Consensus and Controversy: Defending Pope Pius XII (review)

Although Sister Margherita Marchione first won scholarly recognition in the United States by publishing studies on Philip Mazzei (1730-1816), the Florentine friend of Thomas Jefferson, she has been devoting these last five years to the laudable work of defending the reputation of Pope Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli). Since 1997, for example, this member of the Sisters Filippini and professor emerita in Italian Studies at Fairleigh Dickinson University has published a half-dozen works on the pope in order to counterbalance the criticism of such recent opponents as James Carroll, Richard Chesnoff, John Cornwell, Michael Phayer, Gary Wills, Robert Wistrich, and Susan Zuccotti with the arguments of testimonies from Christian as well as Jewish eyewitnesses. "My books," she writes (p. 14), "will help enlighten all who seek the truth."

In her attempt to provide the general reader with the basic sources which refute the arguments of the pope's critics, Sister Margherita shows that there is a basic consensus on the pope in this controversy which she presents by dividing her study into eight parts. Having introduced her readers to the problem and the life of the pope in the first part of her study, she proceeds to expose the truth about Pius XII and the Holocaust in the second part, falling back on the sources which underscore the evidence in his career on how he helped the Jews during the Holocaust. The third part focuses on how the media, including The New York Times, in addition to Vatican Radio and L'Osservatore Romano, provide documentary evidence in favor of the record of Pius and the Catholic Church during those dark days of World War II. In part four, the author introduces her readers to the arguments of recent authors who have been responsible for refueling the controversy which Rolf Hochhuth ignited back in 1963. While part five brings the book to its conclusion in defending the pope, the last three parts are concerned with the appendices, notes, and the index of her study.

Certainly, Sister Margherita leaves no stone unturned in marshaling her evidence. While her study reminds one of Pius XII and the Holocaust (2002) by José Sánchez, it is a more passionate exposition which might leave even a reader who is sympathetic with her position wondering if, objectively, she has not overplayed her hand. Although those interested in the strengths and weaknesses of the arguments set forth by the pope's critics can find a more detailed analysis of them in the work by Sánchez, they will find superior documentation for the refutation of those same arguments in this work by Sister Margherita. Thus, these studies complement one another in trying to have their readers understand the controversy.

Lastly, to her credit, Sister Margherita is not unlike Hilaire Belloc, who, if this reviewer is not mistaken, when faced with the twisted history of Catholicism in England, as narrated by Protestant historians, saw how necessary it was to bend the warped board of history back in the opposite direction so that the truth might emerge. Sister Margherita's analysis of the controversy does reminds one of Belloc's approach since the history of the Catholic Church during the time of Pius XII and the Holocaust has been grossly distorted by the warped allegations of his critics. Understandably, this has led her to underscore the truth of what really happened by providing solid documentation to counteract the twisting of the objective evidence so characteristic of those recent studies which have disguised themselves as historical scholarship but which are really a form of ideological polemics.