The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930-1965
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"Very valuable ... a fine and judicious book ... " - Istvan Deak, New York Review of Books "A well-reasoned but damning overview of the Vatican's response to Nazi atrocities during and after WWII... A fair and even-tempered account of a volatile subject." - Kirkus Reviews "Phayer makes an important addition to the literature of Holocaust studies: he provides evidence that Pope Pius XII ... knew in early 1942 what was happening to Europe's Jews ... yet he remained silent... " - Publishers Weekly "Phayer has written a singularly important book on the role of the Catholic Church in both the Holocaust and its aftermath, up to and including Vatican II. Diligently researched and documented, judicious in its conclusions, comprehensive in its scope, compassionate and humane in its outlook, this book is an indispensable resource..." -Richard L. Rubenstein "Phayer's study of [the Catholic Church] as an actor in the tumultuous history of this century will serve as a model for other historians." -Donald J. Dietrich, Boston College
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Throwing the spotlight relentlessly on Pius XII Hitler's Pope has skewed the question surrounding Catholicism and the Holocaust, depriving us of a record of what the entire church did or did not do. Such a record is provided for the first time in the Michael Phayer's compelling book. Phayer shows that without effective church leadership under Pius XII, Catholics acted ambiguously during the Holocaust-some saving Jews, others helping Hitler murder them, the majority simply standing by. After the Holocaust, with Pope John XXIII at the helm, the church moved swiftly to rid itself of centuries-long anti-semitic tradition. The Catholic Church's official silence during the Holocaust, its anti-Semitism, and its apparent lack of action to save lives have all been part of a long historical discussion. Making extensive use of church documents, Michael Phayer explores the actions of the Catholic Church and the actions of individual Catholics during the crucial period from the emergence of Hitler until the church's official rejection of anti-Semitism in 1965. Phayer's account permits us to follow the evolution of official Catholic thinking during the rebuilding of Germany, the Cold War, and the gradual theological reforms that led to Vatican II. Pope Pius XII did not cause the Holocaust nor was it within his power to stop it. Why then is he the centre of controversy, most recently as Hitler's Pope? For Michael Phayer, casting the spotlight relentlessly on Pius XII has skewed the question surrounding Catholicism and the Holocaust, depriving us of a record of what the entire church did or did not do. Phayer provides such a record for the first time in the first half of this book. It reveals that European bishops displayed a shocking disparity in their attitudes toward Jews and in their conduct during the Holocaust. On the positive side, the record of those who tried to help Jews is filled with the names of ordinary people. The Holocaust ended in 1945 but the Catholic Church did not come to terms with the Shoah until 1965. How this occurred is a story worth telling. Those who perpetrated the Holocaust committed suicide at the end of the war, or were tried and executed after it, or vanished into obscurity. But the men and women who resisted the Holocaust lived on after it to help bring an end to the church's equivocal stand on anti-Semitism.
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First Sentence
Beliefs and feelings of European Catholics toward Jews varied considerably on the eve of the Holocaust. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Beliefs and feelings of European Catholics toward Jews varied considerably on the eve of the Holocaust. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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9 reviews
40 of 56 people found the following review helpful
An Exceptional Study
25 Sep 2000
Format:Library Binding
This recent work on the Holocaust is an important addition to the ongoing debate about the role of the Catholic Church and the papacy under Pope Pius XII during World War II. Unlike other recent works, there is an objectivity and balance to Phayer's attempt to understand and explain the role of the Church during the Holocaust. Rooted in archival and secondary research, Phayer serves as an historical corrective at times to Cornwell's HITLER'S POPE. This work is comprehensive in scope as it deals with the nature of genocide in Europe and the failure of the papacy at times to confront this evil. Not only does the author concern himself here with the Nazi persecution of the Jews, but also with incidents of genocide in Croatia by a pro-Catholic government against the Serbs. More importantly, the scope of the work extends beyond the Vatican to examine the positions of European Catholic clergy confronting the Holocaust. The reader is faced with the stories of heroic rescuers of Jews as well as the anti-Semtism and/or indifference of others. Phayer's examination of the roles of several Catholic women is also significant, as the results of their courageous work would positively influence a later generation of German Catholc clergy after the war. This work is to be commended also for concluding its study with the development of the Catholic document NOSTRA AETATE toward the Jewish community in the era of Vatican Council II. In sum, this is a work that is noteworthy for its research and disturbing for its frank criticism of Catholic Church leadership during the Holocaust. It should be required reading for classes on the Holocaust.
26 of 37 people found the following review helpful
The definitive story
16 May 2002
Format:Paperback
This book removed itself from all of the hype, defensiveness and trash talking that seems to surround this topic. Michael Phayer approached the topic systematically and objectively and in so doing has produced a book that for me seems to be the definitive work on this subject. A must read for anyone interested in the history of Pius XII and the Holocaust.
33 of 50 people found the following review helpful
The truth will set you free
6 Mar 2001
Format:Library Binding
Michael Phayer has a long and proven academic record in Holocaust studies. This work is no exception, indeed it may well be one of the most significant works on the Holocaust to be written in the last 25 years. Setting parameters for examining the role of the Catholic Church that extends beyond the customary years 1933 to 1945, Phayer creates a context that helps the reader understand the complex issued surrounding the papacies of Pius XI and Pius XII. At the end of the day, Pius XII was faced with a situation that he had seen developing for many years. Intelligent, articulate and devouted to serving the Church, Pacelli was also autocratic and filled with a sense of the importance of his office that failed to recognise the changing political realities of the 1930s through to the 1950s.
Bolshevism, rampant nationalism, pseudo-scientific racism and the rule of the Dictators faced the Popes during the inter-war years. Fearing Bolshevism as the greater evil than Fascism, both Pius XI and XII did the proverbial "deal with the devil", unwittingly allied themselves to Fascism, and reaped the whirlwind. Compromise after compromise eroded the Church's ability at the top to act decisively. Quibbles over canon law and mixed Catholic-Jewish marriages as people were arrested and beaten point to a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of Nazism and Fascism in general. When the trains began to roll east, Pius appears to have stuck his head in the sand and wished the whole thing would go away.
Phayer demonstrates convincingly Pius's longing to be seen as the great peacemaker in Europe. Nothing could stand in the way of achieving this dream, not even a public condemnation of a killing and bloodletting unparalleled in human history. Papal apologists have spent so much time explainging away the "silence" of Pius XII they have forgotten the essence of the office the all too human Pacelli held: to feed the sheep.
Pius XII and the Church structure of the 1930s through to Vatican II proved itself unable and often unwilling to recognise the need for dialogue with the world. It took the peasant simplicity and infectious humanity of Angelo Roncalli to cut through the moribund Vatican systems and the equally moribund and death-giving antisemitic theology of the Church to create an opportunity for confronting the past truthfully. It would not spell the end of the church to admit that Pius XII made some serious errors of judgement during his papacy. To continue to deny the pope's moral culpability is to deny the increasing body of archival material that tells a different story to that posed by Pacelli's defenders. Phayer's book makes a serious judgement about the reigns of Pius XI and Pius XII but does so without malice, and avoids the sweeping generaliztions that characterised much of John Cornwell's Hitler's Pope.
Phayer's book is a product of meticulous research and patient piecing together of historical evidence from a variety of sources, including the Vatican. It is balanced and fair. It is essential reading for any student of contemporary Catholic history and theology as well as for the student of the Holocaust.
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