Pius XII cared more about Catholic Church assets than helping the Jews – as David Kertzer’s devastating history The Pope at War reveals
What is the purpose of the Catholic Church? Is it a spiritual institution dedicated to saving souls and offering moral leadership to the world? Or is it a multibillion-pound organisation anxious to protect its wealth and power? Or, if it is a bit of both, what is more important: morality or pragmatism?
These are the questions at the heart of David Kertzer’s magnificent The Pope at War, an examination of one of the most contentious religious figures of recent times, Eugenio Pacelli, who became Pope Pius XII in March 1939. Kertzer won the Pulitzer Prize in 2015 for The Pope and Mussolini, which focused on the Italian dictator’s dealings with Pacelli’s predecessor as Pope, Pius XI, and this new book is every bit as good.
Pius XII is controversial – in some quarters, notorious – because he never publicly condemned the extermination of the Jews during the Second World War. With access to the newly opened Vatican archives, and in calm, unhurried prose, Kertzer’s book ought to silence any future debate about him: based on the evidence presented here, there can no longer be any doubt – as a moral leader, Pius XII was a disaster.
Part of the reason was the Pope’s character – he was naturally timid – but Kertzer also reveals that there was a whiff of anti-Semitism around the Vatican during the war. In March 1943 – after the extermination of the Jews was known about – Monsignor Giuseppe Di Meglio wrote in a report entitled “Palestine and the Jews” that “most Jews are mainly dedicated to industry and, for the most part, commerce. This commerce remains quite profitable for them when they find themselves living among Christians. If, on the contrary, all and only the Jews come together, one has an enormous gathering… of swindlers, while lacking those to be swindled. Therefore, most Jews had no desire to migrate to Palestine.” The report was subsequently seen by the Pope, and there is no evidence that he was outraged by the anti-Semitic slurs within it.