The Pope’s Dilemma: Pius XII Faces Atrocities and Genocide in the Second World War by Jacques Kornberg (review)

Pope Pius XII’s dilemma when faced by World War II and its attendant genocide lay, according to Jacques Kornberg, in having to choose between his theological responsibility as pope in sustaining and preserving the institution of the Roman Catholic Church and his moral responsibility as pope in speaking out against the wartime atrocities and the programs of genocide that deprived so many people of their lives and civil rights. Making the pope’s decision even more difficult was that, in many cases, these atrocities were being enthusiastically carried out by Roman Catholics.

Kornberg concludes that Pius XII saw his first responsibility to be the preservation of his Church as a vehicle for the salvation of souls. The institutional structure of the Church assisted its members toward God’s grace through the sacraments, the only guarantee of eternal life with God. In spite of the fact that important segments of the Church were active participants on opposing sides in the war, Pius felt constrained from criticizing their behavior or of reminding them of their moral duties, lest his criticism drive many Catholics from the Church. The pope realized his weakness and his inability to challenge the attraction of wartime nationalism; he was not in a position to lead his flock from above during the war but could only respond to wartime positions taken by national Catholic communities. He could not lead a Church if its members were not willing to follow him and better, therefore, that he work to preserve the institutional Church for the postwar future.

In Germany in 1933, the Catholic Centre Party and the German Catholic bishops sought to accommodate themselves to Hitler’s new dictatorial government, which was popular and supported by many Catholics. The German Concordat of 1933 was an attempt by Catholics with the support of Vatican Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) to secure some protection for what might follow under Hitler’s leadership.

When Germany invaded and occupied Poland in 1939, Pius XII lamented the impact of war on Poland but never assigned blame, since German Catholics were supporting the German forces, and Polish Catholics were mounting a resistance against them.

In Slovakia during the war, a Catholic party under the presidency of Monsignor Josef Tiso was responsible for antisemitic legislation. Although the Slovak bishops had reservations about some of this legislation, their opposition was muted and ambiguously stated. The Vatican saw no reason to interfere.

Wartime Croatia, under the government of Ante Pavelic, was another state based on its Roman Catholic community, where the pope chose not to intervene in the forced conversions of Serb Orthodox and other atrocities lest he drive members from the Catholic Church. Blessed Aloysius Stepinac, archbishop of Zagreb and leader of the Croat church, offered some resistance to the conversions and the death squads, but he never chose to break with the Croat government and certainly did not seek Vatican intervention.

In Vichy France, Philippe Pétain’s National Revolution was designed to restore the Church to its position of influence and was well supported by French Catholics in spite of its deportation of French Jews. In many of these wartime situations, Pius was prepared to follow the lead given by local bishops, clergy, and laity, and made no attempt to impose his will on national communities.

Kornberg, in fact, claims that Pius XII behaved no differently in this respect than had earlier popes when faced with similar situations. He cites Leo XIII’s inability to get French Catholics to rally to the French Republic in the late-nineteenth century when the French were not prepared to follow the papal lead. Benedict XV at the beginning of World War I made no mention of atrocities committed during the German occupation of Belgium, and his 1917 peace...