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Summary: Sensationalism Sells
Review: I tried to approach this book from an objective point of view, but found the highly subjective and biased research of the author hard to stomach. I have read both this book and the Vatican's version of the accounts - both presumably written from the same historical information in the same archives. It is obvious that Pius XII was not an anti-Semite who collaborated in the destruction of the Jews - but that is a popular topic today and it sells. The author, who claims to be a practicing Catholic, is also an ex-seminarian - and they always seem to have a chip on their shoulder when it comes to the Catholic Church. May God forgive him for the injustice he has done to the Church.
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Summary: "A NASTY CARICATURE OF A NOBLE AND SAINTLY MAN"
Review: The first mistake was in The cover of the book of Cornwell depicts Archbishop Pacelli leaving a German government building, guarded by two soldiers. This official visit of the then Nuncio took place not later than 1929, that is, four years before Hitler came into power (January 30, 1933). Since Pacelli left Germany in 1929 and never returned there, using this photograph is misleading and tendentious. Against this old and dirty trick protests were repeatedly published. The fact that a few months ago in a review in the USA Cornwell uses this photo on the cover of his book reveals from the outset his intention to denigrate the future Pius XII.
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Summary: excommunication
Review: what's the fastest way to get excommunicated? I have always thought something was rotten in Rome. Now I'm sure of it.I only hope they don't canonize.
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Summary: the most important book on current European history
Review: The author, a devout Catholic, set out to clear the name of Pius XII. In the secret archives of the Vatican, he found not exoneration, but an astonishing paper trail which identifies Pacelli as a major instigator of both World War I and II. Some reviewers have emphasized Pius XII's hatred of the Jews, but even the most rabid anti-Semite will feel concern about how Pacelli sold out the German Catholics to Hitler. This book is not sensationalism or muck-raking. It has nothing in common with the tawdry gossip and "as told to" books which pass fleetingly through the best-seller lists. Professor Cornwell is a careful and diligent researcher and an excellent writer. His book is not anti-religious, and certainly not anti-Catholic. It is for certain a deeply disturbing book, one which will trouble the dreams of both historians and any thoughtful person in today's world. It deserves the widest possible study and discussion.
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Summary: Remarkable
Review: A very well written book. It is amazing to me how Pius XII DID NOT SAY ANYTHING about the enormity of the Holocaust. The worst part was the roundup of the Jews in Rome. Cornwell writes about the Balkans, which is very interesting, because so few people have written about it. All it would have taken was for Pius XII to say one word and be specific about the Nazi roundup of Jews. I can understand why he did not, but it does not let him off the hook. He was not a bad person, but a tracic one.
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Summary: Ugh.
Review: The interesting thing is that none of the highly concerned critics of Pius have made the reasonable suggestion that the Papal States be returned to the Pope - this would allow the Pope to once again be the temporal and military they seem to want Pius to have been! <giggling in a sarcastic manner>..
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Summary: A Compelling Account of Vatican Complicity
Review: This book is indicative of a growing movement among many Catholics to bring the Vatican to account for it's meddlesome behaviors. Cornwell has done the world a great favor by showing the extremes to which the Roman Catholic Church will go to (has gone to) to exert it's control over the minds of it's faithful followers....re: Pacelli's insistence, when negotiating it's concordats with Serbia and Germany to have complete control over the education of their citizenry. The many who have demonized this book have gone to great lengths to question the validity of it's research, but the truth remains that the long history of the inquisitions seems to have reared it's evil head in this account of Pacelli's life. The Vatican has shown time and again that they are masters of duplicity and revision of history to suit their goals. I highly recommend this book to any who searching for the truth of these aims.
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Summary: Good biography, but poorly reasoned history
Review: I came to this book predisposed to believe that Pius XII bore some responsibility for the Holocaust, insofar as he made no aggressive effort to censure Hitler and the Nazis or to defend the cause of the Jews and other oppressed minorities of Europe during World War II. But the author did such a poor job of advancing this thesis that I came away with a very different conclusion. Given Pacelli's background, the limits on his worldview, and the palpable jeopardy to the Papacy in Italy as well as to the Catholic Church in Germany and Axis-occupied Europe which woudl probably have resulted from overt opposition to the Nazi agenda, it would have been quite amazing and out of character for him to have responded differently. The author fails to differentiate between sins or acts of omission--the failure to speak out--and sins or acts of commission--the crimes of Hitler and the Nazis. At most, Pius was culpable for his refusal to see beyond his world to include Jews in the community of humankind; he is to be blamed for a parochial myopia, perhaps, but it is an understandable failing, given his background and the period and place in which he lived. The author rightly criticizes Rolf Hochhuth's The Deputy for it one-sided picture of Pius and his culpability. But in many ways, he is just as guilty as Hochhuth in this bias. It seems that he reached conclusions in advance of writing the book--then sought out evidence to bolster those conclusions. His picture of Pius generally is of an ascetic man of the cloth without a lot of vision--hardly a man to be excoriated, though a human being with human failings. As a postscript, I might add that I am a Protestant. I am surprised that a Catholic author could have produced a volume like this.
Rating: 
Summary: Well done & accurate, but no news
Review: This is a fine historical document. The only problem with it is that it won't reach anyone. It has long been well know that Pius was, essentially, a Nazi himself. Those, however, who persist, in light of the Holocaust, in swallowing the fiction that Christianity is about loving your fellow man, however, are not going to let facts stand in the way of their beliefs, & will simply deny the facts forever. Let's be more explicit here. The natural conclusion of this book (as more explicitly laid out in Falk's "The Jew in Christian Theology") is that Auschwitz was the inevitable outcome and crowning achievement of 1800 years of Christianity. An objective reader must necessarily conclude that even the recent fad of handwringing over how "we" (Christians) stood by while "they" (Nazis, who presumably were from Mars) committed murder after murder, millions of times, is itself a whitewash. The book points to the obvious - that Christians were Nazis, Nazis were Christians, &, bluntly, that Nazism was a not particularly aberrant form of Christianity. This is of course impossible for the true believer to believe and still retain his religion, and that's what causes all the shrieking over this book.
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Summary: Trash
Review: I couldn't finish it. Simply awful. The author in his early 90s autobiography describes how he completely lost his faith. It shows. His animosity towards the papacy is unsupported and vicious. Full of gratuitous assertions that don't begin to make a legitimate case. Lord knows, there have problematic popes, but this screed entirely misses the mark.
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