Nazis, Pius XII's Vatican, and the American government were united in the communal crusade of the Cold War. The present Pope, John Paul II, has repudiated the anti-Semitism Pius XII inherited and has begged forgiveness for the Catholic Church. He has also emphasized the moral shortcomings of capitalism, as Pius failed to do. However, he has at the same time acted to suppress the theology of liberation in Latin America, a movement largely of the lower clergy subject to the pressure of the masses that sought to fight capitalist oppression. Exhortation of the rulers, not opposition to the social system, is to be the Church response to social injustice.
Communism is still the chief foe.
Within the Church John Paul has upheld the authority of the Pope against those who would lessen it. His initiation of canonization proceedings for Pius XII is a validation of the papal autocracy Pius XII championed.