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Response to William Doino Jr. and the Film Lo vuole il Papa

Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 21, Number 3 (September 2015)

Response to William Doino Jr. and the Film Lo vuole il Papa

By Susan Zuccotti, Independent Scholar

In the June 2015 edition of the Contemporary Church History Quarterly, William Doino Jr. discussed a documentary televised in Italy on April 1 entitled Lo vuole il Papa. Based on the work of historian Antonello Carvigiani, the film argued that Pope Pius XII was personally involved in the opening of convents and monasteries in Rome to thousands of Jews and other fugitives who were trying to escape arrest by the German occupiers of the Eternal City after September 1943. The film portrayed the oral testimonies of four nuns who, when they arrived as novices at four different religious houses in Rome years ago, were told by some of the older sisters about rescue efforts during the war. Accompanying each of the testimonies were brief filmed excerpts from the wartime chronicles of their institutions, recording a papal role in rescue. In addition, the documentary presented the oral testimonies of two men hidden as boys in two of the convents. Doino found the film persuasive, described it as new, and related it to other documents, accounts, and testimonies that he has discussed elsewhere and believes to be evidence of a clear papal directive for Jewish rescue in Rome.

When examined closely, the testimonies of the nuns and the chronicles are diverse in content and questionable as evidence. Let us begin with content. The first nun represented the cloistered Augustinian Sisters of the Santi Quattro Coronati, where 24 people, including at least 6 and perhaps as many as 17 Jews, were hidden. She explained that she was told that the pope had ordered the convent to open its doors to fugitives, including Jews. Relevant lines from that convent’s handwritten wartime chronicle, first made public in 2006 and thus not particularly new, confirmed her words, stating, “In this painful situation [of the German arrests and torture of fugitives beginning, the chronicler’s account, in November 1943] the Holy Father wants to save his children, including the Jews, and orders that hospitality in monasteries be given to the persecuted, and also the cloistered convents must adhere to the desire of the Supreme Pontiff [emphasis mine].”[1]

The film’s second witness was from the cloistered Cistercian Sisters of Santa Susanna, where roughly 18 military and political refugees and 26 Jews had been sheltered. This nun also referred to a papal directive for rescue, but added that the order had gone to all superiors of all Catholic institutions in Rome. How could she have known that? The accompanying lines from Santa Susanna’s handwritten war chronicle, made public in 2014, differed significantly from the nun’s testimony. The chronicler wrote, “In this situation the ecclesiastical authorities exhort and encourage and give their consent (with a maximum of caution) to opening the doors of the holy cloistered places to hide and receive as many persons as possible…[emphasis mine].”[2] Encouragement and consent from individual unknown prelates are important, but they are not the same as a papal order to all Church institutions. Words matter, and the implications differ. It is also important to note that Jews were not mentioned here, and caution was urged.

The third witness, from the convent of Santa Maria dei Sette Dolori which had sheltered 150 refugees including perhaps as many as 103 Jews, did not evoke a papal order.[3] Instead, she declared that she had been told that “The Holy Father wanted, desired, that the convent welcome these people.[emphasis mine]” Her testimony, in other words, resembled the written account from Santa Susanna. The accompanying handwritten chronicle from Santa Maria dei Sette Dolori confirmed her words, recording simply that the pope wanted institutions to take in fugitives, but “without obligation.” The fourth and final witness was from the Istituto Maria Santissima Bambina, which sheltered 123 people, including Jews. This nun was even more general, testifying simply that the sisters admitted fugitives because the pope appealed to them for charity. The accompanying typed chronicle also did not refer to a precise papal order, but it did provide insight on how rescue probably developed. It declared that at various times during the autumn of 1943 someone at the Vatican Secretariat of State requested the director of this particular institution to take in specific endangered individuals or families. The chronicle added that such a request could not be refused. But, significantly, it also declared that some 120 people, refugees or families made homeless by bombing raids, had already been accepted at the Istituto by the end of September 1943, well before the roundup of Jews in Rome on October 16 and the mass flight of surviving Jews into Catholic institutions.

We shall return to the issues of content raised in the film, but let us next examine the nature of the evidence. It is not easy to question the oral testimonies, filmed in the beautiful settings of their convents, of four elderly nuns, earnest, articulate, and confident of the accuracy of their information. But these women are providing hearsay, not first-hand, evidence. Their information apparently reached them at unspecified times for unknown reasons from unnamed associates, about whose personal histories we know nothing. The older sisters who passed along the information may have been young novices themselves during the war, with no special knowledge at that time about which fugitives were Jews or why they were there. Their own superiors may have told reluctant or fearful younger sisters that the pope wished or even ordered rescue measures to convince them to help fugitives, including atheists, Communists, and, especially, Jews, but the telling did not make it true. This evidence would not hold up in a court of law, and historians should apply similar criteria. Second, why were the young incoming nuns told such things privately in the 1950s, 60s, or 70s at all, at a time when no such accounts were being made publicly, despite the fact that Pius XII had long been criticized for not helping Jews? And why did the nuns wait until now to come forward? And why do they (and those who write about them, like Doino) stress help given to Jews, when it is clear from other records that at least half of those sheltered in religious institutions were political or military fugitives or non-Jewish civilian war refugees?

The written evidence presented in Lo vuole il Papa is equally problematic. The film provides a cursory glimpse of the volumes of war chronicles from the four convents, and then zooms in on the few lines relevant to the shelter of outsiders in each case. It gives no information about when, why, and by whom the rescue accounts were written or why they have not been made public sooner. With this technique it is impossible to detect what is obvious from a more careful study of the accounts—that they were not written during the war, and were often not even recorded by the chronicler who wrote the previous or subsequent entries. Examples abound. In the pages for 1943 and 1944 of the chronicle of the Santi Quattro Coronati, the author wrote in an entry for June 6, 1944, when Rome was liberated, that a general in the army of Mussolini’s Italian Social Republic wanted for war crimes after the conflict was sent to hide in the convent by the Vatican Secretariat of State (this attribution very specific) and stayed for five years. The war chronicle of the Santa Maria dei Sette Dolori referred to gas chambers, which would not have been understood with certainty in the first half of 1944, and to papal efforts to hide fugitives in the Pontificio Seminario Romano Maggiore (referred to as the Laterano) and Castel Gandolfo, equally secret at the time. The chronicles, then, are not wartime diaries but subsequent secondary accounts. Who wrote them, and when, and where did the information come from?

The testimony in Lo vuole il Papa of two fugitives hidden during the war is no more enlightening. Piero De Benedetti Bonaiuto found shelter at the convent of the Santi Quattro Coronati. In that convent’s war chronicle, which recorded the presence of five political fugitives or “patriots,” six Jews, and thirteen unspecified individuals, he was listed as a “patriot.” In his filmed testimony, he briefly discussed his experience in hiding and offered an opinion that special authorization would have been needed because the convent was subject to the rules of strict cloister. As a boy, he would have known nothing about a papal order. The second survivor-witness, Renato Astrologo, hid with his parents, grandmother, and three siblings in the convent of Santa Susanna. According to an article in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano on June 3, 2014, the women entered the convent on October 24, 1943, while the men hid elsewhere until the end of January 1944. The article also stated that Astrologo was a convert from Judaism to Catholicism. In his testimony, Astrologo expressed his gratitude to the sisters who had saved him and stated his understanding that an order had “come from a high place.” He also could have known nothing more specific at the time.

Lo vuole il Papa might be more persuasive if it were confirmed by the other sources Doino mentioned in his article, but that is decidedly not the case. For example, Doino refers to an article in the Palestine Post on June 22, 1944, in which a correspondent wrote that “several thousand refugees, largely Jews” had been sheltered in the papal palace at Castel Gandolfo “during the recent terror.” This allegation has been repeated endlessly, but there is no evidence that the refugees were “largely Jews.” The pope did offer shelter and sustenance at Castel Gandolfo to hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of refugees escaping Allied bombing raids and German attacks on villages near Rome in the late winter and spring of 1944. Some of those refugees may have been Jews with false papers and not known to be Jewish. But no evidence has yet been unearthed to indicate that those involved in providing assistance believed that they were helping Jews. There is, furthermore, no personal testimony from Jews about receiving such shelter, although Jewish accounts of being hidden in other religious institutions in Rome are plentiful.[4]

Doino also alludes to statements about a papal directive from priest-rescuers Paolo Dezza, Pietro Palazzini, Hugh O’Flaherty and John Patrick Carroll-Abbing; the Jewish survivor Michael Tagliacozzo; and historians Andrea Riccardi, Anna Foa, Sister Grazia Loparco, Antonello Carvigiani, and Pier Luigi Guiducci. His list is not exhaustive; he could have mentioned other secondary sources. Each of these cases must be examined carefully, in more detail than is possible here. Looking briefly at the first four primary sources, however, the Jesuit Father Dezza, rector of the Pontifical Gregorian University during the war and later a cardinal, wrote on June 28, 1964, during the controversy concerning Rolf Hochhuth’s play The Deputy critical of Pius XII, that the pope had instructed him to accept persecuted civilians and Jews.[5] Strangely, Dezza never repeated the claim in his other writings, and it is not clear if refugees were in fact hidden in his institution.

Father Palazzini, also later a cardinal, published a book in 1995 describing his role in helping hide some 145 non-Jews and 55 Jews at the Pontificio Seminario Romano Maggiore. He made no reference to a papal order in his book, but he did refer to “the guidelines provided by Pope Pius XII…to save human lives.” He added that during the war, “to rediscover [the sense of reciprocal charity], one voice was often raised among the din of arms: it was the voice of Pius XII. The refuge offered to so many people would not have been possible with his moral support, which was much more than a tacit consent.”[6]As evidence of the guidelines and support, Palazzini referred to eight papal speeches. Three of the eight, at Christmas 1942 and on June 2, his name day, in 1943 and 1944, included brief references to the pope’s compassion for those persecuted because of nationality and race, but did not directly mention religion or Jews. The other five speeches simply stressed the need for charity to all victims of war.[7]

The Irish Father Hugh O’Flaherty took enormous risks to aid escaped Allied prisoners of war during the German occupation of Rome, but Jews are rarely mentioned among those he helped.[8] The story of the American Father John Patrick Carroll-Abbing, later a monsignor, is much the same. In addition to prisoners of war, Father Carroll-Abbing worked with political fugitives, partisans, civilian refugees, homeless children, and the poor in general. In 2000, he apparently informed Doino that the pope told him many times to help Jews, but his two books about his wartime activities, published in 1952 and 1966, rarely mentioned Jews at all. He never wrote that he took personal initiatives to help Jews, that the pope told him to hide Jews, or even that Jews were hidden in Vatican properties. His single written reference to papal involvement in Jewish rescue was an indirect observation rather than a personal experience. Without declaring that the statement affected his own work, he observed that after the roundup of Jews in Rome on October 16, 1943, “word came from the Vatican that, because of the emergency, nuns would be allowed to give hospitality in their convents to Jewish men as well as their families [emphasis mine].”[9] He added that the permission was given specifically to the Sisters of Nostra Signora di Sion, who passed it along to other convents.

There is little doubt that some 187 Jews were among those hidden by the Sisters of Nostra Signora di Sion. Many of the Jews fled there on October 16, 1943, as the Germans were rounding up their families and friends in the nearby former ghetto of Rome and throughout the city. The initial rescue effort was spontaneous. Since the convent was not cloistered and operated a girls’ boarding school that was virtually empty because of the war, there was no need for immediate papal authorization to receive outsiders. The sisters have never claimed to have received a papal directive for rescue, although they stress that they informed the head of their order and that the pope ultimately knew what they were doing.[10] The situation was similar at the Istituto Pio XI, a boarding school for some 200 to 250 boys run by the Salesians. In his study of more than 80 Jewish boys sheltered there during the war, Francesco Motto found no evidence of a papal order. He too emphasized that Vatican authorities had some idea of what was happening, and that the Salesian brothers immediately involved were convinced that they were acting according to the wishes of the Holy Father.[11]

In addition to many more accounts of Jewish rescue in Church institutions that do not mention a papal directive, there are some that specifically deny it. One example of the latter is Brother Maurizio, the steward at the Fatebenefratelli Hospital that hid some 46 Jews during the German occupation. Brother Maurizio related that after admitting Jewish fugitives on October 16, 1943, the directors duly notified Vatican officials. When they received no response, they took the silence for approval and increased their efforts.[12] Father Elio Venier, later a monsignor, recalled his work at the parish church of Santa Maria della Divina Provvidenza, where about 65 Jews were sheltered. He declared that officials at the Vicariate were informed of the rescue activities because parish churches were under their jurisdiction, but he added that the pope did not get involved in such matters.[13] The French Capuchin Father Marie-Benoît who, working with Jewish and non-Jewish friends and associates, placed and supported some 2,500 Jewish refugees in both religious and secular institutions in Rome, agreed.[14] After the war, but only when asked, he explained that he had received no money and no mission from the Vatican.[15]

Other reasons to doubt the existence of an order from Pius XII for rescue relate to known papal directives that seem contrary to it. Both Francesco Motto, writing about the Salesians, and the spokeswomen for the convent of Nostra Signora di Sion refer to a letter received on October 25, 1943, declaring, “The secretary of state of His Holiness expresses the confidence that [your] conduct…will be inspired by diligent observation of the dispositions and instructions provided by the Holy See and by that discreet and prudent correctness that is always, but now more than ever, necessary.”[16] Such a call was not conducive to extensive rescue. Two months later, on December 27, six days after Italian Fascist and German SS raids on three Vatican properties, Pius XII told the director of La Civiltà Cattolica that it was necessary to be more prudent with regard to refugees and added, “Yes, exercise charity with the many piteous cases that arise, but avoid the use of false documents and any even slight appearance of fraud.”[17] The pope may not have understood that it was almost impossible for fugitives, Jewish or not, to hide in any institutions without false documents.

Another German-Fascist raid on February 3-4, 1944, this time on the huge extraterritorial Basilica di San Paolo fuori le Mura, caused some at the Vatican to pull still further away from support for the rescue of fugitives. Little could be done for the 64 victims of the raid, including five Jews, but Vatican officials publicly and vehemently protested the violation of extraterritoriality to the Germans. Privately, however, they were terrified of additional and still more brutal raids, the arrests of more of their protégés, and the possibility of diplomatic incidents. On February 6, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Luigi Maglione wrote that he had “instructed the abbot [of the monastery at San Paolo], in the name of the Holy Father, not to permit disguises in other clothing: no one should wear religious habits if he is not a priest or monk.”[18] It is not clear how broadly this prohibition was distributed, but it was not an encouragement for rescue.

Far more serious, sometime that same February a message went out from the Vatican ordering that all non-clerics sheltered in a number of properties of the Holy See be asked to leave. Strict penalties for disobedience were specified. Again, all the recipients of this order are not known, but the message clearly went to the Seminario Lombardo, the Seminario Romano Maggiore, and the Collegio dei Sacerdoti per l’Emigrazione Italiana. Directors of the institutions reluctantly obeyed, although they never left their guests in the lurch. New hiding places were found, and in some cases the fugitives returned after a time.[19] Similar orders were issued within the Vatican City itself, where at least 50 outsiders were being sheltered in the private apartments of prelates living in the Canonica di San Pietro.[20] In this case, the prelates engaged in sheltering fugitives appealed, and the order was not enforced.[21]

There is no question that thousands of Jews were sheltered in church institutions in Rome during the German occupation. One survey conducted soon after the war placed the number at 4,447, in 220 female and 60 male religious houses.[22] Another more recent analysis refers to 4,169 Jews in 234 religious houses.[23] While numbers vary, the phenomenon of rescue is clear; what is unclear is how it happened. Historians and other scholars study the story not to glorify or vilify Pope Pius XII but to try to understand the events themselves. To do so, they look to the evidence, both written and oral. When the evidence is conflicting, they examine its validity—its authenticity; the motives of those who supply it; the timing; the possibility of error, bias, or misunderstanding. They also analyze the plausibility and consistency of the evidence within a wider context—in this case, with consideration of the pope’s other actions, statements, and concerns during the Second World War. Finally, they study the precise words used in testimonies. With this in mind, let us return to the documentary film Lo vuole il Papa, examine it in the context of other evidence mentioned here, and attempt to formulate an hypothesis about Jewish rescue in Rome.

Judging from the conflicting evidence in the film and from the other testimony discussed in this article, it seems unlikely that Pius XII ordered Catholic institutions in Rome to open their doors to Jews and other fugitives. It is possible that in some cases he was involved in granting permission to cloistered convents to suspend their rules regarding outsiders, but it is not probable that he ordered them to do so.[24] We have seen here indications of the pope’s hesitancy regarding rescue, his counter-instructions, and his requests for prudence, as well as the denials of a papal directive by some religious spokesmen and the failures to mention it by others. We know from the internal discussion concerning fugitives sheltered within the Vatican City that some prelates opposed their presence and tried to make them leave. Would they have taken that position if the pope had ordered all Catholic institutions in the city to accept them? And in the broader context, Pius XII was anxious to preserve Vatican neutrality and diplomatic privileges, and protect his institution and the Catholic faithful from German reprisals. Why would the pope jeopardize these priorities when a directive for rescue in Rome was not necessary? Romans who followed the pope’s public statements knew that he had urged charity and compassion for the victims of war on many occasions. They had read the articles in L’Osservatore Romano on October 25-26 and 29, 1943, following the roundup of 1,259 Jews in Rome, which referred to “the universally paternal charity of the Supreme Pontiff…which does not pause before boundaries of nationality, or religion, or race [emphasis mine]”—a clear reference to Jews that had not been used in previous papal speeches. They were aware that after Mussolini’s puppet regime ordered Italian police and carabinieri to arrest and intern all Jews in the country on November 30, 1943, two more articles in the Vatican daily newspaper had objected vigorously, though without mentioning German measures of deportation and destruction.[25] Catholics who wanted to hear all this could hear. In rescuing Jews and other fugitives, they firmly believed they were heeding the will of their pope.

But if there was no comprehensive papal order, how did rescue develop? In many cases, as for the Salesians and the Sisters of Nostra Signora di Sion, it was initially spontaneous—fugitives came to the school or convent and asked for help. Authorization came later. But to explain many other cases, it is useful to look again at two of the written testimonies presented in Lo vuole il Papa. The chronicler for Santa Susanna wrote, “In this situation the ecclesiastical authorities exhort and encourage and give their consent (with a maximum of caution) to opening the doors of the holy cloistered places to hide and receive as many persons as possible…[emphasis mine].” Similarly, the chronicler for the Istituto Maria Santissima Bambina recorded that on several occasions during the autumn of 1943, someone at the Vatican Secretariat of State requested the director of the institution to take in specific endangered individuals or families. These claims are credible. Many individual priests and even high-ranking prelates in Rome had their own personal protégés, perhaps an anti-Fascist activist or partisan, or the Jewish spouse of a friend or family member, or a former Jewish teacher or classmate, employer or employee, doctor or nurse—the possibilities are endless. Catholic institutions taking in outsiders needed recommendations about the backgrounds, personal integrity, and, sometimes, economic reliability of prospective guests. Priests and prelates, sometimes at a high level, supplied those recommendations and undoubtedly implied that rescue was the will of the pope. Although directors of religious houses were not unwilling in any case, such recommendations and reassurances were hard to refuse.

The pope did not oppose the opening of religious houses in Rome to fugitives unless he believed that the risks to rescuers and rescued alike were excessive. Although he certainly understood much of what was going on in his own diocese (the pope was the bishop of Rome), he probably did not know the details. He did not wish to become personally involved. And while he allowed some of his advisors to act on behalf of Jews and other fugitives, he was well aware that others close to him opposed rescue.

Does it matter whether there was a broad order for Jewish rescue from Pius XII or whether rescue was rather either spontaneous or the result of the private initiatives of individual priests and prelates? The answer is yes, for two reasons. First, understanding private individual initiatives helps us better comprehend the complexities and risks of the pope’s situation on an international level and the pressures he was under from within. We may learn more about these internal pressures when the Vatican archives of the papacy of Pius XII are opened. Until then, the study of Jewish rescue in Rome provides some clues. But above all, examination of the origins of rescue helps us to appreciate how and why it happened. As we consider the nuns described in Lo vuole il Papa, along with Cardinals Pietro Palazzini and Elio Venier, the Sisters of Nostra Signora di Sion, the Salesian brothers, Father Marie-Benoît, and so many others, we see the true nature of courage, generosity, and commitment to religious and human values. It is to be hoped that Pope Pius XII himself would be among the first to want that heroism recognized.

[1]For more on the chronicle of the Sisters of the Santi Quattro Coronati, see especially 30giorni, n. 7/8, August 2006, pp. 32-46. See also Antonello Carvigiani, “Aprite le porte, salvate i perseguitati,” Nuova Storia Contemporanea, September-October 2014, 131-44. The estimate of 17 Jews sheltered is from an often-cited list published in Renzo De Felice, The Jews in Fascist Italy, trans. Robert L. Miller, (1961 and 1993; New York: Enigma Books, 2001), 751-56, 752. De Felice indicated that the list came to him from the German Jesuit Father Robert Leiber, Pius XII’s close advisor and friend, who in turn stated that it was compiled after the war by another Jesuit priest and verified in 1954. For details on the list, see Susan Zuccotti, Under His Very Windows (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 199-200.

[2]For more on Santa Susanna, see Carvigiani, “Aprite le porte,” 131-44. The number 26 is from De Felice, 752.

[3] The number 103 is from De Felice, 751.

[4] For details on what is known about refugees at Castel Gandolfo, see Susan Zuccotti, “Pius XII and the Rescue of Jews in Italy,” in Joshua d. Zimmerman, ed., Jews in Italy under Fascist and Nazi Rule, 1922-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 287-307, 306. It is noteworthy that Carvigiani, “Aprite le porte,” 132, cites as an authority, and with approval, statistics by Dominiek Oversteyns, De geschiedenis van de Hebreeërs in Rome tijdens de nazibezetting en vervolging in Rome (Rome: Privata, 2013), n.p., which declare that there were no Jews at Castel Gandolfo. I am not able to verify the Oversteyns citation.

[5] Dezza had been asked to contribute to a special edition of L’Osservatore della Domenica dedicated to the memory of Pius XII. His contribution is on pp. 68-69. Originally titled Der Stellvertreter, The Deputy opened in Berlin in 1963, in London as The Representative in the same year, and in New York in 1964.

[6]Pietro Palazzini, Il Clero e l’occupazione tedesca di Roma: Il ruolo del Seminario Romano Maggiore (Rome: Apes, 1995), 17 and 35.

[7] Palazzini did not mention articles in L’Osservatore Romano on October 25 and 29 and December 3 and 4, 1943, to be discussed below, which did refer to religion and Jews.

[8]See, for example, J.P. Gallagher, Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican (London: Souvenir, 1967).

[9]Carroll-Abbing, But for the Grace of God (London: Secker and Warburg, 1966), 55-56. The first book is A Chance to Live (New York: Longmans, Green, 1952). For Doino’s account of his conversation with Carroll-Abbing, see William Doino, “ The Pope Gave Me Direct Orders to Rescue Jews,” Inside the Vatican, August-September 2001, special insert, x. For details, see Susan Zuccotti, “Pius XII and the Rescue of Jews in Italy,” in Zimmerman, p. 298.

[10]The number 187 is from De Felice, 752. For details on rescue efforts at the convent of Nostra Signora di Sion, see Susan Zuccotti, Under His Very Windows, 189-93.

[11] De Felice, 754, puts the number of boys sheltered at 83. For details on the Salesian rescue effort, see Susan Zuccotti, Under His Very Windows, 191-92.

[12]The number 46 is from De Felice, 754. For Brother Maurizio’s testimony, see Federica Barozzi, “ ‘I percorsi della sopravvivenza,’ (8 settembre ’43-4 giugno ’44): Gli aiuti agli ebrei romani nella memoria di salvatori e salvati,” unpublished thesis, Università degli studi di Roma “La Sapienza,” 1995-96, 156.

[13]Monsignor Elio Venier, interview with this author, Rome, November 13, 1996. The number 65 is from De Felice, 755.

[14] For this estimate of refugees assisted, see Settimio Sorani, L’assistenza ai profughi ebrei in Italia (Rome: Carucci, 1983) , pp. 150-51; and Centro di documentazione ebraica contemporanea (CDEC), Milan, b. 8-A-I, f. Delasem—Settimio Sorani, “Attività della ‘Delasem’ dopo l’8 settembre 1943” by Sorani, May 16, 1944. The number given by De Felice, 755, for “Father Benedict of Bourg d’Iré” (Father Marie-Benoît, or, as he was known in Rome, Father Maria Benedetto) was too high.

[15] For details, see Susan Zuccotti, Père Marie-Benoît and Jewish Rescue (Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press, 2013), 179-80 and 223. Vatican documents published in Actes et Documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la seconde guerre mondiale (ADSS), eds. Pierre Blet, Robert A. Graham, Angelo Martini, and Burkhart Schneider (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1975), IX, docs. 433 and 487, reveal that at least one high-ranking Vatican official disapproved of Father Marie-Benoît’s dealings with the Jews and tried to get him to stop.

[16]This appeal accompanied a protective placard issued by General Rainer Stahel, German military commander of Rome, to many religious institutions throughout the city on October 25, 1943. The placard, to be posted outside each institution, read, “This building serves religious objectives, and is a dependency of the Vatican City. All searches and requisitions are prohibited.” As we shall see, this placard did not always prevent raids. For details, see Susan Zuccotti, Under His Very Windows, 193.

[17]Giovanni Sale, “Roma 1943: occupazione nazista e deportazione degli ebrei romani,” La Civiltà Cattolica, IV, quaderno 3683, December 6, 2004, 417-29, 426, from a document in the archives of La Civiltà Cattolica. The pontifical institutions raided were the Seminario Lombardo, the Collegio Russo, and the Istituto Orientale.

[18]ADSS, XI, doc. 30, notes of Maglione, 126.

[19] Reference to this order may be found in the archives of the Seminario Lombardo, b.7.A.73, Diario, “Appendice,” 17-18. For details, see Susan Zuccotti, Under His Very Windows, 225-28.

[20] The number 50 is from ADSS, X, doc. 53, Monsignor Guido Anchini, head of the Canonica, to Pius XII, February 13, 1944, 127-29. Nearly all the guests were men. Roughly 24 of the 50 were non-Jews, another 17 were described as non-Aryan Catholics, and 7 were described as Jews with no mention of religion. There is no record of any guests being hidden elsewhere in Vatican City.

[21] Ibid.

[22] De Felice, 751-56.

[23] Dominiek Oversteyns, De geschiedenis van de Hebreeërs in Rome tijdens de nazibezetting en vervolging in Rome (Rome: Privata, 2013), n.p, cited in Carvigiani, “Aprite le porte,” 132

[24]Rules of cloister are far more complex than is usually stated. Depending on the congregation, the rules often could be temporarily lifted by the head of the order. Also, some cloistered convents operated public spaces like guest houses, where the same strict rules did not apply. Some such convents may have employed Catholic laypersons to work in their public spaces.

[25]The articles in October were on page 1. The later articles, “Carità civile,” and “Motivazione,” appeared on December 3 and 4, both on page 1.

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Papal Rescue in Wartime Rome: A New Documentary and Commentaries

Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 21, Number 2 (June 2015)

Papal Rescue in Wartime Rome: A New Documentary and Commentaries

By William Doino Jr.

On April 1st, a documentary was televised in Italy entitled, Lo vuole il Papa” (The Pope Wants It), exploring the role Pius XII played during the German occupation of Rome, when thousands of Jews were given shelter by Catholic institutions in and around Vatican City. The film is based upon the enterprising work of historian Antonello Carvigiani, who cites new evidence indicating  Pius XII personally supported these rescue efforts.

Last year, Carvigiani published a scholarly essay, “Aprite le porte, salvate i perseguitati,” (“Open the Doors, Save the Persecuted,”) published in Nuova storia contemporanea (September-October, 2014) one of Italy’s leading academic journals.

In his essay, Carvigiani examined the histories of several female religious communities in wartime Rome, and– analyzing the texts and records they left behind– found evidence that each acted under a common directive of Pius XII to take in persecuted Jews and other endangered people. Though some critics of Pius XII have questioned whether such instructions were ever given, Carvigiani maintains that he has “found evidence of a written or oral order” which was “delivered to all religious houses in Rome, as well as to all parishes and ecclesiastical structures.”

The documentary, based upon Carvigiani’s essay, expands upon his findings, with new testimony of individuals connected to these wartime events.

Dr. Andrea Tornielli, one of Italy’s leading Vatican commentators and author of a major biography on Pius XII, praised the documentary: “The story of the docu-film is not told by a narrator but by the actual images and testimonies of two survivors, only boys at the time, and by the nuns of the cloisters who had heard from the older sisters what had happened….The director chose to concentrate on the cloisters of SS Quattro Coronati, Santa Susanna, and Santa Maria dei Sette Dolori, and the community of the Istituto di Maria Bambina, whose walls still harbor diaries and chronicles handwritten by the people at the heart of the stories. All of them vouch that the call to offer charity and refuge to the persecuted came from above. Written and oral testimonies refer repeatedly to the Pope, but also to the Deanery of Rome or to Giovanni Battista Montini [the future Pope Paul VI] and close collaborator with Pius XII.”

The aim of Carvigiani’s documentary is “not to be apologetic,” writes Tornielli. Rather, it is to “shed light on an, until now, little-known aspect of it.”

In the war diary of the community of Maria Bambina, continued Tornielli, “every day there was another request [and] every so often a telephone call from the Secretariat of His Holiness from the Vatican, and the reason was always the same: someone on the run, a persecuted family to take in, to protect, to help. One could not have refused a request from the representatives of the Pope…”

The wartime diary of the Augustinian Nuns of the convent of the Santi Quattro Coronati, first publicized in 2006, is one of the most explicit on record regarding Pius XII’s assistance. Relating events in the Fall of 1943, we read:

“Having arrived at this month of November, we must be ready to render services of charity in a completely unexpected way. The Holy Father, Pius XII, of paternal heart, feels in himself all the sufferings of the moment. Unfortunately, with the Germans entry into Rome which happened in the month of September, a ruthless war against the Jews has begun, whom they wish to exterminate by means of atrocities prompted by the blackest barbarities. They round up young Italians, political figures, in order to torture them and finish them off in the most tremendous torments. In this painful situation, the Holy Father wants to save his children, also the Jews, and orders that hospitality be given in the convents to these persecuted, and that the cloisters must also adhere to the wish of the Supreme Pontiff….”

In the register of the cloister of Santa Maria dei Sette Dolori, we read: “At this time, Jews, fascists, soldiers, caribinieri and nobility sought refuge with religious institutions, who, at great risk to themselves, opened their doors to save human lives.”  This was the desire of Pius XII, “who was the first to fill the Vatican with refugees, using the Villa of Castel Gandolfo and the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran.”

The reference to Castel Gandolfo is significant, since many historians have overlooked, or are unaware that Pius XII protected many refugees there, including Jews. During the war years, contemporaneous reports put the number of refugees at Castel Gandolfo at 10,000 or more desperate and frightened people who were clothed, fed and protected there (a number of women even gave birth). Moving pictures of the overflowing refugees survive, and highlight one of the Church’s most significant humanitarian accomplishments during the War.

Of special significance is a dispatch   published in the June 22, 1944 issue of the Palestine Post (today’s Jerusalem Post), from a correspondent reporting directly from Vatican City, just weeks after the liberation. Under the headline, “Sanctuary in the Vatican,” the correspondent wrote:

“Several thousand refugees, largely Jews, during the weekend left the Papal Palace at Castel Gandolfo–the Pope’s summer residence near Marino–after enjoying safety there during the recent terror. Besides Jews, persons of all political creeds who had been endangered were given sanctuary at the palace. Before leaving, the refugees conveyed their gratitude to the Pope through his majordomo.”

Since only Pius XII had the authority to open the doors of Castel Gandolfo, it is unreasonable to maintain that these “several thousand refugees, largely Jews,” were given aid only by other Catholic officials, acting without a clear directive from Pius XII. The sincere gratitude expressed by Jews in Vatican City that day was not misplaced, but given to the man who had supreme authority over Castel Gandolfo, Pius XII, who obviously made their survival possible.

Carvigiani’s new research and documentary is consistent with the testimonies of  priest-rescuers like Cardinals Paolo Dezza and  Pietro Palazzini (honored by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations)  and Msgr. John Patrick Caroll-Abbing, who testified to Pius XII’s active support for the Jews of Rome, and to their rescuers. (There is also evidence and testimony that Pius helped the famous anti-Nazi Irish priest, Msgr. Hugh O’Flaherty, as well). Carvigiani also builds  upon the work of noted historians Michael Tagliacozzo, a survivor of the Nazi raid on Rome’s Jews, and one of the outstanding authorities on it; Andrea Riccardi, author of  L’inverno piu lungo, 1943-1944: Pio XII, gli ebrei e I nazista I Roma (The Longest Winter, 1943-1944: Pius XII, the Jews and the Nazis in Rome, 2008); Anna Foa, Professor of Modern History at the University of Rome; and Sr. Grazia Loparco, who has done extensive research on papal rescue in Rome. Foa has written: “Precisely with regard to Rome, the ways in which the work of sheltering and rescuing the persecuted was carried forward were such that they could not have been simply the fruit of initiatives from below, but were clearly coordinated as well as permitted by the leadership of the Church.” Similarly, Sr. Loparco has stated: “From the documentation and testimonies emerges evidence of the full support and instruction of Pius XII…Many concrete events, such as the opening of monasteries and convents, prove the fact that many Jews were lodged because of the direct concern of the Vatican, which also provided food and assistance.” More recently, Loparco has written an article entitled, “An Order from the Top,” for the Osservatore Romano, (English-language edition, January 30, 2015)  in which she gives additional evidence of specific instances where papal instructions were given to rescue persecuted Jews in Rome.

It should also be noted that, after the liberation of Rome but before World War II ended, Vatican Radio was already broadcasting the life-saving assistance of the Holy See. A review of Pius XII’s charity was broadcast on March 12, 1945 and stated:  “During the occupation of Rome, between 8th September, 1943 and 5th June 1944, he gave shelter in 120 institutes for women and 60 institutes for men, as well as in other houses and churches in Rome, to more than 5,200 Jews who were thus able to live free from fear and misery.”(Cited in Reginald F. Walker, Pius of Peace (London: M.H. Gill and Son, 1945), p. 94).

No examination of the Vatican and the German occupation of Rome would be complete without a careful study of the most important primary documents available; such a collection has fortunately been produced by Pier Luigi Guiducci, in his work, Il terzo Reich contro Pio XII: Papa Pacelli nei documenti nazisti (The Third Reich Against Pius XII: Pope Pacelli in Nazi Documents). Though not yet translated, Professor Guiducci has given an interview in English revealing his findings.

While scholarly research continues around the record of Pius XII during the Holocaust and doubtless will be further assisted when the Vatican releases its remaining wartime archives, it is encouraging that researchers like Carvigiani have brought forth fresh evidence which provides a more complete and balanced picture of Pius XII’s pontificate.

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Article Note: New Research on Cold War Catholicism

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 18, No. 1, March 2012

Article Note: New Research on Cold War Catholicism

Karim Schelkens, “Vatican Diplomacy after the Cuban Missile Crisis: New Light on the Release of Josyf Slipyj,” The Catholic Historical Review 97, no. 4 (October 2011): 679-712.

Marie Gayte, “The Vatican and the Reagan Administration: A Cold War Alliance?” The Catholic Historical Review 97, no. 4 (October 2011): 713-736.

By William Doino Jr., Contributing Editor, Inside the Vatican magazine

Few conflicts have been more intense, or protracted, than the Roman Catholic Church’s battle with Communism. Two years before Karl Marx published his Communist Manifesto (1848), Pope Pius IX referred to “that infamous doctrine of so-called Communism which is absolutely contrary to the Natural Law” and which “would utterly destroy the rights, property and possessions of all men.”

That is still, essentially, the Church’s teaching, though how it’s been expressed and applied over the years has varied, depending on historical circumstances, and the approaches of different popes.

Two articles on what might be called “Cold War Catholicism”­covering the immediate post-war era to the collapse of the Soviet Union have recently appeared in The Catholic Historical Review (October, 2011) and are worthy of note.

The first is “Vatican Diplomacy after the Cuban Missile Crisis: New Light on the Release of Josyf Slipyj,” by Karim Schelkens, Secretary of the Center for the Study of Vatican II at the Catholic University of Leuven.

The author draws on notes, diaries and specialized archives to describe the dramatic events leading up to the February 1963 release of Josyf Slipyj, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic archbishop who had been imprisoned by the Soviet Communists for almost twenty years.

Schelkens helpfully provides the historical background. In communion with the Holy See since the Union of Brest in 1595-96, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) had long been in tension with the Russian Orthodox Church, especially after the Communists took power and made the latter a virtual instrument of the state. That conflict—held at bay during the Second World War, when a temporary unity prevailed against the Germans—re-emerged with a vengeance as the war came to a close. Schelkens writes:

On April 11, 1945, the Ukrainian Catholic bishops, including Slipyj, were arrested. Most of them were accused of collaboration with Nazi rule and sentenced to forced labor and exile. These draconic measures prompted a strong reaction from Pius XII, expressed in his encyclical Orientales Omnes of December 23, 1945. In it, the Vatican did not only condemn Communism but also openly and specifically attacked Moscow Patriarch Alexis. The situation worsened when on March 8-10, 1946, some 200 Greek Catholic priests were forced to revoke formally their Union with Rome, declare the Brest Union annulled, and convert to Russian Orthodoxy in a sobor set up by the Kremlin­all without any say from the Ukrainian Catholic bishops. These dramatic events set the tone for decades to come, and the UGCC would become a “Church of Silence.”

The Church of “Silence” soon became a Church of Martyrs, as many Ukrainian Catholics who were interned by the Communists perished, ­if they were not tortured and killed beforehand. The full story of this brutal persecution has yet to be told, but to the extent it is remembered, Archbishop Slipyj is a large reason why.

Successor to the legendary Metropolitan Andrey Sheptystky, and a towering figure in his own right, Josyf Slipyj was the soul of the underground Ukrainian Catholic Church, even as he languished in the Siberian Gulag. News of his courageous witness spread, especially after his prison writings managed to circulate. But when the Communist authorities found out, they cracked down even harder, re-sentencing him again.

The death of Stalin in 1953 did not ease the lot of Slipyj or the suppressed UGCC; nor even did Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschkev’s famous “de-Stalinizination” speech of 1956. A fortuitous combination of events, however, led to Slipyj’s release, and it is in recounting this that Schelken excels.

In October of 1962, Pope John XXIII, successor to Pius XII, opened the Second Vatican Council, and with it a new approach toward the world (“aggiornamento”). This included searching new avenues to ease the suffering of Christians under Communist rule, without withdrawing any of the Church’s warnings about Marxist-Leninist ideology. The new approach was described by Msgr. Igino Cardinale, chief of protocol at the Secretariat of the Holy See, as being “ready to engage in relations with any state,” as long as there was a reliable assurance that “freedom for the church and the sanctity of the moral and spiritual interests of its citizens” were respected. Given the deceptions and crimes of the Communists, that was asking a lot, but the Vatican was willing to take risks, in hopes of achieving a greater good.

It didn’t take long to test the new policy. Just a few days after Vatican II opened, the Cuban Missile Crisis broke out and the mediation of the Church was sought. President Kennedy—pulling out all stops to avert a catastrophe—contacted his friend, the author Norman Cousins, who believed the greatest independent force in the world was the papacy. Cousins in turn reached out to his friend, Belgian priest Father Felix Morlion, O.P., who contacted the Holy See, and was assured of the Pope’s willingness to help. The next day, October 24, 1962, John XXIII issued a dramatic appeal to the relevant leaders not to remain deaf to “the cry of humanity.” On October 28, Khrushchev told President Kennedy that the missiles would be withdrawn. Many historians believe Pope John’s public appeal provided Khrushchev with a face-saving way to change course, depicting himself as a savior of world peace, rather than an outfoxed aggressor who blinked. Kennedy explicitly thanked John XXIII for his help.

Many of these same players, as Schelkens reveals, also worked together to obtain the release of Archbishop Slipyj. Thanks to a private intervention by Fr. Morlion with Russian representatives, the indefatigable Cousins was able to interview Khrushchev directly, and serve as an intermediary for the Holy See on behalf of world peace, religious freedom, and Archbishop Slipyj. Dutch Monsignor Johannes Willebrands also took parallel measures with other key diplomatic and religious figures, and the Soviets were surprisingly—though note entirely—cooperative. By early 1963, a decision had been made to release Slipyj on the condition that he would remain in exile and that his freedom would not be exploited by the Church for “anti-Soviet” purposes. In fact, as Schelkens reveals, “the Soviets thought it crucial that it was not to be considered a rehabilitation…. The release was to be regarded as an amnesty and that Slipyj was still considered an enemy of the Soviet government.” The Holy See agreed not to exploit the matter but made no promises about restricting its admonitions against Communism. Willebrands traveled to Russia to receive the Ukrainian archbishop and accompanied him back to Rome, where he was able to participate in the Council. Slipyj’s long-won freedom was further complicated by the fact that Russian Orthodox observers had been invited to attend the Council, as an ecumenical gesture, and accepted. Their presence “deeply shocked” the Ukrainian diaspora bishops who thought that the Holy See had conceded far too much to prelates they considered accessories to the Soviet suppression of the UGCC. But in the large picture, and whatever internal debates remained, the Holy See believed that its strategy had succeeded in accomplishing its ecumenical and political goals, without sacrificing any of its genuine principles.

Schelken’s article is complemented by another essay, “The Vatican and the Reagan Administration: A Cold War Alliance?” by Dr. Marie Gayte, professor of U.S. history at Université du Sud Toulon-Var in France. Here, she examines relations between the Holy See and the United States in the post-war era, culminating with the friendly and often productive­ but not always unified­ dealings with the Reagan administration.

At the end of World War II, Gayte relates, there was a convergence of interests between Pope Pius XII and President Harry Truman. The pontiff “well understood the intensity of suffering and persecution inflicted on Catholics under the Soviet regime,” while the President “became convinced of the expansionist aspiration of Stalin’s regime.” Thus, in spite of certain reservations about dividing the world into two blocs, Pius XII “welcomed American aid to Turkey and Greece, as well as the Marshall Plan, granting numerous audiences to congressional representatives. According to J. Graham Parson, who was assistant to Myron Taylor, Truman’s personal representative to Pius XII, ‘it [was not] too far to go in saying that most probably all the top people in the Vatican saw the United States as the only possible salvation of the values which they fundamentally stood for.”

But while Pius XII welcomed American support for shared interests, a careful reading of his pronouncements reveals an independent voice, one that could challenge the assumptions of America’s policymakers. An example of this was Pius XII’s strong warnings against the arms race, and the grave evils that would ensue should war break out between the two superpowers (a theme that would be developed and promulgated at Vatican II, after Pius XII’s passing). Pius was a strenuous opponent of the Soviet empire, and thus longed for its ideological collapse; but he was not (as he has sometimes been portrayed) a reckless anti-Communist who believed in “brinksmanship.”

Neither, for that matter, did his successors, John XXIII and Paul VI. As the international situation grew more intense—with nuclear arms proliferating and Cold War conflicts erupting in the Third World—both maintained that dialogue, rather than warfare, was the best means for obtaining a sound peace and social justice. What emerges clearly from Gayte’s essay is the apprehension papal pronouncements like the encyclicals Pacem in Terris (John XXIII) and Populorum Progressio (Paul VI) caused a succession of American administrations. The tension reached its height during the Vietnam War, which the Holy See did not condemn outright but clearly wanted ended. “The United States,’ writes Gayte, “seems to have been keen to avoid a Vatican portrayal of the United States as morally equivalent to the other belligerents, lest such a representation benefit its opponents in the war and its critics at home. This led to U.S. efforts to influence Vatican pronouncements on several occasions, something of which there is ample evidence in the archives of the Johnson and Nixon administrations.”

When the Vietnam War finally did end, it was not on terms favorable to anyone—except, perhaps, the Communist despots who took over. Even those who strongly opposed the war, in conscience, and saw it as an immoral act of American imperialism, were forced to concede that America’s opponents were hardly the meek, agrarian reformers depicted in some dubious quarters. They were, in fact, ruthless totalitarians who silenced their opponents, often by mass murder. The result was not peace with honor, but “peace with horror,” as one author acidly remarked.

Communism’s brutal record in Southeast Asia created a new sobriety within the Vatican, about the limits of the Christian-Marxist dialogue, and this, in turn, set the stage for the rise of Communism’s ultimate spiritual nemesis, Pope John Paul II. Having lived in Poland under both the Nazis and Communists, he understood the totalitarian mind better than many world leaders, and demonstrated that knowledge in his successful combat with them. He was fortunate to have as an ally Ronald Reagan, whose conservative American presidency has grown more impressive (and popular) over the years. Gayte describes the many areas the two leaders saw eye to eye on—for example, the dangers of a Marxist-driven “liberation theology” and the naïvete of certain peace activists about unilateral disarmament. John Paul told Caspar Weinberger, Reagan’s Secretary of Defense, “you know we are for peace, of course, but we are not for pacifists­—unilateral pacifists. We know that is not the way to keep the peace.” Such Christian realism was welcomed by the Reaganites.

At the same time, Gayte properly rejects the simplistic notion of a “holy alliance” conjured up by some journalists. Appreciative as he was toward President Reagan, John Paul II did not hesitate, anymore than previous popes, to distance himself from certain American attitudes and policies the Church found objectionable, particularly the frightful idea that a nuclear war could be fought and won. “Although the pope unambiguously opposed Communism,” writes Gayte, “his pontificate also was one of continuity with his predecessors as far as defense of the third world, peace and social justice were concerned.”

To the extent disagreements did arise, it was because of erroneous American ideas about the Holy See. To their credit, officials in the Reagan administration did eventually learn this, with one candidly admitting, “The Vatican has its own agenda which leads it to statements and actions not always compatible with our policies. …the Vatican’s activities are understandable and follow naturally from the position of the pope as the spiritual leader of the Catholic world. Automatic assumptions in Washington that the Vatican is always on our side are misplaced.” That said, there can be no doubt that the relationship, at its best, did much to bring the Cold War to a largely positive conclusion, even as other dangers have arisen in its wake.

One principle that John Paul II and Ronald Reagan did share was a resounding belief in religious liberty, and the rights of individual conscience—attacks against which continue to arise. Today, as we witness the persecution of minorities in many regions of the world, and see attempts to intimidate religious leaders even in self-proclaimed “free” democracies, a renewed spiritual and political witness in defense of both is needed, now more than ever.

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February 2009 Newsletter

Association of Contemporary Church Historians

(Arbeitsgemeinschaft kirchlicher Zeitgeschichtler)

John S. Conway, Editor. University of British Columbia

February 2009 — Vol. XV, no. 2

 Dear Friends,

It is fitting that this month’s Newsletter should pay tribute to two great Christians, both having the same birthday, February 4th, Bishop George Bell of Chichester, England and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. As was made clear in my review of the Bonhoeffer letters and paper from 1933-1935 (see December 2008), these men were closely connected from the beginning of the Nazi era, and highly esteemed each other. It is therefore a particular pleasure to have Dr Schulten’s review of Professor Tödt’s penetrating and thoughtful study of Bonhoeffer’s ethics, as well as a review of the small but valuable study of Bishop Bell, written by Andrew Chandler, the Director of the George Bell Institute, now moved to Chichester University.

It seems also appropriate this month to reprint a review of the new film, Valkyrie, whose hero Count Stauffenberg shared most of Bonhoeffer’s values, and like him paid the ultimate penalty in his attempt to rid the world of Nazi tyranny.
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Contents:

1. Book reviews:

a) Chandler, Piety and Provocation. A study of George Bell
b) Tödt, Authentic Faith. Bonhoeffer’s Theological Ethics
c) Howard, Protestant theology and German universities

2) W. Doino on Valkyrie.

1a) Andrew Chandler, Piety and Provocation. A Study of George Bell, Bishop of Chichester. Chichester,The George Bell Institute: Humanitas Subsidia Series 2008. 96 Pp. ISBN 10-0-9550-558-1-4 £7.50.

During the first half of the twentieth century, the two most eminent bishops of the Church of England were William Temple and George Bell, whose combined witness did much to assist both church and nation to come to terms with the disasters of two world wars and the turbulent social upheavals of that era. Both men came from clerical families, both had been Oxford dons, both rose rapidly through the ecclesiastical ranks and held episcopal office for many years. Temple indeed achieved the highest office in the Church, becoming Archbishop of Canterbury, if only briefly before dying in office suddenly in October 1944. George Bell spent nearly thirty years as Bishop of Chichester, one of England’s oldest dioceses, in the well-endowed county of Sussex on England’s south coast. Fifty years after his death in 1958, several commemorative events were held in recent months in both Chichester and London. And Andrew Chandler, the current director of the George Bell Institute, now fittingly based in the newly-established University of Chichester, has written this short but elegant assessment.

Chandler’s work was made all the easier by his access to and knowledge of the vast array of papers which Bell had meticulously collected during his life-time, and which are now housed in the Lambeth Palace Library in London. Forty years ago, Canon Ronald Jasper wrote a full biography but used these papers only sparingly. Since then fresh viewpoints have arisen about which Bell’s papers shed much new light. So this concise update is much to be welcomed.

George Bell grew up in the latter days of Queen Victoria’s reign, when the prevalent climate, both politically and theologically, was liberal and optimistic. As a student, he was captivated by the idealism of the newly-formed Student Christian Movement with its appeal to all the churches to unite in undertaking the task of “the Evangelization of the World in this Generation”. But this was more than the pursuit of personal piety. The SCM always had a strong commitment to Christian service and witness in the political and international affairs of the day. Bell’s lifelong dedication to the cause of Christian unity also included these dimensions.

These were the qualities which led him to be selected in 1914 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Randall Davidson, to be his domestic chaplain. He began work on the day war was declared, and was immediately engaged in confronting the moral as well as the practical challenges brought on by the outbreak of hostilities. Despite his idealism, Bell was no pacifist. He agreed with the majority of his countrymen that the German aggression against Belgium was sufficient reason to fight a just war. But he also followed his Archbishop in declaring the Church’s duty to insist that a just war must be fought by just means. At the same time, he was and remained steadfast in upholding the cause of Christian solidarity across all national lines. Thus he resisted the temptation to equate British patriotism with the cause of Christ, and was distressed when leading members of the Church of England failed to make this distinction. He upheld the ideal of Christian reconciliation, despite depressing signs of the lack of any reciprocal willingness on the German side. But for this reason, Bell became a staunch promoter of the League of Nations. He also protested against any proposals for a vindictive peace settlement, and deplored those sections of the Versailles Peace Treaty which appeared to have these characteristics.

So it was natural that Bell became a champion of European reconstruction on Christian lines. He warmly welcomed the initiative taken by the renowned Archbishop of Uppsala, Nathan Söderblom, calling on the churches to witness to justice and reconciliation in the traumatic post-war years. This ecumenical endeavour resulted in the great Stockholm conference of 1925, and led to the founding of the Life and Work Movement of the Churches, which subsequently became an integral part of the World Council of Churches. Bell was an active leader in this endeavour, recognizing the need for Christians to be united across both denominational and national boundaries. In this he differed markedly from the majority of his British colleagues, but was appreciated all the more for his courage and wisdom by the leaders of the continental churches. Together they worked for the establishment of a world-wide organization witnessing to the cause of Christian unity. The creation of the World Council of Churches can in large part be said to be due to Bell’s devoted championship of this cause.

In 1924 Bell was promoted to be Dean of Canterbury Cathedral. Here he found opportunity to encourage the wider participation of artists, musicians and writers in the cathedral’s life, and drew in such notable contributors as T.S.Eliot, Dorothy Sayers, John Masefield, Charles Williams and in the musical field, Gustav Holst. Such activities had to compete, however, with Bell’s increasing involvement in international work. Chandler does not mention the fact that Bell was often unfairly criticized, especially among the well-to-do gentry, for dashing off to meetings in Switzerland or Germany, instead of concentrating on his pastoral duties such as baptisms and confirmations amongst his flock at home.

This dilemma became all the more acute when in 1929 Bell was made bishop of Chichester, where the atmosphere was genteel and conservative. But faced with the growing crises in Europe, first economic then political, Bell’s primary witness was to uphold the cause of Christian solidarity. Especially as political and racial violence, as promoted by the Nazi Party, took over power in Germany, this situation became one of Bell’s chief concerns. He refused to believe that Hitler represented the true destiny of Germany, and consequently did all he could to support those sections of the German churches which opposed the Nazis’ totalitarian goals. He gained a close friend and supporter in the young Lutheran clergyman, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who ministered to the German churches in London from 1933 to 1935. Together they forged an alliance which kept the ecumenical movement safely in the anti-Nazi camp. Bell paid regular visits to Germany between 1933 and 1939, and even tried to influence the Nazi hierarchy through Rudolf Hess. His efforts were tireless to make the German Church Struggle better known, since he was resolutely convinced of the Church’s duty to confront the relentless barbarism of totalitarianism, and to take practical steps to assist its victims. He devised plans to offer sanctuary to refugees fleeing from Germany, and went to particular pains to find places for those German pastors evicted from their parishes, mainly because of their part-Jewish origins. Some were even offered ordination and parishes in the Church of England.

It was hardly surprising that Bell should become fervently committed to the proposition that there existed in Germany a movement of resistance, largely silenced by the Nazi oppressors, but nonetheless representing the “better Germany” from the Christian past. He was all the more persuaded after a visit he paid to Sweden in May 1942, when he was surprised to be able to renew his friendship with Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer had come directly from Germany to give his friend secret details about the opposition to Hitler, and to urge him to get some promise from the British Government that they would be prepared to make a compromise peace with those seeking Hitler’s overthrow, On his return to Britain, Bell lobbied the Cabinet to offer such recognition. But despite his well-founded information, his efforts were repulsed. The Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, dismissed him as a “turbulent priest”, and poured scorn on a churchman venturing into the secret and dangerous world of international politics. Bell never forgave the British Government and understandably felt that its rejection of this opportunity contributed to the disastrous failure of the July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler. But he remained convinced that, once military victory over the Nazis was achieved, then the surviving members of the resistance would deserve to be supported in the rebuilding of a new Germany on Christian lines. And this was the task to which he and his colleagues in the World Council of Churches gave devoted energy in the immediate post-1945 years.

Much of Bell’s work of advocacy and intervention had necessarily to be done behind the scenes. His temperament was eirenical not theatrical or charismatic. His public personality lacked vivid qualities. He was, as Chandler only hints, an uninspiring orator and disliked large meetings where he was not a good chairman. His favourite venue was the Athenaeum Club in central London, where the elite of Britain’s scholars and clerics met to settle their business in comfortable armchairs, and where confidential discussions could be conducted in prvate. These gave Bell the information he needed to take action, as his papers voluminously attest.

His one public forum was the House of Lords. of which he became, by seniority, a member in 1938. He used this platform to give expression to his deeply-felt moral concerns, which often seemed to be provocative, particularly in their criticisms of government policy. For example, in June 1940, Bell attacked in the House of Lords what he considered was the scandalous internment of German refugees, especially of those who had fled to England to escape from Hitler`s prisons. And even more provocatively he spoke against the Royal Air Force’s policy of indiscriminate bombing of German cities in February 1944. Such views made him highly unpopular with those who believed in the guilt of all Germans and the necessity of unrestricted warfare. But Bell`s essential moral position was based on his belief that attacking civilians by such carpet-bombing raids was unjustifiable by any Christian standards.

Chandler rightly discounts the myth that Bell was denied the promotion to the Archbishopric of Canterbury after Temple`s sudden death because of these provocative speeches. In fact, his talent lay rather in being an inspirational leader upholding the ideals of Christian civilization, and calling for the churches` resources to be mobilized in the great task of reconstruction after the overthrow of totalitarianism. As he told an audience in Edinburgh in December 1941:

“We meet here to declare that the Church is larger and greater than any national Church, or denominational Church – a Church which includes men and women of all countries and races, of all classes and cultures, a Church that is suffering in the battle, a Church that can reconcile enemy with enemy through the Cross of Jesus Christ and a Church with a mission to mankind.”

His major contribution was to be found in the international ecumenical movement, resolutely facing the continuing challenge of Communism, but again distinguishing between the Soviet state and the Russian people. In all he preserved his prophetic stance, his untiring devotion to his ethical principles and his unflagging energy in writing books, pamphlets, sermons and innumerable letters, which now form his most impressive legacy.

He will be remembered as the bishop who most outspokenly opposed Nazism, not because it was a German heresy, but because it inflicted so much harm on men and women for whom he cared. Indeed his time-consuming consistency in helping those in need and his immense compassion for the victims of tyranny continue to ensure that Bell’s reputation is that of a church leader who did what he could to remedy the evils of his contemporary world.

Inevitably such a task of bringing the Church`s conscience to bear on current problems was not to be achieved by one individual or in one life-time. Thus Chandler sees his legacy as a costly failure. The cause of peaceful internationalism in the world`s political affairs is no nearer today than in Bell`s time. The Christian churches still remain divided and unreconciled. The theological witness of the Universal Church of Christ still remains marginal, at best. But Bell`s generosity and humanity are still remembered as setting a standard to be emulated. It is therefore good that we have this timely reminder, calling us to follow his example of a challenging and demanding discipleship of witness and service in the world of today.

JSC

1b) Heinz Eduard Tödt. Authentic Faith: Bonhoeffer’s Theological Ethics in Context. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2007. 291 pages.
(This review appeared first in The Bomhoefferian, November 28th, 2008, and is reproduced by kind permission of the author)

If the ideas articulated and life lived by Dietrich Bonhoeffer have captivated your thinking and challenged your soul, then you would do well to take the time to read thoughtfully and reflectively this collection of Professor Tödt’s essays on Bonhoeffer’s theology, ethics and resistance. First published fifteen years ago in his original German, this compilation of Tödt’s insightful scholarship spans the latter half of his academic career as professor of systematic theology, ethics and social ethics at the University of Heidelberg and as the chairman of the editorial board of the German edition of The Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works. Tödt’s student, Glen Harold Strassen, captured the tenor of his writings when he stated: “Tödt’s publications have an analytical sharpness, an ethical incisiveness and a genuine truthfulness that is rare even among the best.” Strassen served as the editor of the English edition of Tödt’s essays on Bonhoeffer published here in the United States in 2007. It is this new edition that is the subject of this review.

This collection of essays by Tödt makes a significant contribution to the ever-growing corpus of Bonhoeffer scholarship. Unlike that of many who have come before and after him, though, Tödt’s analysis expounds the major dimensions of Bonhoeffer’s ethics by examining the political, ecclesiastical and family context in which Bonhoeffer wrote. His essays, however, reach an even deeper level of profundity as Tödt subjects himself to scrutiny of Bonhoeffer’s ideas by transparently wrestling with issues of guilt and forgiveness about his own experience of the German context during the Third Reich when he served as a soldier at the front during the Second World War and then was subjected to detention as a prisoner-of-war in a Russian camp for five years. Above all, in his engagement with Bonhoeffer, Tödt sought an ethic that can provide wise guidance in the face of contemporary schemes to manipulate faith for ideological ends.

Fourteen of Tödt’s essays are presented. The earliest essay dates from the 1970’s, and the latest to one year before his death in 1991. A deepening of both insight into the underlying essence of Bonhoeffer’s thoughts as well as an appreciation for the authenticity of his faith-inspired actions is evident. The first eleven essays analyze themes in Bonhoeffer’s theology and ethics. For example, Tödt tackles the ever-perplexing notion of “religion-less Christianity” that marks Bonhoeffer’s later letters to Eberhard Bethge from his Tegel prison cell. In contrast with those progressive theologians who have latched on to Bonhoeffer’s language only to fill it with a self-conceived meaning inconsistent with the whole of Bonhoeffer’s thought and life, Tödt finds that Bonhoeffer was here conceiving a Christianity not confined to ideals for merely private life or to the gaps where we cannot solve problems, but rather a Christian faith that gives concrete guidance in the center of life.

In other essays, Tödt focuses attention on an important question that has not been examined by other scholars of Bonhoeffer. He asks what was about Bonhoeffer’s ethics that enabled him to discern so clearly and speak out for the Jews and against war more decisively than other theologians and church leaders even from the very onset of Hitler’s chancellorship. In his exploration of this question, Tödt demonstrates Bonhoeffer’s insights in naming the sources of evil and self-deception as well as warning against the ways and means by which the leader becomes the misleader. Tödt also clarifies Bonhoeffer’s articulation of the vocation of the churches in speaking concretely and the vocation of groups in acting concretely as an assertion of checks and balances against authoritarianism not only in the context of Nazi Germany but also with application for responsible action in the midst of contemporary expressions of authoritarianism. Tödt’s extensive analysis of the social, theological, and ethical characteristics of the resistance movement, in which Bonhoeffer and family members played integral roles, provides both information and insights that go well beyond what can be found in other scholarship to date. This comprehensiveness in his treatment of Bonhoeffer’s resistance is the product of thoroughgoing research project that Tödt led at the University of Heidelberg.

The final three essays in this collection address contemporary history, in which Tödt examines, with an authenticity born out of Bonhoeffer’s ethics, the guilt and responsibility of Christendom in Germany. What particularly marks Tödt’s approach and the insights he offers is his resolve not to be devoted to merely an interpretation of past positions, but instead to find in Bonhoeffer avenues that advance both the present tasks of theology in the church and a better understanding of our own way of life. In 1985, Tödt himself expressed the force of Bonhoeffer’s life and words upon him in this way:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer has come nearer and nearer and become more and more important for me – not merely with one single flash of light – but in a continuing process over twenty years. Of his many remarkable character traits and abilities, the concentration with which he exposed his faith in Christ to the tests that life brought, all the way to the extreme situations of resistance, and then thought through theologically what happened him and those involved, occupies me most of all. I perceive this theology as deeply authentic and as showing the way for me as a theological teacher . . . . Bonhoeffer is not right in all things, but from no theologian am I now learning so much as from him, and, to be sure, with my intellect and with my heart.

Tödt, though, was greatly distressed by those self-proclaimed scholars and would-be theologians who did not follow the whole way through Bonhoeffer but would rather “tear out individual elements of life and thought and [either] progressively instrumentalize them or conservatively distort them,” and then advocate that the guilt for the deficits in the modern churches lies in Bonhoeffer’s guidance. In an effort to expose and counter these misuses and abuses, Tödt presents a thoroughly studied and attentively perceived exposition of Bonhoeffer’s theological ethics both in the context of his life experiences and for application in our own.

Although some portions in the English translation occasionally render the complexity of Tödt’s German syntax in stilted and strained constructions, the substance of the insights and analyses of Bonhoeffer offered by Tödt make any extra time required to slow down and re-read such passages abundantly rewarding. No other book has more opened my eyes or deepened my appreciation for Bonhoeffer’s guidance in living responsibly in the concrete realities of life than Tödt’s.

Cordell P. Schulten, M.A., J.D. <cschulten@fontbonne.edu>Lecturer, Contemporary Studies Fontbonne University Saint Louis, Missouri

1c) Thomas A. Howard, Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern German University. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006; Pp.xiii + 468.

(This review appeared first in the Journal of Religious History, October 2008)

Ever since the advent of the Third Reich, Anglo-Saxon scholars have been intrigued by the question how the highly respected universities of Germany reacted to the blatant obscurantism and unprecedented barbarism of National Socialism. As is well known all disciplines allowed themselves to be “co-ordinated” (gleichgeschaltet) into the Nazi ideology of “blood and soil”. Such a large scale betrayal of the principles of rational scientific enquiry and apparent unquestioning acceptance, indeed endorsement, of state-authorised violence against helpless minorities demanded to be explained. Not surprisingly, in response to this grotesque situation a series of mostly excellent studies, chiefly by Anglo-Saxon scholars, focusing on the individual academic disciplines has appeared over recent years. What they all have in common is the aim to determine what it was in the German academic tradition that could so easily have led to this wide scale trahison des clercs. The natural sciences, the law, medicine, philosophy, history and especially theology all became fatally compromised.

Thomas Howard’s detailed study of the growth of Protestant theology from being a marginalized university discipline in imperial Germany to become a highly influential political-pedagogic force provides essential background on how this discipline fought to be taken seriously in an age of religious scepticism, and by the time of the First World War had become arguably (alongside History) the most ardent advocate of German expansionism. The patriotic motto of the time, Gott mit uns, was strenuously justified by Germany’s leading university theologians who had over the previous decades evolved a theology which identified the state/nation as the agency of the divine will for the world, indeed to be in fact the “Hammer of God” on earth. The indebtedness to Hegelianism was manifest.

The aim of the present wide-ranging study is to demonstrate how Protestant theology developed from “an apologetic, praxis-oriented, confessional enterprise in the post Reformation period to one increasingly ‘liberal’, expressive of the ethos of modern critical knowledge, or Wissenschaft (p.7). This is crucially important for our understanding of the ‘peculiarities’ of German history (Blackbourn & Eley). As indicated, much has been written about the ‘German mind’ and how it differed from the ‘Western mind’. And here the word ‘liberal’ to describe the dominant school of German theologians is highly significant. ‘Liberal’ for them meant something quite specific, viz. the approach to theology as the discipline which could account for the course of world history, and in nineteenth century Germany that meant recognizing that Almighty God was working out His purposes for humankind via the actions of the Machtstaat, the power state. The essential function of ‘liberal’ theology was to explain this. Expressed another way, the history of the power state was integral to the history of salvation (Heilsgeschichte).

Howard’s painstaking investigation could be summed up as very successful account of how Protestant theology at the German universities became the pre-eminent instrument for imperial apologetics. It thereby won for itself the highest academic respectability and remained largely unchallenged in this enterprise until the beginning of the Great War when the Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, vigorously and successfully refuted the ‘statist’ assumptions of his German ‘liberal’ mentors, in particular Adolf von Harnack. Barth certainly demonstrated most convincingly in a celebrated post-war confrontation with von Harnack how the great German ‘liberal’ scholars .through their arrogance, led their countrymen astray in claiming that Germany was fighting for a divine cause. In recounting how all this happened, the young American scholar has rendered a major service of the discipline. His work will be obligatory reading for all historians of modern Germany wishing to understand how the so-called Geisteswissenschaften i.e. the humanities, theology in particular, came to perceive themselves preeminently as ‘statist’ enterprises, and how theology progressed (or declined) from being the study of Heilsgeschichte to becoming the foremost advocate of Weltpolitik.

An added bonus in Howard’s research is his documentation, with far greater precision than hitherto, of the rise to international pre-eminence of the German university theological faculties and how they came to exert such influence abroad. Theological students from all over the world, not just North America and Britain, were drawn to study at the feet of German ‘super’ professors. Finally, there is much to be learned from Howard’s work that has relevance far beyond the international community of theologians. In the end it is a most instructive study about what constitutes ‘scientific theology’ and as such a major contribution to modern German intellectual history.
John A.Moses, Canberra.

2) Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise

(This review, somewhat abridged, appeared first on First Things online, Jan. 6th 2009
(<HTTP://www.firstthings.com>HTTP://www.firstthings.com) and is reprinted by kind permission of the author)

Edmund Burke once said that he did not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people, but in the case of Germany, that claim has been sorely tested. Ever since the horrors of the death camps were exposed, the world has been asking how such barbarism could have taken place in a supposedly civilized country. The answer, more often than not, has been to point an accusing finger at the German people, and to mock the Good Germans – those ordinary citizens who, though not murderers themselves, made Hitler’s crimes possible because of cowardice and passivity.

This tendency to ascribe mass accountability, however, has obscured an important fact: There really were good Germans, incredibly brave men and women who risked their lives, and even gave them, to save their country from cataclysmic ruin. There were far too few, to be sure, but its these people who represented Germany at its best, and should not be forgotten.

Among the noblest was Claus, Count von Stauffenberg, a Colonel who led a daring conspiracy to overthrow Hitler, and came very close to succeeding. Stauffenberg came from an aristocratic Catholic family whose love of God, Germany, and European culture led him to break with the Third Reich, after initially serving it. In fact, Stauffenberg who lost an eye, half an arm, and two fingers fighting in North Africa was actually slow to join the resisters. But when he did, he went further than any of them, placing himself, literally, on the frontlines. Stauffenberg’s attempt to assassinate Hitler on July 20, 1944, the last of over a dozen such efforts is now the stuff of legend:

Stauffenberg has gotten surprisingly little attention in America, despite our nation’s fascination with heroes. Hollywood has practically ignored him: except for one now-forgotten cable movie, The Plot to Kill Hitler (1990), His legacy has been largely confined to an occasional reference on the History Channel.

[But see the authoritative and definitive biography by the Canadian scholar, Peter Hoffmann of McGill University, Stauffenberg: A Family History, 1905-1944, Cambridge University Press, 1995]

This situation has now changed with the appearance of the new film Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise. According to Peter Hoffmann, the leading authority in English on the German Resistance, this film is to be praised for its historical accuracy (ranking it higher than an acclaimed 2004 German production). Valkyrie opens with a voice-over from Cruise, in German, describing the horrors of the Third Reich, before segueing into English. Its 1943, and Stauffenberg (Cruise) is in Tunisia, where he suffers his traumatic injuries from an Allied air attack. After he returns home to recuperate, he meets up with other disillusioned officers, and begins measuring the level of their opposition (some had already plotted or tried to kill Hitler, unsuccessfully). Stauffenberg eventually joins an elite underground group, and becomes the catalyst to propel a new plot forward. The emerging conspiracy comes close to being discovered several times, but breathlessly advances, along a knifes edge, with everything at stake.

The challenge in this film was to sustain suspense, even with our knowledge of the conspiracy’s failure. The very fact that we know the ultimate fate of the plot gives Valkyrie a sense of tragic foreboding, and makes us empathize with the resisters all the more. Artistically, the film is striking. The script is crisp and intelligent; the production design, outstanding; and the music, engaging. Filmed on location at many historic sites in Germany, Valkyrie strives for authenticity, and is immeasurably helped by a cast of top-notch (mostly British) actors who shine in supporting roles. The film grows stronger as it goes along, and the improbable Cruise eventually blends in and manages to hold his own amongst his impressive peers. The climax and ending of the film are powerful, and viewers may find themselves unexpectedly moved.

Valkyrie is not without flaws, however. Unless one is familiar with this complex history, it is easy to get lost among the historical figures, and the reasons for their revolt. Historians still debate their motivations. Did the conspirators betray Hitler because they feared he would lose the War, or did they act out of genuine moral passion and conscience? The movie, concentrating on the suspense and action sequences, really doesn’t explore these aspects.. Had it done so, they could have utilized the latest research showing that outrage against the Holocaust was a key factor in moving them. Because Valkyrie doesn’t delve into the psychology, or moral development, of its lead characters, it misses a chance to really understand them.

Ultimately, therefore, this film lacks greatness. But to say that Valkyrie is not a great film is not to say it isn’t worthwhile. On its own terms, it is an engrossing thriller, far better than the usual Hollywood fare. Moreover, apart from its artistic and entertainment value, the film has educational and moral elements, and gratefully avoids political correctness. Certain academics have an unappealing habit of dismissing the 20 July plotters as reactionaries, while earnestly extolling the self-sacrifices of the underprivileged Communists, to quote historian Michael Burleigh. But there are no heroic Communists in Valkyrie, The film’s interpretation is clearly orthodox. The honourable Resistance, ranging from social democrats to conservative aristocrats, is correctly depicted as fighting to rescue and preserve Western civilization.

Finally, and this is a pleasant surprise, one senses something Christian about this film. The messages are subtle, but they are there: a cross around Stauffenberg’s neck; a scene in a Church, with a statue of Christ looking on; references to Scripture and the Almighty (Only God can judge us now); and an image of Nina von Stauffenberg clutching her abdomen as she realizes she might be seeing her husband for the last time: She was pregnant with the couple’s fifth child.

In a recent interview, Cruise admitted that he had no idea, until recently, about the German Resistance, and regretted that most people in the world have never even heard of Stauffenberg. Thankfully, as a result of this film, that will no longer be true. The Good Germans, at last, have finally gotten their due.

William Doino Jr. writes for <http://www.insidethevatican.com/>Inside the Vatican.

With every best wish
John Conway

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