Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII

Rating:
Summary: waste of paper
Review: This book unfortunately falls into the realm of what is so frequently written and published today. Very poorly researched, grossly inaccurate and superficial. I would not recommend buying it.

Rating:
Summary: a farcical attempt to reconstruct history
Review: This book is a farce. The author is totally hyped up by the media who love nothing more than to pick on Catholics, the last group for whom it is still politically correct to hate. The whole thing about the cover photo is just one simple example of the twisting of the historical record, as if a 1927 photo, doctored up and blurred at specific points, is either honest scholarship or relevant!

As for Cornwell's statement that he began his book believing it would exonerate the Pope...another piece of nonsense. Does he think that we never read his commentaries on other Catholic issues? As for his "highly detailed" study in the Vatican archives, a few short hours on a few days doesn't cut mustard.
Readers would do much better to spend their time reading "Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust" by Sanchez, which is reviewed by Cahners Business Information, Inc. as follows: "After the hype associated with John Cornwell's 1999 work Hitler's Pope, this careful, scholarly study of Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust is a refreshing contribution to a debate that continues more than a half century after the end of World War II. Sanchez, a professor of history at St. Louis University, thoughtfully examines the various arguments on both sides of a controversy that will likely never be resolved. In doing so, he presents a dispassionate, thoroughly documented tome that exhibits a high degree of fairness. Sanchez began his research in 1998 to provide a fresh, balanced look at a topic on which most authors have found it necessary to weigh in heavily on one side or the other. He assesses claims ranging from allegations that the late pope was an anti-Semite to the defense that the pontiff did not speak out more forcefully against the Nazi persecution of the Jews because he feared he would make things worse for the victims. Sanchez's conclusions offer nods to both the critics and defenders of Pius XII, but because his summary statement is more gray than black or white, readers looking for the sort of spice dished up by Hitler's Pope will doubtless be left disappointed. Sanchez's treatment is ideal for students of history and anyone truly interested in an objective analysis of a controversial figure."
One would do well to read the New York Times' coverage of the Pope from the war era to see how both the Jews and the Nazis reacted to this Pope. In fact, Hitler would stomp his foot on the ground in rage whenever Pius' name was mentioned.

Rating:
Summary: Lessons from history
Review: Very interesting book, not so much for what it says about Pius XII or the Catholic church - I'm not engaged with the Roman church so I don't know how relevant the book is for today - but for what it says about people, religion and spirituality. Condemning or exonerating Pius XII is neither in my power nor purview. What I can do is learn from his life, and this book is very willing to help out.

How should the church relate to the world? Is true spirituality pietistic or does it engage the world? Is it right to make accomodations in exchange for "eternal" gains? What are the dangers of success? The author intends to leave a strong impression that Pius XII got it very wrong.

For balance I need to find a book that tells me why the clergy-laity distinction is important, why hierarchy can be a good thing, and how glorifying God through displays of wealth and power is worth its moral dangers and opportunity costs!

Rating:
Summary: Good parts were tough to find
Review: This book would have been great if someone had edited out about half of it. There were some good parts but it they were hard to find. Here are some highlights:

Pg 95: Pacelli asks the British ambassador to the Holy See to beg the British foreign office that "no Allied colored troops would be allowed among the small number that might be garrisoned at Rome after the occupation."

Pg 115-116: Pacelli pushes Catholic political figures away from socialists (fearing communism) and toward Nazis and Fascists.

Pg 172: "All true followers of Christ," wrote Pius XI in 1928 "will believe the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God with the same faith as they believe the mystery of the august Trinity, the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff and the Incarnation."

Pg 192: Documents in Berlin 1943, the sole public demonstation of German Gentiles to free Jews - it was a complete success. Pg 193 talks about how protests like this were undermined by papal primacy and lack of support from the church of the Catholic political base.

Pg 193: "...if the churches had opposed the killing and persecution of the Jews, as they opposed the killing of the congenitally insane and the sick, there would have been no Final Solution."

Pg 249-253: Describes the horrifying massacres in Croatia and the way priests (particularly Fransicans) supported and even took a leading role.

There is unquestionably some good information in this book in addition to the above. However it's slow, difficult to read and even more difficult to fully understand (I certainly don't think I understood all of it). Constantine's Sword is definately more worthwhile. It covers this period fairly well, (though not in as much detail) and is easier to read even though it's much longer.

Rating:
Summary: Unconvinced
Review: I am not Catholic, Jewish, Fascist, or anti-Semitic. I read history because I love to. I had no preconceived ideas about this particular Pope or the Catholic Church's actions in relation to the Nazis. I have two major problems with this book:

1. Cornwell writes with the idea that the Holocaust was not just foreseeable when Hitler was running for office and consolidating his power, but that it was inevitable. Sure, Hitler was anti-Semitic. Lots of Europeans and Americans and Catholics and others were anti-Semitic during the 20s and 30s. But even when Hitler decided on the Final Solution, relatively few of his own party knew what that really meant. There is no evidence in this book that Pacelli knew that the Holocaust was coming or that he condoned it when it became public.

2. In fact, there is evidence in this book itself that totally flies in the face of Cornwell's conclusions. The biggest example comes in Pacelli's actions after the Germans invaded Poland. Leaders of the German military discretely approached the Pope and asked him to get a message to the English: if the English and French would agree to not invade Germany, the German military would remove Hitler from power. But, they would only stage the coup if WW I allies promised to not take advantage of the German civil war. Pacelli agreed to pass on the message. The British responded by saying that the issue was not Hitler, but German
rearmament, and so the British refused to make the assurances requested of the German officers. Delivering this message was an enormous risk for Pacelli, since Italy was Fascist at
the time and Hitler's greatest ally. Certainly, Pacelli would never have passed this message to the Brits if he was complicit with Hitler.

I am glad I read this book, however, because of what it teaches about the Catholic Church's direct political involvement in European politics (an eye-opener for a separation-of-church-and-state American)and inter-war politics in general.

Rating:
Summary: Pius XII IS NO SAINT
Review: This book is a complete indictment of Pius XII and the Catholic Church as an institution for their complicity in the wholesale slaughter of innocent men, women, and children. These victims were real and the man who was supposed to be the Vicar of Christ did nothing. His advocate for sainthood when questioned on why Pius XII did not protest the roundup of the Roman Jews said : "What could he do? What could Jesus have done?" Jesus would have protested and suffered the consequences. Pius XII did nothing. This book has been condemned by the Vatican. I can not think of a better reason to read it.

Rating:
Summary: A Book Of Lies And The Cover Photo Proves It
Review: This book lies to you before you even pick it up off the shelf. How many thousands have been fooled? I'm speaking of the deception on the cover of the book. You don't even have to open the book before you are hit with blatent deception. The following observations are made when comparing the photo on the book cover to the original photo:

1) An open car door is cropped out so that a chauffer tipping his hat looks like a Nazi officer saluting Pope Pius Xll.

2) The "offficer" is INTENTIONALLY blurred so that the tip of the cap looks like a salute and the uniform looks like a Nazi uniform.

3) In the original photo, an armband appears on the uniform of the chauffer and it has white stripes on it - the white stripes diappear in the retouched photo that the book presnets so as to deceive. On the book jacket, the armband becomes a shade lighter than the dark uniform it is attached to - like a red Nazi armband the officers wore on their uniform.

4) The soldier in the background is also INTENTIONALLY blurred on the book cover so that it appears to be a Nazi soldier. The photo predates Nazism. 1927 is when it was taken. That isn't Pope Pius Xll being saluted by a Nazi officer. Thats Bishop Pacelli (became Pope Pius Xll eleven years later) - Papal Nuncio of Germany leaving a reception for President Hindenberg.

The blurring is intentional, as all the subjects are in focus in the orginal photo.

Read all of the above points about the cover photo of the book and consider the title while doing so. The lengths this book goes to in order to deceive are monumental.

Rating:
Summary: Very thought provoking
Review: John Cornwell's Hitler's Pope: the secret history of Pius XII is an engaging and thought-provoking read. Contrary to the somewhat sensationalist National Enquirer-esque tone of the title this book is a serious albeit non-academic study of Piux XII's culpability in both the rise of National Socialist Germany and Hitler's policy attempted extermination of the Jewish Race. This is evidenced by the fact that a leading Church historian such as Eamon Duffy have provided both critical comment and endorsement (of the book rather than the argument). The book asks to what extent Pacelli (Pope Piux XII) was aware of Hitler's mass-murder of Jews is one which is never fully and conclusively answered in the book (although that Pacelli was aware of the gas chambers although maybe not the true extent of their use does seem likely). Cornwell never claims that Pacelli supported the extermination of the Jewish community (although in common with much Christianity both Catholic and Protestant Pacelli does seem to have held quite strong anti-semitic or more accurately anti-judaic views). Pacelli's sin was in Cornwell's view his policy of acquiescence. Pacelli drawing on his background in temporal diplomacy to the full made every effort to maintain a position of neutrality within the world conflict so as he could act as a peace mediator in the future to aid a peace resolution. Further as the Holy Father to over one billion followers any militant stand could result in reprisals against thousands of those in his care. Whether this was justified is, of course, a point of argument.

Hitler's Pope is not however just a historical telling of the Vatican's role within the international politics of the time; it is also a book with a theological/ecclesiastical governmental point. Pivotal to the argument (just how pivotal does not become apparent until the book's conclusion) is the work of Pacelli while still Papal nuncio in Berlin and later Secretariat of State for the Vatican pursued the policy of Piux XI searching for a Reich Concordant. The reason being not so much for the benefit of German Catholicism but in order to cement the autocracy implemented in 1870 at Vatican I of the papacy. In order to ensure this the Pope was willing to concede the right of Catholics to engage in political endeavours and the Centre Party under the leadership of Ludwig Kaas was disbanded. The Centre Party was both decidedly anti-Nazi and held significant public support. Thus in the pursuit of papal power a significant alternative and obstacle to the success of the National Socialist ideal was decimated and as such a chance to avert the death of millions of innocent people was sidestepped. Thus Cornwell concludes (p 370-371): "papal autocracy, carried to the extreme, can only de-moralize and weaken Christian communities ... It has been the urgent thesis of this book that where the papacy waxes strong at the expense of the people of God, the Catholic Church declines in moral and spiritual influence to the detriment of us all"

And thus the emphasis that this book is not a mere historical study; Cornwell concludes stating that even in this post-Vatican II era John Paul II continues to `wax strong' to this day.

Rating:
Summary: Pacelli was a vain gutless weasel, a genuine pharisee
Review: From the reviews I thought Pius XII was a fiend.
Instead I find he was a vain, weasel - a spoiled, frail brat.
But when you read about the psychology of many concentration
camp fiends, you find they, too, were weasels.
Pacelli thought all communists were Jews, he thought all
American black soldiers were rapists, he was the one who
suffered from bullies all his life, so when the bully, Hitler,
however distasteful, was on his side, Pacelli just kept quiet
But there seems little doubt he enjoyed it.
Unfortunately most popes of the 20th C excpet John & Leo were like him.
Moreover, reading this, I am starting to believe Fatima was
fabricated entirely inside the Vatican Curia.
So, while Pacelli felt Jews were Christ-killers, he,
who became just like the pharisees was, not as he thought,
the Pastor Angelicus "Successor to Christ" but a genuine
modern replica of a Christ-killer.

Rating:
Summary: An Anti-Catholic Libel
Review: This book more than "a devastating account of the ecclesiastical carreer of Eugenio Pacelli" later known as Pope Pius XII is a book written with the purpose of portrait the Pope as an anti-semitist and a pro-nazi leader.
As everybody know, his Papacy (1939-1958) happened in one of the worst periods of the european history and Pius XII as a head of the Roman Catholic Church has to deal with the nazis which whom the church had several clashes and many catholic priests and catholic civilians from the occupied countries were persecuted, murdered or ended in concentration camps because of their opposition to the Nazi regime in those territories annexed by the German Army and do not forget that anti-semitism was not a nazi invention, it was an "ideology" well extended in Europe since the early Middle Age and many many people from all religious beliefs collaborated with the nazi in the jews persecution inside Germany or in the occupied countries. Mr. Cornwell just wrote an anti-catholic libel omitting Pacelli's condemnation against the war and the nazi crimes as a Secretary of State and as Pope again and again. But this kind of biased literature is not rare nowaday, it is a well extended phenomenon in vogue in a fraction of the anglo-saxon intelligentsia determined to discredit the Roman Catholic Church, its institutions and leaders.