Product Description

Backed by a wealth of new research, John Cornwell tells for the first time the story of the World War II career of Eugenio Pacelli, the man who was Pope Pius XII, arguably the most dangerous churchman in modern history. In the first decade of the century, as a brilliant young Vatican lawyer, Pacelli helped shape a new ideology of unprecedented papal power in Germany. In 1933 Hitler became his negotiating partner, an agreement was arranged that granted religious and financial payments to the Catholic Church in exchange for their withdrawal from social and political privillage, ensuring the rise of Nazism.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #338676 in Books
• Published on: 2000-10-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
In the early 1990s, John Cornwell undertook a study of one of the most controversial Popes in Catholic history: Pope Pius XII. Known as the "icebox Pope", Pius XII, the Roman born Eugenio Pacelli, was elected Pope on the eve of the Second World War and ruled with unprecedented power and autocracy until his death at the height of the Cold War in 1958. Pacelli refashioned the role of Pope as a position of unrivalled absolutist power, in his papal edicts and dealings with the most influential figures in 20th-century history, from Hitler and Stalin to Roosevelt and Churchill. Most controversially, Pius was accused of contributing to the fate of the Jews under the Nazis in his sympathetic dealings with Hitler as papal nuncio to Germany throughout the 1920s.

The result of Cornwell's decision to write about Pius is his magnificent and shocking book Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII.The author explains that he had initially set out to vindicate Pius's career and as a result obtained access to hitherto restricted documents held at the Vatican. The results of his research, however, left him "in a state I can only describe as moral shock." Cornwell's study "told the story of a bid for unprecedented papal power that by 1933 had drawn the Catholic Church into complicity with the darkest forces of the era ... from an early stage in his career Pacelli betrayed an undeniable antipathy towards the Jews ... his diplomacy in Germany in the 1930s resulted in the betrayal of Catholic political associations that might have challenged Hitler's regime and thwarted the Final Solution." The subsequent account is an engrossing read, revealing a picture of a fascinating but repellent figure, who fashioned an aura of saintliness in the pursuit of ever greater power and authority.

Wherever an authoritarian or reactionary decision was taken by the Church Pacelli was there, signing the Serbian Concordat that aided the onset of the First World War, signing the Reich Concordat with Hitler in 1933, trivialising the Holocaust and even supporting Croatian Fascism throughout the Second World War. Hitler claimed that the Concordat of 1933 would help the Nazis "in the developing struggle against the international Jewry", a situation compounded by Pius's destruction of Catholic opposition to Nazism and refusal to speak out against the Holocaust.

Hitler's Pope brilliantly captures the ascetic, fastidious Pius, from his hypochondria and querulousness to his offhand anti-semitic and racist remarks--such as his request that the Allies should desist from deploying "coloured" soldiers in the relief of Rome in 1944. Cornwell is "convinced that the cumulative verdict of history shows him not to be a saintly exemplar for future generations, but a deeply flawed human being from whom Catholics, and our relations with other religions, can best profit by expressing our sincere regret." -- Jerry Brotton

About the Author
John Cornwell is Senior Research Fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge, and an award-winning journalist and author. His THIEF IN THE NIGHT: THE DEATH OF POPE JOHN PAUL I (1989) was a world bestseller. He has written on Catholic issues for many publications including the Sunday Times, Independent, Observer and the Tablet.

Customer Reviews

Absorbing, but not wholly convincing
Take two subjects of perennial interest - World War Two and the papacy - and combine them. You should be on to a winner. John Cornwell almost does it here - but not quite. To take the positive side first, the book is awesome in its detail and the apparent thoroughness of its research. The negative side is that this isn't a "warts and all" picture, but one that concentrates almost exclusively on the "warts". Hindsight is used far too often and John Cornwell makes the fatal mistake of judging one period by the standards of another. The picture of Pius XII that emerges to the reader who can pick his or her way through all this is one of a rather sad man whose priorities were in entirely the wrong order at a time when it was vitally important to have them right. I'm not sure that that's what John Cornwell intended.

Engaging
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.

Hard questions on piety and moral abdication
Cornwall's book is a tremendous research effort and highly readable. He starts out trying to disprove accusations that Pope Pius XII stopped his church from protesting Nazi atrocities. But the research leads to a far more painful truth. For any who promote the separation of government from religious values, this book poses hard questions. The Church's agreements with fascist rulers involved a trade: government support for religious institutions, in exchange for church silence on political affairs. As the 1933 Concordat with Nazi Germany said,

"In consideration of the guarantees afforded by the conditions of this treaty, and of legislation protecting the rights and freedom of the Catholic Church in the Reich ..., the Holy See will ensure a ban on all clergy and members of religious congregations from political party activity."

Cornwall explores the unfolding implications of this split between loyalties. As Hitler later said, "When they attempt by any other means -- writings, encyclicals, etc. -- to assume rights which belong only to the state, we will push them back into their proper spiritual activity." And as Pope Pius XII would later explain, the Church must avoid "being compromised in defense of Christian principles and humanity by being drawn into purely man-made politics ... the Church is only interested in upholding her legacy of Truth. ... The purely worldly problems, in which the Jewish people may see themselves involved, are of no interest to her."

Cornwall is the best kind of scholar, driven by a personal and spiritual need to understand the truth. The questions he pursues are directly relevant today, for Christians, Muslims, or anyone. To what extent has the goal of protecting religion from the world served to protect governments from moral opposition? What have we learned about the role and aim of religion in the world?