The Defamation of Pius XII (review)

The past few years have seen book after book critical of Pope Pius XII, and behind almost every one of them was a larger attack on the papacy and the Catholic Church. The culmination is Daniel Goldhagen's hate-filled A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair. Fortunately, there are also occasional books that offer more insight than hate. The Defamation of Pius XII is a fine contribution from Ralph McInerny, professor of philosophy and head of the Jacques Maritain Center at the University of Notre Dame.

McInerny offers a vigorous "defense" (though neither he nor I like that word in this context) of Pius XII as a holy and courageous leader who was responsible, directly and indirectly, for saving 860,000 Jews from the Holocaust. He goes on to note that the evidence for this truth is massive, the testimonies are many, and the facts are incontestable.

For McInerny, then, the question is not whether Pius XII acted heroically during World War II. That is certain. The question becomes: Why is this good man being defamed? Who are the people devoted to besmirching Pius XII's reputation, and what are they really after?

McInerny makes abundantly clear that the real subject of attack is the Catholic Church and her unchanging moral doctrine, especially on all matters sexual. The animus of the (mostly Catholic) authors is directed as much against Paul VI and John Paul II as it is against Pius XII. McInerny calls these writers: "Catholic anti-Catholics" because they call themselves Catholic despite their denial of central dogmas of the faith. On this list, McInerny would place former seminarians John Cornwell and Gary Wills, Father John F. Morley, and former priest James Carroll.

McInerny is dismayed that some Jewish writers have also joined in the defamation. Analyzing this, he advanced a position that virtually all other supporters of Pius XII have avoided. He raises questions about what certain Jewish leaders, particularly Zionists, did or did not do to help save other Jews during the war. In fact, McInerny concludes that Jewish leadership today is not in a moral position to criticize the much bolder and more effective actions of Pius XII and the Catholic Church.

McInerny lays out his case clearly and convincingly, as his well-written book moves, year by year, through World War II. While he did not do new archival work, he refers to newspaper accounts of the time and stresses the importance of listening to the contemporaneous voices—many of them from within the Jewish community—that praised Pius XII during and after the war. He shows that no other person or group accomplished anything close to what Pope Pius XII and his nuncios did during the war.

I was not certain about McInery's observations regarding the defamation campaign until I read Goldhagen's Moral Reckoning, but that convinced me. The attacks against Pius cannot be explained by new evidence or honest variations in historical accounts. There is something else at work here, and it is very troubling. It is, in fact, nothing short of a campaign to defame the papacy and to portray the Church of Christ as the enemy of mankind. Read McInerny's book.