Hitler's Pope: Legacy and Controversy
Dateline: December 01, 1999
Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, by John Cornwell. (1999 Viking/Penguin Group). Reviewed by Jim Baysinger.
"HITLER'S POPE: LEGACY AND CONTROVERSY" > Page 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5
Nature of Criticisms
In short, while Cornwell scrupulously presents both the good and bad in his assessment of Pius XII, it would seem that Pius' defenders are using the strategy of presenting only the positive evidence, while maintaining that the negative evidence is either non-existent or "falsehoods" and "misrepresentations." Significantly, none of the sources defending Pius XII that I have read (including Marchione and Gumpel) mention anything about the Balkan situation during the war, when Catholic priests participated in numerous atrocities with Pacelli's implicit approval.[7] It would seem that lying by omission constitutes a large part of the defense's case. I will read Blet's Vatican-sponsored book with great interest to see if he does the same.
Another example of Cornwell's relative impartiality as compared to Pius XII's apologists is in his treatment of the Rolf Hochhuth play "The Deputy." While the Catholic League and Gumpel predictably denounce the 1963 play, which depicts the Vatican as actively supporting the Nazis, Cornwell goes even further in rebutting it, producing detailed examples of it's errors of fact. His support of the play goes only so far as to credit Hochhuth with stimulating a dialogue about just what Pacelli and the Vatican were doing before and during WWII.
All of this seems to boil down to two basic issues:
First: Apparently, neither Cornwell nor Pius' defenders are actually lying, in the sense of making up false evidence from whole cloth. Pius' apologists, however, seem to be guilty of lying by omission when they leave out any negative evidence about him. Also, much of their exculpatory evidence is badly out-of-date and written before the Vatican released many of the records that Cornwell used. Cornwell, on the other hand, presents in Hitler's Pope much of the same positive evidence that is being produced in Pius' favor as well as the negative. Cornwell apparently believes that an even-handed treatment of the evidence makes his case that Pius was, indeed, Hitler's Pope.
Second: There is the underlying issue which Cornwell makes plain is an integral part of his agenda, namely the battle between the collegialists and authoritarians. Pacelli's defenders are quite aware of the implications of a general discrediting of his policies. To make the most absolutist Pope of recent times look like a fallible, even criminal, character would go a long way to undermine the authoritarians' position of controlling the Church.
While Marchione and Gumpel maintain that Pius was no friend of or collaborator with the Nazis, it should be noted that Cornwell specifically mentions Pacelli's "distaste" and "hatred" for Hitler and the Nazis, and notes that could hardly be described as a collaborator, except possibly in the instance of helping to obliterate the Catholic Center Party and its resistance to Hitler's rise to power. Even this form of collaboration was for reasons other than any love for Hitler.
Overall, Cornwell makes it clear that he regards Pius XII as being criminally negligent in some cases, criminally involved in others (like the Balkan issues), and innocent of wrongdoing in still other cases. Cornwell demonstrates an understanding of Pius' motives and takes great pains to explain why he acted as he did. It was misguided motives stemming from his papal power-gaining agenda as well as flaws in Pacelli's own character that caused him to pursue policies which turned out to be mistaken from certain points of view.
One of those points of view, of course, is that of the Catholic collegialists, including Cornwell. Be sure and stay tuned to the next round of the battle between the collegialists and the authoritarians, as the Church's right-wingers strike back with Blet's Pius XII and the Second World War.
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