In Rabbi David G. Dalin's controversial new book, he explodes the newly resurrected, widely accepted, yet utterly bankrupt smearing of Pope Pius XII, whom Jewish survivors of the Holocaust considered a righteous gentile.
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Most helpful customer reviews
8 of 17 people found the following review helpful
By Michael W. Perry
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover
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
_______
"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
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.2 out of 5 stars
65 reviews
286 of 327 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Documented Refutation of Slanders Against Pius XII
July 22 2005
By Oswald Sobrino
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
Rabbi Dalin is a credible source both because of his Jewish identity and because of his academic credentials which include a doctorate from Brandeis University. He refutes in page after page of documented facts the great and repeated lie that Pope Pius XII was sympathetic to the Nazis. The truth that emerges again and again from each documented fact is that Pius XII spoke out against Nazi racism both before and after he became pope, that Pius XII instructed papal diplomats to aid persecuted Jews in the occupied nations of Europe, that he contributed money to aid desperate Jews, that he opened Catholic facilities in the Vatican and in other parts of Rome and Italy to shelter thousands of Jews from the Nazis, and that he gave direct face-to-face orders to protect Jews from the Nazis. This book is so well documented that Pius's detractors have to either put up or shut up. In fact, the detractors should apologize and formally retract their slanders. Of the many outrageous slanders against Pius XII, one in particular stands out to show the level of distortion used by the haters of this Pope. Rabbi Dalin recounts how Pius hater John Cornwell even uses a misleading cover for his book Hitler's Pope that makes it seem to the uninformed reader that Pius, who was then the papal nuncio (ambassador) to Germany, is just exiting from a meeting with the Nazis when in fact the picture is from 1927, well before Hitler took power, and in fact shows the future Pius XII, in the course of his formal diplomatic duties, emerging from a diplomatic reception for the elected President of Germany in 1927 during the democratic and pre-Nazi Weimar Republic (pp. 62-63). The book reads quickly, gets to the point, and has copious footnotes and a convenient index. Rabbi Dalin has performed a righteous deed. For a more detailed review, see my website link above.
191 of 228 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Facts to refute the misinformation about Pius XII and more
July 19 2005
By Craig Matteson
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
Rabbi David Dalin has given us a book that makes at least three important contributions. First, it provides information that refutes the popular notion of the past several years that Pope Pius XII was an anti-Semite and complicit with the Nazi Regime. He demonstrates it to be not only false, but a deliberate misrepresentation of the truth. A simple example is the famous photograph on the jacket of both the English and American editions of the Pope leaving what looks like a Nazi meeting. In fact, it was a diplomatic meeting with Hindenburg in 1927! Both before the Nazis were in power and before Pacelli had been elected Pope.
This book provides evidence upon evidence of how Pope Pius XII walked a swaying tightrope to save thousands of Jews while avoiding provoking the Nazis into attacks upon Catholics. He wrote encyclicals, gave Jews asylum even to the point of decloistering a nunnery so it could shelter Jewish boys. The author also points out the use by these authors of bad translations of texts and then carefully trimming these to twist the meaning to their purposes. Rabbi Dalin also demonstrates the good relations that Pope Pius and the Church had with Jewish leaders and how those leaders even asked the Pope to not be more provocative in his public statements and actions.
Second, the author demonstrates how these authors have as part of their agenda an attack on the Catholic Church and are using political means to try and foist their liberal agenda on the Church in all sorts of ways: changes in doctrine, changes in Church governance, changes in policy and all to the purpose of bending others to their views. We see their double standards in purporting anti-Semitism onto Pope Pius XII while ignoring the very real and very great anti-Semitism in the Muslim world from WWII to the present. Some of these authors have even supported the political motives of Yassir Arafat and denied his self-proclaimed anti-Semitism and acts of violence against Jews.
The third benefit flows from the first two. We get a better sense of where some of the battle lines are drawn in our present culture wars, the tactics being used, and in the service of what strategy. It is fascinating to see the inversion of values in our modern culture where what was called good is now called false and deviant and what never was good or an ideal is now held up as a virtue worth fighting for. Rabbi Dalin does us all a service by telling the truth in this concise and informative book.
This book provides evidence upon evidence of how Pope Pius XII walked a swaying tightrope to save thousands of Jews while avoiding provoking the Nazis into attacks upon Catholics. He wrote encyclicals, gave Jews asylum even to the point of decloistering a nunnery so it could shelter Jewish boys. The author also points out the use by these authors of bad translations of texts and then carefully trimming these to twist the meaning to their purposes. Rabbi Dalin also demonstrates the good relations that Pope Pius and the Church had with Jewish leaders and how those leaders even asked the Pope to not be more provocative in his public statements and actions.
Second, the author demonstrates how these authors have as part of their agenda an attack on the Catholic Church and are using political means to try and foist their liberal agenda on the Church in all sorts of ways: changes in doctrine, changes in Church governance, changes in policy and all to the purpose of bending others to their views. We see their double standards in purporting anti-Semitism onto Pope Pius XII while ignoring the very real and very great anti-Semitism in the Muslim world from WWII to the present. Some of these authors have even supported the political motives of Yassir Arafat and denied his self-proclaimed anti-Semitism and acts of violence against Jews.
The third benefit flows from the first two. We get a better sense of where some of the battle lines are drawn in our present culture wars, the tactics being used, and in the service of what strategy. It is fascinating to see the inversion of values in our modern culture where what was called good is now called false and deviant and what never was good or an ideal is now held up as a virtue worth fighting for. Rabbi Dalin does us all a service by telling the truth in this concise and informative book.
56 of 64 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A sobering defense of of Pius XII
Jan 22 2006
By Anthony Dilley
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
When John Paul II sought forgiveness and understanding from Jews he asked for nothing in return - whenever the Church or its representatives were at fault,he said, I am sorry. In our age of spin doctoring, most of the press reports were sceptical of the sincerity of JP2 and the Church (I guess actions speak louder than words). This book represents a carefully detailed and well referenced defence of Pius XII and his dealings with Nazism and Jewish persecution before and during WW2. That it comes from a Rabbi may help support the view that for JP2, the actions of the Church during the Shoah did speak for themselves. More humbling for me, the actions of Rabbi Dalin in researching and providing this defence will also do much to continue the brotherly dialogue between Jews and Christians. Dalin has set a standard for scholarly integrity that he challenges others interested in this field to meet. Dalin also compares and contrasts the words and deeds of Pius XII with Hajj Amin al-Husseini, and concludes that Husseini and his legacy are representative of (if not responsible for) anti-semitism today. The challenge for Jews, Christians and Muslims today will be to create a track record of words and deeds between these faiths of the Book so that a Jew or Christian may one day write a defense of mainstream Islam when describing 21st century history. I hope that all who read Dalin's book accept his challenge to look past the sensationalist reporting of our media, and recognise goodness when it does exist.
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4.2 out of 5 stars
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