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Hitler's Pope is a book written by the Catholic writer John Cornwell that is very sharply critical of Pope Pius XII. Conrwell was granted access to the Vatican archives to review the records of the conduct of Eugenio Pacelli, both as Nuncio to Germany and as Pope. His objective had been to find evidence defending Pope Pius XII from claims that he was guilty of moral errors and of failure to do enough to prevent or mitigate the Holocaust, the genocide of European Jews under Adolf Hitler. Cornwell reviewed the documents, and concluded, on the contrary, that Pope Pius XII had, with or without intent, become "Hitler's Pawn" and so "Hitler's Pope".

The Venerable Pope Pius XII (Latin: Pius PP. XII), born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (March 2, 1876 – October 9, 1958), reigned as Pope and sovereign of Vatican City from March 2, 1939 to 1958. In the 20th century he was the only pope to exercise his Extraordinary (Solemn) Magisterium (that is, to claim Papal Infallibility) when he formally defined the dogma of the Assumption of Mary in his 1950 encyclical Munificentissimus Deus. Pius's actions or inactions during World War II have become a matter of major dispute. He was proclaimed Venerable, a step on the road to sainthood, by Pope John Paul II in the 1990s.

Birth and early church career

Pacelli, who was of noble birth, was a grandson of Marcantonio Pacelli, founder of the Vatican's newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, a nephew of Ernesto Pacelli, a key financial advisor to Pope Leo XII, and a son of Filippo Pacelli, dean of the Vatican lawyers. His brother, Francesco Pacelli, became a highly regarded attorney, and was created a marchese by Pius XII.

Although an individual of self-less habit , he was a believer of the absolute leadership priciple . he more than anyone promoted the concept of absolute papal rule , diminuishing the earlier collegiality of the church councils . Modesty of appearance belied great subtlety and cunning as he inherited his forbears desire for the papacy to once again exert all powerful control over the church through ecclesiastical and international law .

From 1848 the popes had gradually lost their temporal dominions and in the first Vatican council of 1870 papal infallibilty was declared over moral and faith matters. The young Eugenio Pacelli's work had a major part in the further unprecedented principles of papal power emanating from the new Code of Canon Law of 1917 .

Pacelli had became a Roman Catholic priest in April, 1899. Entering the Vatican to specialise in international affairs and church laws in 1901From 1904 until 1916 Fr. Pacelli assisted Cardinal Gasparri in this codification of canon law. According to the Code all bishops were to be nominated by the Pope ; error in doctrine became tantamount to heresy ; priests writing censored; papal letters to the fithful became infallible (in preactice if not in principle) and an oath for adherence to papal doctine became required of all priests .

The historic autonomy of the Germanic Catholic Church stood in contrast to these developements so Pope Benedict XV appointed the then Monsignor Pacelli as Apostolic Nuncio to Bavaria in April 1917, and on 13 May 1917, Benedict consecrated him as a bishop. This was the very day of the first appearance of the Virgin Mary (to whom Pacelli had a special devotion) to three peasant children at Fatima, Portugal.

Pacelli in German History

Nuncio Eugenio Pacelli

From the first Pacelli was to negotiate for an all-German Reichskonkordat which would once and for all supersced local Stae agreements and serve as the model for church-state relations . It would also allow for imposition of the new Canon Law in the land of Martin Luther who had nearly 400 years previously publicly burnt a copy the canon law in act od defiance of centralised papal control .

The Vatican's best diplomat undertook relief work the in war wracked 1917 Germany and witnessing violent riotous behaviour amongst Bolshevik groups .Pacelli noticed the repulsiveness of the Jewish leader Eugen Levine and of his followers and thence grew a suspicion and contempt of Jews for political reason. Pacelli also campaigned for Allied troops to not include colored soldiery in the occupied Rhineland, and in the aftermath of World War II repeated this demand of the Americans entering Rome.

Pacelli spent in all 13 years trying to re-write the German State Concordats one by one . He was appointed Apostolic Nuncio to the German Weimar Republic in June, 1920. He routinely involved himself in complicated territorial disputes following WWI ,trading Vatican support for German control under terms advantageous to the vatican Concordats . However the overall Reichskonkordat eluded him because both the catholic and the protestant population resisted this new authoritarian papal control .

As Nuncio in Bavaria ,Pacelli had also ,in a private letter denounced the National Socialist movement as an anti-Catholic and anti-Hebrew threat and remarks that Michael Cardinal von Faulhaber of Munich had condemned acts of persecution against Bavaria's Jews. Pacelli was well aware that Bavaria was from 1920 in the grip of linked anti-communism and anti-semitism , these having accounted for the 1920 Bavarian election of Gustav Ritter von Kahr .

Monsignor and later Bishop Pacelli was appointed Apostolic Nuncio to the German Weimar Republic in June, 1920. The now Bishop Pacelli in 1925 started to form a close relationship with his Secretary Monsignor Ludwig Kaas . Pacelli's long-standing house-keeper , Sister Pasquilina Lehnert , stated after Pacelli's death that Kaas regularly holidayed with him and was linked to him in "adoration , honest love and unconditional loyalty ." The slightly younger Kaas became an intimate collaborator in every aspect of Pacelli's vatican diplomacy in Germamy . Kaas served as secretary from 1925 and then with Pacelli's encouragement took the chairmanship of the influential catholoc Centre party Germany in 1928 . Officially Kaas , also a specialist in canon law , was the representative of democratic civil party , but one who was so attached to Pacelli that he became vitually his alter ego .

Pacelli was created a cardinal on 16 December 1929 by Pope Pius XI. Within a few months, on 7 February 1930 Pope Pius appointed Pacelli Cardinal Secretary of State. During the 1930s Cardinal Pacelli arranged concordats with Bavaria, Prussia, Austria and Germany. He also made many diplomatic visits throughout Europe and the Americas, including an extensive visit to the United States in 1936.

The Reichstag Enabling Act

By 1933 the vehement front of the Centre Party against the Nazis was at odds with the by now Pacelli-shaped view inside the vatican .

The German Catholics through the Catholic Centre Party had, until very early in 1933, been staunch opponents of the Nazis. However Heinrich Bruning , Centre chancellor had visited the by now Cardinal Secretary of State Pacelli in August 1931 . Pacelli lectured Bruning on how he should reach an understanding with the Nazis to "form a right-wing administration" in order to help achieve the desired Concordat . When Bruning advised him not to interfere in the internal politics of Germany , the Cardinal became verbally indisposed . Bruning's final word was that he trusted " that the vatican would fare better at the hands of Hitler ... than with himself , a devout Catholic ." Hitler proved to be the only Chancellor prepared to accept the canonically authoritarian Concordat , and spent more effort at achieving this major act of international diplomacy than on all other foreign dealings .

In the memoirs of the Chicago Daily News bureau chief for Berlin reference is made to an actual letter in 1932 , from Pacelli enjoining the Centre leadership to the papal wish for the success of Adolf Hitler . The letter which not been found , confirms essentially the Bruning meeting .

The spring of 1933 brought a thaw of approbation towards Hitler from the Vatican and from the German Hierarchy. Monsignor Ludwig Kaas with the Catholic nobleman Franz von Papen was central in the exchange of interests between the Holy See and the German NSDAP/Nazi Party .

These interests were, in the Vatican for the Reichskonkordat and for strong opposition to Communism, and for Hitler, the acquiescence of the Catholic Centre Party bloc vote for the Enabling Act of 23 March 1933, which had the effect of granting Hitler absolute power. Cardinal Pacelli co-ordinated this through the figures of von Papen and, particularly, the Centre leader Ludwig Kaas.

The Final Reichskonkordat Negotiation

Adolf Hitler had achieved absolute power through the illegal detention of the Communist Deputies in the Reichstag ( 15-28 Febuary), followed by the Enabling Act's approval by the remaining Deputies on 23 March 1933. German Presidential assent to removal of habeas corpus , did not apply to the Reichstag membership but apparent legality was obtained through the resulting distortion of the Parliament or Reichstag . The very Enabling Act prohibited such interference with the Institutions of the Reichstag , yet Hitler required the veneer of legality which came from the collapse of the Centre Party and the bloc-vote handed forward to him by Monsignor Ludwig Kaas . There was requirement for a 2/3 majority to prorogate sections of the Constitution - but not including article 20 which sanctified the freedom and conscience of the Deputies .

The Reich Concordat negotiations involved a shuttle diplomacy between Berlin and Rome that lasted 6 months . All was conducted in secret and over the heads of the German Bishops and faithful by Kaas, Pacelli and Hitler's catholic associate ex-Centre Foreign Minister ,Franz von Papen .

Hitler insisted his signing devolved only upon the Centre's voting for the Enabling Act allocating him dictatorial powers . Pacelli demanded the imposition of the new Canon Code of Law upon all catholics , as well as various educational measures .

Hitler further demanded that the Centre voluntarily dissolve , which completed the voter's dissillusion and drift themselves towards Hitlerism . Catholics in their millions joined the Nazi party , acceeding to apparent papal commendation.

In June 1933 Adolf Hitler signed a peace agreement with most of Europe, called the Four-Power Pact. In July as Secretary of State to Pope Pius XI, Pacelli signed the concordat with Germany (see image) while Foreign Secretary von Papen signed for Germany. This was shortly after Germany had signed similar agreements with the major Protestant churches in Germany.

The signing of the actual concordat has always been controversial, having given important international acceptance to Hitler's regime. In his 3 June encyclical Dilectissima Nobis Pius XI also stated that the Church found no difficulty in adapting herself to various civil institutions, be they monarchic or republican, aristocratic or democratic, provided the divine rights of God and of Christian consciences were safe.

The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany

Some observers regard the Church relationship towards the Nazi regime as not substantially different to that it established with other non-communist states, regimes and governments. Dr. Eamon Duffy, a historian of the papacy, observed that the Church under Pius XI followed a normal policy of establishing concordats with individual states during the 1920s and the 1930s. This included concordats with Latvia (1922), Bavaria (1924), Poland (1925), Romania (1927), Lithuania (1927), Italy (1929), Prussia (1929), Baden (1932), Austria (1933), Germany (1933), Yugoslavia (1935) and Portugal (1940). These concordats were aimed at regularising relationships between the Holy See and the states, and at protecting Roman Catholic-run schools, hospitals, charities and third level institutions (all often run with public funds, including in Germany) from state seizure or persecution.

In particular the concordats were aimed at ensuring the Church's canon law had some status and recognition within its own spheres of concern (e.g., church decrees of nullity in the area of marriage) among new or emerging states with new legal systems. Duffy suggests that the concordats provided technical procedures through which formal complaints to the states could be made by the Holy See.

Following the German Concordat's signing in 1933 and until 1937 the Vatican remained largely silent about the excesses of Nazism. However, Cardinal Faulhaber was prevailed upon in 1933 to provide public approbation of the Führer preceding the plebiscite for the withdrawal of Germany from the League of Nations.

By 1939, Pope Pius XI had made three dozen formal complaints to the Nazi government, which were drafted by Pacelli but which show only a gradual realisation of the gravity of the Nazi situation and misuse of the concordat. The strongest condemnation of Hitler's ideology and ecclesiastical policy was the encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge, issued in 1937.

Both Hitler and Pacelli saw the Reichskonkordat as a victory for their respective sides. Hitler claimed to the world at large that he had publicly received full papal blessing , and told his cabinet at the 14 July initialling of the Concord , that :

"An opportunity has been given to Germany in the Reichskonkordat and a sphere of influence has been created that will be especially significant in the urgent struggle against international Jewry."

Pacelli in a two page article for L'Osservatore Romano , the vatican controlled newspaper, on 26 July and 27 July dismissed Hitler's assertion that the concordat in any way represented or implied approval for national socialism, much less moral approval of it. He argued that its true purpose had been

"not only the official recognition (by the Reich) of the legislation of the Church (its Code of Canon Law), but the adoption of many provisions of this legislation and the protection of all Church legislation."Template:Fn

On the other hand, the Concordat prohibited clerics from engaging in any political activity whatsoever.

The Concordat straightaway coupled the Roman Catholic Church with Nazism . Whilst Pacelli gained advantageous power over schools , Hitler immediately trampled upon the educational of Jews in Germany . Significantly Catholic priests were inducted inot a form of collaboration through the attestation bureaucracy that established Jewish ancestry . pacelli did and said nothing yet the attestation processes led inexorably to the Holocaust .

Mounting anti-Semitic barbarity saw no response from Pacelli , other , than ,in the case of the Jewish Catholic converts whom he considered an internal German affair .

Ony in 1937 did 5 high German clerics petition in Rome for the moral protest due at the secular silencing of the German church , yet the resulting encyclical was written under Pacelli's directions and contained no reference to persecution of even the convert Jews . The whole contained no reference to the Nazis whatever, and worse, was contradicted by concurrent publication against Communism . Pacelli gauged the levels of reaction within Germany and assured the reich's Rome Ambassador that "friendly relations will be restored as soon as possible."

Pacelli as Secretary of State is accused further of allowing the Jesuits to halt dissemination in autumn 1938 of the weakening and scandalised Pope Pius XI's encyclical The Unity of the Human Race , and of entirely burying it after his own accession to the papacy . Considered to have overseen its composition , it echoes Pacelli anti-jewishness , saying the Jews brought their own fate upon themselves , and deserved their "worldy and spiritual" ruin . It also saw that christian principles "and humanity" could involve the "unacceptable risk" of being ensnared by secular politics - not least an association with Bolshevism .

The questions arising from the concordat have re-surfaced of late because of the moves toward canonisation for this Pope Pius XII . The Enabling Act is also close to the forefront of democratic un-ease today .

Becoming Pope Pius XII

Following the death of Pius XI, Cardinal Pacelli was elected Pope by the conclave on 2 March 1939, his 63rd birthday, and took the name Pius XII. He was the first Secretary of State to become pope since Clement IX in 1667. Pius XII's papal coronation was the grandest for over a hundred years.

Pacelli as newly crowned Pope was eager to affirm Hitler publicly , and showed to the German Cardinals a letter styled to the "Illustrious Herr Adolf Hitler", asking whether he should infact have styled him the "Most Illustrious" ? Now Pius XII , he told the Cardinals that his predecessor thought the presence of a Nuncio in Berlin conflicted "with our honour" , yet said that this had been a mistake, despite infallibility . . At Pacelli's instruction , the Nuncio then hosted a grand gala reception for Hitler's 50th Hitler's 50th bithday , and therafter the bishops of Germany throughout the war continued these yearly greetings , which had first been publicly made by Ludwig Kaas, whilst still Centre Leader , yet from within the vatican in 1933

World War II

Pius' pontificate began on the eve of the Second World War. During the war, Pope Pius XII followed a policy of public neutrality mirroring that of Pope Benedict XV during the First World War. However, as Cardinal Pacelli, Pius XII was against the Nazis' increasing political power in Germany and in August 1933 wrote to the British representative to the Holy See his disgust with the Nazis and "their persecution of the Jews, their proceedings against political opponents, the reign of terror to which the whole nation was subjected."

When he was told Hitler was a strong leader to deal with the communists, Archbishop Pacelli responded that Hitler and his Nazis were infinitely worse.

Pius XII established diplomatic relations with the Japanese Empire in March 1942. As the war was approaching its end in 1945, Pius XII advocated a lenient policy by the Allied leaders for the vanquished in an effort to prevent the mistakes made at the end of World War I. He attempted to negotiate an early German and Japanese surrender, but his initiatives failed.

Pius XII's role during World War II has been a source of controversy. Critics accuse him of remaining silent towards the Holocaust and other Nazi crimes. Though the Pope actually did speak out, e.g., in his Christmas message of 1942, he did so in a careful manner. Pius's main argument for that policy was twofold. That public condemnation of Hitler and Nazism would have achieved little of practical benefit, given that his condemnation could effectively be censored and so unknown to German Catholics (who in any case had been told as early as the early 1930s by the German Roman Catholic hierarchy that Nazism and Catholicism were incompatible). Secondly, Pius argued that had he condemned Nazism more aggressively, the result would have been reprisals within Germany and countries occupied by her, making the Church's efforts against Nazi policies at the parish level difficult. Indeed such a reprisal occurred, when the Dutch bishops protested against the deportation of the country's Jewish population. The occupants retaliated by singling out Jewish converts to the Church for deportation, the most notable example being Edith Stein. Accordingly, the Pope mostly concentrated on practical measures, such as hiding Jews in convents. Also an "underground railroad" of secret escape routes had been set up by prominent Catholics such as Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, who operated under the tacit, if not implicit, approval of Pope Pius XII (as portrayed in the 1983 TV-movie "The Scarlet And The Black").

According to the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, "Preserving Vatican neutrality, and the capability of the Church to continue to function where possible in occupied Europe and Nazi-allied states, was a far better strategy to save lives than Church sanctions on a regime that would have merely laughed at them."

Although Pius XII is fiercely condemned by the press today for not condemning Nazism explicitly , it is estimated that about 300,000 Jews were saved through the Vatican during World War II. After the war had ended, Pius XII was praised by numerous Jewish organizations. The head rabbi of Rome (Israel Zolli) converted to Catholicism, citing as his reason Pius XII's witness to religious fraternity.

Pope Pius XII's Critics' Views

Pope Pius XII has had many critics in recent decades, who have said both that his efforts to mitigate the Holocuast were inadequate, and that his role in the negotiation of the Reichskonkordat was well-meaning but played into the hands of Adolf Hitler. His critics in this regard include John Cornwell (writer) in the book Hitler's Pope whose research has been included here .

Pius XII has recently been heavily attacked by Bill Dorich, an American journalist and activist of Serbian descent. Dorich has brought forth a Federal Lawsuit against the Vatican for its alleged collusion in war crimes by the Croatian Ustashe and even more ominously, for secreting large vaults of Croatian war-loot into the Vatican coffers. The suit alleges that this was used to finance yet more of the almost 'mythic' rat-lines mentioned in ODESSA. This alleged secret Vatican re-location and funding of implicated Nazi and Ustashe priests and monks to largely South America is a subject in Biil Dorich's Federal suit.

Pius first great wartime act of reticence followed the formation of the catholic and Fascist Stae of Croatia . Pius however received the Croat Fuhrer , Ante Pavelic, who oversaw the forced conversions to catholicism , deportations and mass extermination targeting millions of Serb Orthodox Christians , Jews and Gypsies or Roma .

Amongst reports reaching the papacy of widespread anti-Semitic and ethnic -minority barbarities , from 1942 , Pius alone intervened in Slovakia , whose President was a priest , Monsignor Josef Tiso . Croatia , Hungary and occupied France drew no intervention . The United states' vatican representative reported at this time that Pacelli was hiding in purely religious concerns and that the moral authority won by the papacy of his predecessor was being squandered .

Numerous high level requests were forwarded to Pacelli for him to make a statement about the ongoing exterminations of the Jews and finally in a 1942 christmas message , he said that men of good-will owed a vow to return society "back to its immovable center of gravity in divine law" . That "humanity owes this vow to those hundreds and thousands who without any fault of their own , sometimes only by reason of their nationality and race , are marked for death and gradual extinction." This was the limit of papal denunciation throughout the whole period of the war . It is by some still considered scandalously reticent, not least for the impression given that there were some several races subject to equal likelihood of extermination by different belligerents , all of whose societies were outside of the divine law .

An accusation is particularly made that Pius XII failed to prevent the deportation of the Roman Jews themselves from the Roman Ghetto on October 18 1943, when after the fall of Mussolini , he was the sole Italian authority in that city . Even German miltary and Diplomats in Rome , urged him to stand against the SS actions , fearing a back-lash from the Italian population . Pacelli refused , and the German Diplomats prevai;ed upon a German Bishop to sign a letter of protest upon the Pope's behalf . Favourable Consideration of Pacelli's passivity in this matter out of fear for his own papal safety , is contradicted by written statement to Hitler from the Rome SS Commander against any German evacuation of the Pope .

In fact Pacelli was concerned that the balance of the war in terms of Rome itself , should not lead to other than a liberation by the main armies of the Allies ( rather than partisan left-wingers ) .

Counter-point to Pope Pius XII's critics

The counter-point to the critics' argument is that these critics base their opinion upon a Catholic stereotype hundreds of years out of date by vastly overrating the influence of a Papal speech on the opinions of modern Catholics, especially in a pre-dominantly Protestant country as Germany.

Furthermore, on September 6, 1938, in a statement which – though barred from the Fascist press – made its way around the world, Pius XI said:

Mark well that in the Catholic Mass, Abraham is our Patriarch and forefather. Anti-Semitism is incompatible with the lofty thought which that fact expresses. It is a movement with which we Christians can have nothing to do. No, no, I say to you it is impossible for a Christian to take part in anti-Semitism. It is inadmissible. Through Christ and in Christ we are the spiritual progeny of Abraham. Spiritually, we are all Semites.

This statement was made while the most powerful nation in Europe had an officially anti-Semitic government and was poised only a few hundred miles to the north of Rome. Everyone understood their significance, especially the victims. In January 1939, The National Jewish Monthly reported that "the only bright spot in Italy has been the Vatican, where fine humanitarian statements by the Pope have been issuing regularly."

Defenders of Pius XII point out that he chose action over speech, secretly hiding thousands of Jews from the Gestapo police, even in the Vatican itself. It is worth noting that Eugenio Zolli, the highest ranking Rabbi in Rome, converted to Catholicism after the War due to Pius XII's example. Furthermore, Zolli claimed that "Pius XII did more to protect the Jews from Nazism than did all the other religions of the world put together."

For more information and for a more detailed rebuttal to the aforementioned allegations, please see the Catholic League's special report on Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust.

Hitler's views

Adolf Hitler said " is the only human being who has always contradicted me and who has never obeyed me." Historians in general differ as to whether or not Pope Pius XII did enough to prevent the Holocaust and save lives, and indeed whether any intervention by him would have any impact on the number of deaths caused by Nazi policies.

Joseph Goebbels was clear about the Reich's attitudes toward the Roman Catholic Church. His 26 March 1942 entry in his diary reads, "It's a dirty, low thing to do for the Catholic Church to continue its subversive activity in every way possible and now even to extend its propaganda to Protestant children evacuated from the regions threatened by air raids. Next to the Jews these politico-divines are about the most loathsome riffraff that we are still sheltering in the Reich. The time will come after the war for an over-all solution of this problem." (Lochner, The Goebbels Diaries, 1948, p. 146)

A recent report in the Italian newspaper Avvenire suggested that Hitler ordered SS General Karl Wolff, a senior occupation officer in Italy, to kidnap Pius, but he refused.

Pope Pius' encyclicals

Among his most prominent encyclicals were:

• Mystici Corporis Christi: On the Mystical Body, 29 June 1943
• Communium Interpretes Doloraum: An Appeal for Prayers for Peace, 15 April 1945
• Fulgens Radiatur: Encyclical on Saint Benedict, 21 March 1947
• Mediator Dei: On the Sacred Liturgy, 20 November 1947
• Auspicia Quaedam: On Public Prayers For World Peace And Solution Of The Problem Of Palestine, 1 May 1948
• In Multiplicibus Curis: On Prayers for Peace in Palestine, 24 October 1948
• Redemptoris Nostri Cruciatus: On the Holy Places in Palestine, 15 April 1949
• Anni Sacri: On A Program For Combating Atheistic Propaganda Throughout The World, 12 March 1950
• Humani Generis: Concerning Some False Opinions Threatening to Undermine the Foundations of Catholic Doctrine, 12 August 1950
• Munificentissimus Deus, 1 November 1950 (on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven) This particular encyclical is considered infallible. Perhaps contrary to popular conceptions, it is very rare for a pope to invoke papal infallibility. This was one of those rare occasions—the only one in the 20th century.
• Ingruentium Malorum: On Reciting the Rosary: Encyclical promulgated on 15 September 1951
• Fulgens Corona: Proclaiming a Marian year to Commemorate the Centenary of the Definition of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception, 8 September 1953
• Ad Caeli Reginam: On Proclaiming the Queenship of Mary, Encyclical promulgated on 11 October 1954
• Datis Nuperrime: Lamenting the Sorrowful Events in Hungary, and Condemning the Ruthless Use of Force, 5 November 1956
• Miranda Prorsus: On the Communications Field: Motion Pictures, Radio, Television, 8 September 1957

Additionally, as Papal Secretary of State, Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli wrote Mit brennender Sorge (With Burning Anxiety) for His Holiness Pope Pius XI.

Beatifications, canonisations, and teachings

During his reign, Pius XII canonized eight saints, including Pope Pius X, and beatified five people. He consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1942.

In 1950, Pius XII infallibly defined the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven. This doctrine teaches that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was taken into Heaven body and soul after the end of her earthly life. This belief had been held by Catholic and Orthodox Christians since the early centuries of the Church (for example, by St. Gregory of Tours), but it had never been formally defined as a dogma until 1950.

Pope Pius and the College of Cardinals

Only twice in his pontificate did Pius XII hold a consistory to create new cardinals, a decided contrast to Pius XI, who had done so seventeen times in seventeen years on the papal throne. The first occasion has been known as the "Great Consistory", of February 1946; it was the largest in the history of the Church up to that time, and brought an end to over five hundred years of Italians constituting a majority of the College. By his appointments then and in 1953 he substantially reduced the proportion of cardinals who belonged to the Roman Curia.

Pope Pius in later life and after his death

Pius was dogged with ill health later in life, largely due to a charlatan, Riccardo Galeazzi-Lisi, who posed as a medical doctor and won Pius's trust. His treatments for Pius gave the Holy Father chronic hiccups and rotting teeth. Though eventually dismissed from the Papal Household, this man gained admittance as the pope lay dying and took photographs of Pius which he tried, unsuccessfully, to sell to magazines.

When Pius died, then Galeazzi-Lisi turned embalmer. Rather than slow the process of decay, the doctor-mortician's self-made technique sped it up, leading the Holy Father's corpse to disintegrate rapidly, turning purple, with the corpse's nose falling off. The stench caused by the decay was such that guards had to be rotated every 15 minutes, otherwise they would collapse. The condition of the body became so bad that the remains were secretly removed at one point for further treatments before being returned in the morning. This caused considerable embarrassment to the Vatican and one of the first acts of Pius' successor, Pope John XXIII, was to ban the charlatan from Vatican City for life.

Pope Pius XII became a candidate for sainthood under Pope John Paul II in the 1990s. He has been raised to Venerable, an early step through the process of sainthood.

Footnotes

• Template:Fnb Eamon Duffy, Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes p.341.
• Template:Fnb John Cornwell, Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII pp.130-131.
• Template:Fnb On the question of Pius XII's attitude toward the Nazi persecutions, see also the New York Times editorial page for Christmas Day of 1941 and 1942.

Additional reading

• Rabbi David G. Dalin, The Myth of Hitler’s Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis (Regnery, 2005). ISBN 0895260344.
• Ronald J. Rychlak, Hitler, the War, and the Pope (Our Sunday Visitor; 2000). ISBN 0879732172
• Anonymous, Persecution of the Catholic Church in the Third Reich (Publisher: Pelican Pub Co; February 2003). ISBN 1589801377 (originally published in 1941)
• Eugenio Zolli, Before the Dawn (Roman Catholic Books; Reprint edition, February 1997). ISBN 0912141468 (author is the former wartime chief rabbi of Rome who took the name "Eugenio" at his Baptism in honor of Pope Pius XII)
• John Cornwell, Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII (Viking, 1999) ISBN 0670876208
• Sr. Margherita Marchione, Pope Pius XII: Architect for Peace (Paulist Press, 2000). ISBN 080913912X
• Karl Scholder, The Churches and the Third Reich (London, 1987)
• Susan Zuccotti,Under his very Windows, The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000). ISBN 0300084870

External links

• The Myth of Hitler's Pope: An Interview With Rabbi David G. Dalin
• Latest Attempts to Smear Pope Pius XII Continue to Fail
• The Vatican and Nazism in Germany and Croatia: A Photo Essay
• Hitler's Pope Plot Ignored
• "Hitler's Pope" by John Cornwell
• The Holy See vs. the Third Reich
• Jewish Historian Praises Pius XII
• The Good Samaritan: Jewish Praise for Pope Pius XII
• Did Pius XII Remain Silent?
• Summi Pontificatus Pope Pius XII's wartime Encyclical condemning Nazism's racism and Communism's atheism
• Mit Brennender Sorge anti-Nazi encyclical promulgated by Pope Pius XI, written by future Pope Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli), 14 March 1937. This is the only encyclical to have been originally published in German
• Cornwell's Cheap Shot at Pius XII
• Cornwell's "Hitler's Pope" - the excerpt published by Vanity Fair - Read it and judge for yourself
• Pius XII and the Jews: The War Years, as reported by the New York Times
• Pope Pius XII: Victim of False History Right Reason
• Righteous Gentile: Pope Pius XII and the Jews Rabbi David Daljin, Ph.D.
• The Usefulness of Daniel Goldhagen The Weekly Standard
• Document on Jewish recognition of Pope Pius XII's support during WWII
• Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust - Jewish Virtual Library
• Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust - defence of Pius XII
• Simon Wiesenthal Center Learning Center Online - on Pope Pius XII
• website promoting Pope Pius XII's cause for sainthood. (Also contains image of Pope Pius lying-in-state)
• Complete Text of the Concordat between the Vatican and Germany

• Information on ODESSA – From the Jewish Virtual Library
• ZDF.de (2002). "Mythos Odessa: Wahrheit oder Legende?" ("The Myth of ODESSA: Truth or legend?") (in German)
• ODESSA and Nazis in Latin America – From The Straight Dope
• Full text of (US) House (of Representatives) Resolution 235: "Argentina urged to open Nazi files" – From Uki Goñi's website
• Aftermath, the Vatican Ratline

Related Subjects

• Pope Pius XII

• Clerical Fascism

• Integralism

• Centre Party Germany

• Ludwig Kaas

• 1876 births
• 1958 deaths
• Popes
• Venerable people
• Natives of Rome
• Diplomats of the Holy See
• World War II political leaders