The Pope's Dilemma : Pius XII Faces Atrocities and Genocide in the Second World War

Pope Pius XII presided over the Catholic Church during one of the most challenging moments in its history. Elected in early 1939, Pius XII spoke out against war and destruction, but his refusal to condemn Nazi Germany and its allies for mass atrocities and genocide remains controversial almost seventy years after the end of the Second World War. Scholars have blamed Pius’s inaction on anti-communism, antisemitism, a special emotional bond with Germany, or a preference for fascist authoritarianism. Delving deep into Catholic theology and ecclesiology, Jacques Kornberg argues instead that what drove Pius XII was the belief that his highest priority must be to preserve the authority of the Church and the access to salvation that it provided. In __The Pope’s Dilemma__, Kornberg uses the examples of Pius XII’s immediate predecessors Benedict XV and the Armenian genocide and Pius XI and Fascist Italy, as well as case studies of Pius XII’s wartime policies towards five Catholic countries (Croatia, France, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia), to demonstrate the consistency with which Pius XII and the Vatican avoided confronting the perpetrators of atrocities and strove to keep Catholics within the Church. By this measure, Pius XII did not betray, but fulfilled his papal role. A meticulous and careful analysis of the career of the twentieth century’s most controversial pope, __The Pope’s Dilemma__ is an important contribution to the ongoing debate about the Catholic Church’s wartime legacy. Cover 1 Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 Introduction: An Approach to the Controversy 14 1 The Demolition of Pope Pius XII’s Reputation 22 2 The Vatican and Nazi Germany: The 1933 Concordat 57 3 Pius XII and the Second World War: The Catholic Belligerent States 86 4 Pius XII and the Second World War: Poland 152 5 Catholic Anti-Jewish Attitudes: Achille Ratti, Eugenio Pacelli, and Others 167 6 Pope Pius XII and His Predecessors: Different Popes, Similar Policies 196 7 The Debate over Pius XII’s Priorities 245 Conclusion: Religious Good Trumps Moral Good 276 Notes 314 Bibliography 368 Index 394