Volume
21, Number 4 (December 2015)
Review
of Jacques Kornberg, The Pope’s Dilemma: Pius XII Faces Atrocities and
Genocide in the Second World War (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
2015), 405 Pp., ISBN 9781442628281.
By
Beth A. Griech-Polelle, Pacific Lutheran University
“When Words are not matched by Actions”
“The
Pope at times cannot remain silent. Governments only consider political and
military issues, intentionally disregarding moral and legal issues in which, on
the other hand, the Pope is primarily interested in and cannot ignore…How could
the Pope, in the present circumstances, be guilty of such a serious omission as
that of remaining a disinterested spectator of such heinous acts, while the
entire world was waiting for his word?” (301)
These
are strong words, uttered by Pope Pius XII to Dino Alfieri, the Italian
Ambassador to the Holy See. Which heinous acts was the Pope willing to
denounce? In this case, Alfieri had explained to Pius XII that Il Duce was
displeased that in May 1940, Pius had sent a letter of commiseration to
Belgium, Luxemburg, and the Netherlands upon their invasion by Nazi Germany. In
The Pope’s Dilemma, Jacques Kornberg takes the reader on an odyssey to examine
the reasons why Pope Pius XII might have chosen silence and inaction over
outright condemnation of Nazi atrocities committed during the Second World War.
Kornberg’s work represents a monumental compilation of materials, both primary
and secondary sources, reflecting a lifetime of study on the role that
organized religion plays in our world. Written clearly and argued persuasively,
one might hope that this work would be the definitive end to the “Pius Wars,”
however, one can assume that this just might engender further responses from
both sides of the battle.
Kornberg
takes on both sides of the Pius War, questioning the various ways in which
scholars have sought to either support Pius’s reactions to the Nazi regime or
have tried to find fault with Pius’s response (or lack thereof). At the book’s
outset, Kornberg asks the fundamental question that has frustrated both sides
of the scholarly debate: “why was the pope unable to deal with radical evil?”
(3) Kornberg argues that, in his view, the papacy of Pius XII was a moral
failure out of “calculated acquiescence;” meaning that the pope willingly allowed
Nazi atrocities to happen “because of his own priorities and responsibilities
as head of the Roman Catholic Church” (8-9). Kornberg then tracks how Pius’s
reputation drastically plummeted in the 1960s, in no small part to the wildly
successful play by Rolf Hochhuth, Der Stellvertreter, (The Deputy) which
depicted a cold, calculating Pius who sat silent in the face of Nazi crimes for
“reasons of state” (16). With this incendiary play, debates raged: was Pius
complicit with the Nazi regime due to his silence or was Hochhuth’s play no
more than a deeply flawed portrayal of the Pope?
Kornberg
takes the reader through the play, the reactions and counter-reactions to it
and links this to the role of Vatican II in further sealing the demise of
Pius’s reputation. A new era was opening up for the Church under the leadership
of the charismatic and charming Pope John XXIII and Kornberg dryly notes that
in this new climate, “it was inevitable that Pius XII’s reputation would sink
like a stone” (35). At issue here was the question of mission: what was the
Catholic Church’s role? Was it to serve as a voice of morality to the world,
was it to concern itself primarily with pastoral care, or was it to be a
mixture of both of these? Raising these questions allows Kornberg to move on to
his next chapter, addressing the options of Eugenio Pacelli and his role in the
drafting of the Reichskonkordat.
Kornberg
takes readers through the historiography of the 1960s-1970s debate between
Klaus Scholder and Konrad Repgen. Scholder denounced the role of then Cardinal
Secretary of State Pacelli for sacrificing Catholic opposition to the Nazi
regime in his single-minded quest for a treaty between the Holy See and the
German Reich. On the other side of the debate was Konrad Repgen, who interpreted
Pacelli’s actions in a much more favorable light, arguing that the Cardinal
Secretary of State was attempting to keep the Catholic Church’s institutions
protected in the face of a ruthless dictatorship. Kornberg neatly walks readers
through the works of other prominent historians, such as Ludwig Volk, Hubert
Wolf, Gerhard Besier, Martin Menke, and many more to summarize their findings
that Pacelli, and his predecessor, Pope Pius XI, had both determined that the
Vatican’s top priority was to find guarantees that the institutions of the
Church would go on. To achieve that end, they followed the German Catholic
populations’ lead, deciding to reach an accommodation with Hitler’s regime.
This allowed German Catholics to believe that they could be both “good
Catholics” while simultaneously behaving as “good Germans.” But, how were
German Catholics to behave in the face of war?
Kornberg’s
third chapter analyzes Pope Pius XII’s wartime papacy. Cardinal Pacelli was
elected pope in March 1939. Two weeks later Hitler seized control of what was
left of the Czech state. For the new pope, he was now face-to-face with the
totalitarian aims of Hitler and Mussolini and, as war raged, how would the new
pope respond? Chapter Three focuses on Pius’s interactions with some of the
Catholic belligerent states- Slovakia, Croatia, France, Italy, and Hungary,
with the premise that the pope was revered there and should have had some kind
of palpable influence over Catholics living in these territories. What emerges,
in each case, are examples of local church leaders expressing concern–or even
outrage–that Catholics of “Jewish descent”(converts to Catholicism), were going
to be impacted by anti-Jewish legislation and deportations. Pius XII feared
moving too far ahead of local Catholic popular opinion, so he chose not to
challenge Catholics, never urging them to go beyond defending narrowly defined
Catholic interests. In each country Kornberg presents, Pius listened to local
church leaders, thought about local Catholic consensus, and opted to not
alienate Catholics and risk losing them for the Church. Reinforcing the
structures of the church, providing sacramental care for local Catholics,
trumped publically intervening to save the lives of persecuted minorities such
as the Jews. Perhaps the most indicting of all the examples in this chapter,
refers to Pius moving heaven and earth to protect Rome from destruction. While
Jews of Rome were being deported, Pius spoke out eloquently against the
potential destruction of the seat of Christianity. To Pius, Rome was sacred,
eternal, and it was his mission to use his spiritual and moral authority to
become “the Savior of the City” (121). Through his actions, Pius XII had
ensured that Catholics would have access to the instruments of the sacraments,
preserving the institutions of the Catholic Church all while remaining silent
regarding the round ups of Jews throughout Rome.
Chapter
four presents the special case of Poland, an overwhelmingly Catholic country,
site of unimaginable brutality during the war- against both Catholic Poles and
Jews. Surely, the pope would have an obligation to condemn Nazi aggression and
the consequent victimization of the Polish population at the hands of their
oppressors? Kornberg reveals, however, that the pope opted to hold back,
carefully weighing his concerns. Foreign diplomats pressed the pope to utter an
open, forthright condemnation of Nazi aggression against Poland, yet, when the
pope did speak out, on October 20, 1939, his words were primarily a prayer for
Blessed Mary’s intervention in Poland. The pope’s silence was incomprehensible
to many who were suffering, but the pope maintained that German retaliation
such as was being carried out in the Warthegau region of conquered Poland, kept
him from saying more. Again, as in chapter three, we see the pope following the
lead of local bishops, the general Catholic consensus, and opting to keep
Catholic institutions functioning so as to provide pastoral care to those
Catholics who desired it. The pope feared more than anything else that the
Church would not be able to provide care for the souls of the people (155) and
people was defined as Catholic people, not Jews.
What
were the attitudes of Pius XII towards the Jews? This has been hotly contested
by historians since at least 1964 when Guenter Lewy argued that traditional
antisemitism precluded a true sense of moral outrage in Vatican circles.
Beginning with an exploration of Pope Pius XI’s attitudes towards Jews,
Kornberg unpacks many of the statements issued by Pius XI (pope from 1922-1939)
and his Cardinal Secretary of State, Eugenio Pacelli. For both men, Kornberg
demonstrates a strong linkage between fears of communism and Jewishness added
on to the pre-existing Catholic Church beliefs in supercessionism and charges
of deicide. Both men also used condemnatory language regarding modern day Jews
rather than trying to emphasize to their listeners that Catholicism and Judaism
had a shared heritage. At a time when Jewish lives were in extreme peril, Pope
Pius XII chose to speak only in general terms of suffering where all involved
in war were victims. Anti-Jewish decrees were seen as a way of protecting
Christian society from the “harmful influences of the Jews” and did nothing to
inspire Catholics to protest the transformation of Jews into second class
citizens in whatever nations they lived. Pope Pius XII “continued to speak of
the guilt of the Jews and their continued hostility to the church. In doing so
he did nothing to prevent Catholics from looking upon Jewish distress with
indifference, and to continue to acquiesce to the German government’s
persecution of the Jews, and ultimately to the destruction of European Jewry”
(184).
Because
so many historians have accused Pius of silence in the face of such utter
destruction, Kornberg looks to earlier popes and their responses to similar
crises such as the Armenian genocide or the use of poison gas against civilians
in Ethiopia. What Kornberg presents is strong evidence that Pius was one of a
piece- examining the policies of Leo XIII, Benedict XV, and Pius XI reveals
that each of these popes, when faced with mass atrocities, weighed the
advantages and disadvantages to the Church and always chose the option that
promised Catholic unity and reinforced papal authority. In one exceptional
case, that of the French occupation of the Ruhr in 1923, then Pope Pius XI
issued an ambiguously worded letter, which then led French Catholics to declare
that they were immune to papal influence and that the French state was a sacred
concept to them. In this instance, papal authority was shown to be without
teeth and the limits of papal authority had been revealed. In the case of
Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia and its use of mustard gas against civilians, Pius
XI urged conciliation on the part of Ethiopia, recognizing that the Italian
people supported the conquest and he feared a further weakening of his
authority over Catholics in Fascist Italy. Towards the end of Pius XI’s life,
he began to publically address the racism of the Nazi regime. In an encyclical,
Mit brennender Sorge (With Deep Anxiety), in March 1937, the pope
condemned the exaltation of one race over another, stressing the common humanity
of all, but the true intent of the encyclical was that Pius linked Nazi racism
with an effort to establish a national church based on German blood, thus
supplanting the Roman Catholic Church in Germany. Racism had also by this time
been uncoupled from antisemitism as Pius had argued that Catholics had a right
to defend themselves against the corrupting power of secular, liberalized,
emancipated Jews (226).
What
then were Pius XII’s priorities? Why did he refuse to condemn Catholics who
participated in atrocities or those who sat passively by the side allowing such
despicable acts to be implemented? Here again, Kornberg takes the reader
through the historiography of papal apologists as well as papal detractors. Did
Pius XII favor Germany due to his trepidation regarding the spread of
Communism? Kornberg argues effectively that, no, Pius encouraged American
Catholic support of lend-lease material to the Soviet Union, that he refused to
press Germany for a separate peace in the face of growing Communist power, that
he engaged in an active plot to unseat Hitler from power. If Pius did not view
Germany as a bulwark against Communism, was he silent about Nazi atrocities in
order to preserve his role as diplomatic mediator at war’s end? Here again
Kornberg argues that no, Pius XII’s diplomatic efforts to avert war ended in
failure and that, following the invasion of Poland, his diplomacy was largely
ignored. Another explanation offered by the pope’s defenders with regard to his
silence is that he worried that if he spoke out, then worse things would happen
to the victims. Kornberg examines Pius XII’s own explanations for his silence
and finds that Pius cited two different reasons: as “common Father” to all
Catholics on each side of the war, he thought he had to remain impartial; the
second explanation, regarding potential retaliation against victims of Nazi
aggression as it turns out referred to the suffering of the Polish Catholic
Church and the threatened loss of sacramental life in Poland.
So,
what were the pope’s priorities then? Kornberg places Pius’s top priority in
his pastoral responsibilities of a universal church. His goal was to not
alienate any Catholics from the Church and, hence, from potential salvation.
Therefore, he concluded that he could not challenge Catholics to choose between
their loyalty to the Church versus their loyalty to their State. Taking the
long view of history, the Pope was envisioning a time when the war was over and
Catholics from all of the warring nations would have to be reunited in the
Church. Any Catholics who had participated in atrocities could receive
forgiveness and salvation if they were truly repentant. Kornberg concludes that
a great sacrifice was made in this decision: “Pope Pius XII looked the other
way when human rights were being trampled on, and when Jews were deported to
face unprecedented horrors, and continued to look the other way when Catholics
participated in these crimes” (264). Religious values of the “good” trumped the
moral imperative.
Finally,
Kornberg brings the reader back to his opening question: why did the pope
retreat before radical evil? To that, Kornberg responds with a thorough
examination of Church doctrines ranging from the creation of the early Church
under the Apostles, to the writings of St. Augustine, to the time of Pope Pius
XII. The manuals that would have been available for Pius to consult would have
been the culmination of centuries of teaching, and those manuals would have
stressed that human beings are prone to sin and weakness but, through the power
of the sacraments, provided by the Church, salvation was still a possibility.
For Pius, as head of the Church, his primary responsibility as he saw it, was
to provide access to the sacraments so that the faithful could be saved. This
meant that the Pope could not overly burden the consciences of ordinary
Catholics whose weak faith might result in their damnation. Weighing ‘greater
evils” versus “lesser evils,” this type of casuistry led Pius XII to engage in
“calculated acquiescence to mass atrocities when committed by fellow Catholics
in order to hold out to them the prospect of God’s forgiveness and grace”
(274).
Pius XII, at the war’s end, could feel that he had done
his duty: he had preserved the institutions of the Church. Unfortunately his
claims of being a moral authority who spoke truth to power and encouraged
Catholics to resist evil were only words. Words not matched by actions.
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