The Pope at War Summary and key ideas

The Pope at War, by David I. Kertzer.

The Vatican succession in 1939 was also a choice between approaches. Pius XI had made resistance to Nazi influence public; his secretary of state, Eugenio Pacelli, favored preserving diplomatic access. The distinction mattered because Mussolini was drawing Italy toward Hitler, while the Church sought to protect its position in Fascist Italy. Kertzer begins with this tension between open protest and institutional diplomacy. It frames Pacelli’s election without pretending it dictated every later decision.

Hitler’s six-day visit to Rome in 1938 made the disagreement visible. Pius XI refused an audience unless Hitler changed his treatment of the Church; Hitler refused. The pope left Rome, closed the Vatican museums, and ordered the Vatican’s night lights extinguished. Addressing newlyweds, he condemned the swastika’s glorification in Catholic Rome as the sign of a cross other than Christ’s. These were public signals. Mussolini feared the pope’s criticism could weaken his alliance with Hitler, especially because many Italians distrusted Nazi claims of racial superiority. Vatican officials also worried that open confrontation could endanger the Church’s privileged place in Fascist Italy.

Pacelli’s method was different. As secretary of state, he had negotiated a concordat with Hitler’s government to protect German church institutions. Hitler violated it, but Pacelli still believed further antagonism could worsen matters. He saw Germany as a bulwark against Communism and thought Mussolini’s relationship with Hitler could be used to seek better treatment for the Church. Keeping the Duce content, on this view, preserved leverage and a diplomatic channel. This was not simple abandonment of Pius XI’s policy: Pacelli carried out the pope’s instructions while trying to soften their most confrontational language. Kertzer presents a disagreement over means, with Church security central to Pacelli’s calculations.

The conflict sharpened around Pius XI’s efforts against racism. He secretly commissioned American Jesuit John LaFarge to prepare an encyclical on racism and antisemitism. Jesuit superior general Wlodimir Ledóchowski delayed the draft. It reached the pope only in mid-January, with advice to abandon the project. Kertzer treats the initiative as real, while the delays and unfinished text limit what can be said about the encyclical’s full contents.

A separate, more immediate prospect was the address Pius XI planned for more than three hundred Italian bishops at the tenth anniversary of the Lateran Accords. He intended to address racism and Italy’s alignment with Nazi Germany. Bedridden, he was urged by Pacelli to postpone the speech, but refused. Copies were printed in case he could not deliver it himself. Pius XI died on February 10, 1939, one day before the address was planned. Later suspicions that Mussolini had hastened his death remain suspicions in Kertzer’s account, not established fact.

After Pius XI’s death, Pacelli agreed the copies should not be distributed and ordered them destroyed. The decision gives the extinguished lights a counterpart. The lights made opposition publicly visible; destroying the address kept the dead pope’s final warning from being delivered or circulated in printed form. Kertzer establishes its intended challenge, but does not supply its full wording. The contrast is between a public gesture of protest and a private decision that limited what would be heard.

The conclave chose Pacelli after Italian and German diplomats had backed him in the expectation that he would improve relations with their governments. The delay after Pius XI’s death allowed cardinals from outside Italy to arrive. Once voting began, Pacelli received thirty-two votes on the first ballot and forty on the second, two short of the required two-thirds. He was elected on the third ballot with forty-eight. Some observers saw a conciliator; others, including French cardinal Eugène Tisserant, judged him weak and too easily pressured. Fascist leaders welcomed the result, but their hopes do not establish that Pacelli shared their political aims. His diplomatic style promised continuity in the Church’s access and institutional interests.

Kertzer’s evidence-based approach is central to this account. Researchers gained access to the Pius XII archives beginning in March 2020, including thousands of pages on Vatican decisions. Kertzer compares those records with archives from Italy, Germany, France, the United States, and Britain, as well as reports from Axis and Allied envoys and Mussolini’s informants. He cautions that Vatican records alone would be incomplete. Comparing sources allows a fuller chronology and tests later claims against contemporary records. That method matters here, where public protest, private diplomacy, and the suppressed address tell different parts of the story.