Hitler's Pope
Encyclopedia
Hitler's Pope is a book published in 1999 by the British journalist and author John Cornwell
that examines the actions of Pope Pius XII
during the Nazi
era, and explores the charge that he assisted in the legitimization of Adolf Hitler
's Nazi regime in Germany
, through the pursuit of a Reichskonkordat
in 1933. The book is critical of Pius' conduct during the Second World War
, criticizing him for not doing enough, or speaking out enough, against the Holocaust
. Cornwell argued that Pius's entire career as the nuncio
to Germany, cardinal secretary of state, and pope was characterized by a desire to increase and centralize the power of the Papacy, and that he subordinated opposition to the Nazis to that goal. He further argued that Pius was antisemitic and that this stance prevented him from caring about the European Jews.
The author has been praised for attempting to bring into the open the debate on the Catholic Church's relationship with the Nazis, but also accused of making unsubstantiated claims and ignoring positive evidence. Some commentators have characterized the book as having since been "debunked". In 2004, the author stated that Pius XII "had so little scope of action that it is impossible to judge the motives for his silence during the war, while Rome was under the heel of Mussolini and later occupied by Germany. ... But even if his prevarications and silences were performed with the best of intentions, he had an obligation in the postwar period to explain those actions" He similarly stated in 2008 that Pius XII's "scope for action was severely limited", but that "[n]evertheless, due to his ineffectual and diplomatic language in respect of the Nazis and the Jews, I still believe that it was incumbent on him to explain his failure to speak out after the war. This he never did." In 2009 he described Pacelli as effectively a "fellow traveler" of the Nazis.
process as well as to many documents from Eugenio Pacelli's nunciature
which had just been opened under the seventy-five year rule by the Vatican State Secretary archives. Cornwell's work has received much praise and criticism. Much praise of Cornwell centered around his disputed claim that he was a practising Catholic who had attempted to absolve Pius with his work. While works such as Susan Zuccotti
's Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy
(2000) and Michael Phayer
's The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930–1965 (2000) are critical of both Cornwell and Pius XII, Ronald J. Rychlak
's Hitler, the War and the Pope is critical as well but defends Pius XII in light of his own access to most recent documents.
Cornwell researched the conduct of Pacelli, both while he served as nuncio to Germany
and after he was made Pope
; some of Cornwell's principal resources were the Vatican
archives. Cornwell stated that he intended his book as a defense of Pius XII but that "nearing the end of my research… [t]he material I had gathered, taking the more extensive view of Pacelli's life, amounted not to an exoneration but to a wider indictment" The sincerity of this statement has been questioned by Ronald Rychlak.
to celebrate the festival of Tabernacles. Cornwell argued that, although this incident was "small in itself", it "belies subsequent claims that Pacelli had a great love of the Jewish religion and was always motivated by its best interests."
Cornwell stated he uncovered a "time bomb" letter signed and personally annotated by Pacelli that had been lying in the Vatican archives since 1919, regarding the actions of communist revolutionaries in Munich. Regarding this letter, Cornwell stated "The repeated references to the Jewishness of these individuals, amid the catalogue of epithets describing their physical and moral repulsiveness, gives an impression of stereotypical anti-Semitic contempt". Cornwell asserts that the next manifestation of Pacelli's antisemitism can be found in a letter from Pacelli to Pietro Gaspam that portrays Jews in an unfavorable light and associates them with the Bolshevik revolution
.
leaders, a collaboration which led to what Cornwell characterizes as "the betrayal of Catholic democratic politics in Germany".
Cornwell describes this collaboration with fascist leaders as starting in 1929 with the concordat with Mussolini known as the Lateran Treaty, and followed by the concordat with Hitler known as the Reichskonkordat
.
to Mexico
and later Spain
, no accommodation was to be reached with Communists. At the same time, Cornwell alleges that Pius XI and Pacelli were more open to collaboration with totalitarian movements and regimes of the right.
's Kulturkampf
, during the "culture struggle" against the Catholic Church in the 1870s. According to Cornwell, Hitler was "convinced that his movement could succeed only if political Catholicism and its democratic networks were eliminated".
Cornwell explains that Hitler had good reason to fear the political power of the German Catholic Church. He asserts that in the early 1930s, the German Center Party, the German Catholic bishops, and the Catholic media had been united in their rejection of National Socialism. The hierarchy instructed priests to combat National Socialism at a local level whenever it attacked Christianity, even going so far as to deny Nazis access to the sacraments and church burials. At the same time, Catholic journalists lambasted National Socialism daily in Germany's 400 Catholic newspapers. According to Cornwell, after Hitler came to power in January 1933, he made the concluding of a concordat with the Vatican one of his top priorities. The negotiations took over six months; Cornwell asserts that Hitler spent more time on this treaty than on any other item of foreign diplomacy during his dictatorship.
The Reich Concordat granted the Vatican the right to impose the new Code of Canon Law on Catholics in Germany, and promised a number of measures favorable to Catholic education, including new schools. Cornwell alleges that the 'quid pro quo' for Hitler's agreeing to grant the Vatican these rights and privileges was Pacelli's collaboration in the withdrawal of Catholics from political and social activity. The negotiations were conducted in secret by Pacelli, Kaas, and Hitler's deputy chancellor, Franz von Papen
, over the heads of German bishops and the faithful. According to Cornwell, the German Catholic Church was not involved in the negotiations and had no say in the terms of the agreement.
In the end, Hitler insisted that his signature on the concordat would depend on the Center Party's voting for the Enabling Act, the legislation that was to give him dictatorial powers.
Cornwell recounts that Kaas, chairman of the Center Party and a close associate of Pacelli, was the one who marshalled the votes of the party members to pass the Enabling Act. Next, Hitler insisted on the "voluntary" disbanding of the Center Party, the last truly parliamentary force in Germany. Again, Cornwell alleges that Pacelli was the prime mover in the surrender of the Center Party. Cornwell asserts that the fact that the party voluntarily disbanded itself, rather than go down fighting, had a profound psychological effect which deprived Germany of the "last democratic focus of potential noncompliance and resistance". The German bishops capitulated to Pacelli's policy of centralization, and German Catholic democrats found themselves politically leaderless. In the political vacuum created by its surrender, millions of Catholics joined the Nazi Party, believing that it had the support of the Pope.
Thus, according to Cornwell, Pius XII facilitated the rise of Hitler first through the negotiation of the Reichskonkordat
and subsequently through his passivity, silence and inaction, which ultimately condoned and enabled the Holocaust
.
law professor Ronald J. Rychlak
in his 2000 book on the subject, Hitler, the War, and the Pope. Rychlak was acknowledged by the Vatican to have been given special access to their closed archives for his research.
Rychlak disagreed with Cornwell's claim of having found a "time bomb letter", arguing that the letter in question had actually been written not by Pacelli but by his assistant, and moreover had been fully published and discussed in a 1992 book by Emma Fattorini (a highly respected docent at the University of Rome). With respect to Cornwell's allegations of antisemitism, Rychlak stated that "When Pius XII died in 1958, there were tributes from virtually every Jewish group around the world".
Rychlak also alleged that Cornwell manipulated the photograph on the front cover of the American edition of the book, and incorrectly dated the photo as having been taken in March 1939, the month that Pacelli was made Pope. Rychlak charged that this had been deliberately in order to give the impression that Pius had just visited Hitler when, in fact, the photo had been taken in 1927 as Pius was leaving a reception held for German President Paul von Hindenburg
. Robert Royal
has also repeated this allegation.
In his 2005 book The Myth of Hitler's Pope
, the historian and rabbi David G. Dalin
countered Cornwell. Dalin suggested that Yad Vashem
should honor Pope Pius XII as a "Righteous Gentile
," concluding that "[t]he anti-papal polemics of ex-seminarians like Garry Wills and John Cornwell (author of Hitler’s Pope), of ex-priests like James Carroll, and or other lapsed or angry liberal Catholics exploit the tragedy of the Jewish people during the Holocaust to foster their own political agenda of forcing changes on the Catholic Church today." Dalin called the book's conclusions "unverified" and "strongly anti-religious". Eugene Fisher, who has a PhD in Hebrew culture and education, said it was a "sad commentary on the secular media that this anti-Catholic screed was ever published".
In the book The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice
, Philip Jenkins
said that Hitler's Pope, along with anti-Catholic conspiracy theories and other “anti-Church historical polemic”, belongs to the pseudohistory
category of books about anti-Catholic “mythic history”, historical manipulation
, and national demonization
, such as the Black Legend
about Spain, said that publishers publish such books because the sell many copies, not because they mean to “destroy or calumniate Catholicism”.
Ken Woodward, writing in Newsweek
, stated that Hitler's Pope has "errors of fact and ignorance of context [that] appear on almost every page."
, Cornwell's historical work has not always been "fair-minded" and Hitler's Pope specifically "lacked balance". The article goes on to state that Cornwell, "chastened", had admitted as much himself, in a later work, The Pontiff in Winter, citing the following quote as evidence:
In a more recent interview, Mr. Cornwell stated:
In 2009 he described Cardinal Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII) as being an example of a "fellow traveller
" of the Nazis who was willing to accept the generosity of Hitler in the educational sphere (more schools, teachers and pupil places), so long as the Church withdrew from the social and political sphere, at the same time as Jews were being dismissed from universities and Jewish pupil places were being reduced. For this he considers Pacelli as effectively being in collusion with the Nazi cause, if not by intent. He further argues that Monsignor Kass
, who was involved in negotiations for the Reichskonkordat
, and at that time the head of the Roman Catholic Centre Party
, persuaded his party members, with the acquiescence of Pacelli, in the summer of 1933 to enable Hitler to acquire dictatorial powers. He argues that the Catholic Centre Party vote was decisive in the adoption of dictatorial powers by Hitler and that the party's subsequent dissolution was at Pacelli's prompting.
John Cornwell (writer)
John Cornwell is an English journalist and author, and a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. He is best known for various books on the papacy, most notably Hitler's Pope; investigative journalism; memoir; and the public understanding of science and philosophy. More recently he has been concerned...
that examines the actions of Pope Pius XII
Pope Pius XII
The Venerable Pope Pius XII , born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli , reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958....
during the Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
era, and explores the charge that he assisted in the legitimization of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
's Nazi regime in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, through the pursuit of a Reichskonkordat
Reichskonkordat
The Reichskonkordat is a treaty that was agreed between the Holy See and Nazi government, that guarantees the rights of the Catholic Church in Germany. It was signed on July 20, 1933 by Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli and Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen on behalf of Pope Pius XI and President...
in 1933. The book is critical of Pius' conduct during the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, criticizing him for not doing enough, or speaking out enough, against the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
. Cornwell argued that Pius's entire career as the nuncio
Nuncio
Nuncio is an ecclesiastical diplomatic title, derived from the ancient Latin word, Nuntius, meaning "envoy." This article addresses this title as well as derived similar titles, all within the structure of the Roman Catholic Church...
to Germany, cardinal secretary of state, and pope was characterized by a desire to increase and centralize the power of the Papacy, and that he subordinated opposition to the Nazis to that goal. He further argued that Pius was antisemitic and that this stance prevented him from caring about the European Jews.
The author has been praised for attempting to bring into the open the debate on the Catholic Church's relationship with the Nazis, but also accused of making unsubstantiated claims and ignoring positive evidence. Some commentators have characterized the book as having since been "debunked". In 2004, the author stated that Pius XII "had so little scope of action that it is impossible to judge the motives for his silence during the war, while Rome was under the heel of Mussolini and later occupied by Germany. ... But even if his prevarications and silences were performed with the best of intentions, he had an obligation in the postwar period to explain those actions" He similarly stated in 2008 that Pius XII's "scope for action was severely limited", but that "[n]evertheless, due to his ineffectual and diplomatic language in respect of the Nazis and the Jews, I still believe that it was incumbent on him to explain his failure to speak out after the war. This he never did." In 2009 he described Pacelli as effectively a "fellow traveler" of the Nazis.
Cornwell's work
Cornwell's work was the first to have access to testimonies from Pius's beatificationBeatification
Beatification is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a dead person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in his or her name . Beatification is the third of the four steps in the canonization process...
process as well as to many documents from Eugenio Pacelli's nunciature
Nuncio
Nuncio is an ecclesiastical diplomatic title, derived from the ancient Latin word, Nuntius, meaning "envoy." This article addresses this title as well as derived similar titles, all within the structure of the Roman Catholic Church...
which had just been opened under the seventy-five year rule by the Vatican State Secretary archives. Cornwell's work has received much praise and criticism. Much praise of Cornwell centered around his disputed claim that he was a practising Catholic who had attempted to absolve Pius with his work. While works such as Susan Zuccotti
Susan Zuccotti
Dr. Susan Sessions Zuccotti is an American historian, specializing in studies of the Holocaust. She holds a PhD in Modern European History from Columbia University. She has won a National Jewish Book Award for Holocaust Studies, and the Premio Acqui Storia – Primo Lavoro for Italians and the...
's Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy
Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy
Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy is a book by Susan Zuccotti.It describes the actions of the Vatican and Pope Pius XII during the Holocaust, claiming the Church stayed neutral even with the full knowledge of the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis...
(2000) and Michael Phayer
Michael Phayer
Michael Phayer, born 1935, is a historian and professor emeritus at Marquette University in Milwaukee and has written on 19th and 20th century European history and the Holocaust....
's The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930–1965 (2000) are critical of both Cornwell and Pius XII, Ronald J. Rychlak
Ronald J. Rychlak
Ronald J. Rychlak is an American lawyer, jurist, author and political commentator. He is the Associate Dean For Academic Affairs and the Mississippi Defense Lawyers Association Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law, and is known for his published works, career as an...
's Hitler, the War and the Pope is critical as well but defends Pius XII in light of his own access to most recent documents.
Cornwell researched the conduct of Pacelli, both while he served as nuncio to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and after he was made Pope
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
; some of Cornwell's principal resources were the Vatican
Vatican City
Vatican City , or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano , which translates literally as State of the City of the Vatican, is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of...
archives. Cornwell stated that he intended his book as a defense of Pius XII but that "nearing the end of my research… [t]he material I had gathered, taking the more extensive view of Pacelli's life, amounted not to an exoneration but to a wider indictment" The sincerity of this statement has been questioned by Ronald Rychlak.
Pacelli's alleged antisemitism
Cornwell alleged that, from at least his early 40s onward, Pacelli had antisemitic tendencies. He traced the earliest manifestation of these antisemitic tendencies to an incident in 1917 in which Pacelli refused to help facilitate the exportation of palm fronds from Italy to be used by German Jews in MunichMunich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
to celebrate the festival of Tabernacles. Cornwell argued that, although this incident was "small in itself", it "belies subsequent claims that Pacelli had a great love of the Jewish religion and was always motivated by its best interests."
Cornwell stated he uncovered a "time bomb" letter signed and personally annotated by Pacelli that had been lying in the Vatican archives since 1919, regarding the actions of communist revolutionaries in Munich. Regarding this letter, Cornwell stated "The repeated references to the Jewishness of these individuals, amid the catalogue of epithets describing their physical and moral repulsiveness, gives an impression of stereotypical anti-Semitic contempt". Cornwell asserts that the next manifestation of Pacelli's antisemitism can be found in a letter from Pacelli to Pietro Gaspam that portrays Jews in an unfavorable light and associates them with the Bolshevik revolution
Jewish Bolshevism
Jewish Bolshevism, Judeo-Bolshevism, and known as Żydokomuna in Poland, is an antisemitic stereotype based on the claim that Jews have been the driving force behind or are disproportionately involved in the modern Communist movement, or sometimes more specifically Russian Bolshevism.The expression...
.
Papal absolutism
Cornwell asserts that Pacelli was a strong proponent of the absolute leadership principle. He writes that, "More than any other Vatican official of the century, [Pacelli] promoted the modern ideology of autocratic papal control, the highly centralized, dictatorial authority..."Alleged collaboration with fascist leaders
Cornwell argued that Pacelli's antisemitism combined with his drive to promote papal absolutism inexorably led him to collaboration with fascistFascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
leaders, a collaboration which led to what Cornwell characterizes as "the betrayal of Catholic democratic politics in Germany".
Cornwell describes this collaboration with fascist leaders as starting in 1929 with the concordat with Mussolini known as the Lateran Treaty, and followed by the concordat with Hitler known as the Reichskonkordat
Reichskonkordat
The Reichskonkordat is a treaty that was agreed between the Holy See and Nazi government, that guarantees the rights of the Catholic Church in Germany. It was signed on July 20, 1933 by Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli and Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen on behalf of Pope Pius XI and President...
.
Lateran Treaty
Cornwell recounts that Eugenio Pacelli's brother, Francesco, successfully negotiated a concordat with Mussolini as part of an agreement known as the Lateran Treaty. A precondition of the negotiations had involved the dissolution of the parliamentary Catholic Italian Popular Party. Cornwell claims that Pius XI disliked political Catholicism because it was beyond his control. According to Cornwell, a succession of Popes took the view that Catholic party politics "brought democracy into the church by the back door". Cornwell asserts that the result of the demise of the Popular Party was the "wholesale shift of Catholics into the Fascist Party and the collapse of democracy in Italy".Anti-communist posture of the Vatican
Cornwell asserts that Pius XI and his new secretary of state, Eugenio Pacelli, were determined that, at a time that saw the church persecuted by Communists and socialist regimes from the Soviet UnionSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
to Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and later Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, no accommodation was to be reached with Communists. At the same time, Cornwell alleges that Pius XI and Pacelli were more open to collaboration with totalitarian movements and regimes of the right.
Reichskonkordat
Cornwell asserts that Hitler was determined to conclude a concordat with the Vatican similar to the one that Mussolini had negotiated. According to Cornwell, Hitler was obsessed by a fear of German Catholics who, politically united by the Center Party, had defeated Otto von BismarckOtto von Bismarck
Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...
's Kulturkampf
Kulturkampf
The German term refers to German policies in relation to secularity and the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, enacted from 1871 to 1878 by the Prime Minister of Prussia, Otto von Bismarck. The Kulturkampf did not extend to the other German states such as Bavaria...
, during the "culture struggle" against the Catholic Church in the 1870s. According to Cornwell, Hitler was "convinced that his movement could succeed only if political Catholicism and its democratic networks were eliminated".
Cornwell explains that Hitler had good reason to fear the political power of the German Catholic Church. He asserts that in the early 1930s, the German Center Party, the German Catholic bishops, and the Catholic media had been united in their rejection of National Socialism. The hierarchy instructed priests to combat National Socialism at a local level whenever it attacked Christianity, even going so far as to deny Nazis access to the sacraments and church burials. At the same time, Catholic journalists lambasted National Socialism daily in Germany's 400 Catholic newspapers. According to Cornwell, after Hitler came to power in January 1933, he made the concluding of a concordat with the Vatican one of his top priorities. The negotiations took over six months; Cornwell asserts that Hitler spent more time on this treaty than on any other item of foreign diplomacy during his dictatorship.
The Reich Concordat granted the Vatican the right to impose the new Code of Canon Law on Catholics in Germany, and promised a number of measures favorable to Catholic education, including new schools. Cornwell alleges that the 'quid pro quo' for Hitler's agreeing to grant the Vatican these rights and privileges was Pacelli's collaboration in the withdrawal of Catholics from political and social activity. The negotiations were conducted in secret by Pacelli, Kaas, and Hitler's deputy chancellor, Franz von Papen
Franz von Papen
Lieutenant-Colonel Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen zu Köningen was a German nobleman, Roman Catholic monarchist politician, General Staff officer, and diplomat, who served as Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and as Vice-Chancellor under Adolf Hitler in 1933–1934...
, over the heads of German bishops and the faithful. According to Cornwell, the German Catholic Church was not involved in the negotiations and had no say in the terms of the agreement.
In the end, Hitler insisted that his signature on the concordat would depend on the Center Party's voting for the Enabling Act, the legislation that was to give him dictatorial powers.
Cornwell recounts that Kaas, chairman of the Center Party and a close associate of Pacelli, was the one who marshalled the votes of the party members to pass the Enabling Act. Next, Hitler insisted on the "voluntary" disbanding of the Center Party, the last truly parliamentary force in Germany. Again, Cornwell alleges that Pacelli was the prime mover in the surrender of the Center Party. Cornwell asserts that the fact that the party voluntarily disbanded itself, rather than go down fighting, had a profound psychological effect which deprived Germany of the "last democratic focus of potential noncompliance and resistance". The German bishops capitulated to Pacelli's policy of centralization, and German Catholic democrats found themselves politically leaderless. In the political vacuum created by its surrender, millions of Catholics joined the Nazi Party, believing that it had the support of the Pope.
Thus, according to Cornwell, Pius XII facilitated the rise of Hitler first through the negotiation of the Reichskonkordat
Reichskonkordat
The Reichskonkordat is a treaty that was agreed between the Holy See and Nazi government, that guarantees the rights of the Catholic Church in Germany. It was signed on July 20, 1933 by Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli and Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen on behalf of Pope Pius XI and President...
and subsequently through his passivity, silence and inaction, which ultimately condoned and enabled the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
.
Criticism of Cornwell's work
A major response to Hitler's Pope came from University of MississippiUniversity of Mississippi
The University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss, is a public, coeducational research university located in Oxford, Mississippi. Founded in 1844, the school is composed of the main campus in Oxford, four branch campuses located in Booneville, Grenada, Tupelo, and Southaven as well as the...
law professor Ronald J. Rychlak
Ronald J. Rychlak
Ronald J. Rychlak is an American lawyer, jurist, author and political commentator. He is the Associate Dean For Academic Affairs and the Mississippi Defense Lawyers Association Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law, and is known for his published works, career as an...
in his 2000 book on the subject, Hitler, the War, and the Pope. Rychlak was acknowledged by the Vatican to have been given special access to their closed archives for his research.
Rychlak disagreed with Cornwell's claim of having found a "time bomb letter", arguing that the letter in question had actually been written not by Pacelli but by his assistant, and moreover had been fully published and discussed in a 1992 book by Emma Fattorini (a highly respected docent at the University of Rome). With respect to Cornwell's allegations of antisemitism, Rychlak stated that "When Pius XII died in 1958, there were tributes from virtually every Jewish group around the world".
Rychlak also alleged that Cornwell manipulated the photograph on the front cover of the American edition of the book, and incorrectly dated the photo as having been taken in March 1939, the month that Pacelli was made Pope. Rychlak charged that this had been deliberately in order to give the impression that Pius had just visited Hitler when, in fact, the photo had been taken in 1927 as Pius was leaving a reception held for German President Paul von Hindenburg
Paul von Hindenburg
Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg , known universally as Paul von Hindenburg was a Prussian-German field marshal, statesman, and politician, and served as the second President of Germany from 1925 to 1934....
. Robert Royal
Robert Royal (author)
Robert Royal is a Catholic author and the president of the "Faith and Reason Institute", based in Washington, D.C.Royal received his BA and MA from Brown University and his PhD from The Catholic University of America. He has taught at Brown University, Rhode Island College, and The Catholic...
has also repeated this allegation.
In his 2005 book The Myth of Hitler's Pope
The Myth of Hitler's Pope
The Myth of Hitler's Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis is a book written by American historian and Rabbi David G. Dalin and published in 2005 by Regnery Publishing.- Background :...
, the historian and rabbi David G. Dalin
David G. Dalin
David G. Dalin is an American Conservative rabbi and historian, is the author, co-author, or editor of ten books on American Jewish history and politics, and Jewish-Christian relations. He is currently a professor of history and politics at Ave Maria University, in Florida...
countered Cornwell. Dalin suggested that Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....
should honor Pope Pius XII as a "Righteous Gentile
Righteous gentile
Righteous gentile may refer to:* Ger toshav, "stranger-foreigner", Aramaic and Hebrew term for a resident alien in a Jewish state.* Righteous among the Nations, an honorific bestowed by the State of Israel to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from the Nazis...
," concluding that "[t]he anti-papal polemics of ex-seminarians like Garry Wills and John Cornwell (author of Hitler’s Pope), of ex-priests like James Carroll, and or other lapsed or angry liberal Catholics exploit the tragedy of the Jewish people during the Holocaust to foster their own political agenda of forcing changes on the Catholic Church today." Dalin called the book's conclusions "unverified" and "strongly anti-religious". Eugene Fisher, who has a PhD in Hebrew culture and education, said it was a "sad commentary on the secular media that this anti-Catholic screed was ever published".
In the book The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice
The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice
The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice is a book written by Philip Jenkins, Distinguished Professor of History and Religious studies at Pennsylvania State University, dealing with contemporary anti-Catholic bigotry, particularly in the United States.Jenkins, a former Catholic who...
, Philip Jenkins
Philip Jenkins
Philip Jenkins is as of 2010 the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Humanities at Pennsylvania State University . He was Professor and a Distinguished Professor of History and Religious studies at the same institution; and also assistant, associate and then full professor of Criminal Justice and...
said that Hitler's Pope, along with anti-Catholic conspiracy theories and other “anti-Church historical polemic”, belongs to the pseudohistory
Pseudohistory
Pseudohistory is a pejorative term applied to a type of historical revisionism, often involving sensational claims whose acceptance would require rewriting a significant amount of commonly accepted history, and based on methods that depart from standard historiographical conventions.Cryptohistory...
category of books about anti-Catholic “mythic history”, historical manipulation
Historical revisionism
In historiography, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of orthodox views on evidence, motivations, and decision-making processes surrounding a historical event...
, and national demonization
Demonization
Demonization is the reinterpretation of polytheistic deities as evil, lying demons by other religions, generally monotheistic and henotheistic ones...
, such as the Black Legend
Black Legend
The Black Legend refers to a style of historical writing that demonizes Spain and in particular the Spanish Empire in a politically motivated attempt to morally disqualify Spain and its people, and to incite animosity against Spanish rule...
about Spain, said that publishers publish such books because the sell many copies, not because they mean to “destroy or calumniate Catholicism”.
Ken Woodward, writing in Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
, stated that Hitler's Pope has "errors of fact and ignorance of context [that] appear on almost every page."
Cornwell's current views
According to a 2004 article in the The EconomistThe Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
, Cornwell's historical work has not always been "fair-minded" and Hitler's Pope specifically "lacked balance". The article goes on to state that Cornwell, "chastened", had admitted as much himself, in a later work, The Pontiff in Winter, citing the following quote as evidence:
In a more recent interview, Mr. Cornwell stated:
In 2009 he described Cardinal Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII) as being an example of a "fellow traveller
Fellow traveller
Fellow traveler or fellow traveller is a term referring to a person who sympathizes with the beliefs of an organization or cooperates in its activities without maintaining formal membership in that particular group...
" of the Nazis who was willing to accept the generosity of Hitler in the educational sphere (more schools, teachers and pupil places), so long as the Church withdrew from the social and political sphere, at the same time as Jews were being dismissed from universities and Jewish pupil places were being reduced. For this he considers Pacelli as effectively being in collusion with the Nazi cause, if not by intent. He further argues that Monsignor Kass
Ludwig Kaas
Ludwig Kaas was a German Roman Catholic priest and politician during the Weimar Republic.-Early career:Born in Trier, Kaas was ordained a priest in 1906 and studied history and Canon law in Trier and Rome. 1906 he completed a doctorate in theology and in 1909 he obtained a second doctorate in...
, who was involved in negotiations for the Reichskonkordat
Reichskonkordat
The Reichskonkordat is a treaty that was agreed between the Holy See and Nazi government, that guarantees the rights of the Catholic Church in Germany. It was signed on July 20, 1933 by Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli and Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen on behalf of Pope Pius XI and President...
, and at that time the head of the Roman Catholic Centre Party
Centre Party (Germany)
The German Centre Party was a Catholic political party in Germany during the Kaiserreich and the Weimar Republic. Formed in 1870, it battled the Kulturkampf which the Prussian government launched to reduce the power of the Catholic Church...
, persuaded his party members, with the acquiescence of Pacelli, in the summer of 1933 to enable Hitler to acquire dictatorial powers. He argues that the Catholic Centre Party vote was decisive in the adoption of dictatorial powers by Hitler and that the party's subsequent dissolution was at Pacelli's prompting.