Roman Catholic scholars have rejected an attack on the Vatican and the Catholic Church by Gianfranco Fini, Speaker of the Lower House of the Italian Parliament, for their "silence" in the face of "obscene and tragic" anti Semitic race laws adopted by Fascist Italy in 1938.

Father Giovanni Sale of the Jesuit magazine Civilta Cattolica said Pope Pius XI, who died in 1939, had opposed the race laws in a way which had brought him into conflict with Benito Mussolini, the Fascist dictator. Agostino Giovagnoli, professor of modern history at the Catholic University of Milan, said "I cannot see any reason to accuse the Church, which openly and firmly condemned the anti-Jewish legislation".

Speaking at a conference marking the 70th anniversary of the race laws, Mr Fini, who leads the "post Fascist" Alleanza Nazionale, which had its orgins in neo-Fascism, said that ''Fascist ideology alone is not enough to explain these infamous racial laws, and one must ask oneself why Italian society as a whole did not stand up against the anti-Jewish legislation''.

He added : ''And the same goes - and it pains me to say this - for the Catholic Church". Mr Fini said the race laws, which emulated the anti-Semitic laws of Nazi Germany and led to 7000 Italian Jews being killed in Nazi death camps,"represent one of this country's darkest moments".

Father Sale said Mr Fini was apparently unaware of "a chapter in this nation's history which saw Mussolini and Pope Pius XI on opposing sides". In a reference to Mr Fini's transformation of Alleanza Nazionale into a mainstream conservative party by jettisoning the Fascist legacy, he said that "perhaps he is seeking to divert responsibilities which have something to do with his own past".

However Amos Luzzatto, the former president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, said Mr Fini's statement was important "not only because it came from the third highest official of the state, but also because it recalled how at the time the Church took no official position against the Shoah (Holocaust)".

Italian newspapers meanwhile reported that Pope Benedict XVI will visit Israel from 11-15 May next year, and will also make a stop in Amman, the captial of Jordan. The Pope will celebrate mass in Jerusalem, Nazareth and Bethlehem and visit the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem to the victims of the Holocaust, reports said.