The Pius War (or Pius Wars) refer to debates over the legacy of
Pope Pius XII
Pope Pius XII ( it, Pio XII), born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (; 2 March 18769 October 1958), was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 2 March 1939 until his death in October 1958. Before his e ...
and
his actions during the Holocaust. The phrase was first coined in a 2004 book of the same name.
World War II
Pius XII was crowned
Pope
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
of the
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
on 2 March 1939, and was thus leader of the Church and of the
Vatican City
Vatican City (), officially the Vatican City State ( it, Stato della Città del Vaticano; la, Status Civitatis Vaticanae),—'
* german: Vatikanstadt, cf. '—' (in Austria: ')
* pl, Miasto Watykańskie, cf. '—'
* pt, Cidade do Vati ...
, a neutral state, during all of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. During Pius's reign, and for several years after his death in 1958, he was praised by political leaders, civilians, and the press.
1960s
In 1963, a play entitled ''
The Deputy
''The Deputy, a Christian tragedy'' (German: ''Der Stellvertreter. Ein christliches Trauerspiel''), also published in English as ''The Representative '', is a controversial 1963 play by Rolf Hochhuth which portrayed Pope Pius XII as having failed ...
'' which portrayed Pius XII as a
sycophant
In modern English, sycophant denotes an "insincere flatterer" and is used to refer to someone practising sycophancy (i.e., insincere flattery to gain advantage). The word has its origin in the legal system of Classical Athens. Most legal cases o ...
ic aide to
Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then ...
, was produced on the German stage. This event began the first serious public discussion of Pius's record.
"Pius Wars" books and articles published during the 1960s include:
''
The Deputy
''The Deputy, a Christian tragedy'' (German: ''Der Stellvertreter. Ein christliches Trauerspiel''), also published in English as ''The Representative '', is a controversial 1963 play by Rolf Hochhuth which portrayed Pope Pius XII as having failed ...
'': A Christian Tragedy” (original title: “Der Stellvertreter. Ein christliches Trauerspiel") signaled the beginnings of the Pius Wars. It was first staged in Germany in 1963, but was subsequently translated into multiple languages, staged in several countries, and given much publicity. Its author,
Rolf Hochhuth
Rolf Hochhuth (; 1 April 1931 – 13 May 2020) was a German author and playwright, best known for his 1963 drama ''The Deputy'', which insinuates Pope Pius XII's indifference to Hitler's extermination of the Jews, and he remained a controversial ...
, also published a book based on the play, which purported to give evidence that his portrayal of the Pope was accurate. The controversy the play raised received much attention for several years, but became muted for a time after Hochhuth published a second play, ''The Soldiers'', also denigrating Winston Churchill, which was roundly condemned.
Irish Catholic journalist Desmond Fisher attempted to rebut Hochhuth's charges in ''Pope Pius XII and the Jews: An Answer to Hochhuth’s Play, Der Stellvertreter'', a pamphlet also published in 1963, when the play was first staged.
An American professor of political science,
Guenter Lewy
Guenter Lewy (born 22 August 1923) is a German-born American author and political scientist who is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His works span several topics, but he is most often associat ...
, published ''The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany'' in 1964, soon after “The Deputy” was staged but said in his preface that research for the book began in 1960. Lewy relied primarily on “large quantities of German State and Party documents and the opening of some Church archives". He opined that the "often fierce reaction to Hochhuth's play" was due to its having touched a "raw nerve" and says that the relationship between the Catholic Church and Nazi Germany is "a subject which for many years has been obscured by what may justifiably be called an extensive mythology."
Lewy used Nazi Party, German State, and German Catholic diocesan archives that were seized by the Allies to reconstruct Nazi-Vatican relations prior to and during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
In 1965
Carlo Falconi attempted to support Hochhuth's thesis in a more scholarly way, with ''Il Silenzio di Pio XII''. (''The Silence of Pius XII'', an English translation, was published in 1970.) In 1967, Falconi published ''The Popes of the Twentieth Century,'' in which he again criticized Pius for "failing to speak out" – "
ius XII
__NOTOC__
''Ius'' or ''Jus'' (Latin, plural ''iura'') in ancient Rome was a right to which a citizen (''civis'') was entitled by virtue of his citizenship ('' civitas''). The ''iura'' were specified by laws, so ''ius'' sometimes meant law. As on ...
was also guilty of inadmissable silence about the millions of civilian victims of Nazism – Jews, Poles, Serbs, Russians, gypsies, and others.''
In 1966
Saul Friedländer
Saul Friedländer (; born October 11, 1932) is a Czech-Jewish-born historian and a professor emeritus of history at UCLA.
Biography
Saul Friedländer was born in Prague to a family of German-speaking Jews. He was raised in France and lived thro ...
, an Israeli historian, used primary documents to support Hochhuth's thesis in ''Pius XII and the Third Reich: A Documentation''. (The book was first published in 1964, in Paris, under the title, ''Pie XII et le IIIe Reich, Documents.'') Friedländer suggested the Vatican should open its record archives, and in 1964, Pope Paul VI commissioned a group of Jesuit scholars to edit and publish the Vatican's records. These were published in eleven volumes between 1965 and 1981.
In ''Three Popes and the Jews'', Israeli journalist and former
DELASEM Delegation for the Assistance of Jewish Emigrants (Delegazione per l'Assistenza degli Emigranti Ebrei) or DELASEM, was an Italian and Jewish resistance organization that worked in Italy between 1939 and 1947. It is estimated that during World War I ...
member
Pinchas Lapide
Pinchas Lapide (28 November 1922 – 23 October 1997) was a Jewish theologian and Israeli historian. He was an Israeli diplomat from 1951 to 1969, among other position acting as Israeli Consul to Milan, and was instrumental in gaining recognit ...
in 1967 defended Pius XII, claiming that the Pope, through the Catholic hierarchy, was responsible for saving from 700,000 to 870,000 Jewish lives.
In ''Death in Rome'', the first of his books on Pius XII's record in regard to Rome's Jewish population,
Robert Katz
Robert Katz (27 June 1933 – 20 October 2010) was an American novelist, screenwriter, and non-fiction author.
Biography
Katz was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Sidney and Helen Katz, née Holland, and married Beverly Gerstel on Septem ...
in 1967 accused the Pope of having foreknowledge of the
Ardeatine Caves massacre.
In ''Black Sabbath: A Journey Through a Crime Against Humanity'', his second book on Pius XII, Katz accused him of failing to protect Rome's Jews, and of having done nothing to prevent the
deportation of Jews from the Roman ghetto.
In 1969
University of Lucerne
The University of Lucerne (UNILU; German: ''Universität Luzern'') is a public university with a campus in Lucerne, Switzerland. 1,460 undergraduates and 1,258 postgraduate students attend the university, which makes it Switzerland's smallest un ...
professor of history defended Pius XII's record in ''Pius XII and Nazi Germany in Historical Perspective'' (Historical Studies: Papers Read before the Irish Conference of Historians, VII) and in many other writings. He called the attacks on Pius "spurious."
1970s and 1980s
British historian Anthony Rhodes defended both
Pius XI
Pope Pius XI ( it, Pio XI), born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti (; 31 May 1857 – 10 February 1939), was head of the Catholic Church from 6 February 1922 to his death in February 1939. He was the first sovereign of Vatican City from ...
and Pius XII in his 1973 book titled ''The Vatican in the Age of the Dictators, 1922 – 1945'', asserting that the Popes' primary concern was pastoral.
According to journalist William Doino, Jr., "By the late 1960s, the attack on Pius XII seemed to have been turned back with the discrediting of ''The Deputy.'' One of the few books to appear in the next generation of scholarship was John F. Morley's ''Vatican Diplomacy and the Jews During the Holocaust, 1939 – 1943''.
Father Morley's 1980 book was one of the first to take into account the Vatican's ''Actes et Documents,'' although his book ends with the events of 1943 and was published before the last two volumes of the ''Actes'' were available.
Morley used these and other primary Vatican documents to find fault with the Vatican for not confronting the Nazis in regards to the persecution of the Jews. He also blames the Vatican for primarily concentrating on helping Jews who had been baptized into the Catholic Church.
Father Michael O'Carroll used Vatican archival documents, Nuremberg Trial transcripts, and other primary documents to rebut Father Morley's ''Vatican Diplomacy'' in another 1980 book, ''Pius XII: Greatness Dishonored – A Documented Study''.
1990s
After Father Morley's book and its rebuttal, the controversy died down until 1997, when ex-priest
James Carroll wrote an article for the ''New Yorker'' titled ''The Silence'', which once again brought up the question of Pius’s “silence.” The article was followed by a large number of anti-Pius articles and books as well as a flurry of rebuttals.
James Carroll drew parallels in this article between the reign of
Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...
and that of Pius XII. He claimed that, despite John Paul's attempts, Catholic-Jewish relations would never improve until the Church admitted that Pius XII did wrong in not speaking out against the Nazi regime. The reason, he said, that the Church refused to admit its wrongdoing was that it could not break the tenet of
papal infallibility
Papal infallibility is a dogma of the Catholic Church which states that, in virtue of the promise of Jesus to Peter, the Pope when he speaks ''ex cathedra'' is preserved from the possibility of error on doctrine "initially given to the aposto ...
.
A Catholic sister of the order Religious Teachers Filippini, Dr.
Margherita Marchione
Sister Margherita Marchione (February 19, 1922 – May 20, 2021) was an American Roman Catholic sister, writer, teacher and apologeticist, who dedicated herself in her later years to the defense of Pope Pius XII.
Early life
Marchione was born in F ...
collected oral histories from Italian Jews and Catholics to make the case that in her 1997 ''Yours Is a Precious Witness: Memoirs of Jews and Catholics in Wartime Italy'' that "No longer can one speak of
ius XII's''silence''.... His was a language of ''action.''
Father , one of the four Jesuit priests who edited the Vatican's multi-volume ''Actes et Documents'' (purporting to contain the Vatican's most salient wartime documents), in 1999 wrote ''Pius XII and the Second World War According to the Archives of the Vatican'' to summarize the findings of the ''Actes.'' His opinion was that Pius XII would be vindicated once the Vatican Archives were fully opened (which they were in 2020).
In ''Hitler’s Pope'', English journalist and ex-Catholic seminarian
John Cornwell made the case that Pius XII actually aided Hitler's rise to power by encouraging German Catholic Center Party and German Catholic Bishops to support him. The book has been both praised and condemned.
Kenneth L. Woodward
Kenneth L. Woodward (5 October 1935- ) is an American Roman Catholic writer. He was editor of the Religion section of national American magazine ''Newsweek'' from 1964 until his retirement in 2002.
Biography
Woodward was born in Detroit, Michigan ...
wrote in ''Newsweek'' that the book was "a classic example of what happens with an ill-equipped journalist assumes the air of sober scholarship.... Most of his sources are secondary and written by Pacelli's harshest critics. Errors of fact and ignorance of context appear on almost every page.... This is bogus scholarship, filled with nonexistent secrets, aimed to shock." In a 2004 interview with ''The Economist,'' Cornwell admitted that “Pius XII had so little scope of action that it is impossible to judge the motives for his silence during the war."
2000s
Liberal Catholic
Garry Wills
Garry Wills (born May 22, 1934) is an American author, journalist, political philosopher, and historian, specializing in American history, politics, and religion, especially the history of the Catholic Church. He won a Pulitzer Prize for Genera ...
denigrated Pius XII and other Popes in ''Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit'', a 2000 argument against papal power and in favor of Church reform.
In ''Hitler, the War, and the Pope'' Catholic University of Mississippi law professor
Ronald J. Rychlak
Ronald J. Rychlak is an American lawyer, jurist, author and political commentator. He is a Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law and is holder of the Jamie L. Whitten Chair in Law and Government. He is know ...
in 2000 compiled "an enormous amount of evidence" in defense of Pius XII's wartime record. "Since Rychlak's critique appeared, no historian has taken Cornwell's book seriously."
Also in 2000, Michael Phayer's ''The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930 – 1965'' suggested, among other charges, that it was no accident that Pius's detractors waited until after his death to speak out, and pointed out that all those who did were post-war appointees. He also opined that Pius's reputation began to wane, not in 1963, but after a question about his refusal to speak publicly about the Holocaust came up during the
Eichmann Trial.
In a 2001 historical review of Jewish-Christian relations, ex-priest James Carroll regretted lost possibilities for the avoidance of schism. The book, ''
Constantine's Sword
''Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews: A History'' (2001) is a book by James Carroll, a former priest, which documents the role of the Roman Catholic Church in the long European history of religious antisemitism as a precursor to raci ...
'', culminated in an indictment of Pius XII's wartime record. Liberal Catholics endorsed the book.
Brown University professor of ethnography and history
David I. Kertzer's website described his 2001 book, ''The Popes Against the Jews: The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism'', as "A groundbreaking historical study based on documents previously locked in the Vatican’s secret archives" and adds that "the book is full of shocking revelations" regarding the actions not only of Pius XII but of many other antisemitic Popes throughout history.
Jewish-American professor of history
Susan Zuccotti argued in her 2002 book ''
Under His Very Windows'' that Pius XII did not even try to save the Roman Jews during the ''Razzia'' of 1943, even though it happened "under his very windows." The book won a
National Jewish Book Award
The Jewish Book Council (Hebrew: ), founded in 1944, is an organization encouraging and contributing to Jewish literature.[Saint Louis University
Saint Louis University (SLU) is a private Jesuit research university with campuses in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, and Madrid, Spain. Founded in 1818 by Louis William Valentine DuBourg, it is the oldest university west of the Mississip ...]
professor of history José M. Sánchez wrote ''Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust: Understanding the Controversy'', intended to be a survey of then-current scholarship on Pius XII and the Holocaust. William Doino, Jr., nonetheless called it "a subtle but highly effective defense of Pius XII."
Catholic
Joseph Bottum and Jewish Rabbi
David G. Dalin edited ''The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII'', a collection of essays defending Pius XII and his actions during the years leading up to and including the Second World War. The eleven essays are followed by an annotated bibliography of works on this theme compiled by William Doino, Jr. In the introduction to the book, Joseph Bottum states, "The Pius War is over, more or less....
the end, the defenders of Pius XII won every major battle. Along the way, they also lost the war."
2010s
In 2015, American historian
Mark Riebling told the story of the Vatican's World War II spy network in ''Church of Spies'':
Belgian professor
Johan Ickx wrote ''Le Bureau: Les Juifs de Pie XII'' ("The Office: The Jews of Pius XII"), one of the first books based on primary sources from the Vatican's March 2, 2020, opening of the Pius XII Archives (often referred to as the Secret Archives). "The book, published in September (2020) but so far only in French, reveals correspondence with U.S. President
Franklin Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
to prevent the escalation of the war, Pius' support for an escape route to help the most persecuted, diplomatic attempts to influence the policing of the Third Reich, the rejection of
Marshal Pétain
Marshal is a term used in several official titles in various branches of society. As marshals became trusted members of the courts of Medieval Europe, the title grew in reputation. During the last few centuries, it has been used for elevated o ...
's anti-racial laws, an emergency organization of baptisms to save thousands of Jews from deportation, and the condemnation of priests sympathetic to the Nazis in
Slovakia
Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...
."
See also
*
Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust
The papacy of Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli) began on 2 March 1939 and continued to 9 October 1958, covering the period of the Second World War and the Holocaust, during which millions of Jews and others were murdered by Adolf Hitler's Germany. Bef ...
*
Index of Vatican City-related articles
Index (or its plural form indices) may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities
* Index (''A Certain Magical Index''), a character in the light novel series ''A Certain Magical Index''
* The Index, an item on a Halo megastru ...
References
{{Pope Pius XII
Historiography
Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust
Pope Pius XII and World War II