Vatican Secret Diplomacy: Joseph P. Hurley and Pope Pius XII (review)

Although Joseph Hurley was bishop of St. Augustine, Florida, for twenty-seven years, Charles Gallagher’s fine biography devotes little space to his pastoral or administrative work. The focus is, instead, on Hurley’s career as one of the first Americans to rise in the papal diplomatic service. That career began in 1930 when the young priest became secretary to Edward Mooney, a lifelong friend and mentor, who was then apostolic delegate in India. When Mooney was transferred to Japan, Hurley accompanied his friend to Tokyo, assuming direction of the delegation when Mooney was recalled to become bishop of Rochester, New York. His experiences in India and Japan, combined with a natural combativeness, convinced Hurley of the efficacy of a “diplomacy of inflexibility”(p. 31).This belief that steadfast resistance was the best response to any threat to church interests, especially from authoritarian governments, continued to inform Hurley’s approach to diplomacy when, in 1934, he was recalled to Rome to become the only American in the papal Secretariat of State. According to Gallagher, Hurley’s antifascist attitudes and confrontational style complemented the preferences of Pius XI, whom the American idolized, but clashed with the more neutral and conciliatory diplomacy of his immediate boss, Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli. Pacelli’s election as Pius XII did not bode well for Hurley’s career, and the priest did not enhance his prospects by collaborating with William Phillips, the American ambassador to Italy, to plant antifascist material, including speeches by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in the Vatican newspaper. The author does not explicitly say so, but Hurley’s willingness to operate as an “agent of influence” for the U.S. government probably extended to passing to Phillips information (intelligence) concerning personalities and developments inside the Vatican during his visits to the American embassy. This activity could not long escape the notice of Vatican authorities and the Italian security services, and in 1940 Hurley was “promoted” away from the Vatican to the minor diocese of St. Augustine. This transfer did little to deter the patriotic bishop, who even before Pearl Harbor continued to collaborate actively with the U.S. State Department to combat isolationism and advance American national interests as defined by the Roosevelt administration. Cooperation continued after the war when the Vatican, seeking to strengthen relations with the United States by appointing Americans to posts in the papal diplomatic service, recalled the exiled prelate and sent him to represent the Holy See in Yugoslavia. Communism now replaced Nazism in Hurley’s pantheon of enemies, and the combative diplomat urged a policy of unbending resistance to the antichurch policies of Tito’s government, particularly the prosecution of Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac. In Belgrade Hurley regularly shared with American representatives intelligence concerning conditions around the country. Eventually, his posture of unbending opposition to the regime fell out of favor in both Washington and Rome, and Hurley returned to his Florida diocese to live out his years investing in real estate and dabbling in anticommunist politics. It is an interesting story, and Gallagher tells it well. Occasionally, it might have been improved by reference to the wider context. Hurley’s sharing of intelligence with American officials in Yugoslavia, for example, was not unique. By 1946 American espionage agencies had forged a veritable intelligence alliance with the Vatican, and papal representatives in several European capitals were passing information to American agents; indeed, entire espionage networks were based on ecclesiastical organizations. The author might also have probed more deeply into the implications of his subject’s collaboration with the American government. Should bishops and curial officials actively support a particular national policy, even if that policy differs from that of the Vatican? If yes, can such support extend to participation in clandestine political and propaganda operations? How did Hurley’s behavior differ from equally patriotic bishops in wartime Germany, Italy, Vichy France, and Yugoslavia who put their...