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Rating: 
Summary: The Popessa (La Popessa)
Review: For about five years I had a bookstore which attempted to meet the needs of both Jews and Catholics in our University town. My interest in books which build bridges and tear down walls created great diversity on my shelves, of which I remain proud. THE POPESSA came highly recommended by the Paulist priests who staff the campus Newman Center at WVU. It tells the story of a religious woman who's work was in Vatican City, a person of considerable intellect and insight which was acknowledged, if grudgingly, by Pope Pius VII as she attempted throughout WWII to convince him of the enormous evil of Hitler & Nazi Germany. Unfortunately, she was unable to accomplish the rescue of Jews from the Shoah. But she was greatly respected for her efforts throughout the Vatican, and was called La Popessa as a title of honor. With the recent release of HITLER'S POPE, I hope this excellent book covering the same time period and subject will become available again and receive the recognition it deserves for taking a courageous stand against the Church, who was even less repentant in 1986 when La Popessa was published than it remains today.
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Summary: "A new low in US book publishing"
Review: Having read the book, I find I would agree with this comment from Pius XII: Greatness Dishonoured, 1980, by Michael O'Carroll, p. 243-244 (epilogue): There is another great lady deserving a salute in this period of papal history, Sister Mary Pascalina Lehnert. She had been Pius XII's housekeeper for fifty years when he died in 1958: in Munich, Berlin, the Vatican. Since his death she had lived in retirement, not from work but from the public gaze. She had set down some memories of him soon after his death, on orders from her superiors -- not a diary, but recollection of striking events in the Pope's career. The prediction of a notorious critic of Pius XII, the ex-priest Carlo Falconi, that the nun's 'diary', if published, would be explosive, has not been fulfilled. There are certainly revelations but they do but serve to enhance the Pope's reputation. The book was published early in 1983 and already in that year went through four editions. Translations are being prepared. Sister Pascalina died on 13 November, 1983 returning to Rome after a ceremony in Vienna organised to commemorate the twenty fifth anniversary of Pius XII's death. (...) What is one to say about a concoction allegedly based on her life, appearing in the United States under the title La Popessa? This is a world apart from the genuine memoirs of the nun; it is a world of arbitrary invention, carried at times to the wildest extremes. I refrain from giving examples, with which I could fill scores of pages of this book. Sister Pascalina was simply the Pope's housekeeper, yet to her is attributed a throughout [sic] knowledge of the most involved Church affairs, a memory of conversations of sixty years earlier, a brashness in dealing with high ecclesiastics, and power and influence over the Pope, all utterly without documentation, utterly unbelievable: she actually composed with the Pope one of the greatest theological encyclicals in the history of the Papacy, Mystici Corporis Christi! "The pseudo-Pascalina book", says Fr Graham, "is at best a practical joke on an unsuspecting public. At worst, it is a new low in U.S. book publishing."
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Summary: Author Of New Musical Speaks Out
Review: I actually only wanted to encourage everyone to try to read this incredible book. Also, please feel free to visit my web site at lapopessa.com and let me know what you think. Finally, contrary to one of your guest reviewers, I can assure you that the title given to Pascalina, "La Popessa" was not one of endearment or honor. Cardinal Tisserant and others are said to have created this name as a statement of their venemous hate for Sister Pascalina. This remarkable woman, who ran the Vatican as well as oversaw the day to day activities of Pope Pius XII, is one of the great women of the twentieth century. Pascalina is an earlier pioneer of the women's liberation movement in that she made a conscious decision as to how she would live her life. That, she decided, was to walk in the shadow of a man who she was determined to one day see become pope. I truly hope that everyone can read this remarkable book. "La Popessa" has never been publically acknowledged by the church for fear that Pascalina would then have to be credited for so much good that she did during her years in the Vatican. They also feared the nature of the relationship between a nun and a pope - though it was pure and chaste in my opinion. While Pascalina lived in the shadows, and many in the Vatican never even saw her or knew of her existence, she clearly helped change the course of world history. Pascalina is only one of the many millions of couragous women throughout the world who richly deserve credit for making a difference each and every day - whether it be in politics, business, health and human services, the classroom, or as the invaluable homemaker who creates the "sanga". In the end, "La Popessa" tells of one of the great love stories of our time, that between a nun and a pope. It is a story of a rich yet platonic love that was honest and respectful of its limitations. "La Popessa" is but a footnote in history, but a remarkable one at that. Of the thirty books that I used in researching my musical, it is clear that this is an exciting story that affected the course of world events. Let me know your thoughts. I think Bernadette Peters would be a great lead!
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding. A Must Read.
Review: The inside story of Pope Pius XII, based on extensive interviews and writings of Sister Mary Pascalina, who started as his housekeeper when he was Papal Nuncio in Munich and carrying on through her ywars at the Vatican, where she was, in all but title, his confidential secretary and confidant. She was roundly hated by the Vatican bureaucracy for her unbending adherance to Pius's wishes, preventing him from being disturbed incessantly by those who loved to flout their position at the Vatican by their propensity to "drop in" on the Pope whenever they wished. All sorts of Vatican officials, including Cardinals, sought her ouster but Pius would have none of it. The Roman Curia of that day was very much male dominated and highly chauvinistic. The book puts the lie once and for all to the notion that the Catholic Church abandoned Jews to Hitler during WWII. In fact, as the book reveals, the Papacy saved more Jews from the Germans than all other public and private relief agencies combined. Pius XII, a master of diplomacy, negotiated brilliantly with the Nazi commandant of the German occupation force to bring this about. At the same time he walked a treacherous tightrope between too harsh a condemnation of Hitler, which he knew would result in the massacre of all Catholic priests and nuns in Nazi occupied lands - witness the roughly 2,400 Catholic priests that were rounded up and exevuted the moment German forces entered Poland - and too lenient a position toward the Nazis, which would give them the impression they had a license to exterminate the Jews. Also revealed in this book is the shameful inaction of the Allies in sanctioning Hitler, despite Pius's repeated attempts to make them aware of what was happening in the death camps. All in all it is a fascinating book. A bit of history that flies in the face of modern revisionism and definitely reveals the seedier side of the "good ol' boys" of the Vatican bureaucracy. It even contains perhaps the only (public) account of violatioins of the seal of the confessional by Sicilian clerics and the eventual disposition of the mater. Highly recommended. A real poke in the eye for revisionists, bigots and racists - who have been screaming about it ever since it was published.
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