Abstract
In june 1939, when Nazi Germany’s expansionist demands and blatant racism rendered the outbreak of a new cataclysm inevitable, the French Ambassador to the Holy See, François Charles-Roux, lamented the cautious and neutral position of the new Pope, Eugenio Pacelli, who assumed the name Pius XII. The Ambassador appreciated the Pope’s determination to preserve the peace, but resented his refusal to pass judgment or assign responsibility, treating aggrieved and aggressor alike. Charles-Roux considered this an unfortunate departure from the course of his predecessor, Achille Ratti, who pontificated as Pius XI (1922–39). ‘Without doubt all expected a change, because each has his own temperament and his own methods,’ the Frenchman explained, adding, ‘to many, however, the differences seemed excessive.’1
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Notes
The controversy engendered by these agreements is explored in Frank J. Coppa (ed.), Controversial Concordats: The Vatican’s Relations with Napoleon, Mussolini, and Hitler (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University Press, 1999).
As such, he supervised the administration of the Vatican’s revenues and was charged with the task of directing preparation for the conclave upon the death of the reigning Pope. Oscar Halecki, Eugenio Pacelli: Pope of Peace, (New York: Ferrar, Strauss and Young, Inc., 1951), p.75.
Actes et documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, II volumes, eds. Pierre Blet, Robert A. Graham, Angelo Martini and Burkhart Scheneider (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1965–1981). To date only the first of these has been translated into English as Records and Documents of the Holy See relating to the Second World War, The Holy See and the War in Europe, March 1939—August 1940; Actes et documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la Second Guerre Mondiale, La Sainte Siège e la Guerre en Europe, Mars 1939—Aout 1940, I, 5; C. Confalonieri, Pio XI visto da vicino (Turin: SAIE, 1957), pp.177–179.
For the most recent criticism of Pius XII see John Cornwell, Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII (New York: Viking Press, 1999).
Aryeh L. Kubovy, ‘The Silence of Pope Pius XII and the Beginnings of the Jewish Document’, Y ad Vashem Studies, ed. Nathan Eck and Aryeh Leon Kubovy (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1967) VI, 18.
Georges Passelecq and Bernard Suchecky, L’encyclique cachée de Pie XI, Une occasion manquée de l’Eglise face a l’antisemitisme. Préface ‘Pie XI, les Juifs et l’antisémitisme’ de Emile Poulat (Paris: Editions La Découverte, 1995), pp.53, 67.
Giovanni Miccoli, ‘Santa Sede e Chiesa Italiana di Fronte alle Leggi Antiebraiche del 1938’, Studi Storici anno 29, n.4 (October—December 1988): 821–902
and Mariangiola Reineri, Cattolici e fascismo a Torino, 1925–1943, Biblioteca di Storia Contemporanea (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1978).
Angelo Martini, S.J., ‘L’ Ultima battaglia di Pio XI’ in Studi sulla Questione Romana e la Concilazione (Rome: 5 Lune 1963), p. 187.
Jose M. Sanchez, ‘The Popes and Nazi Germany: The View from Madrid’, Journal of Church and State 38 (Spring 1996): 367.
Richard A. Webster, The Cross and the Fasces, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1960), p.96.
George Seldes, Sawdust Caesar: The Untold History of Mussolini and Fascism, (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1935), p.260.
Paul L. Murphy with Rene Arlington, La popessa, (New York: Warner Books, 1983), p. 103.
Arturo Carlo Jemolo, Church and State in Italy, 1850–1950, trans. David Moore (Philadelphia: Dufour Editions, 1961), p.257; Seldes, p.256.
M. Barbera, ‘La pedagogia e l’ateismo militante nella Russia sovietica’, Civiltà Cattolica, anno 84 (1933), I, 99.
Nathaniel Micklem, National Socialism and the Roman Catholic Church (London: Oxford University Press, 1939), p.95;
A.J. Ryder, Twentieth Century Germany: From Bismarck to Brandt (New York: Columbia University Press, 1973), p.377.
Luciani Martini, ‘Chiesa Cattolica ed Ebrei’, Il Ponte XXXIV (1978), 1458–1459;
Igino Giordani, ‘Ebrei, protestanti e cattolici’, Fides, n. 4, April 1933.
Guenter Lewy, The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965), p.126.
E. Rosa, ‘Ricorsi di Barbarie nella civiltà contemporanea’, Civiltà Cattolica, anno 87 (1936), III, 356.
Guenter Lewy, ‘Pius XII, the Jews, and the German Catholic Church’, Commentary 37 (February 1964), p.30.
William M. Harrigan, ‘Pius XII’s Efforts to Effect a Detente in German-Vatican Relations, 1939’, The Catholic Historical Review 49 (July 1963): 177.
Gianni Padoan, ‘Pio XII’, Historia, anno XIII (November 1969), n. 144, p.25.
Michael R. Marrus, ‘The Vatican on Racism and Antisemitism, 1938–39: A New Look at a Might-Have Been’, Holocaust and Genocide Studies 11/3 (Winter 1997): 382–383.
Meir Michaelis, Mussolini and the Jews: German-Italian Relations and the Jewish Question in Italy, 1922–1945 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), p.244.
Edward D. Kleinlerer, ‘Scholars at the Vatican’, The Commonweal 37 (4 December 1942), 187–188.
Earl Boyea, ‘The Reverend Charles Coughlin and the Church: The Gallagher Years, 1930–1937’, The Catholic Historical Review 81/2 (April 1995): 211–13, 216, 218, 222–225.
Norman Cohn, Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish world-conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), p.235.
John La Farge, Interracial Justice: A Study of the Catholic Doctrine of Race Relations (New York: America Press, 1937), pp.59–61.
Robert A. Hecht, An (Inordinary Man: A Life of Father John La Farge, S.J. (Lanham, MD.: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1996), pp.114–115.
John La Farge, The Manner is Ordinary (New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1954), p.272; Hecht, p.114.
Patricia Marx Ellsberg, ‘An Interview with Rolf Hochhuth’, The Papacy and Totalitarianism Between the Two World Wars, ed. Charles Delzell. (New York: John Wiley, 1974), p.33.
W.A. Purdy, The Church on the Move: The Character and Policies of Pius XII and John XIII (New York: John Day Co., 1966), p.27.
Harrigan, The Catholic Historical Review, 49 (July 1963): 184.
Anthony Rhodes, The Vatican in the Age of Dictators, 1922–1945 (New York: Holt, Rhinehart, and Winston, 1973), p.229.
George O. Kent, ‘Pope Pius XII and Germany: Some Aspects of German—Vatican Relations, 1933–1943’, American Historical Review 70 (October 1964): 65.
Kent, American Historical Review 70 (October 1964): 71–72.
John F. Morley, Vatican Diplomacy and the Jews During the Holocaust, 1939–1943 (New York: KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 1980), pp.180–181;
Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1961), p.430;
Lewy, Commentary, February 1964, p.32.
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Coppa, F.J. (2001). Two Popes and the Holocaust. In: Roth, J.K., Maxwell, E., Levy, M., Whitworth, W. (eds) Remembering for the Future. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-66019-3_87
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