican notes do not give details of the settlement Tokyo wanted from China, but writes that the Japanese diplomat said in confidence that he hoped to be able to conclude peace in the space of a month even without Roosevelt's help.

The document says that as soon as there is a chance of success for its efforts, Maglione responded to the foreign minister that the Vatican would do everything in its power for peace.

On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, leading the United States to declare war against the country the next day and enter the conflict formally.

After his country surrendered in 1945, Matsuoka was arrested and indicted by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East as a Class-A war criminal, but died of illness in 1946 before the trial's completion.

According to historian and author Satoshi Hattori, Matsuoka began looking at ways to save Tokyo's relationship with the United States around December 1940 after realizing that the Japanese southward military advance would fail.

He said that the document is a demonstration of Matsuoka's last-minute attempts to prevent war with the United States by using every possible channel.