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Two Very Different Portraits of Pius XII By Msgr. George G. Higgins The Yardstick September 27, 1999 In mid-September two books came out presenting portraits of Pope Pius XII. One was the product of three decades of study of original documentation, written by a professional historian. The other was written by a journalist and took, perhaps, three years. While the documents summarized in the first volume are all part of the public record, no references are given in the second volume which would allow scholars to check the context or accuracy of translation, other than lurid descriptions such as, "the letter has lain in the Vatican secret archives like a time bomb until now." One book is John Cornwell's sensationalized "Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII" (Excerpted in Vanity Fair), and the other, Jesuit Father Pierre Blet's magisterial yet eminently readable "Pius XII and the Second World War According to the Archives of the Vatican" (Paulist Press, 1999). In "Hitler's Pope," Cornwell paints a dark picture of Pius XII. He builds this on little actual evidence. One example may suffice. Cornwell writes that in 1917 the then Archbishop Pacelli, later Pius XII, duly forwarded to his superiors in Rome a request by Munich's chief rabbi that the Holy See intervene with Italy's government to facilitate the movement of a shipment of palm fronds the Jewish community needed for Sukkoth. The shipment was stuck due to World War I conditions. What Cornwell sees as anti-Semitism in this incident is that Archbishop Pacelli's cover note inquired whether it would be "appropriate" for the Holy See to provide cult objects for Jewish worship. One can see in this a theological scruple that would likely not be raised today (though it was not unusual for the period). But to see in it a hard-core racial "antipathy toward Jews" is silly. Cornwell piles innuendo on top of armchair psychology to bolster his a priori view of a demonic Pius XII who helped Hitler come to power and did everything he could to foster Nazism. It is impossible to take such nonsense seriously.  Father Blet, on the other hand, has provided a signal contribution to our understanding not only of Pius XII but of the Holy See's policies during World War II.  Father Blet is the sole surviving member of the four-Jesuit team which from 1965-1980 painstakingly combed the Vatican archives for the period 1939-1945, searching for everything relevant to the issues raised by the German dramatist Rolf Hochhuth's 1963 attempt in ``The Deputy'' to scapegoat an Italian pope for what his own country perpetrated during the War.   Father Blet rightly states that "there is only one way of returning from fiction to reality, from legend to history, and that is by going back to the original documents, for these directly reveal what the pope did and said." Father Blet succeeds admirably. Each chapter summarizes and sets in historical context the documents contained in one book of the 12-volume set of archival materials. The result is an often riveting narrative of the day-by-day attempts of the Holy See first to prevent the war and then to save its victims, Jews no less than others. Indeed, this reader was struck by the sheer number and often audaciousness of Vatican interventions and covert schemes to save Europe's Jews. That most of these ventures failed as did their pre-war diplomacy should not be counted against them. One may still conclude after reading Father Blet's book that not enough was tried, not enough said. But one's understanding will be enriched by a sense of the complexity of the reality of World War II and the real limitations of papal power in the period.   Papal Social Encyclicals   Other Catholic Social Teachings General Articles of Interest  Catholic Worker Connection Msgr. George Higgins  Home Page E-Mail: Fr. Sinclair Oubre