The Defamation of Pius XII

Eugenio Pacelli, Pius XII, was one of the few unalloyed heroes of World War II. At great personal risk, he saved some 800,000 Jews from extermination by the Nazis. Jewish refugees were given asylum in the Vatican, swelling the number of Swiss Guards. No Allied leader can match his glorious record. Golda Meir lauded Pius XII after the war, and the chief rabbi of Rome became a Roman Catholic, taking the name of "Eugenio" in tribute to Eugenio Pacelli.

Why then has such a man been vilified and all but accused of being responsible for the Holocaust? Rolf Hochhuth's infamous play, The Deputy, marked the turning point. The outrageous distortions of this play turned the greatest friend the Jewish people had during World War II into an anti-Semite.

The Defamation of Pius XII is not a defense of Pius in the normal sense, since Pius's actions need no defense. They need to be brought to light. As a philosophy professor, Ralph Mclnerny knows that one cannot prove a negative. But one can compare the actions of Pius with those of his contemporaries. This book is, rather, an offense against the monstrous lies that have been perpetrated against this great man.

Heretofore, the works that sought to straighten out the record had to content themselves with endless repetitions of proofs that Pius could not have done X because of Y or that lie, in fact, shouldn't be accused of P because of R. But a point-by-point proof will not clear Pius XII, and all the other works on this subject can do no more than knock down one army while others rise from the ashes of the fallen one. To get to the bottom of this myth, one must expose it, not answer it. This is what Mclnerny has done.

This book restores Pius XII to the rank of hero, demolishes the ludicrous charges against him, and identifies the true target of this infamous calumny: the Church, the papacy, and the Christian moral teaching which confronts and condemns the Culture of Death.

Ralph Mclnerny is author to nearly 100 books in philosophy and fiction; among the former is Disputed Questions on. Virtue (from St. Augustine's Press), A First Glance at St. Thomas, Ethica Thomista, and What Went Wrong with Vatican II? In fiction, he has written dozens of mysteries and novels, most famously the Fr. Dowling Mystery Series. Mclnerny is the Michael P Grace Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and director of the Jacques Maritain Institute there.