“John Paul II was the only one with the authority to open the archives and to release selected documents on ties between the Vatican and the Germans from 1922 to 1939, when the man who later became Pius XII was the Vatican ’s ambassador to Germany. Among the first of the wartime documents to be released, according [to the Vatican,] would be those dealing with Pius XII’s ‘charity and assistance’ for those who were prisoners of war. ‘We want historians to know the great activities of charity and assistance by Pius XII toward many prisoners and other war victims, including those of any nation, religion and race,’ the statement read.”
On August 13, 2003, reporter Laurie Goldstein of the New York Times reported that “diplomatic documents recently brought to light by a Jesuit historian indicated that while serving as a diplomat, the future pope expressed strong antipathy to the Nazi regime in private communication with American officials. One document was a confidential memorandum written in April 1938 from Cardinal Pacelli, who said…that compromise with the Nazis should be out of question.” The other is a report by an American consul general relating that in a long conversation in 1937, Cardinal Pacelli called Hitler ‘a fundamentally wicked person’ and ‘an untrustworthy scoundrel.’
“Historians who saw the documents said they bolstered the view that the man who became Pope Pius XII was not a Nazi sympathizer, and was in fact convinced that the Nazis were a threat to the church and the stability of Europe. But the historians agreed that the documents in no way explained or exonerated Pius XII’s inaction in the face of the Holocaust.” Neither document “mentioned the persecution of Jews that was well under way when they were written. The documents were described by Charles R. Gallagher, a Jesuit historian at St. Louis University, in an article in the Sept. 1 issue of America, the Jesuit weekly. Gallagher, 38, was a former police officer who was a nonordained Jesuit studying to be a priest. He said he came across them [the documents] while researching a biography about another more obscure papal diplomat…
“Mr. Gallagher said in an interview that he hoped the documents would illustrate that as a diplomat, Cardinal Pacelli made his case against the Nazis in private, to other diplomats. ‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say that these documents exonerate him,’ he said. ‘What I think these findings might help to dispel is the impression that this pope was, as others have called him, ‘Hitler’s Pope.’
“Mr. Gallagher found the Pacelli memorandum among the diplomatic papers of Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy that were housed at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston. Joseph Kennedy…served as ambassador to England from 1938 to 1940. Ambassador Kennedy received the memorandum in April 1938 when he met in Rome with Cardinal Pacelli, who was then the Vatican ’s secretary of state… The Cardinal also wrote that the church at times felt powerless and isolated in its daily struggle against all sorts of political excesses from the Bolsheviks to the new pagans arising among the young Aryan generations. He wrote that ‘evidence of good faith’ by the Nazi regime was ‘completely lacking’ and that ‘the possibility of an agreement’ with the Nazis was ‘out of question for the time being.’”
Although the Vatican archives section dealing with the years of Pius XII’s papacy had not yet been opened to historians in 2008, “in a speech to representatives from the US-based Pave the Way Foundation during their visit to his summer residence, Castel Gandolfo, [Pope Benedict XVI] said…that Pius XII ‘spared no effort, wherever it was possible, to intervene (for Jews either) directly or through instructions given to individuals or institutions in the Catholic Church.’”
Benedict said Pius XII, “had to work ‘secretly and silently’ to ‘avert the worst and save the highest number of Jews possible,’…repeating assertions made by Vatican experts in the past. The Pope also said Pius XII was thanked by Jewish groups during and after the war for saving the lives of thousands of Jews. He cited a meeting the leader of the Roman Catholic Church had in the Vatican in November 1945 at which 80 death camp survivors ‘thanked him personally for his generosity.’” Benedict also said “further investigation would reinforce ‘the historical truth, overcoming all remaining prejudice.’”
Benedict’s defense came as the process begun by Pope John Paul II of canonizing Pius XII continued, and a few days before the fiftieth anniversary of Pius XII’s death in 1958. Born in Rome in 1876, Eugenio Pacelli became a priest and obtained his first assignment as a “curate at Chiesa Nuova, the church where he had served as an altar boy. While there, he taught catechism to children… At the same time he pursued his studies for a doctorate in Canon Law and Civil Law…and he added doctorates in Philosophy and in Theology.” In 1904, he “became a Papal Chamberlain with the title of Monsignor and one year later a Domestic Prelate…
“In 1908, Pacelli attended the Eucharistic Congress in London. The 32-year-old priest was by that time well embarked on what would become a nearly 40-year career of brilliant diplomatic service for the Church. From 1904 to 1916, he was a research aide in the Office of the Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs where he assisted Cardinal Pietro Gasparri in the crucial task of clarifying and updating canon law. In 1910, Monsignor Pacelli was again back in London where he represented the Holy See at the Coronation of King George V.
“In 1911, Pope Pius X appointed Pacelli Undersecretary for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs. This department of the Secretariat of State, negotiated terms of agreements with foreign governments that would allow the Church to carry out its teaching mission. In 1912, he was appointed Secretary. Two years later, he became Secretary of the Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs.”
When Pius X died in 1914, Pope Benedict XV appointed Monsignor Pacelli as Papal Nuncio to Bavaria, Germany. Before assuming the post, “he was consecrated a Bishop by Pope Benedict XV in the Sistine Chapel (May 13, 1917). He was then elevated to the rank of Archbishop and went to Germany to present his credentials to Ludwig III, King of Bavaria on May 28, 1917. American newspaper correspondent Dorothy Thompson, wrote: ‘Those of us who were foreign correspondents in Berlin during the days of the Weimar Republic were not unfamiliar with the figure of the dean of the diplomatic corps. Tall, slender, with magnificent eyes, strong features and expressive hands, in his appearance and bearing Archbishop Pacelli looked every inch what he was, a Roman nobleman, of the proudest blood of the Western world. In knowledge of German and European affairs and in diplomatic astuteness, the Nuncio was without an equal.’…
“On June 22, 1920, Pacelli became the first Apostolic Nuncio to Germany. Four years later, March 29, 1924, he signed a concordat with Bavaria which was ratified by its Parliament on January 15, 1925. It determined the rights and duties of the Church and the government in respect to each other. After concluding the concordat with Bavaria, Pacelli was able to succeed with Prussia and Baden…After some time in Munich, the Apostolic Nuncio’s residence was transferred to Berlin.”
“The Lateran Treaty of 1929 established formal relations between Italy and the Vatican. Following the example of Mussolini, Adolf Hitler initiated a concordat. This is a strictly defined legal agreement between two governments intended to preserve the freedom of the Church to teach and minister to the faithful.”
On February 7, 1930, Pacelli “was appointed Secretary of State and became the archpriest of the Vatican Basilica.” In this capacity, he “negotiated with the Germans to protect the rights of Catholics.” Traveling widely, including an historic visit to the United States in 1936, he was seen by more people and was the most accessible Pope in the history of the papacy up to his pontificate.