Many obsessions - Rated 
While John Cornwell in the beginning of his book calls Eugenio Pacelli `a man of meticulous conscience', he arrives ultimately at a most severe verdict of `a hypocrite'.
Pope Pius XII was a man with many obsessions: his personal power within the Catholic Church, his universal power base through the Church, his image on the world scene, the problems with `God's mother', chastity, women and the Jewish question, among others.
Personal aspects - power
As a member of the Vatican bureaucracy E. Pacelli fought for an authoritarian Church directed by this institution. He despised democracy ('the mindless ruling of the masses') and the parliamentary system. Rigid governments, rigid centralization and rigid treaties (like concordats) were supposed to introduce an era of stable order and peace.
When he became pope he defended the ideology of papal primacy, in other words `the fascist Führer principle'. As he explained it himself: `I don't want colleagues, but people who will obey.'
Jewish problem
Pacelli was a long-standing anti-Semite, based on the conviction that there was a link between Judaism and the Bolshevik plot to destroy Christendom.
Christian love
Christian love was far away from his thoughts. He stood on the basic viewpoint of war not peace, congratulating Spain's Franco with his `Catholic' victory.
As a matter of fact, `Christian love' has never been an important item in Church policies from Saint-Augustine vomiting on the Manicheans over the Crusades to the Inquisition and the `catholic wars'.
God's mother
The clear contradiction between the fact that Jesus was born in a human way and the fact that he should be considered as the son of God has obsessed the Catholic Church for millennia. The Catholic solution was the `Virgin Mary' and her Assumption `soul and body'.
International policies
Pacelli was determined to scratch all catholic political parties from earth, because they were too independent (not under the control of the Holy See). In Germany, the Catholic Center Party had repeatedly refused Pacelli's call to shun alliances with the Socialist (Social democracy for him was the same as Bolshevism).
He favored collaboration with the fascist Nazi party. His negotiated concordat with Hitler included the voluntary disbanding of this Center Party, at that moment the sole existing democratic Center Party in Germany!
His ideal societies were Franco's Spain and Salazar's Portugal.
Women's affairs
Pacelli did nothing for the liberation of women within the Church.
In stark contrast with his viewpoint on the moral behavior of those guilty of mass killings (the fascists wars, the barbaric horrors of the Ustashe in Croatia), he did not hesitate to counsel martyrdom for those, whose sexual morality was being challenged,
Serious Omissions
There is not one reference in this book of the formidable work of Karlheinz Deschner, which treats such exemplary items as Eugenio Pacelli's `poverty' with millions of dollars on his personal bank account, his blatant skepticism when he asked Teilhard de Chardin `how long the Catholic Church would survive the scientific onslaught?' or his remark that `all the problems of the world are caused by the fact that women's skirts are too short today.'
This book is an extremely bleak portrait of a pope `serving lingering poses before the lens's eyes', who governed though ukases (encyclicals to be accepted as infallible truths) and who showed at the end of his life delusions of omniscience.
This devastating assessment is a must read for all those interested in the history of mankind, of the twentieth century and of the Catholic Church in particular.
Author of Hitler's Pope changes his views - Rated 
In an interview in The Bulletin (Philadelphia, Sept. 27, 2008), the author of Hitler's Pope stated that since the publication of his book, his views have changed, noting:
_______
"While I believe with many commentators that the pope might have done more to help the plight of the Jews, I now feel, 10 years after the publication of my book, that his scope for action was severely limited and I am prepared to state this," he said. "Nevertheless, due to his ineffectual and diplomatic language in respect of the Nazis and the Jews, I still believe that it was incumbent on him to explain his failure to speak out after the war. This he never did."
_________
Others would argue that the author's insistence that Pope Pius XII should have taken a more public stance against Nazism has never made much sense. The Pope lived in Vatican City, a militarily indefensible neighborhood in Fascist Rome. Any time he wanted, Hitler could have sent German troops already in Italy to silence the Pope. In spite of that, the Vatican's open opposition to Nazism compares favorably to that of Switzerland, protected by its mountains and an army that included virtually all adult Swiss males, and Sweden, protected from invasion by icy cold waters and Hitler's need to ensure that nothing happened to his supply of Swedish iron ore.
Instead of making a public statement that would have been sneered at by Hitler and flashed across the front pages of newspapers in the US and UK for a single day and then faded into oblivion, Pope Pius XII did far more good in secret, issuing orders and encouraging others to protect European Jews. Scholars, obsessed themselves with mere words on paper, attach too much value to them. Deeds are better. And having done nothing wrong, the Pope had nothing to explain after the war.
One final note. The assumption that Pope Pius XII could accomplish much by making a single statement before he would be kidnapped and perhaps killed by Nazi soldiers assumes that the Europe of the 1940s was the Europe of the Middle Ages. That's far from true. For centuries, secularists and academia had labored to undermine the Pope's authority, even over Catholics. They can't suddenly turn around and say, "Oh, we've made a mess of things. Why don't you speak up and straighten them out?"
A case in point. Today's popes are often attacked for criticizing something quite similar to Nazi anti-Semitism. Using almost identical arguments, unborn babies are dehumanized and killed. Anyone who criticizes the Pope, or indeed any Catholic, for denouncing abortion has no right to criticize the Pope of World War II, even if he did only one tenth as much as he actually did to save Jews.
The Catholic church, I might add, did for more to save Jews than Europe's much vaunted universities. According to one account I read, half of Rome's Jews found shelter in the Catholic facilities. Pope Pius XII even issued secret orders allowing Catholic nuns to hide Jews deep within nunneries in places that were off limits to anyone who wasn't a member of the order. How many Jews found refugee in the university campuses of Europe? How many secret orders to hide Jews were issued by university presidents? I don't know of a single one. Perhaps the author of Hitler's Pope should devote himself to a new book entitled Hitler's Professors.
--Michael W. Perry, editor of Chesterton on War and Peace: Battling the Ideas and Movements that Led to Nazism and World War II
Author of Hitler's Pope changes his views - Rated
In an interview in The Bulletin (Philadelphia, Sept. 27, 2008), the author of Hitler's Pope stated that since the publication of his book, his views have changed, noting:
_______
"While I believe with many commentators that the pope might have done more to help the plight of the Jews, I now feel, 10 years after the publication of my book, that his scope for action was severely limited and I am prepared to state this," he said. "Nevertheless, due to his ineffectual and diplomatic language in respect of the Nazis and the Jews, I still believe that it was incumbent on him to explain his failure to speak out after the war. This he never did."
_________
Others would argue that the author's insistence that Pope Pius XII should have taken a more public stance against Nazism has never made much sense. The Pope lived in Vatican City, a militarily indefensible neighborhood in Fascist Rome. Any time he wanted, Hitler could have sent German troops already in Italy to silence the Pope. In spite of that, the Vatican's open opposition to Nazism compares favorably to that of Switzerland, protected by its mountains and an army that included virtually all adult Swiss males, and Sweden, protected from invasion by icy cold waters and Hitler's need to ensure that nothing happened to his supply of Swedish iron ore.
Instead of making a public statement that would have been sneered at by Hitler and flashed across the front pages of newspapers in the US and UK for a single day and then faded into oblivion, Pope Pius XII did far more good in secret, issuing orders and encouraging others to protect European Jews. Scholars, obsessed themselves with mere words on paper, attach too much value to them. Deeds are better. And having done nothing wrong, the Pope had nothing to explain after the war.
One final note. The assumption that Pope Pius XII could accomplish much by making a single statement before he would be kidnapped and perhaps killed by Nazi soldiers assumes that the Europe of the 1940s was the Europe of the Middle Ages. That's far from true. For centuries, secularists and academia had labored to undermine the Pope's authority, even over Catholics. They can't suddenly turn around and say, "Oh, we've made a mess of things. Why don't you speak up and straighten them out?"
A case in point. Today's popes are often attacked for criticizing something quite similar to Nazi anti-Semitism. Using almost identical arguments, unborn babies are dehumanized and killed. Anyone who criticizes the Pope, or indeed any Catholic, for denouncing abortion has no right to criticize the Pope of World War II, even if he did only one tenth as much as he actually did to save Jews.
The Catholic church, I might add, did for more to save Jews than Europe's much vaunted universities. According to one account I read, half of Rome's Jews found shelter in the Catholic facilities. Pope Pius XII even issued secret orders allowing Catholic nuns to hide Jews deep within nunneries in places that were off limits to anyone who wasn't a member of the order. How many Jews found refugee in the university campuses of Europe? How many secret orders to hide Jews were issued by university presidents? I don't know of a single one. Perhaps the author of Hitler's Pope should devote himself to a new book entitled Hitler's Professors.
--Michael W. Perry, editor of Chesterton on War and Peace: Battling the Ideas and Movements that Led to Nazism and World War II
Hard questions on piety and moral abdication - Rated
Cornwall's book is a tremendous research effort and highly readable. He starts out trying to disprove accusations that Pope Pius XII stopped his church from protesting Nazi atrocities. But the research leads to a far more painful truth. For any who promote the separation of government from religious values, this book poses hard questions. The Church's agreements with fascist rulers involved a trade: government support for religious institutions, in exchange for church silence on political affairs. As the 1933 Concordat with Nazi Germany said,
"In consideration of the guarantees afforded by the conditions of this treaty, and of legislation protecting the rights and freedom of the Catholic Church in the Reich ..., the Holy See will ensure a ban on all clergy and members of religious congregations from political party activity."
Cornwall explores the unfolding implications of this split between loyalties. As Hitler later said, "When they attempt by any other means -- writings, encyclicals, etc. -- to assume rights which belong only to the state, we will push them back into their proper spiritual activity." And as Pope Pius XII would later explain, the Church must avoid "being compromised in defense of Christian principles and humanity by being drawn into purely man-made politics ... the Church is only interested in upholding her legacy of Truth. ... The purely worldly problems, in which the Jewish people may see themselves involved, are of no interest to her."
Cornwall is the best kind of scholar, driven by a personal and spiritual need to understand the truth. The questions he pursues are directly relevant today, for Christians, Muslims, or anyone. To what extent has the goal of protecting religion from the world served to protect governments from moral opposition? What have we learned about the role and aim of religion in the world?
Thoroughly Researched Biography of a Deeply Flawed Man - Rated
This book is a superbly written and highly engaging biography of Eugenio Pacelli, the man who went on to become Pope Pius XII and served throughout the Second World War. The major strength of this book is that Cornwell has painstakingly researched his subject, and has a very strong grasp of historical fact; whilst entirely avoiding any sort of sensationalism that Catholic apologists (who will, of course, not have read the book) would undoubtably level at him. The subject matter necessarily makes for disturbing reading at times, especially regarding the Pope's long maintained policy of non-intervention on the matter of the Final Solution, including turning a giant blind eye whilst thousands of Italian Jews were marched past the windows of the Vatican to their deaths. This book would appeal to anybody with an interest in twentieth century history, and is accessible for the casual reader as well as enlightening to a more academic readership. Naturally, there are those who will find the book offensive, but then parochial reactionaries who prefer to ignore the truth and pretend everything is well with an entirely corrupt institution would sympathise with Pacelli. Now, in the light of a new papal era, where the reactionaries hold so much sway, this book, and others like it become increasingly vital. It is only through mass ignorance that atrocities such as the Vatican's war time policies can happen. It's time to defend ourselves with knowledge and education. The Reformation did happen, didn't it?
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