Overview

The Vatican against Nazism and Fascism on the eve of the Second World War. A tired pope watching the crisis unfold and considering what action to take against the new enemies of Christianity. Pius XI died on 10 February 1939, just after having finished writing the address he hoped to deliver to the Italian bishops on the tenth anniversary of the Lateran Pact. That text dealt harshly with Nazism and Fascism and was written in solitude. It was a discourse that Mussolini feared and that the pope did not survive to deliver. This moment captures the spirit of Emma Fattorini's book, a work that employs newly available and unpublished documentation from the Vatican Secret Archive to rewrite a fundamental page of twentieth-century history. Pius XI came to view the 1930s as a ""conflict of civilizations,"" a crisis which could only be resolved by a return to the Christian roots of the West. He was a pope who strongly defended the Jews because, in contrast to other elements in the Catholic hierarchy, he held the theological conviction that Jews and Christians shared a common origin: ""spiritually we are all Semites."" So wrote Pius XI in the last years of his life as he contemplated the direction in which the world was headed and came to the conclusion that Nazi and Fascist totalitarianism could be stopped by the Vatican.

Full Product Details

9780745644882

Table of Contents

Reviews

A crucial new perspective on the relationship between the Vatican, Mussolini's fascism, and National Socialism. The tendency to focus exclusively on Eugenio Pacelli, the future wartime pope Pius XII, has obscured the troubled papacy of Pius X1 between 1922 and 1939. Professor Fattorini's narrative, in the light of the recent release of Vatican documents of the period, is sure to breathe new life into this controversial era of Church-state relations on the brink of world war. John Cornwell, University of Cambridge Emma Fattorini's remarkable work extends our understanding of how the leadership of the Catholic Church grappled with fascism and Nazism. She does so by drawing on riveting documentation recently released from the Vatican Secret Archive and by focusing on the relatively overlooked pontificate of Pius XI. Michael R. Marrus, University of Toronto Fattorini's objective and scholarly volume helps to demolish the long-prevailing belief that Pius XI and his secretary of state Eugenio Pacelli - later his successor as Pius XII - concurred in the policy to pursue towards fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. She demonstrates, on the basis of solid documentation, that, while Pius XI increasingly perceived the need for confrontation with these regimes after 1936, Pacelli preferred conciliation and impartiality - policies he pursued during World War II and the Holocaust. Frank Coppa, St John's University Emma Fattorini has produced an important work on the activities of the Vatican in the years leading up to World War II. She portrays a pope whose spirituality, rather than political views, led him increasingly to speak out against Nazism. Her book adds to a slowly increasing body of literature which illustrates that, while the Vatican may have been slow in speaking out about the persecution of the Jews, no one in the secretariat of state harbored any sympathy for Hitler. Gerald Fogarty, University of Virginia

This excellent new book unearths and magisterially exposes new evidence - a key document for those interested in Europe's turbulent pre-war history. Hugh O'Shaughnessy, Review 31 A crucial new perspective on the relationship between the Vatican, Mussolini's Fascism, and National Socialism. The tendency to focus exclusively on Eugenio Pacelli, the future wartime pope Pius XII, has obscured the troubled papacy of Pius X1 between 1922 and 1939. Professor Fattorini's narrative, in the light of the recent release of Vatican documents of the period, is sure to breathe new life into this controversial era of Church-state relations on the brink of world war. John Cornwell, University of Cambridge Emma Fattorini's remarkable work extends our understanding of how the leadership of the Catholic Church grappled with fascism and Nazism. She does so by drawing on riveting documentation recently released from the Vatican Secret Archive and by focusing on the relatively overlooked pontificate of Pius XI. Michael R. Marrus, University of Toronto Fattorini's objective and scholarly volume helps to demolish the long-prevailing belief that Pius XI and his secretary of state Eugenio Pacelli - later his successor as Pius XII - concurred in the policy to pursue towards fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. She demonstrates, on the basis of solid documentation, that, while Pius XI increasingly perceived the need for confrontation with these regimes after 1936, Pacelli preferred conciliation and impartiality - policies he pursued during World War II and the Holocaust. Frank Coppa, St John's University Emma Fattorini has produced an important work on the activities of the Vatican in the years leading up to World War II. She portrays a pope whose spirituality, rather than political views, led him increasingly to speak out against Nazism. Her book adds to a slowly increasing body of literature which illustrates that, while the Vatican may have been slow in speaking out about the persecution of the Jews, no one in the secretariat of state harbored any sympathy for Hitler. Gerald Fogarty, University of Virginia

A crucial new perspective on the relationship between the Vatican, Mussolini's fascism, and National Socialism. The tendency to focus exclusively on Eugenio Pacelli, the future wartime pope Pius XII, has obscured the troubled papacy of Pius X1 between 1922 and 1939. Professor Fattorini's narrative, in the light of the recent release of Vatican documents of the period, is sure to breathe new life into this controversial era of Church-state relations on the brink of world war. John Cornwell, University of Cambridge<p> Emma Fattorini's remarkable work extends our understanding of how the leadership of the Catholic Church grappled with fascism and Nazism. She does so by drawing on riveting documentation recently released from the Vatican Secret Archive and by focusing on the relatively overlooked pontificate of Pius XI. Michael R. Marrus, University of Toronto<p> Fattorini's objective and scholarly volume helps to demolish the long-prevailing belief that Pius XI and his secretary of stat

Author Information

EMMA FATTORINI is Professor of Modern History at the University of Rome 'La Sapienza'.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available