Noel describes Pius XII as a ‘spiritual megalomaniac’ who ‘agonised over the fate of the Jews (and other Nazi victims) but put their fate second to that of his Church’. Yet the Pope consistently underestimated the spiritual power of the Church in southern Germany, undermined the Catholic anti-Nazi Zentrum party before the war, and failed to protest even when he knew from scores of sources that the Nazis were murdering thousands of Catholic priests across Eastern Europe, especially in Poland. ‘In retrospect,’ concludes Noel perceptively, ‘we can see that Hitler played the Pope with consummate expertise.’

(Noel also believes that Pius’ postwar visions of Our Lord appearing to him in his bedroom at St Peter’s were hallucinations brought on by the cellular rejuvenation treatment that lengthened his life, but which also induced ‘blood-curdling screams’ in the papal apartments. He might well be right, although if the Almighty had chosen to return to Earth, then a visit to his vicar here might well be the obvious place to start.)

Pius XII was ascetic, hardworking, frail, compassionate, logical, pious, subtle and highly intelligent, but over the single greatest issue of his life he was plainly wrong. Of course he should have protested vigorously against the Catholic Ustashe regime in Croatia killing Orthodox Serbs, the massacre of the gypsies and above all the genocide against the Jews. In any other period of history he would have made a fine Pope, but in the one that also contained Adolf Hitler he found himself politically and diplomatically at a loss. Although Noel is right to point out that the Pope’s ‘decision to stay silent over the fate of the Jews caused him acute distress, it was as nothing compared to theirs’. The present plans to canonise him should be quietly but definitely dropped.

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