Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T05:48:51.288Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Review Essay* War without End: The Popes and the Jews between Polemic and History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2012

Robert A. Ventresca
Robert A. Ventresca*
Affiliation:
King's University College at Western University London, Ontario, Canada
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Popes against the Jews. This declarative statement certainly makes for a scintillating title, as David Kertzer no doubt appreciated when he chose it for his book on the papacy's role in the emergence of modern anti-Semitism. Published in 2001, Kertzer's The Popes against the Jews: The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism quickly emerged as one of the most critically acclaimed and contentious books of its genre and generation. It took direct aim at a thesis being proffered at the time by the Vatican positing a fundamental distinction between the traditional “religious” anti-Judaism of Christian provenance, and the modern, politicized racial anti-Semitism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which constituted the catalytic element of a noxious brew of ideas and resentments that led to the Final Solution. The anti-Judaism / anti-Semitism distinction, Kertzer argues, “will simply not survive historical scrutiny.”1 While acknowledging that the Catholic church could not be held responsible per se for the Holocaust, even less for having approved the exterminatory policies of the Hitler regime and its collaborators, Kertzer imputes to the modern popes—especially those of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—a significant degree of responsibility for having contributed to the social and cultural milieu in which the Final Solution was conceived and attempted. Although the Vatican never sanctioned the campaign to eliminate European Jews, Kertzer writes, “the teachings and actions of the Church, including those of the popes themselves, helped make it possible.” In fact, Kertzer maintains that the Vatican was one of the major “architects” of a new and distinctly modern form of anti-Semitism that drew inspiration and moral authority from traditional religious apologetics to buttress a radical secular politics of anti-Jewish repression and exclusion. The Holocaust, he concludes, “came at the end of a long road…. [I]t was a road that the Catholic Church did a great deal to help build.”2

Type
ARTICLES
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 105 , Issue 4 , 09 November 2012 , pp. 466 - 490
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 , Kertzer, Popes against the Jews, 7.Google Scholar

2 , Kertzer, Popes against the Jews, 9, 17.Google Scholar

3 Owen, Chadwick, “Bad for the Jews,” The New York Review of Books, 28 March 2002, 14–16.Google Scholar

4 Lawler's, Were the Popes against the Jews? follows his roving polemic, Popes and Politics: Reform, Resentment, and the Holocaust (New York: Continuum, 2002).Google Scholar

5 , Lawler, Were the Popes against the Jews?, viii.Google Scholar

6 The pope evoked his 1979 statement in 1995, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. See “Message of His Holiness John Paul II on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the End of the Second World War in Europe,” (accessed 22 June 2012). Online: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/1995/may/documents/hf_jp-ii_mes_08051995_50th-end-war-europe_en.html.Google Scholar

7 James, Carroll, Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews: A History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2001) 22.Google Scholar

8 Some of the more noteworthy of these include Giovanni, Miccoli, “Santa Sede, ‘Questione Ebraica’ e Antisemitismo alla fine dell’Ottocento,” in Nel Nome della Razza. Il razzismo nella storia d’Italia, 1870–1945 (ed. Burgio, Alberto; Bologna: Il Mulino, 1999) 215–46Google Scholar and Miccoli's exhaustive, richly detailed “Santa Sede, questione ebraica e antisemitismo fra Otto e Novecento,” in Gli ebrei in Italia. II, Dall'emancipazione a oggi (ed. Vivanti, Corrado; d’Italia, Storia, Annali II; Turin: Eindaui, 1997) 1369–574Google Scholar. For the German context and the question of “continuity” between traditional anti-Judaism and modern anti-Semitism, consider Hoffmann, Christhard, “Christlicher Antijudaismus und moderner Antisemitismus,” in Christlicher Antijudaismus und Antisemitismus. Theologische und kirchliche Programme deutscher Christen (ed. Siegele-Wenshkewitz, Leonore; Frankfurt am Main, 1994) 293–317Google Scholar, and on a similar theme for Switzerland, , Urs, Katholizismus und Antisemitismus. Mentalitäten, Kontinuitäten, Ambivalenzen. Zur Kulturgeschichte der Schweiz, 1918–1945 (Vienna: Huber, 1999)Google Scholar. A compelling and accessible reflection on these and related themes can be found in Martin, Rhonheimer, “The Holocaust: What Was Not Said,” First Things 137 (November 2003) 18–27.Google Scholar

9 Kertzer's book followed closely on the heels of Cornwell's, John commercially successful but specious Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII (New York: Viking, 1999)Google Scholar. Other publications of that generation included Phayer's, Michael uneven The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930–1945 (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2000)Google Scholar and Zuccotti's, Susan well-documented but at times tendentious Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000)Google Scholar. More provocative but less informative ventures include Goldhagen's, DanielA Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002)Google Scholar and Pawlikowski, John T., “Book Takes on Papal Anti-Semitism,” National Catholic Reporter 38:13 (1 February 2002) 34.Google Scholar

10 Arguably the most instructive study of this genre is Rychlak's, Ronald J. detailed and methodical Hitler, the War, and the Pope (rev. ed.; Huntington, Ind.: Our Sunday Visitor, 2010)Google Scholar. Other studies include the informative but pietistic books by Sister Margherita Marchione, including Pope Pius XII: Architect for Peace (New York: Paulist Press, 2000)Google Scholar and Yours is a Precious Witness: Memoirs of Jews and Catholics in Wartime Italy (New York: Paulist Press, 1997)Google Scholar. Less historical, more argumentative reflections are the philosopher McInerny's, RalphThe Defamation of Pope Pius XII (South Bend, Ind.: St. Augustine's Press, 2001)Google Scholar and Dalin's, Rabbi David G.The Myth of Hitler's Pope: Pope Pius XII and His Secret War against Nazi Germany (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2005).Google Scholar

11 , Pawlikowski, “Papal Anti-Semitism,” 34.Google Scholar

12 Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, “We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah,” 19 March, 1998. The full text of this and related official documents has been published by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholics Remember the Holocaust (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1998)Google Scholar. Other useful collections published by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops include The Bible, the Jews, and the Death of Jesus (Washington, D.C.: USCC, 2004)Google Scholar and Catholic Teaching on the Shoah: Implementing the Holy See's “We Remember” (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 2001)Google Scholar. Online: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_16031998_shoah_en.html.

13 Russell Hittinger goes so far as to minimize the document, calling it a “pamphlet” and wondering why David Kertzer would see fit to “quarrel” with it in such substantive ways while largely ignoring a vast and exhaustive range of more authoritative papal writings. See his review essay of , Kertzer'sThe Popes against the Jews titled “Desperately Seeking Culprits: Who Unleashed Anti-Semitism?” Journal of the Historical Society 2 (2002) 215–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here at 215, 216, 221–22.

14 See Letter of Pope John Paul II to Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy, 12 March 1998, included in the official version of “We Remember.”Google Scholar

15 “We Remember,” IV.Google Scholar

16 Letter of Pope John Paul II to Cardinal Cassidy, 12 March 1998, “We Remember,” in The Bible, the Jews and the Death of Jesus, 54.Google Scholar

17 Owen Chadwick, “Pius XII: The Legends and the Truth,” The Tablet (28 March 1998). Cited 10 June 2012. Online: http://www.thetablet.co.uk/article/6609. See also Russel Hittinger in “Desperately Seeking Culprits,” at 216.Google Scholar

18 , Kertzer, Popes against the Jews, 10.Google Scholar

19 “We Remember,” III.Google Scholar

20 For an informative survey, consider Exclusionary Violence: Antisemitic Riots in Modern Germany (ed. Hoffmann, Christhard, Bergmann, Werner, and Smith, Helmut Walser; Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 2002).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 “We Remember,” IV.Google Scholar

22 Ibid.; original Vatican statement cited by Kertzer, The Popes against the Jews, 6.

23 This and the following numerous brief quotes on this page are from the online version of “We Remember.” See note 12.Google Scholar

24 “We Remember,” IV.Google Scholar

25 , Kertzer, Popes against the Jews, 7.Google Scholar

26 Quoted in Kertzer, Popes against the Jews, 83.Google Scholar

27 , Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2001) 87.Google Scholar

28 , Kertzer, Popes against the Jews, 7, 9.Google Scholar

29 Ibid.

30 , Lawler, Were the Popes against the Jews?, 231.Google Scholar

31 Ibid., xi, 229 [italics in the original].

32 Ibid., 52 n. 5.

33 , Lawler, Were the Popes against the Jews?, xiv, 301.Google Scholar

34 Ibid., 10.

35 Pius XII, Nuntius Radiophonicus, Acta Apostolicae Sedis—Commentarium Officiale (Annus XXXIII [1941], Series II, Vol. VIII) 112–17, esp. 114.Google Scholar

36 “A Papal Audience in War-Time” signed anonymously “By ‘Refugee’” appeared in The Palestine Post, 28 April 1944, 6. Lawler has taken this from Michael Burleigh's piece “’Hitler's Pope Tried to Help Jews,’ The Telegraph, 16 February 2003, quoted in Lawler, 349–50. Burleigh's piece online: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/1422272/Hitlers-Pope-tried-to-help-Jews-say-documents.html.Google Scholar

37 , Lawler, Were the Popes against the Jews?, 351.Google Scholar

38 Quoted in Lawler, ibid., 357–58. The bull was titled Hebraeorum gens, 1569.Google Scholar

39 , Lawler, Were the Popes against the Jews?, 357.Google Scholar

40 Ibid., 351.

41 , Kertzer, Popes against the Jews, 134–35.Google Scholar

42 For a more recent study, see Dahl, David Lebovitch, “The Anti-Semitism of the Italian Catholics and Nationalism: ‘The Jew’ and ‘the honest Italy’ in the Rhetoric of La Civiltà Cattolica during the Risorgimento,” Modern Italy (2012) 17:1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 Oliver, Logan's article in “Catholicism and Anti-Semitism” (Modern Italy [2004] 9:101–5Google Scholar, at 102) contains a stimulating and instructive discussion of these and related themes. Logan reviews two useful studies, one a monograph the other an anthology of articles: , Renato, La Chiesa e lo sterminio degli ebrei (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2002)Google Scholar, and Les raciness chrétiennes de l'antisémitisme politique (fin XIXe-XXe siècles) (ed. Brice, Catherine and Miccoli, Giovanni; de Romen, L’Ecole française 306; Rome: École française de Rome, 2003)Google Scholar. See also Ruggero, Taradel and Barbara, Raggi, La segregazione amichevole. ‘La Civiltà Cattolica’ e la questione ebraica (Rome: Riuniti, 2000).Google Scholar

44 Crepaldi, Francesco, “L’Omicidio Rituale Nella Civiltà Cattolica del XIX Secolo,” in Brice and Miccoli, eds., Les racines chrétiennes, 61–78.Google Scholar

45 , Lawler, Were the Popes against the Jews?, ch. 2, esp. 26–30.Google Scholar

46 , Logan, “Catholicism and Anti-Semitism,” 103.Google Scholar

47 Ibid.

48 , Miccoli, “Santa Sede, ‘Questione Ebraica’,” 226.Google Scholar

49 L’Osservatore Romano, 4 January 1899, 1.Google Scholar

50 The term is adopted from Logan, “Catholicism and Anti-Semitism,” 102.Google Scholar

51 Consider, for instance, the case of the Assumptionists in France during the Dreyfus Affair., see Consider, for instance, the case of the Assumptionists in France during the Dreyfus Affair., “The Assumptionists and the Dreyfus Affair” Past and Present 194 2007 175–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

52 Vicki, Caron, “Catholic Political Mobilization and Antisemitic Violence in Fin de Siècle France: The Case of the Union Nationale” Journal of Modern History 81 2009 294–346Google Scholar, esp. 295–302.

53 , Lawler, Were the Popes against the Jews?, 50–51.Google Scholar

54 , Kertzer, Popes against the Jews, ch. 12, esp. 259–63.Google Scholar

55 Ibid., 127. For further commentary on the “synagogue of Satan” motif and its uses, see, in addition to Giovanni Miccoli's work, , Joshua, The Devil and the Jews: The Medieval Conception of the Jew and its Relation to Modern Anti-Semitism (2nd ed.; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1983).Google Scholar

56 Quoted in Kertzer, Popes against the Jews, 130. Kertzer points out that the emphasis was in the original, which he has taken from De Francisis, Pasquale, Discorsi del sommo pontefice Pio IX pronunziati in Vaticano ai fedeli di Roma e dell'orbe dal principio della sua prigionia fino al presente (vol. 1; Rome: G. Aurelj, 1872).Google Scholar

57 , LawlerWere the Popes against the Jews?, 85.Google Scholar

58 Both Kertzer and Lawler rely a great deal on another secondary source, Zosa, Szajkowski, “The Impact of the Beilis Case on Central and Western Europe” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 31 1963 197–218.Google Scholar

59 , Kertzer, Popes against the Jews, 232.Google Scholar

60 Ibid., 232–36., see Ibid., 232–36., “Raggiri ebraici e documenti papali: a proposito di un recente processo” La Civiltà Cattolica 2 1914 196–215Google Scholar; 330–44.

61 See , Szajkowski, “The Impact of the Beilis Case,” 204–7.Google Scholar

62 , Lawler, Were the Popes against the Jews?, 117.Google Scholar

63 , Kertzer, Popes against the Jews, 221. Kertzer cites the original as in the ACDF, Rerum Varium, 1901, [N/A] n. 7, bis (Sul sacrifizio di sange attribuito agli ebrei), but he has taken this from Taradel and Raggi, La segregazione amichevole: ‘La Civilta’ Cattolica’ e la questione ebraica 1850–1945 (Rome: Einaudi, 2000) 43–44.Google Scholar

64 , Lawler, Were the Popes against the Jews?, 117.Google Scholar

65 A similar strategy can be observed in ibid., 162–63.Google Scholar

66 Ibid., 149.

67 , Kertzer, Popes against the Jews, 249.Google Scholar

68 Ibid., 244, 249.

69 Ibid., 250–51.

70 Ibid., 263.

71 Ibid., 262–63.

72 Among the more noteworthy of these works are E, mma, Pio XI, Hitler e Mussolini (Turin: Einaudi, 2007)Google Scholar, now available in an English translation as Hitler, Mussolini, and the Vatican: Pope Pius XI and the Speech That Was Never Made (Malden, Mass.: Polity Press, 2011)Google Scholar; H, ubert, Pope and Devil: The Vatican's Archives and the Third Reich (trans. Kenneth Kronenberg; Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010)Google Scholar; G, iovanni, Hitler, la Santa Sede e gli ebrei, con documenti dell’Archivio Segreto Vaticano (Milan: Jaca Book, 2004)Google Scholar; Besier, Gerhard, with , Francesca, Der Heilege Stuhl und Hitler-Deutschland. Die Faszination des Totalitären (Munich: German Anstalt, 2004)Google Scholar; English trans.: Ward, W. R., The Holy See and Hitler's Germany (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).Google Scholar

73 In Were the Popes against the Jews?, Lawler levels similar charges against historian John Connelly from the University of California, Berkeley in a sharp disagreement over how to interpret the Vatican's response to the 1938 Italian Fascist racial laws regulating marriage. Lawler crosses the line, and not for the first time, when he questions Connelly's “state of mind” and suggests that his interlocutor is suffering from “some kind of synaptic disconnect,” hence what Lawler calls the “schizoid character” of Connelly's “ploy.” See , Lawler, Were the Popes against the Jews?, 258–60Google Scholar. The exchange between Connelly and Lawler played itself out in the pages of Commonweal (Lawler, Justus George, “Benedict, German Catholics, and the Holocaust” 135:12 [2008] 10–11Google Scholar). See also John Connelly, “In Sheep's Clothing,” review by Hubert Wolf, “Pope and Devil: The Vatican's Archives and the Third Reich,” in The New Republic, 8 February 2011 [http://www.tnr.com/print/book/review/pope-devil-hubert-wolf, accessed 28 May 2012] and , Connelly's “Reformer and Racialist,” in Commonweal 135:1 (2008) 10–13Google Scholar, at 10.

74 , Lawler, Were the Popes against the Jews?, 337.Google Scholar