” Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power, thy right hand dashed in pieces the enemy. And in the greatness of thine excellency, thou have overthrown them that rose up against thee, thou sendest forth thy wrath, which consumed them as stubble.”  (Book of Moses)

No Pope has ever been so controversial, no incumbent of the Throne of St Peter has ever been the subject of such heated debate as Pius XII. He presided over the Catholic Church during the most dangerous and troubling time in its history. It was to emerge from this period intact and as powerful as ever but at what cost to its moral authority?

Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli, was born on 2 March, 1876, in Rome to an aristocratic family with strong ties to the Vatican. It was originally intended that he should be a lawyer and he did indeed gain a doctorate in law but he never practicised his profession instead choosing a career in the priesthood. It was not a decision that disappointed his family whose connections, along with his legal training, would help facilitate a rapid and predictable rise through the Catholic hierarchy. He was ordained a priest on Eater Sunday, 2 April,  1899, and little did he know that he had set out on the road to being the most controversial Pope in the history of the Pontificate.

The newly ordained Father Pacelli spent little time tending to the needs of his flock, for he was from the start a Vatican high-flyer. In 1901, he entered the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs where he helped to codify Canon Law. But his time spent as an administrator dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s of catholic minutiaea was short-lived. He very soon became an effective trouble-shooter for the Vatican travelling the World as the representative of the Pope abroad. Over the next 30 years he would become Archbishop, Cardinal, Papal Nuncio and Secretary of State for the Vatican, all in fairly short order.

Cardinal Pacelli’s life as a Man of God was spent in the realm of politics. In 1929, he helped to negotiate the Lateran Treaty which re-established the Catholic Church in Italy which in turn endorsed the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini providing it with the moral legitimacy it had previously lacked. Similarly, he negotiated a Concordat with Nazi Germany that whilst providing protection for Catholic associations and publications and guaranteeing the continuation of Catholic education also saw the dissolution of the Catholic Centre Party, the only strong focal point of traditional conservative opposition to the Nazi regime. This was just a part of a long history Pacelli had of negotiating with fascists. He also established a Concordat with the clerico-fascist regime of Engelbert Dollfuss in Austria and was a vocal supporter of General Franco in Spain. But all this was to pale into insignificance alongside his tenure as Pope during the dark days of World War II.

Pope Pius XI, died on 10 February, 1939, and Cardinal Pacelli was the obvious choice as his successor, and had indeed been the preferred choice of the dying Pope himself. Thought of as more worldly than most of his rivals and with world war looming the Conclave of Cardinals that had gathered to elect the new Pope opted for the pragmatist over the more faith driven. He may have lacked the spiritual grounding of his rivals but it was thought his experience in the world of politics and his diplomatic cachet would be priceless in what was obviously going to be a difficult time for the Church. On 2 March, 1939, Eugenio Pacelli was elected Pope Pius XII.

The Pope and the Holocaust

Pope Pius XII, knew from the start the probable fate of the Jews. He knew from experience the values of the Nazi regime in Germany. On 14 March, 1937, the previous Pope, Pius XI, had ordered that the Papal Encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge (With Burning Concern) be read out in all Catholic Churches in Germany. It openly condemned a Nazi ideology which exalted one race over all others. It stated that any notion of racial superiority was incompatible with Christian teachings. This encyclical has been much lauded as the only time a major institution (and not just a religious one) stood up and roundly condemned Nazi racial policies, and having in large part been drafted by Cardinal Pacelli, it has often been used in his defence. But nowhere in its pages does it openly condemn anti-Semitism. Indeed, its primary concern was not racialism at all but Nazi paganism which elevated the State above God as the supreme power on earth.

Early in the Summer of 1940, Isaac Herzog, the Chief Rabbi of Palestine had begged the Pope to intervene on behalf of the Jews of Lithuania who were at the time being murdered by Nazi Einsatzgruppen (extermination squads). In response to his request the Pope telephoned the German Foreign Secetary von Ribbentrop, an old friend, to voice his concerns, but no formal protest was lodged. When Philippe Petain, President of the recently formed Vichy regime in France, asked the Vatican if it objected to proposed anti-Jewish laws. Pius was quick to make it clear that the Church condemned anti-Semitism but then added the rider that the legislation did not conflict with Catholic teachings.

In April,1941, Pius granted a private audience to Ante Pavelic, President of the Nazi Puppet Government in Croatia, a murderous regime, so murderous in fact that even the Nazi’s felt compelled to intervene to curtail some of its excesses. It was Pavelic’s stated aim to convert, expel, or exterminate all Jews, Serbs and Gypsies in Croatia, and as many as 700,000 were murdered. Pius never even as much as condemned the forced conversions, done in his name and for the Church over which he presided. In 1945, fleeing the Soviet advance Pavelic holed up in Rome where he was given shelter by leading catholics. Provided with a passport by the Vatican he was smuggled out of Italy to Argentina, just like many other Nazi’s who escaped justice via the Catholic ratline.

Similarly, the clerico-fascis regime of Josef Tiso in Slovakia was overwhelmingly endorsed by the Catholic hierarchy. In 1942, under German pressure it began to deport its Jews. As a Catholic State with direct ties to the Vatican, Pius felt obliged to intervene. By October, 1942, the deportations had ceased but by this time 58,000, or 75% of the total, had already been murdered. But it was an example of what direct action on the part of the Church might have achieved. In April, 1947, Josef Tiso was hanged for war crimes still wearing his clerical robes.

In October, 1941, Pius was asked by the American representative to the Vatican to openly condemn the atrocities against the Jews. His reply was that the Church wished to remain neutral. Again, in January, 1943, the President of the Polish Government in exile, Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz, asked the Pope to condemn the atrocities in Poland, again he refused.  When Mussolini, under German pressure, began to round up the Jews in Rome ready for deportation to Concentration Camps in the East, the Pope wrung his hands and did nothing.

Pope Pius XII, has many supporters and apologists who would rush to his defence. It is said that he did much on a personal level to help those fleeing from tyranny, providing them with practical aid and financial assistance. that he established safe-houses, organised escape routes and gathered valuable intelligence. But it is not as a man but as a Pope that he must be judged. Some might say he preserved the integrity of the Church when its very continued existence was in peril. But then what use is a Church that turns a blind eye to mass-murder? In the final analysis, we have to judge: was Pope Pius XII, a man who did his best in impossible circumstances? Or was he, as the British Government described him in 1941, the greatest moral coward of our times?

The recently departed Pope John Paul II, just prior to his death began the process that will lead to Pius XII becoming a Saint.