Pius XII, the war and the Holocaust
Pope Pius XII guides the church through the Second World War, sheltering many but never publicly naming the Nazi murder of the Jews, a silence still fiercely debated.
- Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes — Eamon Duffy, Yale University Press (2014)
- The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler — David I. Kertzer, Random House (2022)
- Pius XII and the Second World War: According to the Archives of the Vatican — Pierre Blet, Paulist Press (1999)
Eugenio Pacelli, elected Pius XII in March 1939, kept the Vatican formally neutral during the Second World War. His Christmas message of 1942 lamented the hundreds of thousands condemned to death “by reason of their nationality or race”, but he never named the Jews or the Nazis. When Rome’s Jews were rounded up in October 1943, more than a thousand were deported to Auschwitz, while many others were hidden in convents, monasteries and the Vatican’s own properties.
- Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes — Eamon Duffy, Yale University Press (2014)
- The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler — David I. Kertzer, Random House (2022)
- The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler — David I. Kertzer, Random House (2022)
- Pius XII and the Second World War: According to the Archives of the Vatican — Pierre Blet, Paulist Press (1999)
Pius XII worked quietly through diplomacy because public protest would have provoked worse reprisals, as happened in the Netherlands; Catholic institutions in Rome and across Europe hid thousands of Jews with his knowledge.
- Pius XII and the Second World War: According to the Archives of the Vatican — Pierre Blet, Paulist Press (1999)
With clear information about the killings, the pope chose not to condemn the Nazis' murder of the Jews by name, out of anti-communism, concern for the church's interests and long-standing Catholic prejudice; his caution failed the moral test of the age.
- The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler — David I. Kertzer, Random House (2022)
Why it matters today
The debate over Pius XII's "silence" remains a sore point in Catholic–Jewish relations and an obstacle to his possible beatification. The opening of the Vatican archives for his pontificate in 2020 has given historians new evidence, and the argument continues.