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Summary: Most powerful coporation
Review: Most excellent history book. It covers only about two chapters on the actuall time of World War 2; but that is because it starts with this man's family history and leads the reader through the history like a history book should.History doesn't just happen it takes time for events to unfold and Cornwell does an exceptial job at telling the STORY in this man's history, proving that he was HITLER'S POPE. The reason for my title, to the review, is the part where the Vatican (vow of poverty?) had around $7 million to "play" with in their investments in American corporations (7 million dollars - that's a lot of money in today's terms let alone the 1930's). Excellent for both the Christian and Non-Christian alike, purely nonbiased in the approach!!!!!!!
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Summary: Wonderfully Book About A Despicable Coward
Review: It is rare to encounter an author with the courage of John Cornwell. In this magnificent book, he lays bare the complicity of Pope Pius XII with his Nazi masters in Berlin. The book is impeccably researched - every word in it is true. There aren't enough stars in the heavens to give this wonderful book.
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Summary: Thoughts From A Jewish Reader
Review: I admit I had preconceived thoughts about Pius XII. I thought him to be simply an anti-semetic pope happy to have Hitler exterminate deicides. But this book gave me a different perspective. The most important thing about Eugenio Pacelli was not his anti-semetism, it was his belief in the pope as an absolute ruler over all Catholics. His concordats all were designed to centralize power in Rome and strip the local Catholic hieracrchy of any independent decision making. Pacelli lived in Germany from 1917 to 1929. His closest personal aides were Germans. His concordat with Germany was no different from ones he negotiated with other countries: it gave all secular control over Catholics to the local government and in return, the government acknowledged the Vatican retained absolute control over Catholics in religious matters. As a Jew, I don't believe for one minute that Pius XII wanted to see the Final Solution happen. I believe that his greatest sin was the sin of self preservation, he knew if he spoke out against Mussolini and Hitler the Vatican would probably have been invaded, and he imprisoned. Pacelli's entire life was directed toward becoming the pope, he was not willing to sacrifice his worldly accomplishment and success to try to save Jews who he believed were not worthy of being saved. Pius XII failure as pope was classically Shakespearan. He skillfully worked his way up the Catholic hierarchy as a canon lawyer, Cardinal Secretary of State and then Pope only to discover that the Vicar of Christ like Christ himself must be willing to foresake all worldly gains to do the right thing. The Old Testament, a book revered by Jews and Christians alike, says"What profiteth a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul." This was the lesson of Pius XII, Eugenio Pacelli. I think John Cornwell got it just right.
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Summary: No hidden agenda here; just pure new-age trash
Review: Cornwell's book isn't well researched. That it is lightly resourced with anecdotal extrapolations and with second and third sources -- not primary -- is obvious to any professional writer who checks sources. But, misinformation begins with the cover (paperback) and continues through the final chapter. In fact, if you skip everything in between, it makes better sense. Cornwell is a new-age Catholic who believes he has been revealed the truth and that the 2,000 years of Catholic tradition are a farce. His unflattering depiction of Cardinal Pacelli on the cover is totally disingenuous and has nothing to do with his argument, although it fits his (Cornwell's) conclusion. The ending remarks about Vatican II reveal that his problem isn't with Eugenio Pacelli, but with anything that looks, sounds, or acts "old fashioned." Cornwell has us looking down or at best sideways because no one is worth looking up to. To me, the only difference between this and the standard genre of anti-Catholic tracts is that Cornwell claims to be a Catholic. Giving credit where due, the authors in the former are honest about that. Read this book as an example of how to write an anti-Catholic book.
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Summary: The authoritarian face of the Church
Review: Hitler's Pope is a well researched and objective study of the relationships between the Catholic Church, and particularly Pope Pius XII, and the Nazi regime. Its main thesis is that Pius XII, through his part in the redaction of the Code of Canon Law (1917), and in the making of Concordats with Mussolini (1929) and Hitler (1933), pushed the authoritarianism and the centralization of the Catholic Church to such levels as to severely impair the very possibility of a mass non-compliance to the orders of the dictators. This book does not indict Pius XII for his mistakes and omissions: on the contrary, it makes his good faith understandable and believable. But it indicts the Catholic Church for having departed from the Gospel, and Pius XII for his part in this transformation. There is no anticatholic bias in this book: it expresses the sincere pain of a catholic believer who fails to recognize in the actual behavior of his Church the Mystical Body of Christ.
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Summary: Astounding findings backed up by hard evidence
Review: Notice that the negative reviews don't argue that Cornwell's facts are bad, or that these facts don't justify his findings, but that, even though the criticisms have been proven, they should be tempered so as not to offend the gentle reader. When honest people read a piece of non-fiction, we want the whole truth. When honest people read a book about a coward, they don't want the author to hide that fact. Cornwell doesn't just claim that Pius was a coward, he lays the history before us (the actual things that Pius did) and the unavoidable conclusion is there before us. Cornwell acknowledgest that Pius was excellent at PR and politics, so of course he did some beneficial acts which look great in isolation; but a Pope should be expected to be consistent. Why waste time discussing Pius's good acts. All are in agreement that he did good acts. The question is whether, at times, he turned his back on the Jews and did other cowardly acts. This book gives abundant evidence that he did.
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Summary: Anti-Catholicism lives on...
Review: This book is proof that anti-Catholicsm is the last tolerated bias in today's "tolerant" society. Anyone with half of a brain and an open mind can discover that Pope Pius XII was a hero, a man of God who was responsible for saving thousands of Jews from extermination at the hands of one of the 20th century's most evil man, Adolf Hitler. Shame on Cornwell!
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Summary: Rubbish. Terrible rubbish!
Review: The truth is Pius XII initiated, sustained and encouraged a program of rescue all over Europe through Vatican representatives in the conquered countries. Hungarian Jewish historian Jeno Levai defended the actions of the Pope at the trial of Auschwitz personnel in Frankfurt, Germany in 1964. It's public record. Look it up and read it. Jewish journalist and diplomat Pinhas Lapide who had access to the vast Israeli archives at Yad Vashem wrote an excellent account of the efforts of Pius XII in his work, The Last Three Popes and the Jews. He estimated that a total of 860,000 lives were saved through Pius XII's efforts. Lapide asserted that the Pope saved more lives than all government or international agencies together.
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Summary: Balanced, revealing, and very sad
Review: A book for both non-Catholics and Catholics alike. Notwithstanding the clear pro-Catholic criticism this book has received, this is a fine, if utterly saddening, history. At no point does Cornwell appear to be particularly grinding any anti-Church axe - indeed, he himself is a Catholic. Nor is this book anti-papist generally, or a gratutitous attack on Pius XII specifically. It is, instead, a revealing look at a man with feet of clay, whose ecclesiastical ambitions blinded and ultimately crippled him from any moral display at a time when the world needed it most. Cornwell fairly indicts the Protestants along the way as well, though this is not the central topic of research. This is a book well deserving of your time - it is a reminder in the (parapharased) words of Martin Luther King: History will not judge us by what evil men did, but by what good men did not do in the face of evil.
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Summary: dont be ignorant
Review: Ignorance amounts to a lack of knowledge.... If one chooses to read this book at least take into consideration reading a book giving the other side of the story. I reccomend "Hitler, the War, and the Pope" by Ronald Rychlak. If such a degree of open mindedness is too much to ask (ie. giving both sides unbiased consideration by allowing the accused a chance to defend itself with a book of its own) then at least one should take into account a small spattering of the information conveyed in this book.... one can listen to a real audio stream of a radio show where the author of "Hitler, the war, and the Pope" talks a little about his book, the url is http://www.catholic.com/radio/shows/2001/ca010111.ram It's free and will take much less time to listen to than the time probably already invested in reading the other side of the debate.
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