Based on newly opened materials from the Vatican archives and other Church collections in Europe and the United States, this paper reexamines the Vatican's role in shaping postwar justice and argues that the Holy See was an important-not peripheral-actor in defining early understandings of guilt, responsibility, and the legacies of genocide and dictatorship. The study shows how Church officials consistently prioritized Christian reconciliation, re-Christianization, anti-communism, and institutional reputation over retribution. The Vatican's critique of the war crimes trials as forms of "victor's justice" underpinned repeated appeals for clemency, including for perpetrators implicated in the Holocaust. The paper further demonstrates how Vatican-linked humanitarian networks-while providing legitimate aid to thousands-both intentionally and unintentionally facilitated the flight and reintegration of Nazi fugitives. Set against the backdrop of the early Cold War, and at times in cooperation with U.S. government circles and international relief organizations, these escape routes reveal that well-known cases were only the visible tip of a much broader transnational phenomenon. By situating these interventions within their political, institutional, and moral contexts, the paper reframes long-standing debates about Catholic responses to genocide, humanitarianism, and postwar justice.