The Vatican denied on Friday that plans to bestow sainthood on controversial wartime pope Pius XII are on the backburner.
The pope, who headed the Catholic Church between 1939 and 1958, is often criticised for his reluctance to speak out publicly against Hitler and the Holocaust, and efforts to canonise him have proceeded slowly since they got under way in 1967.
But the head of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Jose' Saraiva Martins, denied that the process has been shelved.
''This year marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Pope Pius, and there will be various initiatives including further research in the Vatican archives that can't fail to further Pius XII's cause,'' Martins told Catholic daily Avvenire.
Cardinals voted in May last year to recognise Pius's ''heroic virtues'' - the key requirement for beatification, the penultimate stage before sainthood.
However, Pope Benedict XVI has yet to give a green light to the beatification, leading some observers to believe Pius's reputation is still standing in his way.
Jewish circles are particularly outspoken in their criticism of Pius, but the pope's defenders argue that his silence was calculated to avoid stirring up a Nazi backlash.
If Pius's beatification gets the go-ahead, Vatican officials would need to recognise a miracle attributed to his heavenly intercession before he could be made a saint.
