La Chiesa e lo sterminio degli ebrei (review)

Pope Pius XII (1939-1958), praised effusively by world leaders and Jewish groups at his death, within half a decade was depicted as indifferent to the Nazi genocide of Jews in Rolf Hochhuth's play The Deputy (1963). The disparagement has continued with the condemnations in John Cornwell's Hitler's Pope (1999) and Daniel Goldhagen's A Moral Reckoning (2002). These and other works critical of Papa Pacelli have encouraged a defensive literature which includes the works of Margherita Marchione's Consensus and Controversy: Defending Pope Pius XII (2002) and Ronald J. Rychlak's Hitler, the War and the Pope (2000) among others. The confusion is compounded by the fact that many of the works defending and denigrating Pius XII have been produced not by historians but by dramatists, journalists, and individuals with an agenda. The debate on the pontificate of Pius XII and the "silence" has been catalogued in José Sánchez's Pius XII and the Holocaust: Understanding the Controversy (2002). Fortunately, a number of more objective writers have recently entered the fray, including the author of the present volume, Renato Moro, Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Rome.

Moro indicates that his short volume represents an introduction to the controversy over the Church's attitude toward the Shoa rather than an attempted resolution of the question (p. 7). In his quest he has had recourse to a wide variety of primary and secondary sources in Italian, English, French, and German. The volume does not include a separate bibliography, but the introduction and the subsequent six chapters have copious endnotes. Presenting the issue as essentially a historical one, he seeks to explore not what the Church should have done but what it did, and why (p. 29). He discounts the accusations that Pius was pro-Nazi, indifferent to the plight of the Jews, or primarily interested in narrow Vatican financial interests. The fact that the pope alerted the Western Allies to the impending Nazi invasion of Holland early in 1940 among other things, clearly disproves Hochhuth's accusations. He also notes that Pius had confided to the Spanish Foreign Minister Serrano Suñer that an eventual German victory would usher in "the greatest period of persecution" that Christians had ever confronted (pp. 110-112).

On the other hand, the author acknowledges that this pope hesitated to resort to public condemnations of the Nazi program of the extermination of the Jews and other war crimes and his protests were discreet if not confidential. In this sense, there was a "silence." Nonetheless, Moro adds that if the pope did not speak out, or at least did not do so openly and pronounce solemn condemnations, he did not remain inactive and did issue numerous discreet and diplomatic protests—albeit of limited impact (p. 169). In assessing the reasons for this "prudent and diplomatic course," Moro cites the influence of the policy pursued by Benedict XV during World War I, article 24 of the Lateran Treaty, wherein the Holy See had pledged to remain aloof from temporal conflicts between states (pp. 116-117), and the concern that such public protests would make matters worse for the Jews and the Church (pp. 156-157). In the two hundred pages of this work Moro has provided a good synopsis of the problem, but has not, and perhaps could not, dispel many of the prevailing contentions. Finally, while the author has made a heroic attempt to limit the impact of his ideological preconceptions in his analysis, he has only partly succeeded.