The Global Pontificate of Pius XII: War and Genocide, Reconstruction and Change, 1939-1958

Part I

The Pope, the Archives

Chapter 1

Writing and Rewriting History

The Opening of the Vatican Archives for Pius XII’s Pontificate

Giovanni Coco

Like an Assyrian bas-relief.

—Giuseppe De Luca, Premessa, Il cardinale Cesare Baronio

With these striking words, Don Giuseppe De Luca described Pius XII, coining perhaps the most original of the definitions attached to Pope Pacelli, who holds an unenviable record, that of a long-lived but above all radically divided historiography, virtually monopolized by various opposing schools of thought.¹

Pius XII has been variously termed Hitler’s pope and the anti-Hitler pope, the pope of the Jews and the anti-Jewish pope, the pope of the silences and the pope of the excommunications.²

Every possible conflicting opinion has been voiced, without forgetting the definition that Pope Pacelli gave of himself: Pastor Angelicus, an image replete with meanings and allusions, constructed through an intelligent use of the media tools of the time.³

These definitions, now the legacy of a common imaginary, have become stereotypes that barely scratch the surface of the real Eugenio Pacelli as man and as Roman Pontiff; instead, he has remained imprisoned within a stereotype exploited by both critics and apologists.

Pius XII has become a divisive figure, on whose memory even the Catholic world itself does not speak in a single voice.⁴

Numerous variables have contributed to creating this diversity of opinions, some of which are already included among the key words: War, Genocide and Reconstruction. To these we could add others: Totalitarianism (interpreted in its Fascist, Nazi and Communist variants), but also Democracy, to mention just a few.

However, we would be mistaken in thinking that Pius XII completely failed to consider the impact that these major issues would have on his reputation and even on his memory. Even during the war, on 10 October 1941, he asked Msgr. Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (the future John XXIII) if his silence regarding the behavior of Nazism is not misjudged.⁵

However, it was particularly after the end of the war that Pope Pacelli, usually reluctant to make public statements on the choices he had made, decided to speak out.

On 2 June 1945, almost a month after the end of the war, he delivered a speech to the Sacred College in which he took stock of the relations between the Holy See and the Third Reich, defending the choice of the 1933 concordat and the policy adopted up to that time.⁶

The pontiff knew how to speak to an audience composed of numerous critical voices, who accused him of having been overly submissive and conciliatory toward Nazism; he responded to them by proudly claiming the line drawn by the Mit brennender Sorge, consecrating its aura as an anti-Nazi encyclical.⁷

During this studied closing argument, Pius XII spoke at length about the persecution suffered by the Catholic Church in Germany and occupied countries, of the tribute of blood shed by the clergy deported to Dachau, whose dismal name was finally mentioned for the first time in a papal speech.⁸

But while Pius XII stressed the martyrdom of the Church to highlight its triumph over Nazism, arguing vigorously that no one could rebuke the Church for having failed to denounce and point out in time the true nature of the national socialist movement, there was no mention of the other persecution, the Shoah, liquidated in just a few words, indirect and largely insipid, in the passage dealing with the most exquisite scientific methods to torture or eliminate often innocent people.⁹

This was a milder reference even than the few sentences pronounced in the famous Radio Message of Christmas 1942, when fierce retaliation on the part of the Nazi regime was still a possibility; on that occasion, the pontiff had mentioned those hundreds of thousands of people who, because of their nationality or race, are consigned to death or to a slow decline.¹⁰

The reluctance to tackle the issue of the Shoah, and of antisemitism in general, after the end of the war long continued to be a point on which Pius XII maintained a concerned but inflexible attitude, a silence that still raises many questions today and that seems perhaps even more enigmatic than the so-called silences of the war years. In November 1945, the pope held an audience with a group of Jews rescued from concentration camps, but though he mentioned the racist passions that had swallowed up countless innocent victims because of their race, he avoided making any explicit reference to the extermination carried out by Nazi Germany.¹¹

This was a brief speech, in which another problem was already making its appearance, that of Jewish emigration to Palestine and the foundation of the State of Israel, while Pius XII claimed that he wished to maintain a wise reserve in the face of individual issues, as they are of a purely political and territorial nature.¹²

This refusal to deal with any aspect of the so-called Jewish question would soon prove untenable. In 1946, at the requests of the French philosopher and ambassador Jacques Maritain, who insisted that the pope issue a condemnation of antisemitism, it was replied that the Holy Father has spoken often on behalf of those who suffer persecution because of their race, making any further pronouncement unnecessary—a statement that would soon become a refrain.¹³

By contrast, Msgr. Giovanni Battista Montini (the future Paul VI) pointed out that here and there, there are Jews who are enacting retribution and committing reprehensible acts.¹⁴

Paradoxical as it may seem, news stories took precedence over history, virtually reversing the roles of persecuted and persecutor, fueled above all by the repercussions of the Palestinian crisis on Arabic-speaking Christians.¹⁵

At the same time, even within the Secretariat of State there were voices that seemed to preserve a hint of antisemitism.¹⁶

In 1946, as survivors of the extermination went on hunger strike to obtain permission to embark for Palestine, Msgr. Angelo Dell’Acqua advised with mocking arrogance against attaching too much weight to this act: It is not the habit of the Jews to suffer long and patiently: indeed, they love to live and to live well.¹⁷

At the same time, it is impossible to encapsulate the position taken by the Holy See in the words of a single member of the Secretariat of State, nor to claim that he was giving voice to the pope’s philosophy. Indeed, while resorting to his usual contorted and allusive language, Pius XII continued to advance the claim that aid had been provided to the Jewish people as proof that he had condemned antisemitism, which was defined as one of the most deplorable and dishonorable deviations of human thought and feeling.¹⁸

However, the pontiff never condescended to detail these statements, which remained a sort of truism. Many years later, answering the question of a rabbi who asked for recognition of the State of Israel as proof of the Church’s willingness to overcome any accusation of antisemitism, Pius XII replied with a copy of his speech, in which he once again alluded to the assistance given to the Jews who suffered persecution during the war.¹⁹

Ultimately, the impression was that of a dialogue of the deaf, evidence of an unbridgeable gap between the expectations of the Jewish people and the answers provided by the Church, and in which we already find the premises of the historiographical controversy that would involve the figure of Pius XII, triggered as far back as 1946 by the criticisms of Ernesto Buonaiuti:

Did the depositories of that Pauline message, according to which in Christ there is no longer either Jew nor Greek, either slave or free man, either man or woman, have nothing more to do and to say than to squawk about the rights of the discriminated and to flaunt before the eyes of the persecutors the need to be meek and just, in view of future reprisals?²⁰

These words were echoed by Léon Poliakov, who in his Le Vatican et la Question Juive (1950) recalled that no public protest against antisemitic persecution was made in Rome under the Pontificate of Pius XII.²¹

Slightly later, François Mauriac, in his preface to Poliakov’s Breviaire de la haine, openly criticized the silences of Pius XII, a definition that from then on came to stand as a metaphor for an entire pontificate.²²

The protests increased significantly after the pope’s death, with the essays of Saul Friedländer (Pie XII et le IIIe Reich, Paris, 1964) and Günther Lewy (The Catholic Church and the Nazi Germany, New York, 1964), though the Vicar by Rolf Hochhuth (1963) had the greatest impact.²³

This theatrical piece, on whose genesis Giorgio Fabre has written illuminating pages, broadened the debate to a wider audience as a consequence of the controversies it aroused.²⁴

An initial reaction on the part of the Vatican came during the pontificate of John XXIII, who in 1959, at the suggestion of Cardinal Domenico Tardini, exceptionally and privately permitted the consultation of the archives of the Secretariat of State.²⁵

The Jesuit Angelo Martini was authorized to study the papers relating to the pontificate of Pius XI, in particular those on the years 1938–39; his research culminated in the publication in La Civiltà Cattolica of the articles L’ultima battaglia di Pio XI. I primi scontri, and L’ultima battaglia di Pio XI. Il ‘vulnus’ al Concordato e Gli ultimi giorni di Pio XI.²⁶

At the same time, Msgr. Alberto Giovannetti, a member of the Secretariat of State with a talent for journalism, was granted access to documents (1940–44) relating to the war, and especially to materials on the role played by the Holy See during the German occupation of Rome (9 September 1943 – 4 June 1944).²⁷

This study gave rise to the idea of a lightweight white paper, constructed with narrative fluidity and modeled on a diary, entitled Roma Città Aperta, whose reception ultimately failed to meet expectations.²⁸

With the advent of the pontificate of Paul VI, who had been Pope Pacelli’s loyal longtime collaborator (1938–54), the Vatican’s reaction became more complex; indeed, on the eve of the conclave, the then Cardinal Montini had not attempted to avoid the controversy, publishing the article Pius XII and the Jews.²⁹

Paul VI decided to significantly shift the focus of the historiographical debate, which soon became intertwined with the procedures for the beatification of Pius XII, requested by various sectors of the Catholic world. The Jesuit Martini was commissioned to carry out a study in the archives of the Secretariat of State and to collect documentation that helped to illustrate the actions of Pius XII and his entourage during the conflict.³⁰

This was a particularly demanding task, for which his fellow Jesuits Pierre Blet and Burkhart Schneider were co-opted, later joined by Robert A. Graham.³¹

The Actes et Documents du Saint-Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale were thus published in eleven volumes between 1965 and 1980.³²

This is an imposing work that is still essential for research; however, rather than putting a stop to the controversies it instead raised new and more pressing questions regarding the completeness of the published documentation.

Indeed, the Actes, like any other collection of documents, are the result of a selection that responds to specific editorial criteria, decided upon and set out by the editors, parameters on which even today it is impossible to start a debate given the fragmentary nature of the sources available. Unfortunately, the idea of presenting the Actes as the Vatican archive’s final word on Pacelli’s pontificate was a very questionable line of defense, contradicted shortly after the opening of 2 March 2020, as some recent documentary discoveries have unequivocally demonstrated.³³

On the other hand, the Jesuit Fathers themselves were aware that their work had some objective limitations. From the outset, Father Martini and his confreres preferred to focus on the material of Extraordinary Affairs, richer in diplomatic correspondence but above all ordered by Stati (states), a classification that made it easier to consult compared to the documents of Ordinary Affairs, ordered by Titoli (titles) that necessitated constant recourse to the catalogue. Moreover, the collection of the Commissione Soccorsi was no longer kept at the Secretariat of State but had been in the Vatican Secret Archive since 1959, where it could only be consulted through Msgr. Martino Giusti.³⁴

It is no coincidence that in 2006 Father Blet wondered if a possible opening might "to some extent conflict with or perhaps contradict some of what we have published in the Actes et Documents."³⁵

In any case, the controversies surrounding the completeness of the Actes led to the end of the historiographical period linked to their publication.³⁶

In the following years, the Vatican seems to have become more receptive toward requests for access to the documentation on Pacelli’s pontificate, and the outcome of this new phase was the extraordinary opening in 2004 of the files of the Ufficio Informazioni Vaticano per i prigionieri di guerra.³⁷

Shortly afterwards, the documentation of the period of Pius XI was offered up for consultation, a step followed by intensive work to reorder the papers relating to the pontificate of Pius XII. This process culminated on 2 March 2020, after a day of sterile debate on the possibility of a partial opening of the Vatican documentation, limited exclusively to the war years (1939–45). This option would have been a heinous and regrettable choice, as it would have placed a definitive stigma on Pius XII and his pontificate, the evaluation of which cannot be reduced to the period of World War II alone, as it can also be defined as the first global pontificate of the contemporary age.

Eugenio Pacelli was pontiff at a time ravaged by a world war and characterized by momentous upheavals such as decolonization, the Cold War, and direct confrontation with communism.³⁸

It was an era traversed by a frantic technological and scientific evolution, which posed disturbing challenges to Catholic doctrine; a period marked by a deep-seated desire for renewal on the cultural, social, and religious levels, and even on that of customs, which questioned the entire cultural heritage inherited from the European tradition, onto which the Roman Church was grafted.³⁹

There was confrontation in the East with Marxist materialism and in the West with nihilism and existentialism, while on the confessional level there was a resurgence of confrontation with the Russian Orthodox Church, once again the state church sui generis of an atheist regime.⁴⁰

We should acknowledge that Pius XII had the courage to face this stormy sea. The results were not always equal to the effort expended: sometimes the pontiff was unable to look past obstacles he considered insurmountable, while in other cases he preferred to retreat; in still others, however, he faced the most threatening waves head-on, without fearing their blows, and at times he even managed to make out a new path. It is no coincidence that the Second Vatican Council drew heavily on the documents of Pope Pacelli’s Magisterium, a choice also intended to communicate a reassuring continuity with the past.⁴¹

This was a pontificate operating within a colossal global transition, whose consequences we are still experiencing today: this is the period for which the opening of the Vatican archives may offer useful tools with which to write or rewrite new pages of history, as some scholars have already done or are currently doing.⁴²

However, even these contributions should not be seen as the final word on the pontificate of Pius XII, but as one step in a process that is still in its early stages, considering the impressive quantity of sources offered up for consultation.

To confine ourselves to the Vatican Apostolic Archives alone, there are about 120 archival collections containing documentation on the pontificate of Pius XII and about 20,000 internal units, each of which contains hundreds of papers. The reorganization of this documentary heritage has occupied the staff of the Apostolic Archives for over fifteen years, and still cannot be described as completed.⁴³

On occasion, scholars have requested access to these documents even in the absence of inventories, a purely exceptional practice for the Apostolic Archives. Indeed, an inventory is not just a guide to navigating the papers of an archive: if archives tell the story of institutions and the people who produced them, then inventories tell the story of archives and explain the connections that the documents have among themselves and with the institution, making it possible to read the papers within their historical context, avoiding flights of fancy and hasty conclusions.

This precaution is particularly important in the case of the archives of the Secretariat of State, a body whose internal dynamics appear to be of primary importance for understanding its activities and the documents it has produced. As the central organ of the Vatican machine, the Secretariat of State was and still is under the sole authority of the Cardinal Secretary of State, simultaneously the prime minister and foreign affairs minister of the Roman Pontiff, prerogatives exercised at the time through two sections: the first, known as Extraordinary Affairs, responsible for bilateral relations with states, and the second, known as Ordinary Affairs, which dealt with a series of issues ranging from the political to the religious. In 1938, the former was directed by the secretary Msgr. Tardini, while the latter was headed by his substitute Msgr. Montini. The two prelates had at their joint dependence a team of priests known as the minutanti, or officials, and apprentices, that is staff preparing for diplomatic and curial careers.⁴⁴

On a documentary level, the two sections had separate protocols and separate archives: the historical archive of Ordinary Affairs is traditionally kept in the Vatican Apostolic Archive, while the historical archive of Extraordinary Affairs is still held by the respective section of the Secretariat of State (Relations with States). Despite this subdivision, the two sections were often called upon to deal with the same issues and, in many cases, the documentation passed from one section to the other. Understanding these dynamics is a fundamental prerequisite for orienting oneself among the somewhat unusual names given to some archival collections, as in the case of the Segreteria di Stato, Commissione Soccorsi, whose name might suggest a charitable initiative but that is something else altogether.

The origins of this collection date to the outbreak of the war, when Pius XII decided to entrust Msgr. Montini, the substitute for Ordinary Affairs, with the task of tracking the humanitarian aspect of the conflict. To facilitate office work, Montini created a single section, called Guerra Europea 1939, in which all the files relating to the conflict were to be held. Only later, in November 1941, was a commission established within Ordinary Affairs to keep track of charitable and humanitarian issues. On the archival level, the files of the Commissione Soccorsi often became intertwined with those of the Guerra Europea 1939, a union that became inextricable; after 1945, the two archival collections were definitively combined under the heading of Commissione Soccorsi, which is the name of the office still in operation.⁴⁵

From the same perspective we should also interpret other headings, such as the "sezione Razza of the Ordinary Affairs archive and the serie Ebrei" of the Extraordinary Affairs archive, two parallel and contemporary sections that contain most of the documentation on the assistance provided by the Holy See to the Jews.⁴⁶

Indeed, the pleas of the Jews were systematically distributed according to their content and, consequently, to the prerogatives of the individual sections of the Secretariat of State. As early as 1938, Extraordinary Affairs was in charge of the legal aspect of requests for help, dealing with the paperwork related to mixed marriages, petitions for Aryanization or discrimination, requests for passports and emigration visas. Msgr. Tardini had delegated this work almost exclusively to Msgr. Angelo Dell’Acqua, who divided the documentation into different archival files, such as Germania 742, Italia 1054 and Stati Ecclesiastici 575.⁴⁷

At the same time, requests for subsidies or aid of various kinds were overseen by Ordinary Affairs, where Msgr. Montini personally supervised the petitions and distributed them among his collaborators, later archiving this material in the files Popolazioni and Varie.⁴⁸

In around the first half of the 1940s the increasing requests for help suggested the idea of creating special files to hold this documentation. This led to the creation of the "Serie Ebrei in the archives of the first section and of the Sezione Razza" in the archives of the second section, Commissione Soccorsi, maintaining two parallel archival sections, each with its own peculiar characteristics: in the "Serie Ebrei the files were kept in personal files, ordered alphabetically, while the Sezione Razza" was organized into personal or thematic files, ordered according to a chronological criterion.

However, this division did not always prevent the continuous flow of documents between the two archives; sometimes, two separate dossiers might be produced for the same case, one kept in the "Serie Ebrei and the other in the Sezione Razza." This was a cumbersome system, which should perhaps have encouraged the establishment of a single ad hoc office; in fact, this hypothesis never seems to have been considered, replaced by a close and direct personal collaboration between Msgrs Montini and Dell’Acqua.

This procedure was maintained until the middle of 1943, when racial persecution intensified, drastically reducing the scope for intervention of the Extraordinary Affairs section, almost all of whose competences in the Jewish question were delegated by Msgr. Montini to Ordinary Affairs; on the documentary level this change led to the rapid end of the "Serie Ebrei," which preserves only very little documentation from the years 1944–45.⁴⁹

By contrast, the "Sezione Razza" of Ordinary Affairs continued to collect increasingly large and heterogeneous quantities of material before gradually dwindling in the postwar years (1948–49).

Despite these oscillations, we can say that the true common denominator of the paperwork kept in the "Serie Ebrei and the Sezione Razza was the milieu from which the petitions came: in a substantial majority of cases the applicants or beneficiaries were baptized Jews or in any case mixed" families. This latter fact, however, is not particularly surprising, as it reflected a two-way dynamic: the pope and the Church seemed the principal lifeline to Catholics of Jewish origin, who were also members of that legal category for which the steps taken by the Holy See might achieve some sort of positive outcome.⁵⁰

As such, the "Serie Ebrei and the Sezione Razza" do not in any way constitute a sort of Schindler’s List, a definition that seems to be a deliberate distortion, nor can they be considered the sole key to interpreting Pius XII’s stance towards the Jewish question: these documents simply describe targeted and personalized interventions, in keeping with the traditional practice of the Holy See.⁵¹

While an understanding of institutions, developed through archives, helps us to read historical evidence correctly, the documents themselves, when read between the lines, may sometimes suggest a different perspective from which to interpret familiar issues. A good example is provided by the Relazioni sugli Stati, kept in the Extraordinary Affairs archive in the file Stati Ecclesiastici 581.

Following a practice originating in 1903, the Extraordinary Affairs Section presented to each newly elected pontiff a report on the main outstanding issues in diplomatic relations between the Holy See and foreign states, a document prepared on the instructions of the outgoing Cardinal Secretary of State.⁵²

But in 1939 a peculiar set of circumstances arose: the outgoing secretary of state was also the newly elected pontiff, and the Relazione sugli Stati reveals Pius XII’s view of relations between the Church and the world.

Some choices appear very telling. Perusing the list of states, the entry on Italy is concentrated into just two paragraphs: Razzismo italiano (Italian Racism) and Azione Cattolica Italiana (Italian Catholic Action), the two rocks on which relations between Rome and the Vatican had run aground.⁵³

The absence of other considerations on relations with Fascist Italy is already a significant indication of the state of bilateral relations, which with the exception of those two issues could be described as satisfactory.

By contrast, the entry on Germany is very dense and articulated,⁵⁴

while a notable feature of the list is the absence of an entry on the United States, perhaps because Cardinal Pacelli had developed personal relationships with the American administration, just as the mission to the Vatican entrusted by President Roosevelt to Myron Taylor was a personal one.⁵⁵

Furthermore, if we observe the Relazioni sugli Stati we also find an entry on "Azione svolta dalla Santa Sede in favore degli Ebrei (Action taken by the Holy See in favor of the Jews), the content of which basically refers back to the paragraph on Razzismo italiano."⁵⁶

This is a clear indication of the way in which Pacelli himself interpreted the Jewish question and the intervention of the Secretariat of State.

The critical edition of the Relazioni sugli Stati, currently being prepared by Father Mario Grignani, will certainly provide a useful tool for better understanding the political-diplomatic perspective with which Pius XII began his pontificate, and in this sense the publication of new sources certainly seems one of the greatest opportunities provided by the opening of the Vatican archives.

Among the collections of the recently opened Vatican Apostolic Archives, it seems helpful to focus attention on the Carte Pio XII, which contain what remains of the personal archive of Pius XII, a set of documents that must originally have been vast and meticulously organized, as some notes by Father Robert Leiber appear to suggest.⁵⁷

Unfortunately, following the pontiff’s death this archive was subjected to considerable tampering, dismemberment, dispersal, and even the addition of extraneous materials. Furthermore, the state of conservation has proved to be poor, almost to the point of destruction, an unfortunate state that testifies to the vicissitudes suffered by these files.⁵⁸

In any case, it has been possible to reconstruct at least some sets of documents. The first collects the materials belonging to the Segreteria Privata of Pope Pacelli, a set of papers in Italian and German dating to the period between 1930 and around 1957, and so of considerable importance for reconstructing relations between the Holy See and Germany before, during, and after the war. Another series, named Affari Ordinari, collects the documents and dossiers examined by the pontiff through the Ordinary Affairs Section (1939–58); this is a wide-ranging collection that covers everything from Italy to the rest of the world. Then there is another set conventionally known as Carte della Scrivania, which brings together an extremely heterogeneous collection of materials relating to the personal sphere of the pontiff’s life—correspondences, passports, notes of various kinds, prayers and texts for spiritual retreats—a documentation that covers a period from 1909 to 1958.

Finally, among the Carte Pio XII we also find the collection of Discorsi, which is the manuscripts and typescripts of the speeches delivered by Eugenio Pacelli from 1907 until his death in 1958. These documents, which by order of Pius XII himself were kept in a separate cabinet at the Secretariat of State to which only the substitute for Ordinary Affairs had the key, suffered an unfortunate fate.⁵⁹

Shortly before his death, the pope, who was particularly sensitive about any possible inaccuracies contained in his unpublished speeches, ordered Sister Pascalina Lehnert to destroy some of those papers, which made up the majority of the Discorsi collection.⁶⁰

This wish was partially thwarted by Cardinal Eugène Tisserant but, after the death of Pius XII, his writings underwent an arbitrary revision carried out by Msgr. Dell’Acqua;⁶¹

the documents were placed in some plastic photographic albums, an arrangement more in keeping with that of a museum or a reliquary than with the needs of conservation, as demonstrated by the devastating effects of this choice. The albums were in fact held on the top floor of the Secretariat of State, on the shelves under the roof. Within a few years, heat and humidity had triggered a chemical reaction, which caused the carbonization of a set of papers, making it necessary to move the documents in order to undertake restoration work that was ultimately never completed. After their return to the Secretariat of State, the documents were summarily described in a list of contents, a document used by the curators of the exhibition Pio XII. L’uomo e il pontificato (1876–1958), held in the Charlemagne Portico in 2008.⁶²

Prior to the exhibition, an inexperienced collaborator, motivated by an excess of zeal, was looking for some autograph manuscripts of Pope Pacelli for display, with a particular focus on the Radio Message of Christmas 1942, which unfortunately was missing. Pausing to look only at the date, and without even bothering to compare the texts, he confused it with the Sacred College’s address of 24 December 1942, thus wrongly identifying it.⁶³

As a result, a completely misleading loan form was drawn up, which in the reordering phase was kept as a testimony to the tampering suffered by those documents and the dangers inherent in a self-serving use of sources.⁶⁴

The text of the Christmas Radio Message of 1942 was eventually discovered in the Extraordinary Affairs archive, in the file Stati Ecclesiastici 740.⁶⁵

This is not the autograph manuscript but rather the final version of the text, containing the last corrections ordered by Pius XII just before he delivered the speech, interventions that are very minor in number but not in importance. Indeed, Pope Pacelli’s last observations are concentrated in the few lines that deal with the persecution against the Jews, which make deliberate recourse to a scale of lexical tonalities in an attempt to speak without saying too much. In this passage as originally formulated, we read that thousands of people because of their nationality or their race, are put to death or condemned to a slow decline, a phrase subsequently changed to consigned to death or to a slow decline. This nuance was in no way purely stylistic, because the phrase put to death suggested the idea of an event that was unavoidable and had perhaps already taken place, while consigned to death might suggest the idea that this tragic fate was not inexorable or that, in any case, there was no proof of the deliberate will of the persecutor (the Third Reich) to commit a horrific crime against humanity.⁶⁶

This series of corrections is an indication of the extent to which those few words were simultaneously much wanted yet feared and nuanced in the 1942 Christmas radio message. Indeed, if we wish to believe what we hear in the recording of the speech, Pius XII’s deeply distraught state of mind was betrayed precisely by the reading of this passage, characterized by a hint of stuttering: this was a trait typical of Eugenio Pacelli, but was apparent only in very rare cases when he was particularly moved.⁶⁷

Obviously, the enormous importance of the manuscripts and typescripts of the Discorsi contained in the Carte Pio XII does not lie in the originality of the texts, almost all of which are known and already published, but in their writing, which conveys to us the true image of Pius XII, allowing us to reconstruct the man, his character and his thought, his fears and anxieties. Indeed, the textual history itself betrays the almost maniacal care and profound dedication that Eugenio Pacelli poured into the composition of his speeches, which were to all intents and purposes the verbal extension of his person, of his being.

Work on this documentation will certainly help to decipher the pontiff’s thought, the cuneiform of the Assyrian bas-relief, as clearly illustrated through reference to some of Pope Pacelli’s speeches. Anyone who cares to check the rough draft of the address to the Sacred College of 2 June 1945, in which Pius XII traced the history of relations between the Holy See and the Third Reich, will see that the passage citing the most exquisite scientific methods for torturing or eliminating often innocent people was only later added to the original text.⁶⁸

Similarly, in the short speech delivered to Jewish refugees in November 1945, the words on the wise reserve maintained by the Church in the face of individual issues of a purely political and territorial nature, clearly alluding to the Jewish emigration to Palestine, were also added after the first draft and with repeated corrections.⁶⁹

In conclusion, it is not always possible to find the corpus delicti, the so-called smoking gun in the archives, but we are reminded of a phrase of Tacitus: "omnia quae nunc vetustissima creduntur, nova fuere" (all the things that are now believed to be very old were once new);⁷⁰

these words are fully applicable to the world of archives and of history.

An archive is a time machine: this is perhaps the greatest opportunity offered by the opening of the Vatican archives to the world of those who, in silence, wish to listen to the voice of the papers.

Giovanni Coco is an archivist and scholar, as well as a staff member of Vatican Apostolic Archives. He has worked on Pius XII’s personal papers and has recently published Le Carte di Pio XII oltre il mito. Eugenio Pacelli nelle sue carte personali. Cenni storici e inventario (2023).

Notes

Biographical information on the mentioned Roman Pontiffs (Benedict XV, Pius XI, Pius XII, John XXIII, and Paul VI) can be found in The Papacy. An Encyclopedia.

1

. See Melloni, Tutto o niente, 39; Mores, Come un bassorilievo assiro. On De Luca (1898–1962), a priest of the clergy of Rome (1921), see De Rosa, De Luca Giuseppe, 353–59.

2

. For a summary review of Pacellian topoi, see: Conway, The Silence; Cornwell, Hitler’s Pope; Dalin, The Myth; Guiducci, Il Terzo Reich; Hesemann, Der Papst; Hesemann, Der Papst und der Holocaust; Kertzer, The Popes Against the Jews; Marchione, Did Pope Pius XII Help; Wolf, Papst und Teufel.

3

. Already attributed to the successor of the deceased Pius XI in the wake of the so-called Pseudo-Malachi prophecy, the epithet Pastor Angelicus was ascribed to Pius XII immediately after his election to the papal throne. This ideal match was formalized by the publication of Cardinal Jean Verdier’s words in the columns of L’Osservatore Romano (10 March 1939, 1). In 1942, the Pacellian reputation of Pastor Angelicus would be sanctioned by the eponymous film, directed by Romolo Marcellini and with the collaboration of Ennio Flaiano, which would have a fundamental impact in the shaping of Pius XII’s memory (see Rusconi, Santo Padre, 491–92).

4

. Just to name a few titles: Vedovato, Pio XII; Vedovato, Ancora sul silenzio non-assenso; Miccoli, I dilemmi e i silenzi; Napolitano, Pio XII tra guerra e pace; Napolitano, Mistica e inconsistenza; Vian, Il silenzio di Pio XII; Menozzi and Moro, Cattolicesimo e Totalitarismo; Chenaux, Pie XII.

5

. Roncalli, La mia vita in Oriente, 290.

6

. Discorsi e Radiomessaggi, VII, 65–78.

7

. Wolf, Wechsel in der Kampftaktik?; Chenaux, Aux origines; Moll, Die Enzyklika Pius’ XI.

8

. Discorsi e Radiomessaggi, VII, 73. On the Catholic clergy and religious deported to Dachau, see Wendel, Das Reich des Todes.

9

. Discorsi e Radiomessaggi, VII, 72.

10

. Discorsi e Radiomessaggi, IV, 345.

11

. Discorsi e Radiomessaggi, VII, 293–94. On the hearing, see also AAV, Prefettura Casa Pont., Udienze Private 62, fasc. 2, ff. 577–85; ASRS, AA. EE. SS., Pio XII, pars asterisco, Stati Ecclesiastici, Pos. 575, ff. 2454–78; L’Osservatore Romano, 30 November 1945, 1.

12

. Discorsi e Radiomessaggi, VII, 293–94.

13

. ASRS, AA. EE. SS., Pio XII, pars asterisco, Stati Ecclesiastici, Pos. 575, f. 2437. On Maritain (1882–1973), philosopher, and ambassador of France to the Holy See from 1945 to 1948, see Nicolas, Maritain Jacques.

14

. ASRS, AA. EE. SS., Pio XII, pars asterisco, Stati Ecclesiastici, Pos. 575, f. 2437.

15

. Minerbi, Il Vaticano; Zanini, L’Osservatore Romano; Zanini, Tra preoccupazioni religiose.

16

. See Miccoli, Antiebraismo, Antisemitismo; Valbousquet, Tradition catholique; Valbousquet, Catholique et antisémite.

17

. ASRS, AA. EE. SS., Pio XII, pars asterisco, Stati Ecclesiastici, Pos. 575, f. 2331. Su mons. Dell’Acqua (1903–1972), priest of the Milanese clergy (1926), serving the Secretariat of State in the Extraordinary Affairs Section (1938) and later in the Ordinary Affairs Section (1953), and eventually cardinal vicar of Rome (1968); see Melloni, Angelo Dell’Acqua.

18

. Discorsi e Radiomessaggi, VII, 293–94.

19

. AAV, Segr. Stato, 1950 e ss., Enti Profani e Commerciali 1015, f. 28.

20

. Buonaiuti, Pio XII, 328. On Buonaiuti (1881–1946), priest of the Roman clergy (1903), professor of the History of Christianity, permanently excommunicated in 1926 for modernism, see Parente, Buonaiuti Ernesto.

21

. Le Monde Juif 12 (1950): 11–14.

22

. Mauriac, Préface. On Mauriac (1885–1970), see Guissard, Mauriac François.

23

. On Hochhuth (1931–2020), see Göttler and Puknus, Rolf Hochhuth.

24

. Fabre, Il caso Hochhuth; Ruff, The Battle, 153–91.

25

. On Tardini (1888–1961), secretary of the First Section of the Secretariat of State (1937–1958), then cardinal secretary of state (1959), see Casula, Domenico Tardini; Tardini, Diario di un cardinale.

26

. On Martini (1913–1981), see Obituary (Angelo Martini SJ). On the genesis of these articles, see Pagano, Chappin, and Coco, "Fogli di Udienza," 32.

27

. On Giovannetti (1913–1989), priest of the clergy of Sabina (1935), see Filipazzi, Rappresentanze, 291, 296, 306.

28

. See Giovannetti, Roma Città Aperta. On this editorial trajectory, see ibid., 21–23; and Giovannetti, Il mio Tardini, 13–15.

29

. See Montini, Pius XII and the Jews.

30

. On Martini (1913–1981), see La Civiltà Cattolica 132(3) (1981), 517–19.

31

. On the Jesuits Blet (1918–2009), Graham (1912–1997), and Schneider (1917–1977), see Pagano, Chappin, and Coco, "Fogli di udienza," 400, 433, 483.

32

. See Napolitano, Padre Blet.

33

. Wolf, Plötzlich wurde der Papst; Kertzer, The Pope, the Jews; Napolitano, Per una nuova democrazia; Buisson, Exclusif: comment le pape Pie XII résista aux nazis; Benedetti and Dell’Era, Kertzer e gli imbarazzi Vaticani; Sarfatti, Il manager; Napolitano, Quelle già note trattative; Kertzer, La mia verità; Napolitano, Caro Kertzer; Augias, I silenzi di Pio XII.

34

. On Giusti (1905–87), Prefect of the Vatican Archives (1955–84), see Pagano, Giusti Martino.

35

. Pagano, Pierre Blet.

36

. For a summary of the most recent debate, see Persico, Il caso Pio XII ; Xeres, Il sofferto silenzio; Guittat Naudin, Pie XII; Coppa, Pope Pius XII. On the extraordinary opening of the collection Ufficio Informazioni Vaticano, see L’Osservatore Romano, 16 February 2002, 2.

37

. See Di Giovanni and Roselli, Inter arma caritas.

38

. Kent, The Lonely Cold War; Ventresca, Soldier of Christ; Coppa, The Life and Pontificate; Pollard, The Papacy; Bidussa, La misura del potere; Pioppi, Tra ricostruzione e Guerra Fredda.

39

. On Pius XII’s speech on scientific matters, see Sánchez Sorondo, I papi e la scienza, 63–142; Repenschek and Slosar, Medical Assisted Nutrition; Selling, Regulating Fertility; Spiazzi, Pio XII.

40

. See Roccucci, Stalin e il patriarca; Pospielovsky, The Best Years; Kalkandjieva, The Russian Orthodox Church.

41

. In this regard, we refer to the well-known remarks made by Cardinal Giuseppe Siri (see L’Osservatore Romano, 8 October 1983, 3, and 9 October 1983, 4); see also Chenaux, L’eredità del magistero di Pio XII.

42

. Ickx, Le Bureau; Kertzer, Un Papa in Guerra; Riccardi, La Guerra del silenzio; Sarfatti, I confini di una persecuzione.

43

. For an overview of the sources, see L’Osservatore Romano, 4–5 March 2019, 6–7.

44

. On the role of Montini and Tardini in the Secretariat of State, see Graham, G.B. Montini; Martina, Tardini nella Segreteria di Stato.

45

. Di Giovanni and Roselli, L’Archivio della Commissione Soccorsi, I, XII–XXVI.

46

. For the earliest and laconic mentions of this documentation, see ADSS, 6, 17; subsequent clarifications in L’Archivio della Commissione Soccorsi, I, XIX, XXIV; Ickx, Le Bureau, 61–63. In addition, since June 2022, the ASRS has made available online the files of the "Serie Ebrei" (see L’Osservatore Romano, 23 June 2022, 5).

47

. See ADSS, 6, 25.

48

. ASRS, AA. EE. SS., Pio XII, Serie Ebrei, 162, f. 40; Ickx, Le Bureau, 62–63. See also the note of Montini (29 January 1939) in ASRS, AA. EE. SS., Pio XII, pars asterisco, Stati Ecclesiastici, Pos. 575, f. 98.

49

. Ickx, Le Bureau, 63.

50

. On the latter aspect, see Coco, Il Labirinto Romano, 1, 221–29; ibid., 2, 1030–56.

51

. On the interpretation of the Ebrei files as Pacelli’s list see Ickx, Le Bureau, 16.

52

. Valvo, Da Roma al mondo; Regoli and Valvo, Tra Pio X e Benedetto XV; Varnier, La Santa Sede.

53

. ASRS, AA. EE. SS., Pio XII, Stati Ecclesiastici, Pos. 681 B, ff. 217–23 (Razzismo italiano), 225–30 (Azione Cattolica).

54

. ASRS, AA. EE. SS., Pio XII, Stati Ecclesiastici, Pos. 681 B, ff. 137–202.

55

. On Charles Myron Taylor (1874–1959), personal envoy of President Roosevelt and of his successor, Harry Truman, to Pius XII, see Conway, Myron C. Taylor’s Mission.

56

. ASRS, AA. EE. SS., Pio XII, Stati Ecclesiastici, Pos. 681, ff. 108–13.

57

. On Leiber (1877–1967), Jesuit and personal secretary of Eugenio Pacelli from 1924 to 1958, see Volk, Robert Leiber, 2325.

58

. For the history of this collection and its inventory, see Coco, Le Carte di Pio XII.

59

. See Coco, Gli scritti di Pio XII.

60

. See Lehnert, Ich durfte ihm dienen, 189. On Sister Pascalina (1894–1983), from 1918 housekeeper and collaborator of Eugenio Pacelli, see Schad, La signora del Sacro Palazzo.

61

. See Galeazzi-Lisi, Dans l’ombre, 251; Tornielli, Pio XII, 568. On Cardinal Eugène Tisserant (1884–1972), secretary of the Oriental Congregation (1936), doyen of the College of Cardinals (1951), see Teisseyre, Tisserant Eugèene, 5–8.

62

. Pio XII. L’uomo e il Pontificato, 202.

63

. Hesemann, Der Papst und der Holocaust, 238–29.

64

. The erroneous loan card is located in AAV, Carte Pio XII, Discorsi 5, fasc. 39, f. 5.

65

. ASRS, AA. EE. SS., Pio XII, Stati Ecclesiastici, Pos. 740, ff. 2–14. On the edition, see Discorsi e Radiomessaggi IV, Città del 325. For further studies, see Coco, Gli scritti di Pio XII; Wolf, Verschlossen.

66

. ASRS, AA. EE. SS., Pio XII, Stati Ecclesiastici, Pos. 740, f. 13.

67

. Tardini recalled that Cardinal Pacelli suffered from a slight stutter, which over time he had learned to master by raising the tone of his voice and reciting his speeches from memory (see Tardini, Pio XII, 137). For the audio recording of the 1942 Christmas radio message: Città del Vaticano, Dicastero per la Comunicazione, Archivio Editoriale Multimediale, Fondo Archivio sonoro pontificio, Radio Vaticana, ID 35914, Radiomessaggio Natalizio di Pio XII a tutti i fedeli ed al mondo—24 December 1942.

68

. Discorsi e Radiomessaggi, VII, 72; AAV, Carte Pio XII, Discorsi 8, fasc. 13, f. 7.

69

. Discorsi e Radiomessaggi, VII, 294; AAV, Carte Pio XII, Discorsi 8, fasc. 24, f. 1.

70

. Tacite, Annales, XI, 24, 7.

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