Still all quiet on the Pius front 2013-2016

For all sorts of reasons I have not been able to post for the last couple of months.  My school is preparing for its Sesquicentenary next year and I am involved on various committees and projects that seem to take up more and more time.  Many have the moments been when I have thought I should sit down and write something, but more often than not, it has been a case of "tomorrow", the end of today has left me yearning only for the sofa!  

Now, back to it!

I have commented before that under Pope Francis there has been a serious "slow down" on talk and action on the possible canonisation of Pius XII.  It has not changed in the three years since I last wrote on this topic.  It is almost as though the academic world has adopted a "wait and see" approach, an approach I can well understand.  

Over the last ten or so years, after the high-water mark of the revisionist and apologists attempt to re-configure historical debate on Pius along non-historical lines, mainstream academia has, it would appear, reached the point where there is nothing more to be said at present.  Research continues, but, as in my case, I suspect it is moving into other related areas.  My own study has taken more and more into ADSS, and the "usual" work of historians, namely the little discoveries and nuances that help add a highlight on this point or a shadow on that point.  There have several major works published by serious historians - Coppa, Fattorini, Kertzer, Kornberg, Madigan, Ventresca, Wolf, to name some - that have, in their own field, added to our collective knowledge.

The "elephant in the room" has been and remains, the closed archives of Pope Pius XII contained in the Archivio Segreto Vaticano.  We have waited for years, and, I suspect, we will continue to wait.  2003, 2006, 2009, 2011, 2013 ... Whatever the reasons for the delays, most of us believe that there will be no major change in the general direction research has headed over the last half century.  This direction was confirmed when the archives for Pope Pius XI were opened between 2003 and 2006.

I will continue to post my reading of ADSS if only because I remain convinced that the published documents still contain many nuggets that shed light on the reasoning behind the many different layers of the Vatican diplomatic efforts firstly, to prevent a war, and secondly to contain it once it started.

Over and over again, the documents reveal patterns of diplomacy, negotiation and responsibility, that did not change over the course of the war years.  If I have reached only one conclusion from the ADSS, it is that Pope Pius XII while not knowing everything, was arguably the best informed person in Europe.  However, that knowledge grew incrementally, and in a non-consistent manner - he became aware of events from across Europe as they arrived in Rome, and often not in chronological order and often seemingly unrelated.  It was the responsibility of the Secretariat of State to attempt to create meaning and patterns out of the material that arrived, and that could often be devilishly difficult to do.  Only in one area did the Pope have as clear and consistent a picture of German intention as was possible.  That area was the evolution of German policy towards the Jews.

From a research point of view I have to thank so many people who have posted and maintained entire libraries of online resources.  My study of ADSS would simply not be possible without access to the mostly gratis resources that have been made available.  For that I am most grateful and offer my deepest thanks.

Wrap up on Pius - December 2012 - January 2013

This is a summary of some of the latest posts on Pius XII from the last month of 2012 and the first half of the first month of 2013.

1.  Doris Bergen's review of Hubert Wolf's detailed study of the Vatican's relationship with the Third Reich, Pope and Devil (2010) appeared in the January 2012 Harvard Theological Review.  Her opening line sums up one of the fundamental truisms of sound history work: "... that the writing of good history requires access to good sources". 

2. Bill Loughlin reviews Gordon Thomas's The Pope's Jews (2012) in The National Catholic Register (not to be confused with the National Catholic Reporter).  What caught my eye was Loughlin's opinion that two of the most significant sources for the history of Pius XII are the former chief Rabbi of Rome, Israel Zolli, who disappeared from Rome just before the German razzia and who later converted to Catholicism in 1946, and Sr Pascalina Lenhert, Pius' deeply unpopular and greatly resented housekeeper who wrote a very personal take on the pope a long time after her unceremonious departure from the Vatican in 1958.  Loughlin has not changed my general sense of scepticism about the book especially with his final paragraph:

For decades, papal critics have used the delay in opening the papal archives as an alibi to justify their complaint that Pius was silent. Given the public record, so well scrutinized in Thomas’ The Pope’s Jews and by others, there’s little reason to expect the opening of archives will alter the end results, namely that the Catholic Church, under Pius’ leadership, rescued more Jews than any other institution or government.

3.  In some of the darker corners of the Catholic Church lurk some who still hold to attitudes and beliefs that the vast majority of believers have long abandoned.  Accusations of "Jewish conspiracies" have a long and tortured history within mainstream Christianity and were appropriated by the Nazis as one of the mainstays of their Antisemitism.  This article from Forward is a reminder that some who call themselves Catholics live on a different planet to the rest of us.

4. Writing on the publication of Pius XII and the Holocaust by Yad Vashem for Vatican Insider Andrea Tornielli gives a general review of the 2009 symposium attended by a number of historians and scholars who have written in the field. I was one of those who attended.  Tornielli also mentions the recent - November 2012 - gathering at the Sorbonne in Paris.  I hope that there will be more information on the Sorbonne conference in the near future.

5.  Finally, just before Christmas, the Catholic League published a major advertisement in the New York Times under the eye-catching heading "New York Times salutes Pope Pius XII".   There was a minor flurry but it seems to have passed without major damage.  Bill Donohue has a long-time reputation of rushing to defend the Catholic Church against the enemies arrayed against it.  He enjoys no official endorsement from the Church and his comments should be taken as a personal expression, not as a statement from the Church.

"Blind Spots" - Kevin Spicer's review of Justus Lawler

In the May 2012 edition of Commonweal, Kevin Spicer reviews Justus Lawler's Were the Popes Against the Jews? Tracking the Myths, Confronting the Ideologues.  It is a measured, rational and fair review of a highly contentious and vexatious work.  I have made my own comments on this book and came to similar conclusions to Spicer.

Spicer observes that Lawler's determination to prove his underlying thesis, namely that the popes were defenders and champions of the Jews in the modern era, is so great, that whole swathes of history have been ignored, dismissed or trivialised along with the scholars who have worked in this field.  Lawler's reliance on authors whose work simply does not equal that of those he condemns further weaken an already flimsy argument.

I have kept my copy of Lawler's work on my shelf as a reminder of how powerful the narrative of polemical writing can be and how vigilant the historian must remain.

The review:

Were the Popes Against the Jews? Tracking the Myths, Confronting the Ideologues 

Justus George Lawler, Eerdmans, $35, 370 pp.

In his latest work, the scholar, translator, and editor Justus George Lawler poses the question in his title and answers it with a qualified yes, acknowledging that the popes were indeed against the Jews, specifically because of their alleged repudiation of Christ. "Their entire tradition," writes Lawler, "was built on the belief that Judaism prepared the way for Jesus and his message, both of which the Jews had rejected." This theological opposition, however, does not make the popes villains, Lawler insists, and does not justify the vilification heaped on them by authors who portray the Vatican as "disdainful, contemptuous, and vengeful toward Jews and their beliefs" - and who have been doing so ever since Rolf Hochhuth's controversial 1963 drama Der Stellvertreter The Deputy), which condemned Pius XII for a personal antipathy toward the Jews and apathy in the face of the Holocaust.

Refocusing the argument of his 2002 book Popes and Politics: Reform, Resentment, and the Holocaust, in which he defended the Vatican against such authors as James Carroll and John Cornwell, Lawler levels his attack this time against Brown University anthropologist David I. Kertzer and his bestselling 2001 book The Popes Against the Jews: The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism. Lawler directs his fire against not only Kertzer, but also those scholars - such as Kevin Madigan of Harvard Divinity School and John Pawlikowski of Chicago Theological Union - who dared to review Kertzer positively. The result, sadly, is a tedious, polemical, and often angry work.

At the heart of Lawler's disagreement with Kertzer is his rejection of the essential link between the theological anti-Semitism of Christian Scripture and tradition on the one hand and, on the other, modern racial anti-Semitism, which ultimately led to the Holocaust. Succinctly, Lawler sums up Kertzer's argument by stating: "No papacy, no six million," though he is careful to point out that Kertzer never actually spells out this equation so boldly. Lawler concurs instead with the official Vatican interpretation of the Shoah, restated most recently by Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, who asserted last fall, in an address to the Council of Centers on Jewish- Christian Relations, that "the Shoah cannot and should not however be attributed to Christianity as such: it was in fact led by a godless, anti-Christian, and neopagan ideology."

Lawler concedes that it is wrong to imply that "this distinction is exculpatory, since it is undeniable that Christian 'anti-Judaism,' while not a cause of modern racist anti-Semitism as such, certainly prepared for and sustained the forces of hatred that the latter unleashed." Yet the vehemence of Lawler's arguments in these pages shows that he does in fact want to exculpate the Vatican. He stoutly rejects Kertzer's portrait of a church busily perpetuating antiSemitism over the past two centuries. He challenges Kertzer's charge that the articles in La Civiltà Cattolica, an Italian Jesuit journal founded in 1850, directly represented the views of the papacy, particularly in several late nineteenthcentury articles containing anti-Semitic statements. Lawler argues that even if officials of the Holy See did review the journal's articles, such a job would have been relegated to lower-ranking subordinates. Kertzer disagrees with this interpretation - and is supported by none other than the late Pope John Paul II, who, in an April 22, 1999, address to the editorial staff of La Civiltà Cattolica, reviewed the history of the journal and its mission (quoting Pope Pius IX, who established it in 1866) "to defend 'the Catholic religion, its doctrine, and its rights with every effort and unceasingly.'" Speaking to the staff, John Paul II said that "the work accomplished by the journal continued to be appreciated and acknowledged by the Roman Pontiffs" down the decades, and called it "an institution [that] has always been placed at the service of the pope and the Apostolic See." Lawler might argue that the way the Vatican operates is a good deal more complicated than this papal boilerplate might suggest. Historically, however, La Civiltà Cattolica has been regarded as the pope's pulpit, and responsibility for what appears in its pages ultimately rests with the man who sits in Peter's chair.

Kertzer's lengthy quotation of John Paul II would seem to belie Lawler's complaint that Kertzer seldom quotes directly from statements of the papacy. Indeed, whenever Lawler attempts to take on the role of a historian, he fails miserably, committing outright misrepresentations of Kertzer's research. Take, for instance, his attack on Kertzer's treatment of the final European ritual murder trial, in Czarist Ukraine in 1913. Lawler accuses Kertzer of vilifying Merry del Val, the Holy See's secretary of state, by blaming him for withholding essential evidence that might have exonerated Mendel Beilis, a thirty-nine-year- old Russian Jew, when - according to Lawler - it was actually a Russian official who effectively thwarted the introduction of new evidence. Yet a quick glance at The Popes Against the Jews reveals that Kertzer does not vilify del Val, but in fact gives him the benefit of the doubt, highlighting the problematic role of Russian officials in what was clearly a complex situation.

I lack space to delve into Lawler's many other unconvincing critical readings of cases; the flaws in this work are too numerous to detail in one review. Lawler accuses Kertzer of over-relying on the scholarship of Giovanni Miccoli, a noted Italian church historian, claiming that Miccoli is "the source of almost every archival discovery or novel position in The Popes Against the Jews" While it is true that Kertzer has cited Miccoli's work, Lawler's serious charge appears groundless when one reviews Kertzer's citations.

Lawler ignores a lot. Throughout, his citations reflect a near-total unfamiliarity with current scholarly literature. He wastes a lot of time showing how Kertzer has influenced popular authors, such as Garry Wills, whose works hardly constitute serious scholarship in this field. He shows no evidence meanwhile of having read recent important works by Hubert Wolf Pope and Devil: The Vatican's Archives and the Third Reich) and Emma Fattorini Hitler, Mussolini, and the Vatican: Pope Pius XI and the Speech That Was Never Made), both of which vindicate Kertzer's interpretation many times over. Perhaps the saddest chapter is Lawler's final one, in which he cites the research of William Doino, a popular Catholic journalist, concerning a German Jewish refugee, Heinz Wisla, who received assistance from and obtained an audience with Pius XII in 1941. While the story of the pope's solicitousness toward Wisla is indeed moving, its significance pales in comparison to the history of modern Catholic anti-Semitism that Kertzer documents and the many broader opportunities for Jewish rescue passed up by the Vatican during the Holocaust.

In the end, the problems with Were the Popes Against the Jews? amount to more than just faulty scholarship. At stake is something larger and more serious. From the turn of the twentieth century through the 1950s it was common to find Catholic commentary, both written and spoken, permitting assaults on "Jewish secularism" in defense of faith and society, while frowning on and condemning attacks against Jewish citizens based on racial antiSemitism. Such advice, however, was rarely sustained without some form of injury and violence against Jews. Yet Lawler appears to approve of such distinctions - as when he defends Pius XIs anti-Jewish actions while serving first as apostolic visitor and then nuncio to Poland from 1918 to 1921.

Lawler's work is the unfortunate product of an author who, determined to rebuff what he considers to be unfair and historically anachronistic attacks on the church, simply refuses to recognize the depth of complicity of the Catholic Church in the propagation of European anti-Semitism in all its malignant and annihilative forms. He is not alone; many in the ranks of those who write on this fraught topic share his refusal. Many, but by no means all. In 2010, David Kertzer brought an impressive array of scholars to Brown University to examine the legacy of the modern papacy in Europe. At this gathering, which I attended, it became clear that a new school of Vatican diplomatic history was surfacing, one guided by the resourceful and meticulous archival work of such younger scholars as Giuliana Chamedes of Columbia University, Charles Gallagher of Boston College, and Robert Ventresca of Canada's University of Western Ontario. Perhaps Justus George Lawler should follow their lead and visit an archive or two before he ventures to write again about this subject.

Kevin P. Spicer, CSC, is the James J. Kenneally Professor of History at Stonehill College.

An anonymous post! Oh the wonders of the internet.

True to form it did not take long before reactions to my last post on Bob Keeler's article began to circulate.  That's fine and to be expected, even encouraged, but let's keep it up front and honest.  The comment from Pave The Way below was forwarded to me from somewhere outside Australia by a reader of this blog.  My responses are in red.

Our LI (Long Island, New York) based Pave the Way Foundation (PTWF) is at the international forefront of revealing the documents of the papacy of Pope Pius XII. This is questionable.  Much of what PTW has posted on its website has already been published in other sources, such as Actes et Documents, by the ASV (Vatican Secret Archives), in independent research undertaken by scholars such as Hubert Wolf, Thomas Brechenmacher - and me - as well as in mainstream histories by Michael Phayer, Susan Zuccotti etc. Use of the word "revealing" is itself revealing.  Does this suggest that material has been hidden?  The published works of Pius XII have been available since 1939.  The unpublished material, all the material in the ASV 1939-1958, has not been published because it is under embargo until at least 2013.  PTW has published a lot of material from many sources such as newspapers, diaries and some unpublished archival sources (such as the files from Campagna that I read and commented on in late 2009 - the full report can be found on the Anti-Defamation League website as well as PTW). Therefore the opening statement of PTW's comment is somewhat misleading.

As the Wikileak organization, we have over 40,000 pages of original documentation, news articles and eyewitness video testimony all posted publicly on our website, proving Pius XII was one of the great heroes of WWII. I feel I must sound like a broken record here ... much of the 40,000 pages include the freely available material of ADSS (published between 1965-1981) and which has been online since early 2010 via the Vatican website and PTW.  PTW cannot claim to have "discovered" this material.  The news articles etc have also been readily available for years.  PTW has rendered a service by collating this information on one website.  However, there is a discrepancy between posting material without comment and historical analysis and then claiming that this material "proves" Pius XII was a "great hero of WWII".  Until the whole historical record is made available to public scrutiny, such accolades are, even if deserved, premature.

Paul Oshea (sic - my name is O'Shea, an old Irish name!) and literally all of the other critics have not ever set foot in the Vatican archives, which were opened in 2003 covering 65% of the ministry of Pacelli (Pius XII) for the years up to 1939. Mr Krupp, founder of PTW knows full well that I have not stepped foot inside the ASV.  Mr Krupp also knows full well and has acknowledged this on Galus Australia (the reader will find my comment below - May 26, Gary Krupp's response follows after) that I did not need to step inside the ASV.  My work with the ASV was conducted entirely via internet.  I sent document requests to the staff at ASV and they scanned the material and then sent it to me.  I had no need to be physically present - Australia is a long way away! - the internet has changed the nature of historical research.  As to the bald allegation that "literally all of the other critics have not ever set foot in the Vatican archives" - it is not true.  Hubert Wolf and Thomas Brechenmacher, both scholars of international repute, have spent time in ASV.  In fact their online projects working with ASV demonstrate the extent of serious historians to work with the archives to make the documentation available.  A simple and cursory examination of the two websites established by these men puts paid to PTW's risible claim.

The Jewish Catholic Commission ended in failure because one of the participants, Dr. Bernard Suchecky, leaked confidential information to the media in violation with the agreement. The participants knew very well from the start that it was impossible to see the un-catalogued closed war years documents in the archives.  This may be true, but I suspect there were other reasons behind the collapse of the International Commission.  However, the story of the "failure" is one that remains to be fully told, by both sides.

The 47 question you speak of have now been answered. PTWF conducted a two-day session in Rome in April, 2010 and the 9 hours of videos of the responses can be viewed on our website www.ptwf.org. "

The two-day session in Rome was attended by a group of interested parties that included no scholars or historians, with the exception of Napolitano, of the period whose work is critical of Pius XII.  I find this odd.  At the Jerusalem symposium hosted by Yad Vashem and the Apostolic Nunciature in March 2009 there were people from all sides of the debate.  I was one of them.  We met in an atmosphere of professional collegiality and discussed issues about Pius XII with respect and openness of mind.

Conference on Pius XI at Brown University, Rhode Island.

Over this weekend an international conference is underway at Brown University, RI.  It is one of the (few) hardships of living in Australia, that we are so far away from exciting events such as this!  A quick glance at who is speaking and the list of topics indicates it should be an academic cornucopia - and I am green with envy.  I look forward to reading the papers when they are published (and may that be soon!) 
The speaker list is impressive.  The quality of this gathering will be first class.

Pius XI and America



International Conference


October 28-30, 2010, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA


The Vatican's opening in 2006 of its archives for the period of the papacy of Pius XI (1922-1939) has prompted a burst of historical research which is not only shedding new light on the role of the Holy See and the Church in this period of extraordinary political and social turmoil, but also on some of the major world events of this period. In an effort to bring scholars from the many different countries who are working in these archives together and to highlight this emerging work to the broader scholarly community, a number of institutions have come together to create a research network. The principal sponsors of this initiative are the Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose Giovanni XIII in Bologna; the University of Münster; the École Française de Rome; the Biblioteca Ambrosiana of Milan; and Brown University (USA). Following a June 2009 conference in Milan and a March 2010 conference in Münster, a conference is planned for October 28-30, 2010 at Brown University.

A major theme of the Brown conference is the relationship between the Holy See and the Roman Catholic Church in the Americas during the papacy of Pius XI. However, other topics will also be treated, including a concluding debate focusing on the relationship between the Church and Italian Fascism

The conference schedule is well worth looking at.

Organizing committee:

David Kertzer, Brown University, USA, chair


Charles R. Gallagher, S.J., Boston College, USA


Alberto Melloni , Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose Giovanni XXIII, Bologna, Italy


Pius XI and America is sponsored by:

Fondazione Cariplo


Fondazione CRT


Fondazione Goria


PRIN - Università di Modena/Reggio


PRIN - Università di Roma1


PRIN - Università di Roma Tor Vergata


PRIN - Università di Roma 3


PRIN - Università di Verona


Brown University

"Pope and Devil" More reviews.

Hubert Wolf's book is receiving considerable well-deserved international attention. 

This selection of reviews is taken from Amazon's page on the book.

The Vatican’s dealings with the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich have long been swathed in myth and speculation. After almost seventy years, the crucial records for the years leading up to 1939 were finally opened to the public, revealing the bitter conflicts that raged behind the walls of the Holy See. Anti-Semites and philo-Semites, adroit diplomats and dogmatic fundamentalists, influential bishops and powerful cardinals argued passionately over the best way to contend with the intellectual and political currents of the modern age: liberalism, communism, fascism, and National Socialism. Hubert Wolf explains why a philo-Semitic association was dissolved even as anti-Semitism was condemned, how the Vatican concluded a concordat with the Third Reich in 1933, why Hitler’s Mein Kampf was never proscribed by the Church, and what factors surrounded the Pope’s silence on the persecution of the Jews.

In rich detail, Wolf presents astonishing findings from the recently opened Vatican archives—discoveries that clarify the relations between National Socialism and the Vatican. He illuminates the thinking of the popes, cardinals, and bishops who saw themselves in a historic struggle against evil. Never have the inner workings of the Vatican—its most important decisions and actions—been portrayed so fully and vividly.

Author: Hubert Wolf is Professor of Church History at the University of Münster.

Reviews

“Pope and Devil is a must-read for anybody interested in the Vatican’s relationship with Germany in the tumultuous years leading up to World War II, including the hotly debated issue of ‘the silence of Pius XII.’ This book brings new complexity and insight to the debate on Pius XII’s ‘silence.’”—John W. O’Malley, S.J., author of What Happened at Vatican II

“[An] excellent examination of the Pius XI archives...No stranger to the dark side of church history, and intimately familiar with ecclesiastical dogma, politics, and procedure, Wolf presents sensitive material with admirable evenhandedness, avoiding both apology and easy condemnation...Pope and Devil gives us a behind-the-scenes exploration of what made the Vatican tick, providing the sort of background information with which political historians contextualize the decisions of secular leaders like Churchill or Roosevelt. Wolf shows that in the last months of his life Ratti became consumed with the issue of Nazi-inspired racism, and devoted much of his waning energy to it; while Pacelli, for his part, "was clear in his rejection of racial anti-Semitism, and...believed that the church had a general responsibility to support human rights." Both men, however, understood their responsibilities in the light of traditional Catholic priorities. Both viewed Catholic dogma as immutable; and both consistently put Catholic institutional objectives--understood as an essential requirement of salvation--first and foremost.”—Michael R. Marrus, Commonweal

“Hubert Wolf’s extraordinarily lucid and well-researched Pope and Devil performs the much valued task of throwing light into dark corners sans the sensationalism and tendentious argumentation that have defined too much scholarship in the area...Pope and Devil takes the reader through the labyrinthine corridors of Vatican diplomacy in the 1920s and 1930s, the political turmoil that defined those papal strategies that tried to make sense of or at least limit the damage of the rising totalitarianism inundating Europe, and the intrigue and politicking that characterized the often fraught relationship among such parties as the nuncios or Vatican ambassadors in Berlin and Munich, the papal Secretary of State and the Head of the Supreme Congregation more commonly known as the Holy Office of the Roman Inquisition. No easy feat and Wolf manages it in a way that is both enlightening and entertaining.”—Michael W. Higgins, New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal


“The Vatican’s dealings with the Third Reich during the reign of Pius XII’s predecessor, Pius XI (1922-1939), have received rather less attention. But since the archives for that pontificate were opened in 2006, our understanding has increased enormously. Herbert Wolf’s book contributes greatly to that understanding.”—John Pollard, Times Higher Education


“Wolf’s absorbing study shows in fascinating detail how ready Pius XI was to sup with authoritarian devils of both left and right in hopes of striking the best balance he could.”—Michael Kerrigan, The Scotsman

“Wolf has written a very important book. It does not explain the ‘silence’ of Pius VII, though it certainly exonerates him of the charge that he was in any way sympathetic to the regime in Germany. It also reveals a man with a misplaced confidence in his own competence.”—Michael Walsh, The Tablet

The Secretary's Notes - Pacelli and Pius XI

In late August a news article was published online describing a new set of documents compiled from the Vatican Secret Archives.  The one I use here cam via the Irish blog Clerical Whispers  It is of considerable interest. 

The documents refer to the notes Pacelli took during his private audiences with Pius XI over the years 1930 until 1939.  Pacelli was a detail-oriented man; he recorded excellent notes which makes it easier for the historian to piece together aspects of papal decision making processes that have sometime been rather opaque and hard to understand. 

Hubert Wolf makes salient comments on these documents in his book Pope and Devil (2010).  One of the points the following article does not mention, and which Wolf writes about at some length, is the absence of notes at particular moments such as September 1935 when the Nuremberg Laws were passed.  It could be that Pacelli was on vacation or it could be that no notes were recorded because the matter was not discussed.  I hope more material will surface to help us understand more completely how Pius XI and his Secretary of State operated. 

Nonetheless, the collecting and publishing of these texts will be of value to historians.  As I have mentioned before, the wait for the records from the war years is a good thing if it challenges students and scholars to read the available material thoroughly and critically.

The article:

While recently released documentation written by Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli in the 1930's does little to dispel the "black legend" of Pope Pius XII, it does provide insight into his character.


During the 10 years he served as secretary of state to Pope Pius XI, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pius XII, took detailed notes of the Pontiff's every audience.


L'Osservatore Romano (LOR) welcomed the release of what are called the "audience pages" in an extensive spread in their Sunday edition.

The "pages" were the notes taken by Pope Pius XI's secretary of state, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, during private daily audiences between himself and the Pope as well as those the Pontiff had with diplomats, Church officials and others.

Cardinal Pacelli, who later became Pope Pius XII, documented 1,956 such audiences over the course of the decade he served as secretary of state, from 1930-39. He left 2,627 pages of notes which have been collected, edited and now published by representatives from the Vatican's Secret Archives.

LOR's director, Gian Vian, called the entries an "until now unknown source of extraordinary interest for contemporary history."

The collection, he said, "with precision and immediacy, takes account of numerous questions, illuminating the routine work procedure in the heart of the Holy See. Through this emerges the wise energy of government of Pius XI, alongside the intelligence and absolute loyalty of Pacelli."

Current Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone wrote in the publication's preface that the documentation bears witness to the "thousands and thousands of issues (which) occupied the time and thought of Pius XI and Cardinal Pacelli over so many years … "

The subjects, he explained, range "from the most minute requests for subsidies ... to the relevant ecclesiastical and political questions, so much more complicated as the years advanced that separated the wounds of the First World War from those of the Second."

Cardinal Bertone also pointed out that with the passage of time, through documentation such as this, the future Pope Pius XII's "human and Christian stature, as a diplomat, secretary of state and Pontiff, beyond preconceived and distorted 'colorings,' is ever better delineated."

Many people impatiently await the release of documents from the Vatican archives, which they hope will shed light on Pius XII's actions during the Second World War.

He has been labeled 'the silent Pope" or "Hitler's Pope" by critics for allegedly remaining "quiet" as the Holocaust took so many lives, including those of more than 1,000 Roman Jews who were deported to Auschwitz in Oct. 1943.

But many other scholars, led by Pope Benedict XVI, continue to staunchly defend the war-time Pope for having done what was within his power to provide aid, assistance and protection to all civilians, including Jews, often in secrecy.

The lack of open access to the Vatican archives concerning Pius XII's pontificate has left many questions in the air, but answers appear to be on the horizon as the Holy See is working to organize and release the extensive war-time documentation in the coming years.

Few answers, however, will be found in this regard in this most recent publication, as the prefect of the Archives, Archbishop Sergio Pagano, explained in an additional LOR article.

The point of the notes, he said, was to document issues dealing principally with the correspondence between the secretariat of state and a variety of ecclesiastic, government and civil offices and individuals.

He explained that while "it's obvious to think that subjects of politics or government of the Church, (and) obviously even more relevant (issues), were the subject of the attention of the Pope and his secretary of state ... at least as far as we can say today, Pacelli did not take notes (of these conversations), or at the most he limited himself to writing some annotations on the very documents that were the object of discussion."

Concluding, Archbishop Pagano noted the diligence of the future Pope during his meetings with Pope Pius XI, saying that "no one" at that time in the secretariat of state documented "with equal systematic method, continuity and precision as did the secretary of state Pacelli."

Hubert Wolf and the ASV

In my earlier post on Wolf's book - Pope and Devil - I made mention of the review that spent most of the time analysing Bishop von Galen of Munster.  I've had the opportunity to read Wolf's book.  It is one of those "Wow" books that keep you riveted from beginning to end.  Wolf's research is meticulous and his conclusions compelling.  He has spent considerable time looking at the material available in the ASV and putting Pacelli's story together from his days in Germany through his time as Secretary of State.

Among the very interesting points Wolf makes in the book are:

1. Pacelli's reports to Rome on the German bishops from the early 1920s.  He is not particularly kind when it comes to Cardinal Adolf Bertram, Prince-Bishop of Breslau.  Pacelli considered Bertram a "typical" Prussian state bishop, namely, one who would avoid conflict with the state at all costs and whose reliability could never be counted on 100%.  On Bishop von Preysing, first in Eichstatt and then Berlin, Pacelli pushed his candidacy because he saw a "Roman party man".  Von Preysing was not highly regarded by some of the episcopal electors, and remained something of an outsider until his move to Berlin and his confrontational stand against the Nazis.  Von Galen was thought to be a bit limited.  Of course once the war started and Pacelli was now Pope, he found among his greatest supports in Germany to be these two men whose careers he had such an influential role.

Bertram above

von Preysing below

2. As Secretary of State from 1930 Pacelli and Pius XI operated virtually as a "two man show".  Wolf went looking for discussion and "sessioni" from the Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, Pacelli's department, and found very little.  The robust and lively arguments that marked much of the 19th century and early 20th century sessioni disappear from the succession of Pius XI.  Pius and his Secretary tended to work on major Vatican policy without much consultation.  The Pope would discuss things with Pacelli, make decisions and leave it to his Cardinal Secretary to issue instructions to ensure things happened.  When he looked for sessioni on the major events in Germany in 1933 Wolf found nothing.  This gives us a very important insight into how the future Pius XII viewed governance, especially when it came to Germany - it was his affair. 

3.  Throughout the 1930s as the persecution of German Jewry grew more oppressive, there is very little comment from the Pope or Pacelli.  Nuncio Orsenigo reported regularly and reliably to Rome but there appears to have been little response from the two men "at the top".  It took the violence of the November 1938 pogrom to shake Pius XI into a more vigorous action.

  Nuncio Cesare Orsenigo and  Foreign Minister Ribbentrop

4. The 1928 condemnation of Antisemitism.  Until the archives were opened, the dissolution of the Amici Israel was considered an odd footnote in the history of the period, except for the very clear condemnation of antisemitism.  Wolf's study of the inter-congregational documents surrounding this episode show that the original intentions of the Amici - to reform the Good Friday liturgy and have the adjective "perfidis" dropped from the prayer for the Jews; renounce the charge of deicide and the theology of supercessionism - were seen by the Holy Office to be an accusation that the Church was herself antisemitic, or if not deliberately,her liturgy could give that impression.  This challenge to authority was not to be taken lightly.  The Prefect of the Holy Office, Merry del Val, rushed an investigation of the Amici and their petition in comparative haste recommending Pius ban the group altogether.  Pius accepted Merry del Val's recommendation, showed his displeasure at Abbot Schuster, the Benedictine liturgical expert who said the Amici's requests were liturgically legitimate, and issued the ban.  He couched the ban in terms of dissolving the Amici because they had strayed from orthodoxy, and then issued a loud condemnation of antisemitism asserting that the Church had always defended the rights of the oppressed.  In the light of the archival material, the whole three month affair (January to March 1928) is rather shabby.  Yes, it was good antisemitism was denounced, but it was not good that the very group who urged its denunciation was itself denounced as unorthodox!

4. Interpreting "silence".  Here is where von Galen enters the picture.  It was, as I have argued in my book, Pius XII's hope that the bishops of Germany would take up the fight.  This also follows a well-established pattern.  In April 1933, Giuseppe Pizzardo, in the Secretariat of State, was ruminating on how to respond to letters from Jewish community leaders in Europe and the USA who appealed to the Holy See for the Pope to condemn German antisemitism.  Pizzardo posed the question - "would it not be better for the German bishops to take such a step (ie do something)?  Or "Perhaps, later, indirectly, via the nunciature??"  This remained the pattern for the rest of the 1930s - Jewish matters were to be handled by the local bishops.  It was part of the tragedy of the German episcopate that this largely did not happen.  Remember that von Galen preached fierce and very direct sermons against euthanasia. He did not preach against the transports heading East.

       The Lion of Munster 1946

This is a book I recommend very heartily.  It is a timely reminder of the value of studying the pre-war years with rigour and thoroughness.  There are patterns emerging that will, undoubtedly, continue into the war years. 

Just over a month ago I wrote about Hubert Wolf's book, Pope and Devil.  Today I came across a review of the book by Eugene Fisher, an academic who has worked in the fields of inter-faith dialogue for many years and whose work is of a consistently high claibre. 

Fascinating book on papal response to Nazism draws upon archival material



June 23rd, 2010


By Eugene J. Fisher

“POPE AND DEVIL: THE VATICAN’S ARCHIVES AND THE THIRD REICH” by Hubert Wolf. Translated by Kenneth Kronenberg. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (Cambridge, Mass., 2010). 316 pp., $29.95.

(CNS) – Between 2003 and 2006, the Vatican released for scholarly study all materials in the Secret Archives relating to the pontificate of Pope Pius XI (Feb. 6, 1922-Feb. 10, 1939). With “Pope and Devil,” Hubert Wolf, professor of church history at the University of Munster in Germany, has gone through these materials to provide a fascinating “insider” view of how the Vatican sought to cope with the great danger that was German National Socialism.

The title of the study is from a 1929 statement by Pope Pius XI explaining the treaty he made with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and subsequent treaties with Francisco Franco in Spain and Adolf Hitler in Germany: “If it were possible to save even a single soul, to shield souls from greater harm, we would find the courage to deal even with the devil himself.”

Pope Pius XI’s secretary of state in 1933 was Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, who in 1939 would succeed him as Pope Pius XII and who, Wolf shows, strongly shared this view.

Cardinal Pacelli was the nuncio to Bavaria and then to Germany from 1917 to 1930, so Wolf spends a great deal of time on him and his attitudes toward Germany and the Jews, which give necessary background for the decisions he ultimately makes as pope during World War II. Wolf’s careful and balanced analysis will greatly enhance the reader’s appreciation of the complexities facing both Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII.

The author details two key experiences of Cardinal Pacelli’s in Germany that he believes lie behind what Wolf calls his “silence” about the Holocaust as pope. The first is the failure of the Holy See’s peace initiative during World War I, from which he learned the necessity of remaining neutral in international conflicts, since there would inevitably be Catholics on both sides of the battle lines and no pope could hope to facilitate peace or justice if the appearance of taking the side of one over the other were given.

The other issue was historical, one ingrained in his training, which was the attack on the Church in Prussia (1871-91), in which the state closed down thousands of Catholic parishes and schools, leaving countless Catholics without adequate catechesis and forcing them to live and die without the sacraments. The lesson, again, was the necessity of working above all to preserve the Church’s right to meet the spiritual and pastoral needs of her people.

Both Pope Pope Pius XI and Cardinal Pacelli clearly abhorred the paganism and racial anti-Semitism of Nazi ideology and considered them to be against the teaching of the Church, the latter because it denied the fundamental unity of humanity, that we are all descended from the same ultimate parents and that each human is made in the image and likeness of God.

But how to effectively attack racial anti-Semitism and Nazism while at the same time maintaining the diplomatic neutrality necessary to ensure the survival of the Church? This is the major question that embroiled the Vatican internally during two papacies.

One example on which Wolf goes into great detail indicates the passions involved in these internal disputes within the Curia. The first involved an association, Friends of Israel, whose membership consisted of about 3,000 priests, among them 19 cardinals and 278 bishops and archbishops. This group fostered love for the Jews, hoping thereby to attract converts. In 1928 it issued a pamphlet, “Pax Super Israel,” denouncing anti-Semitism, and appealed to the Vatican agency for liturgical matters to change the wording of the Good Friday prayer for the “perfidious Jews,” using more positive terminology.

The congregation accepted the group’s new wording, but the Holy Office (now the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) rejected any reform of the liturgy as setting a dangerous precedent, and throwing into the bargain a demand to dissolve Friends of Israel. Pope Pius XI compromised. He refused to make the changes and in an announcement disbanding the group specifically and clearly condemned anti-Semitism.

Wolf expressed disappointment with this decision, since such a change in the liturgy in 1928, he feels, likely would have had greater impact in combating anti-Semitism than did Pope Pius’ 1937 encyclical, “Mit Brennender Sorge,” which denounced anti-Semitism and the ideology of Nazism in clear terms. Cardinal Pacelli, who was secretary of state by that time, played a vital and positive role in the drafting of that encyclical.


Eugene Fisher is retired associate director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

***************I think it is important to point out Wolf's superb references and notes.  His survey of the available archival material is extensive.  He goes to great lengths to place Eugenio Pacelli, Pius XI and the German bishops within their contexts.  Wolf cites from Pacelli's reports to Rome where he gives his opinions on various German bishops - Cardinal Bertram does not come out very favourably, Konrad von Preysing is considered fine bishop material, Clemens von Galen is not thought to be particularly gifted - through the 1920s.  

Wolf uses the extensive material now available to explore in considerable detail the relationship of the Vatican and Germany up to 1939.  His work has persuaded me that the wait for the release of the wartime archives of Pius XII will be worth it because of the growing number of academic works that have helped demonstrate the inner workings of Vatican diplomacy, the inner workings of the German bishops and the ever-increasing problems posed by the rise of National Socialism and its anti-Catholic / Christian world view.

It is a book well worth reading.

Hubert Wolf "Why did the Pope keep quiet about the Holocaust?"

Newspapers whether in print or electronic form create "hooks" to grab and keep the reader's attention.  In this case, my attention was well and truly grabbed by this rather dramatic headline.  This article appeared in the latest online edition of the US magazine Foreign Policy.  According to Wikipedia, Foreign Policy  describes itself as “a daily web magazine that is a must-read for anyone who cares about international affairs, … indispensable, insightful and as diverse as the subjects it covers, … serious but never stuffy.”

The magazine certainly lives up to its claims in this article. 

Hubert Wolf (b 1959), is a priest of the diocese of Rottenberg-Stuggart and a published historian who since 1999 has been on the faculty of Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster.  He has also worked in the archives of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (Holy Office / Inquisition) as well as in the Secret Archives (ASV).

In 2008 he published "Papst und Teufel"  which will be released in English later in May under the title "The Pope and the Devil: the Vatican's archives and the Third Reich".

This article has an odd title considering most of it centres on the famous bishop of Münster, Clemens August Graf von Galen (1876-1946). 

And while this is interesting, it is the claim in the opening paragraph that I find disturbing:

How much did the Catholic Church hierarchy know about the Holocaust as it was happening? And why didn't it speak up? With the opening of the Vatican archives from the World War II years, we can finally explore these heated questions -- and German historian Hubert Wolf has dug through the files to find damning evidence that Pope Pius XII, known to critics as "Hitler's pope," made a conscious decision to pass on the issue, leaving it up to his bishops in Germany to protect the Jews and Catholics who were being killed. Even when directly confronted with the growing enormity of the situation, as in this story of a German bishop who did stand up for his morals, the pope avoided public action.

Firstly, the "Vatican archives from the World War II years" are not opened and will not be for at least another three years.  Secondly, I find it hard to believe that a scholar of Wolf's standing would have "dug through the files to find damning evidence" that Pius XII "made a conscious decision to pass on the issue, leaving it up to his bishops in Germany to protect the Jews and Catholics who were being killed".  Thirdly, I suspect that the editors of Foreign Policy thought it in keeping with their mandate to never be "stuffy" to play loose with the historical record. The readers of Foreign Policy deserve better.

Whatever one's position on Pius XII it must be, at least, based on the historical record and intellectual honesty.  If Hubert Wolf did not know of the introductory paragraph the editors have a moral imperative to clarify the ambiguity.  As the article stands it is an interesting piece on the Lion of Münster, but none of the war references are new - they have been in the public domain for decades, including the published documents of Acts and Documents of the Holy See (ADSS).

One last comment.  The cover of the English translation features a photo of Eugenio Pacelli during his time as Nuncio to Germany (1917-1929) entering the Presidential residence in Berlin.  It is similar to the image used on the cover of John Cornwall's 1999 "Hitler's Pope".  This is a not-so-subtle form of mischief making.  As any Year 12 history student would be able to say, the Nazis did not come to power until January 1933 when Pacelli had been gone from Germany for over three years.  Why use an irrelevant picture if not to sensationalise?

Fortunately the editorial review found on Amazon gives a more hopeful synopsis of Wolf's book. I have ordered it and look forward to reading it.