Editing Pope Pius XII (section)

===''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>