Editing Pope Pius XII (section)

==Views, interpretations and scholarship==

===Contemporary===
During the war, ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' credited Pius XII and the Catholic Church for "fighting [[totalitarianism]] more knowingly, devoutly and authoritatively, and for a longer time, than any other organised power".<ref>Time. 16 August 1943.</ref> During the war he was also praised editorially by ''[[The New York Times]]'' for opposing Nazi antisemitism and aggression.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.catholicleague.org/pius.php?id=21|title=New York Times 25 December 1941 and 25 December 1942|publisher=Catholicleague.org|access-date=12 September 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100731121713/http://www.catholicleague.org/pius.php?id=21 <!--Added by H3llBot-->|archive-date=31 July 2010|url-status=dead}}</ref> According to Paul O'Shea, "The Nazis demonised the Pope as the agent of [[international Jewry]]; the Americans and British were continually frustrated because he would not condemn Nazi aggression; and the Russians accused him of being an agent of Fascism and the Nazis."<ref>Paul O'Shea; ''A Cross Too Heavy''; Rosenberg Publishing; 2008; pp. 40–41</ref>

On 21 September 1945, the general secretary of the [[World Jewish Congress]], [[Aryeh Leon Kubowitzki]], presented an amount of money to the Pope, "in recognition of the work of the Holy See in rescuing Jews from Fascist and Nazi persecutions."<ref>McInerney, 2001, p. 155</ref> After the war, in the autumn of 1945, Harry Greenstein from [[Baltimore]], a close friend of Chief Rabbi Herzog of [[Jerusalem]], told Pius XII how grateful Jews were for all he had done for them. "My only regret", the Pope replied, "is not to have been able to save a greater number of Jews".<ref>McInerney, Ralph, ''The Defamation of Pius XII'', 2001.<!-- ISBN missing --></ref>

Pius XII was also criticised during his lifetime. [[Leon Poliakov]] wrote in 1950 that Pius XII had been a tacit supporter of [[Vichy France]]'s antisemitic laws, calling him "less forthright" than [[Pope Pius XI]] either out of "[[Germanophile|Germanophilia]]" or the hope that Hitler would defeat Communist Russia.<ref>{{cite journal |last1 = Poliakov |first1 = Leon |last2 = November |year = 1950 |title = The Vatican and the 'Jewish Question': The Record of the Hitler Period—and After |journal = Commentary |volume = 10 |pages = 439–49}}</ref>

After Pius XII's death on 9 October 1958 many Jewish organisations and newspapers around the world paid tribute to his legacy. At the [[United Nations]], [[Golda Meir]], Israel's Foreign Minister, said, "When fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, the voice of the Pope was raised for the victims. The life of our times was enriched by a voice speaking out on the great moral truths above the tumult of daily conflict."<ref name="ewtn">{{cite web|url=http://www.ewtn.com/library/issues/pius12gs.htm|title=The Good Samaritan. Jewish Praise for Pope Pius XII by Dimitri Cavalli|publisher=Ewtn.com|access-date=12 September 2010|archive-date=23 August 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180823131406/http://www.ewtn.com/library/issues/pius12gs.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> ''The Jewish Chronicle'' (London) stated on 10 October, "Adherents of all creeds and parties will recall how Pius XII faced the responsibilities of his exalted office with courage and devotion. Before, during, and after the Second World War, he constantly preached the message of peace. Confronted by the monstrous cruelties of [[Nazism]], [[Fascism]] and [[Communism]], he repeatedly proclaimed the virtues of humanity and compassion."<ref name="ewtn"/> In the Canadian Jewish Chronicle (17 October), Rabbi J. Stern stated that Pius XII "made it possible for thousands of Jewish victims of Nazism and Fascism to be hidden away..."<ref name="ewtn"/> In 6 November edition of ''[[The Jewish Post & News]]'' in [[Winnipeg]], William Zukerman, the former ''[[The American Hebrew]]'' columnist, wrote that no other leader "did more to help the Jews in their hour of greatest tragedy, during the Nazi occupation of Europe, than the late Pope".<ref name="ewtn"/> Other prominent Jewish figures, such as Israeli Prime Minister [[Moshe Sharett]] and Chief Rabbi [[Yitzhak Herzog]] expressed their public gratitude to Pius XII.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.catholicleague.org/a-righteous-gentile-pope-pius-xii-and-the-jews/|title=A Righteous Gentile: Pope Pius XII and the Jews|author=Rabbi David Dalin|date=26 February 2001|publisher=Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights|access-date=12 September 2010}}</ref>

===Early historical accounts===
Some early works echoed the favourable sentiments of the war period, including Polish historian [[Oskar Halecki]]'s ''Pius XII: Eugenio Pacelli: Pope of peace'' (1954) and Nazareno Padellaro's ''Portrait of Pius XII'' (1949).

[[Pinchas Lapide]], a Jewish theologian and [[Israel]]i diplomat to [[Milan]] in the 1960s, estimated controversially in ''[[Three Popes and the Jews]]'' that Pius "was instrumental in saving at least 700,000 but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands".<ref>Lapide, Pinchas. ''Three Popes and the Jews'', 1967, quoted in Dalin, 2005, p. 11</ref> Some historians have questioned this<ref>e.g. Gilbert, Martin. ''The Holocaust'', p. 623</ref> often cited number, which Lapide reached by "deducting all reasonable claims of rescue" by non-Catholics from the total number of European Jews surviving [[the Holocaust]].<ref>Lapide, 1967, p. 269</ref> A Catholic scholar, [[Kevin J. Madigan]], has interpreted this and other praise from prominent Jewish leaders, including that offered by [[Golda Meir]], as less than sincere, an attempt to secure Vatican [[International recognition of Israel|recognition of the State of Israel]].<ref>"Lapide was in the 1960s an Israeli consul in Milan and was attempting, at the time he made his inflated estimates, to secure Vatican recognition for the state of Israel. Similar motives explain statements made in the immediate postwar period by Meir and Moshe Sharett, foreign ministers of the new state of Israel. Had these statements been accurate within even an order of magnitude, Pius would perhaps deserve to be honored by [[Yad Vashem]] and celebrated by Rabbi Dalin as a righteous gentile. They were not. Whatever was thus gained diplomatically by these statements—in the short run, precious little—was purchased at the cost of considerable historical untruth." in ''Christian Century'', "Judging Pius XII" by Kevin Madigan. 14 March 2001, pp. 6–7; see also ''The Pius war: responses to the critics of Pius XII'' by [[Joseph Bottum (author)|Joseph Bottum]] & David Dalin, 2004, p. 190</ref>

===''The Deputy''===
{{Main|The Deputy}}
[[File:1899eugenio.jpg|thumb|right|A rare 1899 handwriting sample of Eugenio Pacelli with text in [[Latin]]]]

In 1963, [[Rolf Hochhuth]]'s controversial drama ''[[The Deputy|Der Stellvertreter. Ein christliches Trauerspiel]]'' (''The Deputy, a Christian tragedy'', released in English in 1964) portrayed Pope Pius XII as a hypocrite who remained silent about the Holocaust. The depiction is described as lacking "credible substantiation" by the ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]''.<ref>[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/462400/Pius-XII/236598/After-World-War-II ''Pius XII'']; web 26 April 2013</ref> Books such as Joseph Lichten's ''A Question of Judgment'' (1963), written in response to ''The Deputy'', defended Pius XII's actions during the war. Lichten labelled any criticism of the Pope's actions during World War II as "a stupefying paradox" and said, "no one who reads the record of Pius XII's actions on behalf of Jews can subscribe to Hochhuth's accusation".<ref>Lichten, 1963, ''[http://www.catholicleague.org/piusxii_and_the_holocaust/quesjud5.htm A Question of Judgement] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060725005932/http://www.catholicleague.org/piusxii_and_the_holocaust/quesjud5.htm |date=25 July 2006 }}''.</ref> Critical scholarly works like [[Guenter Lewy]]'s controversial ''The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany'' (1964) also followed the publication of ''The Deputy''. Lewy's conclusion was that "the Pope and his advisers—influenced by the long tradition of moderate anti-Semitism so widely accepted in Vatican circles—did not view the plight of the Jews with a real sense of urgency and moral outrage. For this assertion no documentation is possible, but it is a conclusion difficult to avoid".<ref>Marchione, 2000, pp. 16–17.</ref> In 2002 the play was adapted into the film, ''[[Amen.]]''. An article in ''[[La Civilità Cattolica]]'' in March 2009 indicated the accusations that Hochhuth's play made widely known originated not among Jews but in the [[Communist bloc]]. It was on Moscow Radio, on 2 June 1945, that the first accusation directly against Pius XII of refusing to speak out against the exterminations in Nazi concentration camps. It was also the first medium to call him "Hitler's Pope".<ref>Giovanni Sale, ''Il Novecento tra genocidi, paure e speranze'', Jaca Book, Milan 2006, p. 214, quoted in ''[[La Civiltà Cattolica]]'', 2009, I 540</ref>

The former high-ranking [[Securitate]] General [[Ion Mihai Pacepa]] alleged in 2007 that Hochhuth's play and numerous publications attacking Pius XII as a Nazi sympathizer were fabrications that were part of a [[KGB]] and Eastern Bloc secret services [[disinformation]] campaign, named [[Seat 12]], to discredit the [[moral authority]] of the Church and Christianity in the West.<ref name="article.nationalreview.com">[http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTUzYmJhMGQ5Y2UxOWUzNDUyNWUwODJiOTEzYjY4NzI= "Moscow's Assault on the Vatican"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070205011340/http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTUzYmJhMGQ5Y2UxOWUzNDUyNWUwODJiOTEzYjY4NzI%3D |date=5 February 2007 }}, ''[[National Review Online]]'', 25 January 2007</ref> Pacepa indicated that he was involved in contacting Eastern Bloc agents close the Vatican in order to fabricate the story to be used for the attack against the wartime pope.<ref name="article.nationalreview.com"/>

===''Actes''===
{{Main|Actes et documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale}}
In the aftermath of the controversy surrounding ''The Deputy'', in 1964, [[Pope Paul VI]] authorized Jesuit scholars to access the Vatican State Secretariat Archives, which are normally not opened for seventy-five years. Original documents in French and Italian, ''[[Actes et documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale]]'', were published in eleven volumes between 1965 and 1981.<ref name="30giorni.it"/> Pierre Blet also published a summary of the eleven volumes.<ref>Blet, Pierre. ''Pius XII and the Second World War'', Paulist Press, 1999</ref>

===''Hitler's Pope'' and ''The Myth of Hitler's Pope''===
{{Main|Hitler's Pope|The Myth of Hitler's Pope}}
In 1999 the British author [[John Cornwell (writer)|John Cornwell]]'s ''Hitler's Pope'' criticised Pius for his actions and inactions during the Holocaust. Cornwell argued that Pius subordinated opposition to the Nazis to his goal of increasing and centralising the power of the papacy. Further, Cornwell accused Pius of antisemitism.<ref>Phayer, 2000, pp. xii–xiii.</ref> The ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'' described Cornwell's depiction of Pius XII as anti-Semitic as lacking "credible substantiation".<ref>[http://www.britannica.com/holocaust/article-236599 Encyclopædia Britannica Online – ''Reflections on the Holocaust'']; web 26 April 2013</ref> [[Kenneth L. Woodward]] stated in his review in ''Newsweek'' that "errors of fact and ignorance of context appear on almost every page".<ref>Kenneth L. Woodward. ''[http://www.newsweek.com/id/89597 The Case Against Pius Xii]'', ''Newsweek''. 27 September 1999.</ref> Paul O'Shea summarized the work by saying it was "disappointing because of its many inaccuracies, selective use of sources, and claims that do not bear any scrutiny. However, [Cornwell] has rendered a service by insisting Pacelli be re-examined thoroughly and placed firmly within the context of his times".<ref>Paul O'Shea; A Cross Too Heavy; Rosenberg Publishing; 2008; p. 38</ref> Five years after the publication of ''Hitler's Pope'', Cornwell stated: "I would now argue, in the light of the debates and evidence following ''Hitler's Pope'', 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".<ref>''The Economist'', 9 December 2004.</ref><ref>[http://www.economist.com/books/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3471137 "For God's sake"]. ''The Economist''. 9 December 2004.</ref><ref>John Cornwell, ''The Pontiff in Winter'' (2004), p. 193</ref>

Cornwell's work was the first to have access to testimonies from Pius XII's [[beatification]] process as well as to many documents from Pacelli's nunciature which had just been opened under the 75-year rule by the Vatican State Secretary archives.<ref>Sanchez, 2002, p. 34</ref> [[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) and ''[[Pius XII, The Holocaust, and the Cold War]]'' (2008) provided further critical, though more scholarly analysis of Pius's legacy.<ref name="britannica2">{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.britannica.com/holocaust/article-5770 |title=Encyclopædia Britannica's Reflections on the Holocaust |encyclopedia=Britannica.com |access-date=23 June 2013}}</ref> [[Daniel Goldhagen]]'s ''A Moral Reckoning'' and [[David Kertzer]]'s ''The Pope Against the Jews'' denounced Pius, while [[Ralph McInery]] and José Sanchez wrote less critical assessments of Pius XII's pontificate.<ref name="The Pope was wrong">[http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/839276/the-pope-was-wrong/ ''The Pope was wrong'']; by Andrew Roberts; [[The Spectator]]; 16 July 2008</ref>

In specific riposte to Cornwell's criticism, American Rabbi and historian [[David Dalin]] published ''[[The Myth of Hitler's Pope|The Myth of Hitler's Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis]]'' in 2005. He reaffirmed previous accounts of Pius having been a saviour of thousands of Europe's Jews. In a review of the book, another Jewish scholar, the Churchill biographer [[Martin Gilbert]], wrote that Dalin's work was "an essential contribution to our understanding of the reality of Pope Pius XII's support for Jews at their time of greatest danger. Hopefully, his account will replace the divisively harmful version of papal neglect, and even collaboration, that has held the field for far too long".<ref>[http://spectator.org/archives/2006/08/18/hitlers-pope/ ''Hitler's Pope?''] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130509114728/http://spectator.org/archives/2006/08/18/hitlers-pope/ |date=9 May 2013 }} by Sir [[Martin Gilbert]]; The [[American Spectator]]; 18 August 2006</ref> Dalin's book also argued that Cornwell and others were liberal Catholics and ex-Catholics who "exploit the tragedy of the Jewish people during the Holocaust to foster their own political agenda of forcing changes on the Catholic Church today" and that Pius XII was responsible for saving the lives of many thousands of Jews.<ref>Dalin, 2005, p. 3</ref>

A number of other scholars replied with favourable accounts of Pius XII, including [[Margherita Marchione]]'s ''[[Yours Is a Precious Witness]]: Memoirs of Jews and Catholics in Wartime Italy'' (1997), ''Pope Pius XII: Architect for Peace'' (2000) and ''Consensus and Controversy: Defending Pope Pius XII'' (2002); [[Pierre Blet]]'s ''Pius XII and the Second World War, According to the Archives of the Vatican'' (1999); and [[Ronald J. Rychlak]]'s ''[[Hitler, the War and the Pope]]'' (2000).<ref name="britannica2"/><ref>Rychlak, Ronald J. ''Hitler, the War and the Pope'' Genesis Press, Columbus, MS: 2000, pp. 401 ff.</ref> Ecclesiastical historian William Doino (author of ''The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII''), concluded that Pius was "emphatically ''not'' silent".<ref>[http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2012/11/23/sparks-fly-at-pius-xii-debate-in-london/ ''Sparks fly at Pius XII debate in London''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181105202806/http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2012/11/23/sparks-fly-at-pius-xii-debate-in-london/ |date=5 November 2018 }}; Catholic Herald; 23 November 2012.</ref> Other important works challenging the negative characterization of Pius's legacy were written by [[Eamon Duffy]], [[Clifford Longley]], [[Cardinal Winning]], [[Michael Burleigh]], Paul Johnson, and [[Denis Mack Smith]].<ref name="The Pope was wrong"/>

In his 2003 book ''[[A Moral Reckoning]]'', [[Daniel Goldhagen]] asserted that Pius XII "chose again and again not to mention the Jews publicly.... [In] public statements by Pius XII ... any mention of the Jews is conspicuously absent." In a review of Goldhagen's book, [[Mark Riebling]] counters that Pius used the word "Jew" in his first encyclical, ''[[Summi Pontificatus]]'', published on 20 October 1939. "There Pius insisted that all human beings be treated charitably—for, as [[Saint Paul|Paul]] had written to the [[Colossians]], in God's eyes "there is neither Gentile nor Jew". In saying this, the Pope affirmed that Jews were full members of the human community—which is Goldhagen's own criterion for establishing 'dissent from the anti-Semitic creed'."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://markriebling.blogs.com/files/jesus-jews-shoah.pdf|title=Mark Riebling, "Jesus, Jews, and the Shoah", ''National Review'', 27 January 2003|access-date=17 December 2011}}</ref>

In ''Pius XII, the Hound of Hitler'', the Catholic journalist [[Gerard Noel (author)|Gerard Noel]] dismissed accusations that Pius was "anti-semitic" or "pro-Nazi", but accused him of "silence" based on fear of retaliation and wrote that "Hitler played the Pope with consummate expertise".<ref name="The Pope was wrong"/> [[Ian Kershaw]] came to a similar conclusion about Pius's motives.<ref name="kershaw"/> He suggested that besides seeking to protect his own church and parishioners, Pius feared that speaking out would worsen the plight of the Jews, though he could have hardly made it worse after 1942. Kershaw called the 1942 Christmas message "a missed opportunity", adding: "Having decided to refer to the genocide, Pius ought to have followed this with a condemnation that was loud, plain and unequivocal." However, he doubted that condemnation from the Pope would have led to Nazi Germany changing course.<ref name="kershaw">{{cite book |author-last=Kershaw |author-first=Ian |author-link=Ian Kershaw |title=To Hell and Back: Europe 1914–1949 |year=2015 |publisher=Allen Lane |isbn=9780713990898 |pages=442–445 |mode=}}</ref>

[[Gerald Steinacher]]'s ''Nazis on the Run'' accused Pius of turning a blind eye to the activities of Vatican priests assisting "denazification through conversion", which he said helped ex-Nazi anti-communists to escape justice.<ref>"brief phases of reassurance about the role of the Pope were followed by waves of critical literature[-] and counteracted the process of exoneration that had been underway for some years. The focus of recent analyses by John Cornwell via [[Michael Phayer]], [[Susan Zucotti]], [[Daniel Goldhagen]], and Giovanni Miccoli, as well as works by authors Matteo Napolitano and [[Andrea Torniello]], is once again about the Pope's silence about the murder of Jews in Europe -the papal archives could provide information about Vatican diplomacy between 1933 and 1945; however, the Vatican remains the only European state that withholds free access to its archives from contemporary historians. The archives of these years are crucial if many questions about the Holocaust and the Second World War are to be answered and if the many uncertainties concerning Nazi refugee assistance by the Vatican are to be removed." (Gerald Steinacher:Nazis on the Run, p. 105)</ref><ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jun/24/nazis-run-gerald-steinacher-review0 "''Nazis on the Run'' by Gerald Steinacher—review"]; by [[Richard J. Evans]]; [[The Guardian]]; 24 June 2011</ref>

A Berlin Jewish couple, Mr. and Mrs. Wolfsson, argued in defence of the pope: "None of us wanted the Pope to take an open stand. We were all fugitives, and fugitives do not wish to be pointed at. The [[Gestapo]] would have become more excited and would have intensified its inquisitions. If the Pope had protested, Rome would have become the center of attention. It was better that the Pope said nothing. We all shared this opinion at the time, and this is still our conviction today." There were examples when the Catholic Church reaction to Nazi brutality only intensified SS persecutions of both Jews and the church.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Lichten|first1=Joseph L.|title=The Vatican & the Holocaust: A Question of Judgment – Pius XII & the Jews|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/piusdef2.html|website=Jewish Virtual Library}}</ref>

===International Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission===
{{Main|International Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission}}
In 1999, in an attempt to address some of this controversy, the International Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission (Historical Commission), a group of three Catholic and three Jewish scholars was appointed, respectively, by the [[Holy See]]'s [[Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews]] (Holy See's Commission) and the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC), to whom a preliminary report was issued in October 2000.<ref name="ICJHC">{{cite encyclopedia|title=The Vatican and the Holocaust: A Preliminary Report|author=International Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission|year=2000|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/vatrep.html|encyclopedia=Jewish Virtual Library}}</ref>

The Commission did not discover any documents, but had the agreed-upon task to review the existing Vatican volumes, that make up the ''Actes et Documents du Saint Siège (ADSS)''<ref>Preliminary Report, p. 2</ref> The commission was internally divided over the question of access to additional documents from the Holy See, access to the news media by individual commission members, and, questions to be raised in the preliminary report. It was agreed to include all 47 individual questions by the six members, and use them as Preliminary Report.<ref name="Gerard P Fogarty, Vatican/Holocaust">Fogarty, Gerard P., ''The Vatican and the Holocaust, Presentation to the Dominican House of Studies, Washington, D.C.'', 9 December 2000</ref> In addition to the 47 questions, the commission issued no findings of its own. It stated that it was not their task to sit in judgment of the Pope and his advisors but to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the papacy during the Holocaust.<ref>Preliminary Report, p. 5</ref>

The 47 questions by the six scholars were grouped into three parts: (a) 27 specific questions on existing documents,<ref>Preliminary Report, pp. 5–10</ref> mostly asking for background and additional information such as drafts of the encyclical ''[[Mit brennender Sorge]]'', which was largely written by Eugenio Pacelli.<ref>Question One</ref> (b) Fourteen questions dealt with themes of individual volumes,<ref>Preliminary Report, pp. 10–13</ref> such as the question how Pius viewed the role of the church during the war.<ref>Question 28</ref> (c) Six general questions,<ref>Preliminary Report, pp. 13–14</ref> such as the absence of any anti-communist sentiments in the documents.<ref>Question 42</ref> The disagreement between members over additional documents locked up under the Holy See's 70-year rule resulted in a discontinuation of the commission in 2001 on friendly terms.<ref name="Gerard P Fogarty, Vatican/Holocaust"/> Unsatisfied with the findings, Michael Marrus, one of the three Jewish members of the commission, said the commission "ran up against a brick wall .... It would have been really helpful to have had support from the Holy See on this issue."<ref>Melissa Radler. "Vatican Blocks Panel's Access to Holocaust Archives". ''The Jerusalem Post''. 24 July 2001.</ref>

[[Peter Stanford]], a Catholic journalist and writer, wrote, regarding ''Fatal Silence: The Pope, the Resistance and the German Occupation of Rome'' (written by Robert Katz; Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003):

{{Blockquote|[The Vatican] still refuses to open all its files from the period—which seems to me to be a conclusive admission of guilt—but Katz has winkled various papers out of God's business address on earth to add to the stash of new information he has uncovered in America in the archives of the Office of Strategic Services. From this we learn that, although Pius's defenders still say that he paid a golden ransom in a vain effort to save Rome's Jews from transportation to the death camps, the most he did was indicate a willingness to chip in if the Jews could not raise the sum demanded. He also shows that no individual Jews were spared, as is often claimed, after Pius personally intervened with the Nazis. Moreover, Katz reveals that those who did escape the Nazi round-up and found sanctuary in church buildings in Rome did so in the face of explicit opposition from the Vatican. The real heroes and heroines were the priests and nuns who refused to bow to Pius's officials and hand over the desperate people whom they were hiding. The main problem with writing about Pius's wartime is that in effect, he did nothing. Facing the murders of six million people, he remained silent. As Jews were taken away from the ghetto that sat right alongside St Peter's, he may have agonised, but he did not intervene. When he did raise his voice with the German occupiers, it was either to ensure that the Vatican City state would not be compromised—that is to say, he would be safe—or to emphasise his own neutrality in a conflict which, for many, became a battle between good and evil. His unrealistic hope was that the Catholic Church could emerge as the peacemaker across Europe. Instead, both the American and British leaderships, as Katz shows, regarded the papacy as tainted by its association with Nazism and irrelevant in the post-1945 reshaping of the continent. Both had urged Pius to speak up against the Holocaust and so drew their own conclusions about him. Far from being a saint, then, he was at best a fool, perhaps an anti-Semite and probably a coward.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newstatesman.com/200310130045|title=Catholic guilt|last=Stanford|first=Peter J.|date=13 October 2003|access-date=8 January 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080904222456/http://www.newstatesman.com/200310130045|archive-date=4 September 2008}} in review of ''Fatal Silence: The Pope, the Resistance and the German Occupation of Rome'', written by Robert Katz; {{ISBN|0-297-84661-2}}. Weidenfeld & Nicolson (2003)</ref>}}

Katz's book also discusses how the Pope's view of the anti-Nazi resistance—as harbingers of Communism—meant he chose not to intervene in the [[Ardeatine massacre]].<ref>{{Cite book |last= Katz |first= Robert |author-link= Robert Katz |year= 2003 |title= The Battle for Rome: The Germans, the Allies, the Partisans, and the Pope, September 1943 – June 1944 |location=New York |publisher= [[Simon & Schuster]] |page= 249ff}}</ref>