Hitler's Pope

''Hitler's Pope'' is a book published in 1999 by the British journalist and author John Cornwell that examines the actions of Eugenio Pacelli, who became Pope Pius XII, before and during the Nazi era, and explores the charge that he assisted in the legitimization of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany, through the pursuit of a ''Reichskonkordat'' in 1933. The book is critical of Pius' conduct during the Second World War, arguing that he did not do enough, or speak out enough, against the Holocaust. Cornwell argues that Pius's entire career as the nuncio to Germany, Cardinal Secretary of State, and Pope, was characterized by a desire to increase and centralize the power of the Papacy, and that he subordinated opposition to the Nazis to that goal. He further argues that Pius was antisemitic and that this stance prevented him from caring about the European Jews.

Multiple academics and historians have criticized the book's leading conclusions, and challenged factual assertions contained within it. Dalin, Davidbr>''The Myth of Hitler's Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis''
p. 15, 138, Regnery Publishing 2005 Rychlak, Ronald J. and Michael Novakbr>''Righteous Gentiles''
p. xiii, Spence Pub. Co., 2005"The Papacy"
''The Economist'', 9 December 2004, p. 82–83. Holocaust historian Martin Gilbert credits Pius XII with various actions which saved Jews, and notes that the Nazi security forces referred to him as the "mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals". Pius XII maintained links to the German Resistance. According to historian David Kertzer, recently revealed documents show that he was "neither the antisemitic monster often called 'Hitler's Pope' nor a hero".

The author has been praised for attempting to bring into the open the debate on the Catholic Church's relationship with the Nazis, but also accused of making unsubstantiated claims and ignoring positive evidence. The author has moderated some of his allegations since publication of the book. In 2004, Cornwell stated that Pius XII "had so little scope of action that it is impossible to judge the motives for his silence during the war, while Rome was under the heel of Mussolini and later occupied by Germany...But even if his prevarications and silences were performed with the best of intentions, he had an obligation in the postwar period to explain those actions".Cornwell 2004 p. 193 He similarly stated in 2008 that Pius XII's "scope for action was severely limited", but that " vertheless, due to his ineffectual and diplomatic language in respect of the Nazis and the Jews, I still believe that it was incumbent on him to explain his failure to speak out after the war. This he never did." In 2009 he described Pacelli as effectively a "fellow traveller" of the Nazis.John Cornwell. Review of ''Hitler's Priests: Catholic Clergy and National Socialism''. By Kevin P. Spicer. in ''Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture'', Volume 78, Issue March 2009, pp 235–237. Publishe
online
by Cambridge University Press, 20 February 2009.

Cornwell's work

Cornwell's work was the first to have access to testimonies from Pius's beatification process as well as to many documents from Eugenio Pacelli's nunciature which had just been opened under the seventy-five year rule by the Vatican State Secretary archives. Cornwell's work has received both praise and criticism. Eamon Duffy wrote that Cornwell's "gripping and impassioned account" had presented "an indictment that ould notbe ignored" and Saul Friedländer that Cornwell had demonstrated how "Pius XII brought the authoritarianism and the centralization of his predecessors to their most extreme stage." Susan Zuccotti's '' Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy'' (2000) and Michael Phayer's ''The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930–1965'' (2000) are critical of both Cornwell and Pius XII. Ronald J. Rychlak's ''Hitler, the War and the Pope'' is critical as well but defends Pius XII in light of his own access to recent documents.

Cornwell researched the conduct of Pacelli, both while he served as nuncio to Germany and after he was made Pope; some of Cornwell's principal resources were the Vatican archives. Cornwell stated that he reassured the archivists he was on the side of the pope as God's representative on earth and, acting in good faith, he had "generous access to unseen material". He concluded that:

Allegations of antisemitism

Cornwell alleged that, from at least his early '40s onward, Pacelli had antisemitic tendencies. He traced the earliest manifestation of these antisemitic tendencies to an incident in 1917 in which Pacelli refused to help facilitate the exportation of palm fronds from Italy to be used by German Jews in Munich to celebrate the festival of Tabernacles. Cornwell argued that, although this incident was "small in itself", it "belies subsequent claims that Pacelli had a great love of the Jewish religion and was always motivated by its best interests."

Cornwell stated he uncovered a "time bomb" letter signed and personally annotated by Pacelli that had been lying in the Vatican archives since 1919, regarding the actions of communist revolutionaries in Munich. Regarding this letter, Cornwell stated: "The repeated references to the Jewishness of these individuals, amid the catalogue of epithets describing their physical and moral repulsiveness, gives an impression of stereotypical anti-Semitic contempt". Cornwell asserts that the letter from Pacelli to Pietro Gaspam Gasparri.html"_;"title="Pietro_Gasparri.html"_;"title="ic_Pietro_Gasparri">Gasparri">Pietro_Gasparri.html"_;"title="ic_Pietro_Gasparri">Gasparriportrays_Jews_in_an_unfavorable_light_and_Jewish_Bolshevism.html" ;"title="Pietro_Gasparri">Gasparri.html" ;"title="Pietro_Gasparri.html" ;"title="ic Pietro Gasparri">Gasparri">Pietro_Gasparri.html" ;"title="ic Pietro Gasparri">Gasparriportrays Jews in an unfavorable light and Jewish Bolshevism">associates them with the Bolshevik revolution.

In the assessment of Frank J. Coppa, writing for ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', Cornwell's depiction of Pacelli as antisemitic lacks "credible substantiation". Coppa writes: "though Pius's wartime public condemnations of racism and genocide were cloaked in generalities, he did not turn a blind eye to the suffering but chose to use diplomacy to aid the persecuted. It is impossible to know if a more forthright condemnation of the Holocaust would have proved more effective in saving lives, though it probably would have better assured his reputation."Pius XII
''Encyclopædia Britannica'' Online; retrieved 28 October 2014

Papal absolutism

Cornwell asserts that Pacelli was a strong proponent of the absolute leadership principle. He writes that, "More than any other Vatican official of the century, acellipromoted the modern ideology of autocratic papal control, the highly centralized, dictatorial authority."

Allegations of collaboration with fascist leaders

Cornwell argued that Pacelli's antisemitism, combined with his drive to promote papal absolutism, inexorably led him to collaboration with fascist leaders, a collaboration which led to what Cornwell characterizes as "the betrayal of Catholic democratic politics in Germany".

Cornwell describes this collaboration with fascist leaders as starting in 1929 with the concordat with Mussolini known as the Lateran Treaty, and followed by the concordat with Hitler known as the ''Reichskonkordat''.

Lateran Treaty

Cornwell recounts that Eugenio Pacelli's brother, Francesco, successfully negotiated a concordat with Mussolini as part of an agreement known as the Lateran Treaty. A precondition of the negotiations had involved the dissolution of the parliamentary Catholic Italian Popular Party. Cornwell claims that Pius XI disliked political Catholicism because it was beyond his control. According to Cornwell, a succession of Popes took the view that Catholic party politics "brought democracy into the church by the back door". Cornwell asserts that the result of the demise of the Popular Party was the "wholesale shift of Catholics into the Fascist Party and the collapse of democracy in Italy".

Anti-communist posture of the Vatican

Cornwell asserts that Pius XI and his new secretary of state, Eugenio Pacelli, were determined that at a time that saw the church persecuted by Communist and socialist regimes from the Soviet Union to Mexico and later Spain, no accommodation was to be reached with Communists. At the same time, Cornwell alleges that Pius XI and Pacelli were more open to collaboration with totalitarian movements and regimes of the right.

''Reichskonkordat''

Cornwell asserts that Hitler was determined to conclude a concordat with the Vatican similar to the one that Mussolini had negotiated. According to Cornwell, Hitler was obsessed by a fear of German Catholics who, politically united by the Center Party, had defeated Otto von Bismarck's ''Kulturkampf'', during the "culture struggle" against the Catholic Church in the 1870s. According to Cornwell, Hitler was "convinced that his movement could succeed only if political Catholicism and its democratic networks were eliminated".

Criticism of Cornwell's work

A major response to ''Hitler's Pope'' came from University of Mississippi law professor Ronald J. Rychlak in his 2000 book on the subject, ''Hitler, the War, and the Pope''.Ronald Rychlak
''Cornwell's Errors: Reviewing Hitler's Pope''
Rychlak was acknowledged by the Vatican to have been given special access to their closed archives for his research.

Rychlak disagreed with Cornwell's claim of having found a "time bomb letter", arguing that the letter in question had actually been written not by Pacelli but by his assistant, and moreover had been fully published and discussed in a 1992 book by Emma Fattorini (a highly respected docent at the University of Rome). With respect to Cornwell's allegations of antisemitism, Rychlak stated that "When Pius XII died in 1958, there were tributes from virtually every Jewish group around the world".

Rychlak also alleged that Cornwell manipulated the photograph on the front cover of the American edition of the book, and incorrectly dated the photo as having been taken in March 1939, the month that Pacelli was made Pope. Rychlak charged that this had been done deliberately in order to give the impression that Pius had just visited Hitler when, in fact, the photo had been taken in 1927 as Pius was leaving a reception held for German President Paul von Hindenburg. Robert Royal has also repeated this allegation.

In his 2005 book '' The Myth of Hitler's Pope'', the historian and rabbi David G. Dalin also countered Cornwell. Dalin suggested that ''Yad Vashem'' should honor Pope Pius XII as a " Righteous Gentile," concluding that " e anti-papal polemics of ex-seminarians like Garry Wills and John Cornwell ... of ex-priests like James Carroll, and or other lapsed or angry liberal Catholics exploit the tragedy of the Jewish people during the Holocaust to foster their own political agenda of forcing changes on the Catholic Church today." Dalin called the book's conclusions "unverified" and "strongly anti-religious". Eugene Fisher, who has a PhD in Hebrew culture and education, said it was a "sad commentary on the secular media that this anti-Catholic screed was ever published".

In his book '' The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice'', Philip Jenkins said that ''Hitler's Pope'' could not be understood except as a series of "very low blows against the modern Catholic Church, and specifically the papacy of John Paul II."

Ken Woodward, writing in ''Newsweek'', stated that ''Hitler's Pope'' has "errors of fact and ignorance of context hatappear on almost every page."Kenneth L. Woodward,
The Case Against Pius XII - A New Biography Is Scalding - And Deeply Flawed
, ''Newsweek'', 27 September 1999.

In an historical assessment of Pope Pius XII, the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' addressed Cornwell's book in the following terms: "John Cornwell's controversial book on Pius, ''Hitler's Pope'' (1999), characterized him as antisemitic. he depiction however, lack credible substantiation". The Encyclopedia further assessed his role in aiding Jews during the Holocaust as follows: "Although he allowed the national hierarchies to assess and respond to the situation in their countries, he established the Vatican Information Service to provide aid to, and information about, thousands of war refugees and instructed the church to provide discreet aid to Jews, which quietly saved thousands of lives".

The 2013 book '' Disinformation: Former Spy Chief Reveals Secret Strategies for Undermining Freedom, Attacking Religion, and Promoting Terrorism'' by Rychlak and Pacepa criticises Cornwell and suggests the basis for many allegations were leaks from the Soviets as an attempt to undermine Catholic influence and thus weaken it as an anti-Communist enemy.

In early 2020, the Vatican opened and unsealed Pius XII's archives.

Cornwell's later views

According to a 2004 article in ''The Economist'', Cornwell's historical work has not always been "fair-minded" and ''Hitler's Pope'' specifically "lacked balance". The article goes on to state that Cornwell, "chastened", had admitted as much himself, in a later work, ''The Pontiff in Winter'', citing the following quote as evidence:

In a more recent interview, Mr. Cornwell stated:

In 2009 he described Cardinal Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII) as being an example of a "fellow traveller" of the Nazis who was willing to accept the generosity of Hitler in the educational sphere (more schools, teachers and pupil places), so long as the Church withdrew from the social and political sphere, at the same time as Jews were being dismissed from universities and Jewish pupil places were being reduced. For this he considers Pacelli as effectively being in collusion with the Nazi cause, if not by intent. He further argues that Monsignor Kass, who was involved in negotiations for the ''Reichskonkordat'', and at that time the head of the Roman Catholic Centre Party, persuaded his party members, with the acquiescence of Pacelli, in the summer of 1933 to enable Hitler to acquire dictatorial powers. He argues that the Catholic Centre Party vote was decisive in the adoption of dictatorial powers by Hitler and that the party's subsequent dissolution was at Pacelli's prompting.

See also

*'' The Myth of Hitler's Pope''
*''Pius XII and the German Resistance''

Footnotes

References

* Jimmy Akin,
How Pius XII Protected Jews
'. Catholic Answers (2005).
* Anonymous, ''Persecution of the Catholic Church in the Third Reich''. Pelican Pub Co (February 2003). . (originally published in 1941)
* Joseph Bottum, ''The Pius War: Responses to Critics of Pius XII''. Lexington Books (2004).
* James Carroll: ''Constantine’s Sword''. Houghton Mifflin (2002).
* John Cornwell, ''Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII''. Viking (1999).
* David G. Dalin, ''The Myth of Hitler’s Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis''. Regnery (2005). .
* Rainer Decker: ''Rezension zu Cornwell, John: Pius XII.. Der Papst, der geschwiegen hat. München 1999''. In
H-Soz-Kult, 22.02.2000
* Emma Fattorini, "Germania e Santa Sede: Le nunziature di Pacelli fra la Grande guerra e la Repubblica di Weimar" (Pubblicazioni dellIstituto storico italo-germanico in Trento / Istituto trentino di cultura). il Mulino (1992).
* Michael F. Feldkamp, '' Goldhagens unwillige Kirche. Alte und neue Fälschungen über Kirche und Papst während der NS-Herrschaft''. München (2003).
* Guenter Lewy, ''The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany''. Da Capo Press (2000).
* Margherita Marchione, ''Pope Pius XII: Architect for Peace''. Paulist Press (2000).
* Ronald J. Rychlak, ''Hitler, the War, and the Pope''. Our Sunday Visitor (2000).
* Ronald J. Rychlak, ''Righteous Gentiles''. Spence Publishing (2005).
* Ronald J. Rychlak,
Hitler, Pope Pius XII, The Jews, The Catholics - the Truth
'
* Ronald J. Rychlak,

'
* Karl Scholder, ''The Churches and the Third Reich''. London (1987).
* Garry Wills: ''Papal Sin''. Bantam Dell (2001).
* Eugenio Zolli, ''Before the Dawn''. Roman Catholic Books (1997).
* Susan Zuccotti, '' Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy''. New Haven/London: Yale University Press (2000).

External links

John Cornwell's abridged version of ''Hitler's Pope'' written for Vanity Fair


Exposing Hitler's Pope and Its Author

Exposing the Myth of Pius XII's 'Silence'

Moral Accords? a review of 'Controversial Concordats'
in America Magazine

{{Pope Pius XII

Books about Nazism
British non-fiction books
Books about Pope Pius XII
1999 non-fiction books
History books about World War II
Pope Pius XII and World War II
1999 in Christianity
Viking Press books
Catholicism and politics