Pope Pius XII, the wartime Pontiff accused of indifference towards the Holocaust, has moved closer to becoming a saint, nearly fifty years after his death.

The Vatican’s Congregation of the Causes of the Saints, the body that awards sainthoods, voted on Tuesday to approve the decree that Pius had “heroic virtues”. The Pontiff is now two stages away from official sainthood, 40 years after the process to canonise him began.

If the present Pope Benedict XVI approves the decree, Pius XII will receive the official title of “venerable”.

The Congregation will then seek a certified miracle attributed to the prayers of Pius XII, before awarding him full canonisation as "a saint in heaven".

Pius XII has attracted the criticism of Jewish groups who have accused him of being complicit in the Holocaust because of his silence during the Nazi occupation of Germany. The Vatican maintains that the Pope's reticence was intended to protect Jews from further atrocities and that his work for the Jews was behind the scenes. His canonisation could provoke a new crisis in Jewish-Catholic relations.

Last month a photograph of Pius XII at the Holocaust Memorial in Israel caused tension in Catholic-Jewish relations, the caption said the Pope had "abstained from signing the Allied declaration condemning the extermination of Jews" and "maintained his neutral position throughout the war".

The Congregation examined a 3,000 report on Pius XII’s life and work before approving the decree. Before becoming Pope in 1939, Pius XII was Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli. He was the Vatican’s ambassador to Germany from 1917 to 1929 and Vatican Secretary of State from 1930 until 1939. He died in 1958.

Jewish groups have lobbied the Vatican for many years to put the canonisation of Pius XII on hold for fear it would have a negative effect on Jewish-Catholic relations. But Rabbi David Dalin claims in his book, The Myth of Hitler's Pope, that Pius XII was instrumental in saving the lives of nearly 800,000 Jews.

Pope John Paul II, who died in 2005, was a strong defender of Pius XII and once called him “a great Pope”. John Paul II’s own canonisation became a foregone conclusion last month when his supporters presented proof of a purported miracle, the last step to sainthood.