Judging History
[Note: This is the first in a series of short reflections about the opening of the Vatican’s Holocaust-era archives, their significance for truth-seeking, and for reckoning with power structures and accountability in the Catholic Church.]
It was by any measure a damning, and damnable, revelation. Searing headlines pronounced with grievous finality the apparent judgment of history: Pope Pius XII, accused of silence during the Holocaust, knew Jews were being killed,” was how it was reported in The Washington Post (April 29, 2020). The story related to an early finding made by a team of highly respected German researchers in the few days between the historic opening of the Vatican’s Holocaust-era archives in early March of this year and their abrupt closure scarcely a week later on account of global pandemic. Time enough, though, for diligent scholars to make a seemingly significant discovery; one that portends even greater revelatory documentation heretofore locked away in the Vatican’s mysterious secret archives (now thankfully renamed by Pope Francis).
The purported discovery relates to a memo from an American diplomat writing to the Vatican in September 1942 to pass along a report from Jewish organizations that 100,000 Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto had been killed, and that 50,000 Jews had been killed in Lviv, then German-occupied Ukraine. American officials wanted to know what, if anything, the Vatican knew about these reports from its own varied and presumably reliable sources on the ground. In short, could the Vatican confirm these reports? And, if so, what might be done to respond to such murderous violence against Jewish civilians. The records seem to confirm that the Pope himself read the report – remarkable but not surprising given Pius XII’s studious attention to detail, especially on matters where Germany and the war were concerned. The records apparently also show that the Vatican indeed had received independent verification from multiple credible sources. Hence the clamorous headlines announcing the revelation that the Pope knew about the systematic mass killing of Jews already in 1942.
Except that this is not news. We have long known that the Vatican was receiving already by the latter half of 1941 detailed reports of the widespread mass killing of Jews. What, then, was so truly newsworthy about this new evidence to warrant the searing headlines? The most potentially significant insight relates to documentation attributed to Monsignor Angelo Dell’Acqua, a mid-ranking official in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State. Dell’Acqua was not a primary decision-maker as such, but someone whose opinion would have been modestly influential in the Vatican’s reasoning and decision-making. Just how influential is difficult to know for certain. What shocked researchers in March was Dell’Acqua’s reasoning that reports of the mass killing of Jews should taken with a healthy dose of scepticism since the information came from Jewish sources; and the Jews, he noted, “easily exaggerate.” As for the corroborating evidence attesting to the mass killings of Jews in Ukraine, which came from no less an authoritative figure than Ukrainian Greek Catholic Archbishop of Lviv, Andrey Sheptytsky, this too had to be viewed with scepticism, Dell’Acqua insisted. Why? Because in this case, he said, “Orientals [referring presumably to the Eastern Catholic rite] are not really an example of honesty.”
What should we make of this new-found evidence, this apparent proof of prejudice at work to influence decision-making in the highest circles of Vatican diplomacy? How do we evaluate its true meaning and significance? Is it representative of a widespread racist mentality in the papal diplomatic service, or the rantings of a prejudiced crank? Or both?
For historians, one central question emerging from the new sources is this: what does this single fragment of evidence add to our understanding and evaluation of the dilemmas and choices made by Vatican in a time of extreme crisis? Clearly, more information and the proper context are needed to understand fully how these early fragments of evidence contribute to interpretations and evaluations of the Vatican’s policies during World War Two. Nevertheless, the sensational nature of the early reporting about these early discoveries point to the promise but also the peril of these much-discussed secret archives. On the one hand, such evidence promises to provide truly meaningful, original insight into what the Pope and his senior-most advisers knew, when they knew it and, crucially, what they chose to do with what they knew. If we consider that the fundamental historical problem we are grappling with is the question of how and why the Pope and the Vatican devised and acted upon their policies during the Second World War, then evidence, however fragmentary, of racist, prejudiced assumptions at work in the reasoning of senior papal diplomatic staff matters a great deal.
It will matter even more to our historical and moral judgements if this one fragment of evidence can be linked to others like it; that is, if a clear, discernible pattern emerges of racist, prejudiced beliefs working decisively to impair the judgement and ultimately influence the actions – and inaction – of the Pope himself. We have long known from the select archival documentation available to researchers for decades now that the Pope and his advisers often were inclined to disbelieve information reaching them of the targeted mass killing of Jews. Usually, they justified their rationale by an appeal to prudential judgment informed by scepticism attributed to such considerations as the fog of war or deliberate misinformation of propaganda campaigns. What if it turns out that more times than not, they discounted information of the mass killing of Jews not because of measured, prudential scepticism but, rather, because of ethnic and racial prejudice? What if we can establish a demonstrable pattern of the Pope and his advisers choosing not to act on behalf of persecuted Jews or other victims based on prejudiced rather than prudential judgement. How might this change our historical interpretation of the Vatican’s policies in response to war and mass violence? How might it change our moral evaluation of the dilemmas faced and the choices made by the Vicar of Christ?
Time will tell. What is clear already is that the sensationalized reporting of the discovery of this single documentary thread – these fragments of evidence, this seeming proof of something significant – suggests that the work of interpreting the Vatican’s role during the Holocaust risks remaining trapped in a kind of eternal Pius War – the polarized debate between competing versions of Pius XII as a good, even saintly man, doing everything within his power to defend human life and work for peace against enormous odds; or, conversely, as a morally timorous and politically ineffective religious leader, whose cautious diplomatic approach to the Nazi racial war played directly into Hitler’s murderous hands. As I write in my biography of the controversial wartime Pope, Soldier of Christ, the Pius War has generated more heat than light. The fact that it persists, especially in the realm of public memory, tells us that there is something else at play here, beyond a genuine commitment to careful, empirical historical reconstruction and sound, sober evaluation of the Vatican’s Holocaust-era policies. After all, what animates the Pius War if not an impulse – shared by critics and defenders alike – to judge morally before we understand historically? It is important to acknowledge here an effective politicization of an understandably sensitive historical issue. The Pius War is a proxy war, so to speak. It is the site of a deeper, entrenched culture war of a kind within the Catholic Church, and outside of it. It is a war animated by battling claims about what the Papacy is for, and who it is for; about what the Church claims to be, and about how it exercises its spiritual function in the world of geo-politics and diplomacy.