In the dark night of Europe

In his book “Pio XII. Eugenio Pacelli un uomo sul trono di Pietro” (Pius II. Eugenio Pacelli: a man on the throne of Peter), the journalist Andrea Tornielli reconstructs the life and pastoral mission of Pius XII (1939-1958). He analyses the diplomatic and political action taken by the Pope in the crucial years of the Second World War and the post-war years marked by the opposition between two blocs and his concern for the fate of the countries of Europe before and during the war. THOSE “MESSAGES” TO HITLER. “The head of the government and leader of fascism [Mussolini] was very displeased by the messages that Your Holiness sent to the sovereigns of Belgium, Luxembourg and Holland, and detects in them a move contrary to the policy of Italy as ally of the German Reich”: so wrote, in a threatening tone, the Italian Ambassador to the Holy See, Dino Alfieri, to Pope Pius XI, who received him in audience on 13 May 1940 on the day following the Vatican telegrams to the three sovereigns of the countries only recently invaded by the German army. Pius XII, at this point, “reacted energetically: ‘The pope affirms principles of truth, charity and justice and cannot fail to raise his voice against iniquity and injustice perpetrated against no matter whom”. The Pope, accused of silence to Nazi persecution against the Jews, showed in this – as in scores of other episodes discussed by Tornielli in his book – that he was far from being timid and vacillating. Pius XII’s dialogue with the Italian ambassador, who “made it plain to the pope that by conducting himself in this way he was taking great risks, even with his own safety”, in fact continued as follows: “The pope is free and God will submit him to his judgement if he fails to react to evil or fails to do what he believes to be his duty … The Italian government knew that Germany intended to invade Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg. It knew so since January, and can it complain if the pope should address words of comfort and hope to the sovereigns [of these countries] who have excellent relations with the Holy See?”. “IF WE WERE TO SPEAK…” If these words are not enough to demonstrate the firmness of Pius XII, others could be added, pronounced by the pope at the same audience, in which the pontiff’s human and pastoral solicitude for the European peoples, caught up in the turmoil of the Second World War, is forthrightly expressed: “They know, they surely and completely know – exclaimed Pius XII – the horrible things that are happening in Poland! We ought to utter words of fire against such things, and what alone stops us from doing so is the knowledge that we would render the conditions of those unhappy people even harsher, if we were to speak!”. These few sentences are perhaps enough to grasp the human, political and diplomatic, as well as the pastoral and spiritual, stature of Eugenio Pacelli, shrouded – as Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said at the book presentation in Rome – by a “black legend” of his presumed indulgence to the Nazi and Fascist dictators. As Cardinal Bertone recalled, “The Roman Pontiff, who guided the Church in the terrible years of the Second World War, and then in those of the Cold War, is the victim of a ‘black’ legend, which has taken hold so firmly that it is hard to dislodge it, even though the documents and testimonies have amply proved its total groundlessness”. VICTIM OF A CONSPIRACY. On the presumed “silence of Pius XII” it may be added that the first to raise the question was Emmanuel Mounier, in 1939, only a few weeks after Eugenio Pacelli’s election as Supreme Pontiff, in relation to the Italian aggression against Albania. “These questions – explained Cardinal Bertone – would later give rise to a bitter controversy, also of Soviet and Communist origin, which was resumed by exponents of the Russian Orthodox Church”. But according to the cardinal, we need to take into account “the very sad times in which Pope Pius II was living. His voice, amid the turmoil of the Second World War and the subsequent partition between two opposing blocs, did not enjoy the favour of the constituted or de facto powers”. So a pope who was “extremely popular and loved by the people”, as he has been described by the Italian historian Andrea Riccardi, thus ended up a victim to a conspiracy which – according to Bertone – followed a precise trajectory: “from August 1946 to October 1948”, when Pius XII, reacting to the growing tensions between Israel and Palestinians in the Holy Land, proposed “a reflection conducted rationally and in conformity with criteria of justice, equity, respect and legality”. So the pope showed understanding for Israel, but also for the Palestinians. This even-handed position was then unjustly assailed on ideological grounds by both sides, giving rise to “an incomprehensible accusation against the Pope for failing to intervene, as he ought to have done, on behalf of the persecuted Jews”. Fortunately time is fairer and – stressed Bertone – “the Popes don’t speak with any thought of fabricating for themselves a favourable image for posterity: they know that the fate of millions of Christians may depend on every word they speak. They have at heart not the plaudits of the historians, but the fate of flesh-and-blood men and woman”.